Cori Close on John Wooden's Legacy

UCLA head coach Cori Close returns to the show after cutting down the nets, and the emotional through-line of the conversation is not the championship itself. It is John Wooden.

Rich sets the scene by reminding Close that she told the story last year of meeting Wooden, of being alongside him, of building a relationship with the Wizard of Westwood. Now she will coach in Pauley Pavilion and look up at a banner of her own hanging next to his. Rich admits he is getting choked up. Close says she is, too.

Her answer is layered. On one hand, she says, she could not care less about the banner itself. She walks down the men's side hallway before every game because of where her bench is positioned. She touches each banner on the way to the floor. But the banner is not the point. What matters is the flood of memories, lessons, shared experiences, and principle-centered leadership that Wooden taught her.

To have one of her own next to his feels like a pay-it-forward moment. A way of saying, I listened. She acknowledges that listening does not always transpire into banners. It usually does not. But in this case, the result lets her tell Wooden thank you in a way that will hang above the floor for as long as the gym stands.

She shares two small details that land harder than any X-and-O breakdown. Wooden's great-granddaughter, also named Cori, sent a picture the morning after the win. She and her daughter wore their UCLA gear to school because they were proud. Wooden's son, Jim, texted her after the game. The lineage is still intact.

Then Close turns the conversation. She apologizes for being long-winded and delivers the line she says she meant on the Scott Van Pelt show and means again here. Banners really do just hang in gyms. Rings really do just collect dust. The only two things that get to stay with a player for the rest of their life from these four years are who they become and who they impact.

She points directly at Wooden as the source of that framing. He used to tell her, who cares about the four years they are with you. It is what they do in the next 40 years that you are responsible for. That is really what it is all about.

A championship trophy sits on the table in front of her. The point she wants to make has nothing to do with it.