Saturday marked a year since legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden died at the age of 99. As a tribute to Wooden, the UCLA Black Alumni Association showed a short film called The Wooden Effect at their scholarship fundraising event Saturday. LBS spoke with former Bruin Marques Johnson, whose company Point Forward Productions made the film, and he related some great stories.
Johnson told LBS he regrets that he only got to play two seasons under Wooden before the coach stepped away from basketball. He shared some insight about Wooden’s interactions with Negro League baseball players. Then at the three minute mark, Johnson talks about the famous Clarence Walker civil rights story. If you’ve never heard of the story, make sure you watch to learn about it:
Editor’s note: At the end of the interview, we asked Marques Johnson how he thinks the North Carolina transfers will fit in for UCLA this season. The Wear twins are eligible to play this season but Larry Drew must sit out because of transfer rules.
Johnson thinks that with the state of the Pac-12, UCLA should be one of the top two teams in the Conference.
