Taking a Stand

“The maddest I’d ever seen him was the day
he came to bail me out of jail
after a peace rally at UCLA.

Driving me home, he was in my face.
‘How can you do this?
How can you let everybody down?’

I told him, ‘Coach, I have friends
coming back from Vietnam in body bags.’

He told me I was right about the war,
but I was going about it the wrong way,
that I should write letters.”

–former UCLA basketball player Bill Walton on Coach John Wooden

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