DISNEY SHOW OFFERS LESSONS IN LIVING.

Byline: Luaine Lee Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

People such as former President Jimmy Carter, anthropologist Jane Goodall and astronomer Carl Sagan will converge electronically when the Disney Channel kicks off the new series "This I Believe" at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Based on the old Edward R. Murrow show, this 30-minute special will be a preview of the five-minute series, hosted by former CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt, which premieres at 8:55 p.m. Tuesday.

The program, which examines the thoughts and philosophies of people who have made a difference, originated as a radio show. Kuralt remembers hearing it on short wave.

"I was in college and I had one of those Zenith transoceanic portables, with glowing tubes. ... I think it was the best-listened-to broadcast of all, for a number of years. ... It does suggest that either on television or radio this notion of someone thinking seriously and expressing himself from the heart has appeal."

Some of the guests on the show will be Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, violinist Isaac Stern, Olympic champion boxer Oscar de la Hoya and famed former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who led his teams to 10 NCAA championships.

Wooden takes exception to his frequent designation as the best basketball coach in history. "To be considered among the best is fine. But no one is really the best. ... As I become older, I know that the things that have given me the greatest satisfaction are the fact that practically all the players that I had under my supervision graduated. And practically all have done well in their chosen professions."

Thirty have become attorneys, 10 are doctors, seven ministers, many are teachers and businessmen.

"I'd rather be remembered as one of them that was a teacher," said Wooden.

"That's all I ever considered myself to be, was a teacher who tried to help others along the way."

Asked to pick his favorite team, Wooden demurred, saying it was like choosing among his nine great-grandchildren.

"I've had teams that didn't win the national championship that gave me perhaps as much satisfaction as any that did," he said.

But his first team that won the national championship in 1964 is still in his heart. "It's kind of like the first-born, I guess. They didn't get along well off the floor, but on the floor they were just perfect unison. And they were the smallest team to ever win."

The next team that he remembers with special fondness is the team he calls "the team without." "That's the team without (championship player Lew) Alcindor," he remembered. (Alcindor later changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar).

"He'd graduated, and there are those who felt now that he was gone we'd get our comeuppance. And fortunately we didn't get our comeuppance. We did win the next four years in a row. That team immediately following him, they just wouldn't give up," he said.

"And the last team I ever coached, of course, gave me great satisfaction because they weren't expected to win." That was 1975, and Wooden remembers, "We had only one returning starter from the year before and then lost two superstars in Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes. So that one gave me a lot of satisfaction."

Kuralt says he was particularly impressed by former President Carter. "I can't wait for you to see him talking about how many people don't get started in great enterprises because of the fear of failure. I really do believe that just as the original series inspired and educated me when I was young ... I still have the hope that some young people will take away inspiring ideas."

On the show, Sagan says he believes, "If we want meaning in our lives, we can find it in the courage of our questions ... the depth of our answers and the necessity to care for one another."

Goodall is convinced that each of us makes a difference. "Every single one of us has a role to play in this life," she says in her segment of the program.

Wiesel thinks we must pass on our experiences. "Without memory," he says, "there is no culture, no civilization, no society, no humanity."