The admiration and respect that former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden has for Spurs center David Robinson dates back to the first time he met him.

Robinson received the John Wooden Award from the Los Angeles Athletic Club as college basketball's player of the year in 1987, when he was a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy.

"I got to know him a little bit then and I thought he was a remarkable person," Wooden said Friday in a telephone interview from his home in Encino, Calif. "He has a stately appearance, but it's not only the way he looks.

"There's something inside him that stands out. He's at peace with himself."