The Sons of Westwood: John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty That Changed College Basketball

2. The Wizard of Westwood

2 The Wizard of Westwood W alt Hazzard had never heard of John Wooden. John Wooden had never heard of Walt Hazzard, either. The UCLA coach disliked recruiting and paid little attention to high school players outside of Southern California. Hazzard grew up in Philadelphia, twenty-seven hundred miles from Westwood. In Philadelphia every high school and college coach knew about him. During his sophomore and junior years at Overbrook High, he played alongside future NBA players Wally Jones and Wayne Hightower, winning back-to-back city championships. In 1960, as a senior, Hazzard became a local star and was named Philadelphia high school player of the year.1 He may not have known much about Wooden, but Hazzard knew all about Ralph Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, Rafer Johnson, and Willie Naulls, heroes in the African American community . Naulls, UCLA’s greatest black basketball star of the 1950s, played a pivotal role in persuading Wooden to give Hazzard an opportunity to play at UCLA. In March 1960, Naulls, then playing for the New York Knicks, went to Philadelphia to watch a playoff game between the Syracuse Nationals and the Philadelphia Warriors. His good friend and Hazzard’s distant cousin Woody Sauldsberry played for the Warriors. Before the playoff game, Hazzard impressed Naulls by scoring thirty-six points in an Amateur Athletic Union game. Afterward, Sauldsberry introduced him to Naulls. Convinced that he had seen a special player, Naulls contacted Wooden about giving Hazzard a scholarship. Knowing that Wooden counted character as much as talent, Naulls told him that Hazzard not only had great ability, but also came from a good family, raised by a strict Methodist minister, and was student body president. Finally, Naulls added, “Well, if he can’t make your team then I’ll pay for his scholarship.”2 More than anyone else, Hazzard transformed UCLA into a championship basketball program. With his exceptional quickness, superb ball handling , and whirlwind speed, he made everyone around him better. Hazzard brought an exciting style of play never before seen on the West Coast. He could dribble behind his back and between his legs, thread “passes through holes where you couldn’t throw a golf ball,” and contort his body in midair as he laid the ball off the backboard. His creative no-look passes confused defenders and created open layups for teammates. “He was,” said UCLA teammate Larry Gower, “a point guard before there was such a position. He got you the ball. He passed to a spot where you were supposed to be, not where you were. He made you think differently.”3 Without Hazzard, without Naulls, and without Jackie Robinson, the UCLA dynasty would not have been possible. The foundation of the dynasty, therefore, was built on an infusion of black talent. Hazzard represented the key link in UCLA’s athletic history; he was inspired by UCLA’s black heroes of the past and paved a path for UCLA’s black stars of the future. But Hazzard was more than a symbol of racial integration. He changed the way the game was played. Hazzard drove UCLA’s explosive fast break, a style of play that compelled a more furious pace. The Bruins’ fast break created greater possibilities on offense and stretched the defense horizontally, forcing opposing teams to cover more passing lanes than they ever had before. Hazzard left a distinct imprint on the sport, creating a faster, more fluid, creative game. In 1962, with Hazzard leading the way, the Bruins reached the national semifinals, but most critics thought that UCLA’s fantastic run was a fluke, since they had nine losses during the regular season. The Bruins were a Cinderella story, not a dynasty in the making. Before the 1964 season began, Sports Illustrated made its annual predictions, excluding UCLA from its top twenty teams. The magazine’s editors included the Bruins in a group of “surprise packages,” teams that had an outside chance to emerge as contenders. 30 . Chapter Two UCLA’s success, they argued, depended on one player: Walt Hazzard. The “flashy” point guard was “one of the best offensive players in the nation and one of the worst defensive players on the coast.” “As he goes,” the magazine forecast, “so go the team’s chances.”4  A week after the 1960 season ended, a reporter visited the home of John and Nell Wooden. In his worst year at UCLA...