John Wooden’s “Three Outs” Applies to All Sports, Not Just Baseball
Typically when you hear the term “three outs” as a sports metaphor, your mind immediately thinks of baseball: “Three strikes and you’re out!” This metaphor generally means that you have three shots at making a mistake and then you’re in trouble.
While this usage can come in handy quite often, I now like John Wooden’s take on the concept of “three outs” much better.
In John Wooden’s book They Call Me Coach, Wooden tells numerous inspiring and fascinating stories about his life and career. In short, this is a book of stories Wooden tells with first person narration. Starting with how he grew up, all the way through his retirement. Needless to say, this book is a treasure.
There is one story in particular that really stuck with me. It was Wooden recounting the lessons he learned from the coach who had the greatest influence on his coaching career. This coach’s name was Piggie Lambert.
It was from Lambert that Wooden got his concept of “three outs”. This concept stuck with him as the primary coaching philosophy he built his unbelievable coaching career upon. Lambert would say:
You must out think, out maneuver, and out condition your opponent.
Unquestionably, these “three outs” are enough to win any competition in any sport. If any athlete wins in these three areas, they’re virtually unbeatable. What’s more, winning these “three outs” is why John Wooden is the undisputed best basketball coach of all time and arguably the best coach in any sport of all time.