LOS ANGELES – The Michael Price Family UCLA Women's Head Basketball Coach Cori Close, who earlier this year led the program to its first NCAA championship, was honored Oct. 8 as the newest recipient of the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s prestigious John Wooden Global Leadership Award.

The award, presented at a gala dinner at Pauley Pavilion attended by more than 500 guests, recognized Close’s leadership on and off the court, her commitment to student-athletes’ development as people and her dedication to a values-based coaching philosophy, shaped in part by her personal relationship with the late Coach Wooden.

“We are honoring Cori because she manifests something Coach Wooden understood deeply: Leadership is ultimately about what you bring out in other people,” said Gareth James, dean of UCLA Anderson and UCLA’s John E. Anderson Professor of Management. “That combination — an uncompromising pursuit of excellence and a profound investment in others — makes Cori a particularly fitting recipient of an award that bears Coach Wooden’s name.”

First presented in 2008, the award recognizes individuals whose leadership style and service to the community reflect the high standards of performance, integrity and ethical values for which Wooden — the legendary UCLA basketball coach, author and leadership expert — was known. Previous honorees have included distinguished leaders from the worlds of business, sports and public service.

Leadership rooted in the lessons of Coach Wooden

Receiving the award was particularly meaningful for Close, a UCLA alumna who first met Wooden in 1993 when she became an assistant coach for the women’s team. Over the years, she said, she often turned to Wooden for guidance, but he rarely gave direct solutions, instead engaging her in conversations that helped her understand her own values and how she was wired to lead.

“I remember many times going to Coach and saying, ‘Coach, how would you do this? What would your advice be?’” Close recalled in her acceptance remarks. “And he would first say, ‘I don’t give advice, I only share my opinion.’ But even more often than not, he would ask more questions … to empower me to become a better thinker and to empower me to lead in a way, and learn in a way, that fits my personality.”

Close, now entering her 16th season as the Michael Price Family UCLA Women’s Head Basketball Coach, has put those lessons to extraordinary use.

In addition to guiding UCLA to its historic NCAA title last season with a remarkable 37–1 record, she was named Big Ten Coach of the Year. The previous season, when she led the Bruins to the Final Four, she earned the Naismith Coach of the Year Award, along with national coach of the year honors from the Associated Press, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. She is the first coach in UCLA women’s basketball history to amass more than 300 victories, compiling a record of 358–144, with 10 NCAA tournament appearances.

A championship program built on connection

Close’s coaching philosophy was at the heart of her lively conversation with UCLA alumnus Brian Cornell, former CEO and current executive chair of the board of Target Inc. and himself a recipient of the Wooden Award in 2022. When asked how she transforms a collection of great players into a great team, Close returned to a principle that has guided her leadership.

“You can’t have a committed team unless you have a connected team,” she said. “I want to learn. I want to give wisdom when appropriate. But I want to create a landscape where they feel empowered to become the best version of themselves. It’s our job as leaders to create a landscape where everybody can feel safe, seen and heard. And then we try to just celebrate what we want to see more of.”

Cornell wondered what Wooden might say if he were present to witness Close’s award. “First,” she replied, “he would say, ‘Don’t let it go to your head.’ I hope he would smile, and I hope he would feel that the time he put into me was time well spent.”

In presenting the award, UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt lauded Close’s leadership, which has produced results on the scoreboard while helping student-athletes develop the confidence and character to succeed beyond basketball.

“Great coaches win games and championships. The truly exceptional ones leave a mark on the people they lead, and through them, on communities far beyond their own teams,” Hunt said. “That is what you have done here at UCLA. You have made us proud, not only because of what you’ve accomplished but because of how you lead and what you stand for.”

Investing in the next generation of Bruin leaders

Net proceeds from the event help support the John Wooden Leadership Fellowships, given to UCLA Anderson students who embody Wooden’s leadership ideals and commitment to improving the lives of others. Three students — Coco (Hsiu-Wen) Cheng, Caleigh Hernandez and Nisha Viswanathan — were honored with 2026 fellowships, each carrying a $35,000 award.

Al Osborne, professor emeritus and faculty director emeritus of Anderson’s Price Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, introduced the new fellows and reflected on the kind of leadership Wooden championed.

“Coach taught us that character matters, that how you achieve something matters as much as the achievement itself,” said Osborne. “The true measure of a leader can be found in the lives they touch along the way. Our newest fellows carry those values forward. You understand that leadership is not simply about what you accomplish — it is about who you lift up, what you stand for and what you leave behind.”

Juhie Rathor, a 2023 fellow and current marketing executive, honored the 2024 and 2025 Wooden Fellows and spoke about the importance of empathy and respect in leadership.

“For Coach Wooden, leadership was about far more than achievement. It was about character,” she said. “It was grounded in empathy, care and a deep respect for the people you have the privilege to lead. That idea has stayed with me because empathy is at the heart of the kind of leader I want to be — and the kind of leader I know so many Wooden Fellows aspire to be.”

More Wooden lessons to last a lifetime

The 2026 John Wooden Global Leadership Award program began with a tribute to Wooden that featured remarks from National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Famer Marques Johnson, who starred on Coach Wooden’s final championship team in 1975, and John Vallely, a standout on Wooden’s 1969 and 1970 NCAA title–winning squads.

“The most important thing that a coach could do is love his players,” said Johnson, who joked that Wooden might not have liked all his players, but he did love them all. “Coach Wooden fostered this atmosphere of camaraderie, all of us feeling like we were part of something big, something special.”

Vallely shared another of Wooden’s enduring lessons:

“Never try to be better than someone else, but never cease trying to be the best that you can be. Why would any of us ever compare ourselves to another human being? There’s not another one on Earth that is like us.”