Mark Harmon Shares Great Stories about His Dad’s Heisman & Wooden/Walton at UCLA

The best John Wooden story is not about a championship. It is about a man in sweats, alone, doing the same thing every single day, and Mark Harmon watched it happen from the cheap seats without ever meaning to.

Harmon was the UCLA quarterback, and geography did the rest. "The locker room for football was right across from Pauley Pavilion." Because he also held on field goals, he had to get out early, which meant getting dressed early, which meant he needed somewhere to finish the job. He picked the top of Pauley.

"I'd always walk across from the locker room and sit in the top part of Pauley to put my shoes on every day."

And every day, the same scene was already in progress. Wooden on the court in a pair of sweats and a letterman jacket, one ball boy with him, shooting set shots from around the key. Harmon supplied the sound effects, which is the part that makes it. "Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop." The ball boy kicking it back out to him each time.

Rich needed to confirm what he was hearing. Harmon was watching John Wooden shoot hoops, alone, daily.

"I sure was. Every day."

The obvious follow-up was how the shot looked. Harmon's answer took about four words. "Like you'd think. Like an All-American in the end."

Then there is the other day, the one with Bill Walton in it. Walton rode a bicycle everywhere on campus, a ten-speed with the seat, in Harmon's description, jacked out of Bolivia because he needed it that high. His routine was to carry the bike down the steps into Pauley, walk it along the edge of the floor and take it with him to the locker room.

On this particular day, Wooden was out there shooting, and never looked up. Walton started around the perimeter with the bike. And Harmon, up in the top of the building, heard it, because Pauley carries sound.

Wooden said it very calmly. "Bill, get a haircut."

Walton did not say a word. He picked the bike back up, went right back up the stairs, and, in Harmon's telling, probably drove down to the village to get a haircut.