Who Knew Neatness Was Next to Greatness?

Lynn Shackelford, starting forward on UCLA’s national championship basketball teams in 1967, ’68 and ‘69, learned early what it was going to be like to play for John Wooden.

“I’m right out of high school,” Shackelford says in an upcoming CSTV documentary on Wooden. “We have our first meeting two days before our first practice. The topic of the meeting, conducted by John Wooden, is keeping our fingernails trimmed and keeping our shirttails tucked in.

“And I’m thinking, ‘How in the world did they win two national championships talking about this?’ What I learned was that great things can only be accomplished through the perfection of minor details.”

More on Wooden: Gail Goodrich, the All-American guard on the Bruins’ national championship teams in 1964 and ’65 who was inducted into the Pacific 10 men’s basketball Hall of Honor on Wednesday night, says in the documentary, which begins airing April 3, that Wooden never talked about winning.

“He only talked about, at the end of the game, being able to come in, after it’s over, and look yourself in the mirror and say that you played the very best you could that night,” Goodrich says.

Trivia time: Gene Conley, the former Washington State center who was also inducted into the Pac-10 Hall of Honor on Wednesday night, is unique for what achievement as a pro athlete?

Talk about flashes: Jim Brown’s lacrosse prowess at Syracuse is detailed in “Flashing Before My Eyes,” Dick Schaap’s autobiography published in 2000. The eighth chapter is titled “How I Stopped Jim Brown.” Schaap, who called Brown “the best lacrosse player who ever lived,” faced him as a goalie for Colgate in a 1955 game.

Although Brown scored the game-winning goal in overtime, Schaap recounts how three of his 22 saves against Syracuse came on shots by Brown -- that he never saw.

Stating the obvious: Dan Daly of the Washington Times, on a North Carolina study suggesting that 56% of NFL players are obese by some standards: “Another study by the same people determined that 97.4% of NBA players are tall.”

Looking back: On this day in 2002, John Stockton had 13 assists in Utah’s 95-92 loss at Houston to give him 15,000 regular-season assists in his career. He retired in 2003 as the NBA’s all-time leader with 15,806. Second is Mark Jackson with 10,334 and Magic Johnson is third with 10,141.

Trivia answer: He was a member of an NBA champion and a World Series champion. He was Bill Russell’s backup on the Boston Celtic championship teams of 1959, ’60 and ‘61, and was a pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 when they beat the New Yankees in the World Series.

And finally: Rick Neuheisel got a settlement from the University of Washington and NCAA worth $4.7 million. But Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times says it’s not a total victory for the former football coach -- “unless, of course, he also hit the over-under for damages in a court stenographers’ office pool.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.