The banners, hanging from the rafters in Pauley Pavilion, are a statement in themselves. They remind us of a time when UCLA men’s basketball ruled the land, when opposing coaches looked at the talent in Westwood and joked that they might as well forfeit. A legendary coach, legendary players – and, as we later realized, a legendary benefactor to keep those players satisfied and happy – created a legendary time in college basketball.
If only we realized how hard that really was to achieve.
The Bruins of the 1960s and early ’70s won 10 NCAA championships in 12 seasons and seven in a row, bookended by Hall of Fame big men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) and Bill Walton and guided by John Wooden. But that dominance is even more amazing considering the times and the society that surrounded that island of achievement. The Civil Rights movement, the war in Vietnam and student protests from coast to coast roiled society, and UCLA basketball was not untouched.
“You put it against the backdrop of everything going on in the country, everything going on in college campuses including around Los Angeles, at UCLA and some other places,” said author Scott Howard-Cooper. “And it sort of provides an entirely new perspective – that as good as we thought UCLA was at the time, when you look back in 2024 it’s even more remarkable to win seven championships in a row and 10 in 12 years.”
The narrative that details that time and place is Howard-Cooper’s “Kingdom On Fire: “Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty” (Atria Books, New York), which was released Tuesday.
Howard-Cooper, a former L.A. Times reporter who later wrote for ESPN and Sports Illustrated, said this was a “passion project” he’d been thinking of, and then pursuing interviews for, going back to the early 2000s. That would have been about the time that he was covering Steve Lavin’s Bruins for the Times (as was I, for a season, for The Press-Enterprise). Being around the program and the campus and the history – and those banners – does tend to lead to reflection about what came before.
One thing that jumps out at you while covering that program on that campus: The standards, and the expectations, never have truly died.
Wooden’s last title came in 1975, his final season. UCLA’s last national championship came in 1995, under Jim Harrick. Even as late as the first decade of this century, there was that entitled grumbling among alumni who remembered the past championships and were impatient for the next one.
There may – or may not – be less grumbling from the alums now, but those banners and the photo and memorabilia exhibits in the Pauley Pavilion concourse are constant reminders of what came before.
“Pauley Pavilion had the best and the worst interior decorator in college sports history,” Howard-Cooper said in our phone conversation. “You look up and you see – what are you surrounded by? Banners, the reminders of the success. And that’s great. It’s like, that’s one of the fun parts about going to a UCLA home game is seeing the banners and what a time to cherish. But at the same time, it’s like they’re heavy weights up there, dropping on the shoulders of the current coaching staff and the current players.”
“It’s a great testament to what happened there and what should always be celebrated. But also, as hundreds of players and coaches will tell you since the mid-70s, it’s also a terrible burden.”
All of those banners have back stories, and they aren’t necessarily what you might expect.
The Alcindor years – the start of the seven championships in a row that are the heart of the book – featured inner turmoil, with the big man – along with guard Lucius Allen – contemplating transferring more than once. This was also at a time that Alcindor, still a college kid, was treated as an equal by some of the day’s most prominent and outspoken Black athletes, including Jim Brown, Bill Russell and Muhammad Ali.
Notably, as Abdul-Jabbar was quoted after he got to the NBA, “Once the money thing got worked out, I never gave another thought to leaving UCLA.” That was a reference to the generosity of Sam Gilbert, who considered NCAA amateurism rules arcane and silly (which was accurate) and blatantly ignored them.
It’s worth noting that the NCAA didn’t come down on Gilbert, and UCLA, until six years after Wooden was gone, which says something about the NCAA’s priorities at the time. While the dynasty was alive, UCLA was effectively too big to nail.
(And it’s also worth noting that Gilbert lived in the wrong era. Were he around today, let’s just say the Bruins’ NIL efforts would be quite competitive.)
The Walton era? That played out against the backdrop of Vietnam, student protests of the war, Walton’s own willingness to participate in those protests, and the clash between his values and those of his coach.
That era ended with Walton and his teammates faltering at the end, whether bored with so much winning or exhausted by the expectations. The loss at Notre Dame to end a record 88-game winning streak, stumbles at Oregon State and Oregon toward the end of conference play, and a national semifinal loss to North Carolina State validated Wooden’s prediction to his team, after the 1972 championship, that “by the time you are seniors, you’ll very likely become intolerable.”
Through a little more than two decades, Howard-Cooper estimated that he’d talked to about 100 sources.
“Obviously a ton of UCLA people – players, coaches, managers, administrators,” he said. “I was fortunate to talk to Chuck Young, the Chancellor (during that era), before he passed. And also a lot of opponents, and a lot of people that had no direct connection to the basketball program at UCLA but were a real help.”
One nugget: He talked to Jerry West, then a Lakers star and also a friend of Wooden. “And Jerry West is telling me that UCLA was much more popular than the Lakers, which is crazy to think about,” Howard-Cooper said. “It’s the Lakers with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor and later on Wilt (Chamberlain), not some expansion franchise winning 15 games a season.”
Banners are powerful. By the time West’s Lakers finally hung one, in 1972 in the Forum, Wooden’s Bruins had earned eight.
Kareem would not consent to an interview for the book, Howard-Cooper said. Walton was willing, however – and that, as you might expect, is a story in itself.
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“When I called Bill, he may have been expecting the call,” Howard-Cooper said “He may have recognized the number, I’m not sure. But as soon as I called, he says, ‘Hold on.’ Doesn’t even say hello, it’s ‘hold on.’ We at that point start listening to the Grateful Dead playing ‘Standing On The Moon,’ which has since become one of my favorite songs, because of this reason. …
“I talked to Bill about this project many years ago, just said, ‘Hey, here’s something I’m thinking about. What do you think?’ And he not only said he thought it was a good idea, he said, ‘I think a lot of my former teammates and friends will think it’s a good idea.’”
They did. And it was.
jalexander@scng.com