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Los Angeles, California My senior year as a high school basketball player in Los Angeles far exceeded my hopes. I averaged over 27 points, 12 assists and five rebounds a game as our team went undefeated in league play. I was named to the All City team and was clearly one of the top players in Southern California. Dozens of colleges came after me during that winter of 1968, but they were all a blur when it became clear that a scholarship to UCLA was in the cards. Sitting at training table between Coach Wooden and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (still Lew Alcindor at this point) was so thrilling that I felt like I was living a dream. I understand now that this dreamlike state set in motion by the recruiting process is probably at the root of much of the pain and disappointment that young ballplayers experience when their dreams of starring in college never come to pass. My career never really came to pass. I averaged 19.5 points a game on the freshman team. Freshmen were not eligible for varsity play during that era. So I got off to a good enough start. But in the next three years I played sparingly, scoring a total of 147 points. I had grown up in Westwood, fantasized about the improbable chance to play someday at UCLA, won three NCAA titles with the team and was unhappy because I didn’t play as much as I wanted. To say I was embittered by the experience would be an understatement. The source of that discontent was Coach Wooden. I had been looking for a nurturing and kindly father-figure. Coach Wooden was simply looking for his next great guard. He didn’t believe I was that guard. I only occasionally saw Coach after graduation, and those meetings were labored. Soon we lost touch completely.  Coach Wooden and Andy Hill: The mentor and his reluctant student. Many years after I graduated I played in a business golf game with an old Bruin fan who remembered me from those championship years. He told the other guys in our foursome that I used to be known in Westwood as "the man who starts 5000 cars," because "when he went in the game everyone left." I laughed at his joke, but the truth still hurt decades later. But how could I tell Coach he needed to play me more when the team was in the middle of the greatest winning streak in the history of sports? By the time I graduated, I had become one of only 13 men in NCAA history who had played (in my case not much) on three NCAA championship basketball teams. The dream I had as a youngster had come true, but my role was that of a stand-in. The spotlight and stardom belonged to my talented teammates. With my confidence shaken and the future unclear, it was time to put my childhood plans behind me and venture out into the real world. Coach Wooden, basketball, and UCLA were a part of my past I was eager to leave behind. I got my first job in the entertainment industry in my late twenties, and I was lucky enough to work for many smart and interesting people. A few years later, I was hired by the CBS network to run their in-house production company. The opportunity was as big as the challenge. With a small staff and a limited budget, we helped create such hit television shows as Touched by an Angel, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Walker, Texas Ranger, Dave's World, Caroline in the City, and Rescue 911. At a time when family-oriented programming was no longer in vogue, as president of CBS Productions, I played a central role in reintroducing family-oriented hit shows to network TV. My success in the television business was sort of hard to figure. I worked hard, and I was fairly articulate, but I wasn't very corporate, didn't socialize much, and preferred to be with my family. But I instinctively understood that I had a gift. I was good at organizing and managing people engaged in a volatile, creative process, and getting them to reach their maximum potential. Creating television shows involves so many egos, so many opinions, so little money, and so little time to get it right, that every show that works is a miracle. A hit television show takes talent, collaboration, and hard work. It just wasn't clear to me exactly how and where I had developed this special ability to manage such an inherently unruly process. I really was curious where this special management talent I had was nurtured and developed. One of the benefits of taking time off for introspection is that you finally have a chance to look at your life without ten people standing at the door to your office waiting for an answer. I knew that if I focused enough attention on my past, the truth would eventually come to me. I was on a golf course when I had my epiphany. Standing over an impossible 210-yard, 2-iron shot, my playing partner told me, "You're hurrying. Slow down and get your balance." It was as if Coach Wooden was being channeled through my friend. I felt a little bit like Luke Skywalker hearing the sage voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi. My friend had no inkling that his advice was a simple paraphrase of everything Coach had taught us. Sometimes, but not very often, you feel a certain stillness before you swing the club because you just know that the shot will be perfect. This was one of those times. When I nailed that shot to within a couple of feet of the hole for a birdie, I knew I had just experienced something that was about more than just a good golf shot. The strength and clarity of that inner voice was so powerful. From basketball, to golf, to business, I realized that Coach Wooden had actually mentored my entire professional life, and he was directly responsible for all my success. What a shock! I had to talk to Coach and share this breakthrough with him. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if Coach would even want to talk to me. I had not really spoken to Coach in almost ten years. I usually only thought about him when I would run into some other former player, and we would tell stories about the wild times, the close games, and our shared discomfort with our relationship with Coach. But now I felt that I had to talk with him and share my revelation. In my business life, I've often had to make unpleasant and potentially explosive calls to network presidents, studio heads, aggressive talent agents, and angry television stars. But I'd never felt this sense of nervousness and vulnerability before placing any of these calls. This wasn't a call to tell someone a show was canceled or a raise denied. I was just calling to express my appreciation to my old coach. Something was pushing me to call, but just as fervently my inner voice was suggesting that perhaps I ought to forget it. Would he pick up the phone? Would he return my call? Heck, Coach was in his late eighties. Would he even remember me? I had a whole laundry list of reasons not to call. He's probably too busy. It would be a terrible imposition on him. He probably just wants to be left alone. In spite of all these excuses, I knew this was one call I had to make.
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