duncan228
12-22-2010, 05:40 PM
A Chip Off The Wooden Block (http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/101222_rodriguez.html)
Ken Rodriguez
Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland remembers that first job interview well. The faces in the room. The pounding of his heart. The high stakes at hand.
He doesn’t remember what he wore – just that his shirt was neatly tucked in – but he knew he had come to compete against heaven knows how many others for a tough-to-get position at UCLA.
Ballboy.
"It was like a casting call for a commercial," Engelland says.
A small committee invited young teens, one at a time, into a room. Committee members posed questions. They expected well-thought answers. Engelland came prepared. When asked which player he admired most and why, Engelland reached for a word near the top of John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success – "poise" – and worked it into his response.
He defined poise – "calm under pressure" – and used it to describe then-UCLA star Keith (later "Jamaal") Wilkes. Engelland got the job and learned a telling lesson. “Coach Wooden was very detail oriented," Engelland says. "He sweated the small stuff, all the way down to the ballboy."
As an eighth grader in the fall of 1974, young Chip began a basketball education that carried him through middle school, high school, college and beyond. He grabbed rebounds for the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion, mopped perspiration off the floor and watched Wooden work his wizardry in Westwood.
Keep Reading... (http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/101222_rodriguez.html)
Ken Rodriguez
Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland remembers that first job interview well. The faces in the room. The pounding of his heart. The high stakes at hand.
He doesn’t remember what he wore – just that his shirt was neatly tucked in – but he knew he had come to compete against heaven knows how many others for a tough-to-get position at UCLA.
Ballboy.
"It was like a casting call for a commercial," Engelland says.
A small committee invited young teens, one at a time, into a room. Committee members posed questions. They expected well-thought answers. Engelland came prepared. When asked which player he admired most and why, Engelland reached for a word near the top of John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success – "poise" – and worked it into his response.
He defined poise – "calm under pressure" – and used it to describe then-UCLA star Keith (later "Jamaal") Wilkes. Engelland got the job and learned a telling lesson. “Coach Wooden was very detail oriented," Engelland says. "He sweated the small stuff, all the way down to the ballboy."
As an eighth grader in the fall of 1974, young Chip began a basketball education that carried him through middle school, high school, college and beyond. He grabbed rebounds for the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion, mopped perspiration off the floor and watched Wooden work his wizardry in Westwood.
Keep Reading... (http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/101222_rodriguez.html)