"PAPA BEAR" Sam Gilbert - The dark side of the UCLA basketball dynasty
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jun-08-la-sp-0609-wooden-gilbert-20100609-story.html By CHRIS DUFRESNE Los Angeles Times - JUNE 8, 2010 John R. Wooden, who died Friday at age 99 , left for the ages an exemplary body of work in which the rewards, ten-fold, outweighed the trials. No rendering of Wooden’s legacy, though, is complete without mention of a man who influenced one of sport’s most unimpeachable dynasties: Sam Gilbert . If Wooden was the father figure of UCLA basketball, Gilbert was its shadowy one. Gilbert was a small, burly, self-made man with unfettered devotion to the Bruins . He could be benevolent yet, to nose-poking reporters, a bully. He attended UCLA in the 1930s but did not graduate, later to make his fortune as a contractor. UCLA players recalled his showing up after Bruins games in the 1960s, dispensing apples and oranges. He forged bonds with many Bruins who helped hang 10 national championship banners from 1964 to 197