40 Fun Facts About John R. Wooden Award

The Wooden Award was created in the 1970s to be college basketball's answer to which football honor?

The Heisman Trophy was the model: the founding club wanted one prize the whole country would accept as naming the best player in college basketball.

Which Indiana State forward won the 1979 Wooden Award before starring for the Boston Celtics?

Larry Bird won it after leading Indiana State through an unbeaten regular season, a run that ended in the NCAA final against Michigan State.

What does each of the five bronze figures on the Wooden Award trophy represent?

A basketball skill each: rebounding, passing, shooting, dribbling and defense, the five John Wooden believed a complete player must show.

Which Texas forward became the first freshman to win the Wooden Award, doing so in 2007?

Kevin Durant swept every major player-of-the-year honor after his single season at Texas, something no freshman had managed before.

Which Iowa guard won back-to-back Wooden Awards while becoming Division I's all-time leading scorer?

Caitlin Clark took the women's award as a junior and again as a senior, and carried Iowa to the national title game in both seasons.

John Wooden, coach of ten NCAA championship teams in twelve years, was known by which nickname?

Wizard of Westwood stuck to him through 27 seasons in that corner of California, though Wooden personally disdained the name.

Which US president presented John Wooden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

George W. Bush presented it after a three-year campaign by Andre McCarter, who played on Wooden's final title team in 1975.

John Wooden was the first person enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in which two roles?

Player and coach: Wooden went in first in 1960 for his playing career, then again in 1973 for the dynasty he built from the bench.

Besides excelling on court, Wooden Award candidates must stay above a set minimum in which measure?

Grade point average matters here: a candidate needs a cumulative 2.0 and must be a full-time student making progress toward a degree.

Which North Carolina guard won the 1984 Wooden Award, then went third overall in that year's NBA draft?

Michael Jordan left North Carolina a year early after sweeping the 1984 player-of-the-year honors, then went back to finish his degree in 1986.

Which Duke freshman won the 2019 Wooden Award, then went first overall to the New Orleans Pelicans?

Zion Williamson won it weeks after his shoe split apart against North Carolina, a slip that wiped $1.1 billion off Nike's market value the next day.

Which Wake Forest center, a competitive swimmer as a boy in the Virgin Islands, won the 1997 Wooden Award?

Tim Duncan stayed in college all four years, partly to keep a promise to his dying mother that he would graduate.

Which Navy center won the 1987 Wooden Award, then served on active duty before his NBA debut in 1989?

David Robinson, later nicknamed the Admiral, had already outgrown the Naval Academy's own height limit by the time his first classes began.

Which Kentucky freshman won the 2012 Wooden Award months before going first in the NBA draft?

Anthony Davis also led Kentucky to the national championship that spring and was named the tournament's most outstanding player.

Which Duke freshman from Maine won the 2025 Wooden Award before going first in the NBA draft?

Cooper Flagg was 18 when he won it, and that summer the Dallas Mavericks made him the first pick of the draft.

Which 7-foot-4 Virginia center won the Wooden Award in both 1982 and 1983?

Ralph Sampson was the award's first repeat winner, and he then went first overall in the 1983 NBA draft.

Which BYU guard won the 1981 Wooden Award while also playing pro baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays?

Danny Ainge reached the major leagues as a Blue Jays infielder in 1979 while still in college, then chose basketball and joined the Celtics.

Which Duke forward won the 1992 Wooden Award and was the only collegian on the Olympic Dream Team?

Christian Laettner swept the major player-of-the-year honors as a senior, the same spring his last-second shot beat Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.

Which Oklahoma sophomore won the 2009 Wooden Award three days after announcing he would turn pro?

Blake Griffin was the first Oklahoma player to win it, and that June he was the first name called in the NBA draft.

Which Canadian center, who grew up on hockey and baseball, won Wooden Awards in 2023 and 2024?

Zach Edey was the first man to repeat in four decades, and his final college game was the national championship final.

Which Tennessee forward, the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game, won two Wooden Awards?

Candace Parker won in 2007 and 2008, and in each of those seasons she carried Tennessee to the national championship.

Which UConn forward won the 2015 and 2016 Wooden Awards during a run of four straight national titles?

Breanna Stewart was also named the Final Four's most outstanding player in all four of those title runs, a record.

Which UConn forward won Wooden Awards in 2009 and 2011 as the Huskies built a then-record 90-game winning streak?

Maya Moore first won it as a sophomore, after a national championship season in which her team never lost a game.

Which Baylor center won the 2012 and 2013 Wooden Awards, the first during an unbeaten title season?

Brittney Griner's 2012 Baylor team finished with 40 wins, the most any college team had recorded in one season.

Which Oregon guard, holder of Division I's career triple-double record, won two straight Wooden Awards?

Sabrina Ionescu won in 2019 and 2020, and along the way she took the Oregon women to the first Final Four in their history.

Which UConn guard became the first freshman to win the women's Wooden Award, in 2021?

Paige Bueckers swept every national award she was eligible for that season, yet had to wait until 2025 for her first championship.

Which South Carolina star won the 2018 Wooden Award a year after the Gamecocks' first national title?

A'ja Wilson swept all six national player-of-the-year honors that season and left as South Carolina's all-time leading scorer.

Which USC guard won the 2025 women's Wooden Award a year after setting Division I's freshman scoring record?

JuJu Watkins won as a sophomore playing in her own hometown, where she had been the country's top-ranked high school recruit.

Which Duke guard was the first winner when the Wooden Award was opened to women in 2004?

Alana Beard took the first women's trophy as a senior, then went second overall in that spring's WNBA draft.

Which LSU guard became the first two-time women's Wooden Award winner, in 2005 and 2006?

Seimone Augustus led LSU to three straight Final Fours, then went first overall in the 2006 WNBA draft.

Which private organization created the Wooden Award and still hosts its annual trophy presentation?

Los Angeles Athletic Club has run the award since founding it in 1975, and a permanent copy of the trophy is displayed in its own building.

John Wooden became college basketball's first three-time All-American while playing guard for which school?

Purdue also saw him named national player of the year in 1932, long before his championship teams made him famous as a coach.

Marques Johnson won the very first Wooden Award in 1977 as a senior forward at which school?

UCLA was John Wooden's own program: he recruited Johnson by phone minutes after the 1973 title game, then retired two years before the first award.

John Wooden arranged 15 qualities, including industriousness and enthusiasm, into which famous diagram?

Pyramid of Success puts competitive greatness at its peak, meaning the ability to perform at your best when it matters most.

The first Wooden Legends of Coaching Award in 1999 went to which coach of 36 years at North Carolina?

Dean Smith had retired two years earlier with 879 victories, at the time the most of any men's Division I coach.

Which Creighton forward won the 2014 Wooden Award while playing for his father, the head coach?

Doug McDermott had first signed with Northern Iowa, but was released from that commitment once his father took the Creighton job.

Which Kansas forward won the 1988 Wooden Award after leading an 11-loss team to the national title?

Danny Manning's 1988 Jayhawks were dubbed Danny and the Miracles, and twenty years later he won a second title there as an assistant coach.

Which Wisconsin forward won the 2015 Wooden Award after the Badgers ended Kentucky's 38–0 run?

Frank Kaminsky scored 20 points in that Final Four upset, then watched Wisconsin let a second-half lead slip in the title game against Duke.

Which Saint Joseph's point guard won the 2004 Wooden Award after a 27–0 regular season?

Jameer Nelson had declared for the NBA draft a year earlier, then changed his mind and returned for that senior season.

Which Australian center from Utah won the 2005 Wooden Award, then went first overall in the NBA draft?

Andrew Bogut became the first Australian taken with the top pick of an NBA draft when the Milwaukee Bucks selected him.