A Coach for All Seasons

Morgan Wootten is the winningest coach in the history of basketball at any level, but his career and his life are more than just victories on a basketball court. He has prepared young men for college and life, helping more than 150 to win scholarships. He has produced men who have become star players, star coaches and star human beings. Coaching legend John Wooden says of Wootten, "I stand in awe of him".His teams have won five national championships and over 1,100 games at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, MD, just outside Washington, DC. In 1991, he won the prestigious "Sports Teacher of the Year" award of the Walt Disney Company. Sports Illustrated published a full spread on him and called him "The Wizard of Washington". USA Today made him the Sports section cover story, complete with a color photograph, in November 1996 when he beat the odds by surviving a near-death liver illness and a transplant and then returned to start his 40th basketball season at DeMatha, right on time.Included are moving events in Coach Wootten's life such as: -- Turning down $700,000 in 1979 from a major college so he could continue to coach -- and teach -- high school students. -- Coach Wootten's success in winning college scholarships for every senior for 30 years. -- His emphasis on a proper order of priorities -- God, family, education and then anything else, in that order. -- Handing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) the only defeat of his high school career. -- Winning DeMatha's fifth national championship. -- His special help for people like his former star who kidnapped Hillary Clinton's lawyer. -- His dramatic near-death experience in 1996 beforereceiving a liver transplant with only hours to spare in "a month of miracles". -- His remarkable comeback in 1997 to become the winningest coach in the history of basketball at any level.