Former UCLA player and coach Larry Farmer now coaching girls' basketball in Lake Forest
CHICAGO (CBS) -- He played for and coached at probably the premiere program in college basketball. Now, he's coaching high school girls' basketball.
Woodlands Academy is a small Catholic high school in Lake Forest that now has a big-time coach leading the girls' basketball team. CBS 2's Matt Zahn talked to the multi-championship winning player and coach to find out how he ended up on their sidelines.
Larry Farmer brings a lot of experience to the sideline, even if this is his first time coaching high school basketball.
"I didn't really know who he was at first, but all my family knew, and I did some research of my own," said junior forward Greer Talty. "I was so excited and confused on how he got this job here."
That is the million-dollar question. How did Farmer end up at Woodlands Academy?
Farmer played on one of the all-time great basketball teams under John Wooden at UCLA during the 1970s, before going on to coach there, and at Loyola University, among other stops. But he never got to do the job he says he always wanted, coaching high school basketball.
"I had retired from college coaching, but really felt that I needed to do something else with myself, rather than just sit around and count the days. I'd always wanted to be a high school coach. I thought my career would start me off at that level, and that I would have to work my way up, but it actually worked in reverse," Farmer said. "I started looking around for jobs, and applying for different high jobs, and I was really intrigued by this one, and I reached out, and did all of the necessary paperwork, and when I heard back from Woodlands, I was really excited."
Farmer takes much of his coaching style from John Wooden, which is cool for the players on his team, even if they may not know much about the legendary college basketball coach.
"We learned the UCLA cut, which, for the guards, I mean, that was a big deal for them. I went home and told my dad about it, and he was totally freaked out. He looked like a little boy on Christmas. I didn't know it was personally, but he did. He's a big basketball fan," said junior forward Caroline Holland.
"They're getting a lot of Wooden-isms. They're coming at them every day. Our very first practice, I put his definition of success on our board. You know, the goal was not winning or losing. We don't talk about winning, but it was working every day to become the very best person and player that you're capable of becoming," Farmer said.
Farmer said the high school girls listen better than most of the college players he's coached, and there's apparently another difference too.
"We were on the bus, headed to our first road game, and because a couple of the girls, they had a literature class the next day, we were on the bus going to the game, and they were reading Hamlet, Shakespeare, and I had to say, in 44 years of coaching, I have never been on team bus where the guys were reading Shakespeare. Nah, they were listening to rap music. Yeah, Shakespeare, not so much," Farmer said with a chuckle.
To coach high school basketball, or not to coach high school basketball, that is the question, answered with a resounding yes for Farmer.
"I'm having the time of my life. It is so much fun," he said.
Farmer's Bruins went 89-1 in games he played in, and they won three national titles. The 71-year-old was inducted into UCLA's Hall of Fame a few years ago.
He said Chicago is like home, even though he's not from here, since his kids basically grew up here while he was coaching at Loyola.
