I looked down the line of the wonderfully successful people on either side of me and wondered if each of them had a Coach Wooden who, to quote President Obama, “helped make me who I am.” I hoped so, because without Coach, my life would have been so much less. Less joyous. Less meaningful. Less filled with love. Later,

Every step of the way throughout my life as an athlete and activist, I felt my father’s large hand on my shoulder guiding me down a path of service and justice. When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. -Bayard Rustin

"If there is moral insanity," he said in a conspiratorial whisper, "then there may be the reverse, immoral sanity, if you will, that comes upon one suddenly, like a fever."