I just finished listening to the audio recording of a book called The Greatest Coach Ever that was produced by The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Christian Audio. In July 2009, Sporting News Magazine awarded the title of the Greatest Coach of All Time to John Wooden.

Now, I am in no way a sports enthusiast. In fact, the only times I recall actually enjoying watching sports was when my son, my nephews and great-nephews were playing them. The reason I was drawn to this book is because I recognized the name, John Wooden. I saw a brief video of him in a class several years ago. All I knew about him was that he coached a sport (I learned from this book that it was basketball) and he shared life principles with his teams, as well as others during the latter part of his life.

This book was quite an inspiration to me. Did it make me want to go watch a basketball game? Definitely not. It inspired me to be my very best and made me want to learn more from the works of John Wooden. You see, Coach Wooden won many basketball games and championships, but he was awarded this title because of the positive impact he had on many people. In fact, this book is a compilation of stories shared by some of those people.

Coach Wooden lived his life striving to be like and honor Jesus Christ, and encouraging others. He taught his players how to be their best, from wearing their shoes properly to maintaining the right attitude so they could succeed, not only in sports, but in life. This quote by Coach Wooden was one of the highlights of this book to me. “Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” It was mentioned in the book that there were times when Coach Wooden was pleased with his team when they won, but also times he was proud of them when they didn’t win. He was only satisfied when he knew they had done their very best.

What a life lesson for us all. Even if we accomplish great things in life and positively impact many other people, we are not truly successful unless we have done our very best.

I must ask myself, “Am I the greatest Carolyn Hayes Guyton ever? What about you – are you the greatest possible you . . . ?