{"id":62968,"date":"2025-11-05T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/?post_type=lecture&#038;p=62968"},"modified":"2026-03-30T19:12:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:12:39","slug":"jerry-west","status":"publish","type":"lecture","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/jerry-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry West"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><section class=\"wp-block-umw-hero alignfull umw-custom-block umw-hero umw-hero--dark-text umw-hero--white umw-hero--with-no-media\"><div class=\"umw-hero__inner\"><div class=\"umw-hero__media\"><\/div><div class=\"umw-hero__title\"><div class=\"container\"><div class=\"umw-hero__title__wrapper\"><div class=\"umw-hero__eyebrow\">great lives lecture series<\/div><h1 class=\"umw-hero__title__header\"><strong>Jerry West<\/strong><\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-umw-hero-ctas alignfull\"><div class=\"umw-hero__links\"><div class=\"container\"><div class=\"umw-hero__links__wrapper\">\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Great Lives 2026: Jerry West\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1165477849?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1100\" height=\"619\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-lecture-date-february-12-2026\">Lecture Date: February 12, 2026<\/h2><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-stephen-gaske-and-patricia-powers-gaske-75-lecture\">The Stephen Gaske and Patricia Powers Gaske &rsquo;75 Lecture<\/h3><div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"1944\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62966\" style=\"width:276px;height:auto\" title=\"\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover.jpg 1280w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover-198x300.jpg 198w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover-674x1024.jpg 674w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover-768x1166.jpg 768w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover-1011x1536.jpg 1011w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover-751x1140.jpg 751w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div><p>Jerry West has been the Logo of the NBA since 1969, one of the greatest players and executives the game has ever known, the only person to be inducted three times into the Naismith Hall of Fame&mdash;as a player for the Los Angeles Lakers, as a member of the gold-medal-winning 1960 Olympic Team, and as the mastermind behind numerous championships. In 2008, he approached Jonathan Coleman to collaborate with him on the story of his life, a life of darkness in many ways, a probing and provocative exploration of perfectionism and competitiveness and how one makes one&rsquo;s way in the world. The result of that collaboration was <em>WEST BY WEST: My Charmed, Tormented Life<\/em>, considered by many to be one of the best sports books of all time, in large part because it is not really a &ldquo;sports book&rdquo; per se. (&ldquo;Exceptional,&ldquo; said Gay Talese, and from <em>The New Yorker<\/em>: &ldquo;Deeply thoughtful in a way rare among books by former athletes.&rdquo;) In the wake of West&rsquo;s death in 2024, Coleman revealed that the relationship between subject and author was &ldquo;a marriage of sorts,&rdquo; based on complete trust, and that they were, in their own way, &ldquo;undivorceable.&rdquo;<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1FXEDXyITyOOsbqTgen5W0J3nu1M0hCW9\/edit?usp=sharing&amp;ouid=103238403274382254745&amp;rtpof=true&amp;sd=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">VIEW PHOTO SLIDESHOW<div class=\"arrow\"><\/div><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><p><\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-speaker-jonathan-coleman\">Speaker: Jonathan Coleman<\/h2><div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-63028\" style=\"width:236px;height:auto\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15.png 400w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15-300x300.png 300w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15-150x150.png 150w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15-50x50.png 50w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/10\/15-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div><p>Jonathan Coleman is the author of five critically acclaimed works of narrative nonfiction (three of which have been <em>New York Times<\/em> bestsellers), and he has published in <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, <em>New York Magazine<\/em>, <em>The New York Times<\/em>, <em>The American Scholar<\/em>, <em>Time<\/em>, <em>Newsweek<\/em>, and <em>The Washington Post<\/em>, among other publications. He taught narrative nonfiction writing at the University of Virginia for many years, and has been a visiting writer at many other universities. He was a book editor at Knopf and Simon and Schuster, a broadcast journalist at CBS News, is a contributing editor to <em>The Sunday Long Read<\/em>, and a consultant to the<em> Oxford Dictionary of African American Englis<\/em>h. He lives in New York City.<\/p><p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"season":[1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-62968","1":"lecture","2":"type-lecture","3":"status-publish","5":"season-1263","6":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jerry West - Great Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/jerry-west\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jerry West\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lecture Date: February 12, 2026The Stephen Gaske and Patricia Powers Gaske &rsquo;75 LectureJerry West has been the Logo of the NBA since 1969, one of the greatest players and executives the game has ever known, the only person to be inducted three times into the Naismith Hall of Fame&mdash;as a player for the Los Angeles [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/jerry-west\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Great Lives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-30T23:12:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/08\/West_cover.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1944\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.umw.edu\\\/greatlives\\\/lecture\\\/jerry-west\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.umw.edu\\\/greatlives\\\/lecture\\\/jerry-west\\\/\",\"name\":\"Jerry West - 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