Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Charlotte Grinberg, a doctor specializing in end-of-life care, wrote an inspiring essay about facing death. This week, we’re bringing you reflections from a man who aged more gracefully than just about anyone we know: legendary basketball coach George Raveling, who died Monday at the age of 88. When Raveling’s book, What You’re Made For, was published in March, Bari interviewed him for an episode of Honestly. She was so impressed that she told me I should enlist him to write an Ancient Wisdom essay. Alas, I didn’t take her advice. I’m hoping to make up for it now with this excerpt from the last chapter of his book. It is titled: “To Live.”

—Joe Nocera

In 1994, at the age of 57, I was driving through the streets of Los Angeles on my way to pick up a recruit for the University of Southern California basketball team, which I’d been coaching since 1986. It was a route I had taken countless times before, one that allowed me to avoid the freeway and, as is usually the case in Los Angeles when you avoid the freeways, to get there faster. As I approached an intersection, I looked both ways, saw it was clear, and proceeded. The next thing I knew, a car slammed into me, propelling my car into the front yard of a house on the corner.

The impact was so severe that I blacked out instantly. The first thing I remember is hearing a police officer’s voice: “Coach, can you hear me? Coach?” As I regained consciousness, the severity of the situation began to dawn on me.

As the police prepared to take me to the hospital, one officer turned to me and said, “Coach, I’ve been on the force for 25 years. You don’t know how lucky you are. Ninety-five percent of the time, when I get to a scene like this, the person is dead.”

I had suffered a broken pelvis, nine broken ribs, a broken clavicle, a collapsed lung, and bleeding in my chest. I spent two weeks in intensive care and a considerable amount of time in the hospital after that. The doctors later told me that when I first arrived, they weren’t sure I was going to make it.

The pain was excruciating, but it was managed by the steady stream of medication I was given. What I remember most about my time in the hospital are the endless hours I spent lying in bed, thinking...