Friday night marked the passing of a great man.  Coach Wooden was described as “about as perfect a sports personality as there ever was”, by sportscastor Dick Enberg. But sports fans aside, this man’s lessons reached far beyond the basketball court.

Hall of famer Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and one of Wooden’s many student athletes remembers, “He set quite an example. He was more like a parent than a coach. He really was a very selfless and giving human being, but he was a disciplinarian. We learned all about those aspects of life that most kids want to skip over. He wouldn’t let us do that.”

Another coach very familiar with winning, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, praised the man by saying, “Many have called Coach Wooden the ‘gold standard’ of coaches. I believe he was the ‘gold standard’ of people and carried himself with uncommon grace, dignity and humility”.

UCLA was actually Coach Wooden’s second choice back in 1948. The University of Minnesota also wanted him and he and his wife preferred the Midwest. A snow storm in Minnesota prevented Wooden from getting the scheduled phone offer from the Golden Gophers, so he accepted a job with the Bruins because he thought Minnesota had lost interest. When the University of Minnesota finally made contact with Wooden, he turned down their offer because he had already given his word to the Bruins.

Coach Wooden also became well known to the world beyond basketball, for his nuggets of life wisdom and his Pyramid of Success.

• Failure is not fatal but failure to change might be
• Ability is a poor man’s wealth
• It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen
• Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability
• What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player
• You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you
• Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful
• Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do
• Never mistake activity for achievement

It took 16 years for UCLA to win their first championship under Coach Wooden.  When asked about this in an interview later in life, he replied, “I’m a slow learner, but once I learn something, I know it pretty good”.  In fact in his 29 years as a head coach he never had a losing season, but these days if you aren’t winning championships, your job is in jeopardy.

Ironically on the day Coach Wooden passed away, the NBA team with the best record in the league (who didn’t make it to the finals) fired their coach, their GM resigned and their star player (and league MVP) is considering a move to a different team that will pay more money and is perceived to have a better chance of winning it all. Coach Wooden felt one of his strongest traits was patience. Luckily, it was a trait UCLA shared AND benefitted from.

John Wooden was paid $35,000 a year salary and he never asked for a raise.  He turned down an offer to coach the Los Angeles Lakers which probably would have been ten times what UCLA was paying him. These days it seems like loyalty is determined by the highest bidder.

None of the dozens of All Americans who played for Coach Wooden can remember even one time when he ever used the words “winning” or “losing”, but his record speaks for itself:

Born in 1910 and just four months shy of 100 at his death, he’d been retired for 35 years, yet almost reverently the title Coach usually accompanies the name John Wooden. His last team walked off the court after winning UCLA’s 10th straight title under his guidance back in 1975. Coach Wooden’s records still stand and probably always will, but when it comes to remembering this great man the accolades show his character and his reputation are one and the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I love getting free things.  Who doesn’t?  Even Oprah Winfrey (who has a bezillion dollars) loves to get things for free.  But what I’ve tried to teach my kids is somebody has to pay for everything and in reality, the bottom line is, the person who thinks they’re getting something for free is usually the one paying for it.

I have to admit, I have not (and don’t plan to) read all the lengthy (and undoubtedly legal jargon-filled) proposals for a national health care system (before I finish this post anyway).  At the very least it would give me a headache which would then increase my own health care costs.  Tylenol for the headache, a visit to the optometrist for eye strain, maybe a trip to a chiropractor for an adjustment from the neck strain of pouring over said proposals.  Surely you get the picture.

Instead, lets stick to something simpler, that even my kids can understand.  FREE PIZZA!  Nothing we love better than going to Papa Johns or Punch Pizza and not having to pay any money for that piping hot pie with pepperoni (for the kids) or goat cheese and arugula (for me).  Trust me, if a coupon comes my way, I WILL use it.  But my girls will tell you just because the garlic dipping or wood burning delight didn’t require we shell out any cash, someone paid for it.  When was the last time food suppliers were giving out ingredients for free?  I doubt the employees volunteered to make our dinner for free.  Our “free” supper was part of the marketing budget, which is ultimately figured into the price of the pizzas we do shell actual dollars out for, which means in reality, WE paid for our “free” pizza. Now how to get this back to health care?

Other than the obvious connection of obesity ratios to pizza consumption here in the good ‘ol U.S. of A.,  any national health care system funded by the government is really you and me (if we’re paying taxes).  Last time I looked, the Senate and Congress don’t have any money growing trees up on Capitol Hill either.

I admit I’ve gone without health insurance, but you figure eventually life will catch up with you (something about not being a spring chicken anymore) and the premise of all insurance is to cover you in catastrophic situations, so if you’re not a fan of Russian Roulette, being covered is the better option.

As someone who has had to pay for her own health insurance for the last several years and watched my premiums nearly double, I too would like a break.  I’m as healthy as a horse (never mind about those poor creatures in Florida).  I had my first cold in eight years this past spring, so I swear I pay more in premiums than it would cost me to just pay full price for the annual check ups my insurance company “pays” for.

Seems to me the focus should be on controlling the price of health care (I guess that’s another way of saying regulation) whether that’s the insurance premiums and/or actual treatment and prescriptions.  Maybe equally as important would be to put a system in place that requires anyone with a job to pay their share (directly correlated to the income earned).  If we go back to the Pizza theory, anyone who currently pays for insurance and/or treatment and prescriptions, is ultimately paying for those without anyway.  Just like the “free” pizza, the actual cost is built in for those paying customers.

Should health care be a right?  Yes and no.  How can a country as wealthy as the US deny the sick?  On the other hand, there are lots of folks who choose not to have insurance but they drive a nice car, wear nice clothes, and have the latest technology gizmos.  If you collect a pay check, couldn’t there be a deduction (yes, I mean tax) for health care?  There’s a social security tax, federal and state taxes, why not a health care tax?  Don’t make it an option.  It’s not an option to drive a car and not have insurance, why should it be an option to have a job and not be contributing to the cost of health care? Deduct it from our pay BEFORE we go spend it all on pizza (or the latest Nikes, IPhone, 56″ Flat panel TV, new laptop, concert, theater or sporting event…).

If we’re handing out “rights”, making sure there are no hungry bellies or people sleeping without roofs over their heads could be considered a more immediate necessity (and would ultimately cut down on health care costs), but as I’ve said at least a time or two before, this would be a subject for an entirely different post.

Right now I need nourishment, and I think a piping hot pizza will fill the bill. If only I could find a valid “free” coupon!

Meanwhile if you want some of the low down on current national health care proposals, check out these links.

Disruptions Drown Out Debate
Look at Health Care Policy
Whitehouse’s Version
Senate’s Version
Side-by-side Comparisons
Global Health Care Examples

As I watched the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy with my two daughters last night, my 16 year-old lamented the loss of the good old days. I’m sure you’re thinking, “I remember that movie, it wasn’t that long ago”, but the longer I watched, the more I agreed with my daughter.  Oh to go back to a time when cell phones were only for people who were trying to look important and e-mail was still a phenomenon.   

My oldest would’ve been five, her sister three, when this particular chick flick made its debut in 1998. I didn’t even get a “home” computer till ’99. Just like the movie, it had a dial up modem and my girls gleefully remembered the sound and the progression of the AOL characters on the screen as the computer was in it’s various stages of connecting.

You may recall the premise of the movie was based on the big bad conglomerate bookstore (Barnes & Noble?) running out the mom and pop shop by coming in with their discounts and fancy cafe coffee shop. Not only had the concept of wi-fi not yet been invented (a staple of all those bookstore cafes these days), cellular phones (which were hideously big and clunky) were anything but mobile (there wasn’t even one used in the movie).

The only way Joe and Catherine could communicate was via the internet when they were (gasp) at home! Picture e-mails written like real letters, “Dear Shopgirl…” (certainly longer than 140 characters) and instant messaging before it was taken over by teenagers (and their secret abbreviated language).

While online dating no longer has the tabu it once did, chat rooms are now kind of creepy and many e-mail exchanges are no longer so innocent (yes, I know Shopgirl and NY152 had significant others when they met in the chat room too). The internet itself could be compared to Pandora’s Box, given it’s effect has nearly as many negative consequences as positive.  The difference in how computers are used and the absence of cell phones (and constant texting) was so obvious, my daughter said it was scary to think what changes might occur in technology during the next decade. She actually wished she was older “back then” so she could’ve enjoyed a society that wasn’t constantly on a computer or phone.  Face-to-face interaction, now there’s a novel concept!

The other thing we both noticed was how cute (and expressive) Meg Ryan looked BEFORE Botox and plastic surgery, but that’s a whole different post!

See what Shopgirl and NY152′s IM exchange might look like today.  Definitely humorous, but also a loss of innocence.

I admit, I held out for quite awhile thinking there was no way Gmail could be as safe as pulling AOL or MSN into Outlook.  What if they lost my e-mail or even worse, what if someone at Google might be hacking into my Gmail trying to discover all those state secrets I don’t know?  I realized equating the internet (more specifically Gmail) with the likes of the boogie man was merely a figment of my imagination, and those lurking creatures on the world wide web are about as dangerous as the ones under my bed.  So I turned my soul over to Google, because they keep creating all these wonderful applications (for lack of a better term) that not only make me look tech-savvy, they actually make my life easier.

IGoogle is my homepage because it gives me easy access to everything I need on the web in one place.  Gmail is way more than just e-mail since I can also IM (instant message), and voice or video chat in real time.  Google Calendar sends me e-mail reminders as well as SMS (text) which beats post-it notes everywhere, so I’m not late returning a book to the library, paying a bill or miss a hair appointment that was pre-booked six weeks earlier.  Google Docs comes in handy with no MSWord on my Mac, and since I don’t have Photo Shop, I rely on Google Images (how do you think I get all the pictures for this blog).

If you’ve somehow resisted the pull towards technology, they may just get you with Google Voice.  When I recently moved I dropped the land line (hard line, home phone, or whatever you want to call it), because I was paying for a service I rarely used.  Of course every time I have to fill out some type of form, it always asks for two numbers and I can’t help but wonder if I’m looked down upon for having only one.

No more!  As of last night I am back in the ranks of the two phone number family.  I heard about Google Voice several months ago, but after my friend got me all excited about this new service he then told me they weren’t handing out any new numbers.  It was kind of cruel to cause me to have Google envy when he knew there was no quick fix, but I did my research (yes, I Googled it) and found I could ask to be notified when they opened the service to the minions.

I think I replied to the invitation last night before it even had time to really register as being in my inbox.  There were lots of choices but picking a number was easy. Something similar to my cell number so it would be easy to remember. When I plugged in the same last four digits with the same area code there was only one option that fit my two parameters, so I’m guessing it’s kind of like claiming my vanity URL on Facebook.  First come, first serve.

Within minutes of starting to set things up on Google Voice, I knew the next thing I needed to do was get the word out and not keep this latest greatest piece of technology to myself.  Tweeting the link that simultaneously updated my Facebook status was the quickest way to tell everyone they too need to get an invite (you can’t get a number without one).  The further I got into the set-up of my new account, I knew the topic of my next blog post would be to tell everyone about it in more than 140 characters.

I love Google Voice, let me count the ways:

1. It’s FREE, you have nothing to lose by checking it out.
2. I now have another number and I can choose to hand it out as my home or business line.
3. It has voicemail that let’s you record a personal greeting for each specific contact (if you choose).  I’ve done a couple just because it’s pretty nifty for someone to feel so loved when they call me.
4. You can screen calls and even listen in when they’re leaving a message, just like the old answering machines.  If you want you can interrupt and take the call once you know it’s not a telemarketer or stalker.
5. Should you get creepy callers (I imagine this could be the perfect number to give someone you meet on match or pof, um, not that I would actually know).  You can block them if you change your mind and even have a recording play that says, “this number has been disconnected and is no longer in service”.
6. The voicemails are transcribed and sent to you via e-mail.  It’s pretty funny what the computer thinks you’re saying and I can listen to the message by clicking on the play link in my e-mail.  Don’t even actually need my phone.  Saves my cell minutes!
7. I can send SMS (text) messages from my computer which is great for all those people who aren’t “in” my Verizon network.
8. You can have it ring one, or more numbers.  The person calling doesn’t know you’re actually answering your cell, at work, or home because they dial your Google Voice number.
9. You can have it go straight to voicemail so it doesn’t ring at all.
10. You can even record entire conversations, which could come in handy if George Clooney ever calls me!

These are just a few of the reasons I’m so excited and over-the-top about Google Voice.  Don’t take my word for it though.  Click on this link and get your own invite!

I’ve never been a Michael Jackson fan per say, but songs like I’ll Be There or ABC bring a smile to my face. I love Ben, who the heck cares that it’s about a rat? During a recent move I came across the album Off the Wall, too bad I don’t have a record player anymore.

As expected, the death of Jackson has dominated the news the last few days. Many people are crying hypocrisy, after all many of the same media folks singing MJ’s praises are the same ones who referred to him as Wacko Jacko when he was alive. It is strange given in the last decade, very few would outwardly admit to being a fan of Michael, but clearly the majority of people now want to reminisce and pay homage.

I think his death has given us a permission of sorts to remember and mourn the Michael Jackson we grew up with. He was such a cute boy and handsome young man, but somehow couldn’t see the same man in the mirror most of us saw. It is sad that Michael may not have realized how admired he was for his musical prowess, but given his penchant for strange and unpredictible behavior in the last couple of decades, it’s understandable why few were willing to risk their own reputations by speaking out on his behalf.  His passing allows us to concentrate on the musical genius Michael was and to pay tribute to his accomplishments that have paved the road and opened doors that will effect untold generations to come. 

It didn’t take long for shock and denial to be replaced by lots of questions as to how he died. Some folks think out of respect for Michael this isn’t the time to raise those questions. Others say it’s tabloid journalism.

The continuous news cycle on MJ’s death is more than just the tabloids. Many of us found out through social networking like Facebook and Twitter, and then went for confirmation to TMZ’s website, which may be tabloid, but they were first to call it. CNN, FNC and MSNBC had nearly wall-to-wall coverage for 24 hours.

No matter what his personal demons may have been, it just seems right to acknowledge and recognize Michael’s contributions to music and entertainment. How ironic that he himself was never able to really grasp his own worth. His eccentricities & cause of death will fade, just as it has with Elvis.

Few will truly be surprised to learn if Michael did indeed die of a prescription drug cocktail gone wrong. In many ways we’ve grown apathetic to this problem. But the suspicious availabilty of Rx’s is just one horrible symptom of a much larger over-all problem, the cause and effect of our society’s obsession with celebrity. Michael Jackson’s entire life is one sad lesson about the downside of fame.

We’ll never really have answers to so many questions surrounding his life, but the best insight into Michael Jackson comes from himself in this line from a piece he wrote, “…while singing and dancing were, and undoubtedly remain, some of my greatest joys, at that time what I wanted more than anything else were the two things that make childhood the most wondrous years of life, namely, playtime and a feeling of freedom…”

In the after-life, I hope Michael has somehow been restored and has finally found the peace he never had in this world.

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change

Why must everyone insist on having one athlete be better than another?  As time goes on it’s inevitable someone else will always come along to claim the title of “most dominant” because athletic prowess is susceptible to aging.  

The NBA is littered with dominant athletes throughout it’s history. The real debate probably started with Wilt Chamberlain.  He’s the only player in NBA history to average more than 40 and 50 points in a season or score a 100 points in a single NBA game.  His titles include scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and even assists.

Then along came Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (aka Lew Alcindor). The dunk was banned from college ball after the 1967 season because Alcindor was so dominant with that particular shot. His skyhook is the opposite in demeanor but no more defendable. Many of Kareem’s individual records at UCLA still stand, which is amazing considering freshman were ineligible to play varsity (so his numbers are from only three years of play), not to mention all the athletes who’ve gone through that basketball machine since. Abdul-Jabbar is the all-time leading NBA scorer with 38,387 points. He won six championships, was named regular season MVP six times and Finals MVP twice. Kareem played in a record nineteen NBA All-Star games and played in the league for twenty years retiring at the age of 42 in 1989.

Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and some guy named Michael Jordan. At one time or another the argument has been made each is the best player, but when it comes to dominance, Jordan is at the top of the list.

His biography on the official NBA website states, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” Jordan “three-peated” with the Chicago Bulls winning back-to-back-to-back championships, retired in 1993, came back to play for the Washington Wizards for two seasons, then three-peated with the Bulls again before retiring for good in January 1999.

• Led the NBA in scoring in 10 seasons (NBA record) 
• Holds the top career and playoff scoring averages of 30.1 and 33.4 points per game, respectively
• Total of 5,987 points in the playoffs is the highest in NBA history
• Retired with 32,292 points, placing him third on the NBA’s all-time scoring list behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (and Karl Malone)
• Five regular-season MVPs (tied for second place with Bill Russell; only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has won more, six)
• Six Finals MVPs (NBA record)
• Three All-Star MVPs, Jordan is the most decorated player ever to play in the NBA

When Kobe first came into the league (straight from high school) he was being called “baby Jordan”but many of his young fans have never even seen Michael play. Now that Kobe’s 30, Cleveland fans are itching to pass on the mantle to LeBron James.

It’s one thing to compare athletes who play the same position, like Bill Russell, Chamberlain, Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal, but even then not only does the era make a big difference, the “supporting cast” does as well. Michael Jordan had a lot of lean years till Scottie Pippen and the gang arrived (he didn’t win it all with the Wizards). Jabbar and Magic, Bird and Kevin McHale, Shaq and Kobe. It takes a team. The deeper, the better. 

My reply to my friend, “Tell your son that Kobe is better…now…but just like MJ was better when Kobe was a youngster…LeBron will also someday take the throne, just not yet.  The truly great ones never have anyone who’s just like them (Michael, Magic, Kareem) but they become part of a very exclusive club which recognizes the attributes each one has brought to the game”.

Meanwhile, if the Denver Nuggets and the Orlando Magic have their way, they aim to make folks forget about Bryant and James (at least temporarily), as both teams are still very much contenders to make it to this year’s NBA finals.