Al McGuire Quotes

If you're straight with your players, they'll be straight with you.

I'm an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.

I went into a restaurant one night and ordered lobster, and the waiter brought me one with a claw missing. I called him over and told him about it. He told me that in the back there's a tank they keep the lobsters in and while they're in there, they fight and sometimes one loses a claw. I told him 'then bring me a winner.'

God didn't miss any of us.

I had my moment on the stage. The trick in life is to know when to leave.

On how to make the game more exciting - Eliminate the referees, raise the basket four feet, double the size of the basketball, limit the height of the players to 5 feet 9 inches, bring back the centre jump, allow taxi drivers in for free and allow the players to carry guns.

A team should be an extension of a coach's personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.

Dean Meminger was quicker than 11:15 Mass at a seaside resort.

The people who know basketball, their elevators don't go to the top.

I don't discuss basketball. I dictate basketball. I'm not interested in philosophy classes.

When I was losing, they called me nuts. When I was winning they called me eccentric.

Every obnoxious fan has a wife at home that dominates him.

I want my team to have my personality: surly, obnoxious, and arrogant.

When a guy takes off his coat, he's not going to fight. When a guy takes off his wristwatch, watch out!

If winning weren't important nobody would keep score.

I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated.

That's it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons.

Live in the moment that you are in.

You can always tell the Catholic schools by the length of the cheerleaders' skirts.

Our guys took Shop and Advanced Shop. Shop is when you make a chair. Advanced Shop is when you paint it.

Butch, you come from DeWitt Clinton. There are five thousand brothers in that school. You're the best there. You've been all-city two years in a row. How bad can you be? You come with me and we'll make nice music.

I tell the players that they can't relive any day in their lives and that they can't relive the minutes of a game, so they should make a great effort, a Mount Everest type effort, to live up to their potential. Success is a communal type thing, and if we win, then everyone can be considered successful and we can move uptown together.

If a player leaves Marquette and doesn't have some of my blood in him, then I don't think I've done a good job.

I'm not saying that they were Einsteins; they were marginal students. But every ballplayer whoever touched me has moved up his station in life. And the players moved up my station.

It's a profession in which, the longer you stay, the closer you are to being fired.

Winning is only important in war and surgery.

If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.

Help one kid at a time. He'll maybe go back and help a few more.

Live every day as if it were Saturday night.

Keep it simple, when you get too complex you forget the obvious.

I don't believe in looking past anybody - I wouldn't look past the Little Sisters of the Poor after they stayed up all night.

Remember, half the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.

There's no one who's dropped on top of the mountain. You've got to work your way to the top.

I come from New York where, if you fall down, someone will pick you up by your wallet.

I believe in a business boarding up early. If you make a mistake, you put the boards in the window of the store and say, "Hey, I made a mistake." Let me take two shots in the arm and a punch on the nose and let me get on to the next thing. I don't believe in worrying over failures. I worry about successes. This is opposite from most people. Most people zero in on their failures. I try to keep all my attention on a pyramid type philosophy rather than the averaging-down philosophy.

They call me eccentric. They used to call me nuts. I haven't changed. The only difference between being eccentric and being nuts is the number of security boxes you own.

Make your life exciting. Do what you have to do as long as you don't hurt people.

My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house. That's not my world. My world has a cracked sidewalk.

Life is what you allow yourself not to see.

The next time I will cry is when I die. My life has been that beautiful.

I don't think any decent human being enjoys recruiting.

I just can't recruit where there's grass around. You gotta have a concrete lawn before I feel comfortable enough to go in and talk to you parents.

I let ballplayers yell back at me because I wasn't trying to prove I'm boss. I know I'm boss.

Don't be just another guy going down the street and going nowhere.

Can't win without talent, you know.