Coach's influence shows in Wooden Tradition field

INDIANAPOLIS -- Purdue's Gene Keady was just starting his coaching career in 1962 when he attended a basketball clinic featuring John Wooden as a guest teacher. Wooden offered Keady a diagram of a last-second shot to use for his high school team.

The play is still being used nearly 40 years later.

"That won probably 10 games for us," Keady said. "I've always been indebted to him for that."

Keady was coaching in the high school ranks then, and he's spent the last 23 years with the Boilermakers, a program Wooden led to the 1932 national championship.

Purdue plays Louisville and No. 6 Duke plays No. 14 UCLA today at the third Wooden Tradition at Conseco Fieldhouse.

UCLA coach Steve Lavin is reminded every day of Wooden because 10 national championship banners hang inside Pauley Pavilion.Instead of shying away from Wooden's legacy, Lavin has embraced it.

"I've gotten to know John Wooden," Lavin said. "The overall foundation of basketball success that all coaches are working to achieve can go back to him."