By W.G. Ramirez
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, Danny Ainge turned into a tri-sport superstar, excelling at North Eugene High School in football, basketball and baseball.
While he led the Highlanders’ basketball team to consecutive AAA state titles in 1976 and 1977, he was also a top recruit as a wide receiver.
Ainge would make the biggest decision of his life three years after graduating from high school, and after being selected in baseball’s 1977 amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays.
Though he made it to the majors with the Blue Jays in 1979 while still attending BYU, the former second baseman decided to pursue a career on the hardwood, where he’d eventually become the nation’s top player by his senior year.
“I wasn’t ready to go to the pros,” Ainge said during an interview on MLB Network’s Hot Stove. “I wanted to go to college, I wanted to play basketball, and I wanted to play baseball, and so that was my plan.
“The Jays ended up drafting me anyway … they came up with this idea that they were going to let me play college basketball if I would come and play with them.
“It just worked out great.”
Ainge shared his thoughts on playing with Bird, and credited the Hall of Famer with helping to build his confidence.
“He is a warrior, and he has an unbelievable work ethic,” Ainge said. “I always thought that I was a really confident athlete. But when I got side by side with Larry and he was on my team, he gave us all a little bit more confidence. Maybe the most confident person I’ve been around in my life.”
During his four-year career at BYU, Ainge was an All-American, a two-time first-team academic All-American, was named the WAC Player of the Year, and became a four-time all-WAC selection.
Ainge, as a college basketball player, might be best known for his infamous shot in the 1981 NCAA tournament, against Notre Dame in Atlanta in the Sweet Sixteen, where his coast-to-coast drive and lay-up with two seconds remaining gave the Cougars a one-point win.
“They had played a box-and-one the whole game, and so I was anticipating, I wanted to get the ball believing that I was going to be double-teamed at some point and I would have to find my teammates,” Ainge added, to an inquiring Harold Reynolds. “That was the pattern of that specific game.
“But they just spread out their defense a little bit too much and I was able to weave my way to the basket and get a lay-in that I never anticipated would happen.”
Ainge – who finished his college career having scored in double figures in 112 consecutive games, an NCAA record at that time – won the John R. Wooden Award in 1981.
Shortly thereafter, Ainge was taken in the second round of the NBA Draft, 31st overall, by the Boston Celtics. The 1980s Celtics will long be known as Larry Bird’s era, but the success of the franchise hinged on the team’s wealth of talent, including Ainge.
A savvy backcourt consisted of the late-great Dennis Johnson, a defensive menace, along with Ainge.
Ainge played nine seasons in Boston, where he won two championships and earned an All-Star nomination in 1988.
Ainge has spent the past two decades as an NBA executive, helping rebuild the Celtics into a league power, and is now with the Utah Jazz, serving as the CEO of basketball operations and alternate governor.