Wooden Impacts Trgovich, Ogle
March 10, 2017 at 4:50 p.m.
Wooden Impacts Trgovich, Ogle
By Dale [email protected]
Ogle, in his 15th season as Warsaw's varsity boys basketball coach, will get that opportunity Saturday when his Tigers play Pete Trgovich's East Chicago Central Cardinals in the second semifinal of the Class 4A Michigan City Regional.
Action gets underway at 11 a.m. Eastern time when Merrillville (19-7) squares off with South Bend Adams (21-4), followed by Warsaw (17-9) and East Chicago Central (15-9).
The championship game is slated for 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, with the regional winner advancing to a one-game semistate to be played at either Lafayette Jeff or Huntington North on March 18.
"To get to coach against someone who played for John Wooden, in my mind, is very cool," said Ogle, who forged a friendship with Wooden in 2003 and made eight trips to California to visit him before his death in 2010. "As time goes on, there's not going to be that many of these type of opportunities. I talked to Coach Trgovich for about five minutes at the regional meeting last year, but he and I talked on the phone Tuesday and I'm gonna plan a trip to East Chicago and just spend some time visiting with him and talking about what it was like to play for Coach Wooden. Coach Trgovich is very eager to talk about it, and I'm looking forward to it."
Wooden grew up in Indiana, winning a state championship as a standout player at Martinsville High School in 1927, and later played at Purdue University and professionally for the Indianapolis Kautskys, Whiting Ciesar All-Americans and Hammond Ciesar All-Americans.
Wooden spent two years coaching at Dayton High School in Kentucky before accepting the job at South Bend Central High School.
Wooden coached at Indiana State Teachers College, now known as Indiana State University, before accepting a position at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
It's his accomplishments at UCLA that Wooden is best known for.
He led UCLA to 10 national championships in a span of 12 years, including seven straight titles from 1967-1975, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of Westwood."
In 29 years as a college coach, Wooden posted a record of 664-162.
Trgovich, who was a standout player for East Chicago Washington’s 1971 state championship team that went 29-0, helped UCLA win national titles in 1973 and 1975.
Trgovich, who coached East Chicago Central to the Class 4A state title in 2007, was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1975.
While he was Warsaw’s junior varsity coach, prior to taking over the varsity program from Al Rhodes, Ogle said he read books written by Wooden.
He thought it would be neat to somehow meet or get to talk to Wooden, so he wrote the coaching legend a letter.
“I had been studying him for a quite a while when I was the junior varsity coach, reading his books,” said Ogle. “He’s a Purdue grad, I’m a Purdue grad.
“When I became the head coach, I thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna write him a letter and see if I can go out and talk basketball with him.’ So, I got his address from a guy named Jim Powers, who played for him at South Bend Central. I wrote him a letter, I think that was around December in 2003, my first year as head coach, and I didn’t hear back from him.
“And then sectional week of my first season as varsity coach, my wife Melissa called me and said ‘you need to call John Wooden at 3:15 p.m.’ He had a water pipe break in his condominium and he got behind in his correspondence.
“So I called him that day and he said ‘yeah, just come on out, that’ll be fine.’ I told him I wanted to bring my whole coaching staff, and he said that was OK. I?told him we had a big staff, and he said that was OK.
“That really started it, that trip in 2003. Over the course of eight trips ?I took a lot of coaches out there with me, as well as my family and my brother’s family. Coach Wooden appreciated that we were from Indiana and loved high school basketball. You could tell he really enjoyed visitors. He was a great story teller. The first time we met with him, he was 92, and he was still extremely sharp mentally.”
In the eight trips to California to meet with Wooden, Ogle’s list of guests included Purdue coach Matt Painter and his staff, as well as high school coaches Rhodes, Jack Edison, Basil Mawbey, Aaron Wolfe, John Wysong, Matt Moore, among others.
Ogle said he had a ninth trip in the works, and then-Butler University coach Brad Stevens was planning to go.
The trip didn’t happen, as Wooden became sick and died on June 4, 2010, four months and 10 days before his 100th birthday.
“Just going into it, his resumé, his cache, everything he’d done,” Ogle said when asked what created his interest in Wooden. “Not only the 10 championships in 12 years, but the Pyramid of Success, and just everything he’d accomplished was interesting to me.
“When we got out there, we realized how sharp he still was, how engaging he still was. He was very funny. He was an unbelievable guy to talk to. You’re talking about a guy who knew James Naismith (who invented the game of basketball). He coached against all the greats, guys like Adolph Rupp. He had a lot of great stories.
“It was such an honor to meet with him. It was one of those things you just wanted to share it with people, so we took other coaches with us, and Coach Wooden loved it.”
Ogle smiles when he talks about his meetings with Wooden.
He’s also going to savor Saturday’s experience of coaching against Trgovich.
Ogle, in his 15th season as Warsaw's varsity boys basketball coach, will get that opportunity Saturday when his Tigers play Pete Trgovich's East Chicago Central Cardinals in the second semifinal of the Class 4A Michigan City Regional.
Action gets underway at 11 a.m. Eastern time when Merrillville (19-7) squares off with South Bend Adams (21-4), followed by Warsaw (17-9) and East Chicago Central (15-9).
The championship game is slated for 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, with the regional winner advancing to a one-game semistate to be played at either Lafayette Jeff or Huntington North on March 18.
"To get to coach against someone who played for John Wooden, in my mind, is very cool," said Ogle, who forged a friendship with Wooden in 2003 and made eight trips to California to visit him before his death in 2010. "As time goes on, there's not going to be that many of these type of opportunities. I talked to Coach Trgovich for about five minutes at the regional meeting last year, but he and I talked on the phone Tuesday and I'm gonna plan a trip to East Chicago and just spend some time visiting with him and talking about what it was like to play for Coach Wooden. Coach Trgovich is very eager to talk about it, and I'm looking forward to it."
Wooden grew up in Indiana, winning a state championship as a standout player at Martinsville High School in 1927, and later played at Purdue University and professionally for the Indianapolis Kautskys, Whiting Ciesar All-Americans and Hammond Ciesar All-Americans.
Wooden spent two years coaching at Dayton High School in Kentucky before accepting the job at South Bend Central High School.
Wooden coached at Indiana State Teachers College, now known as Indiana State University, before accepting a position at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
It's his accomplishments at UCLA that Wooden is best known for.
He led UCLA to 10 national championships in a span of 12 years, including seven straight titles from 1967-1975, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of Westwood."
In 29 years as a college coach, Wooden posted a record of 664-162.
Trgovich, who was a standout player for East Chicago Washington’s 1971 state championship team that went 29-0, helped UCLA win national titles in 1973 and 1975.
Trgovich, who coached East Chicago Central to the Class 4A state title in 2007, was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1975.
While he was Warsaw’s junior varsity coach, prior to taking over the varsity program from Al Rhodes, Ogle said he read books written by Wooden.
He thought it would be neat to somehow meet or get to talk to Wooden, so he wrote the coaching legend a letter.
“I had been studying him for a quite a while when I was the junior varsity coach, reading his books,” said Ogle. “He’s a Purdue grad, I’m a Purdue grad.
“When I became the head coach, I thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna write him a letter and see if I can go out and talk basketball with him.’ So, I got his address from a guy named Jim Powers, who played for him at South Bend Central. I wrote him a letter, I think that was around December in 2003, my first year as head coach, and I didn’t hear back from him.
“And then sectional week of my first season as varsity coach, my wife Melissa called me and said ‘you need to call John Wooden at 3:15 p.m.’ He had a water pipe break in his condominium and he got behind in his correspondence.
“So I called him that day and he said ‘yeah, just come on out, that’ll be fine.’ I told him I wanted to bring my whole coaching staff, and he said that was OK. I?told him we had a big staff, and he said that was OK.
“That really started it, that trip in 2003. Over the course of eight trips ?I took a lot of coaches out there with me, as well as my family and my brother’s family. Coach Wooden appreciated that we were from Indiana and loved high school basketball. You could tell he really enjoyed visitors. He was a great story teller. The first time we met with him, he was 92, and he was still extremely sharp mentally.”
In the eight trips to California to meet with Wooden, Ogle’s list of guests included Purdue coach Matt Painter and his staff, as well as high school coaches Rhodes, Jack Edison, Basil Mawbey, Aaron Wolfe, John Wysong, Matt Moore, among others.
Ogle said he had a ninth trip in the works, and then-Butler University coach Brad Stevens was planning to go.
The trip didn’t happen, as Wooden became sick and died on June 4, 2010, four months and 10 days before his 100th birthday.
“Just going into it, his resumé, his cache, everything he’d done,” Ogle said when asked what created his interest in Wooden. “Not only the 10 championships in 12 years, but the Pyramid of Success, and just everything he’d accomplished was interesting to me.
“When we got out there, we realized how sharp he still was, how engaging he still was. He was very funny. He was an unbelievable guy to talk to. You’re talking about a guy who knew James Naismith (who invented the game of basketball). He coached against all the greats, guys like Adolph Rupp. He had a lot of great stories.
“It was such an honor to meet with him. It was one of those things you just wanted to share it with people, so we took other coaches with us, and Coach Wooden loved it.”
Ogle smiles when he talks about his meetings with Wooden.
He’s also going to savor Saturday’s experience of coaching against Trgovich.
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