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.
Al McGuireOur guys took Shop and Advanced Shop. Shop is when you make a chair. Advanced Shop is when you paint it.
Al McGuireI let ballplayers yell back at me because I wasn't trying to prove I'm boss. I know I'm boss.
Al McGuireI 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.'
Al McGuireIt's so ridiculous to see a golfer with a one foot putt and everybody is saying "Shhh" and not moving a muscle. Then we allow nineteen year-old kids to face a game-deciding free throw with seventeen thousand people yelling.
Al McGuireI 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.
Al McGuireIf 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.
Al McGuireButch, 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.
Al McGuireThey 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.
Al McGuireIt bothers me that the average fan, the average sportswriter for that matter, pays so much attention to what's in a box score. A box score does not properly represent the most important thing - team play. It shows some guy scoring 27 points, but it doesn't show that my 27-point man let his guy score 30.
Al McGuireOn 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.
Al McGuireDon't call me son unless you're going to include me in your will. (When Adolph Rupp called him, "Son.")
Al McGuireA team should be an extension of a coach's personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.
Al McGuireI 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.
Al McGuireI'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.
Al McGuireI don't know why people question the academic training of an athlete. Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.
Al McGuireI 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.
Al McGuireThe nicest thing about coaching is that one day you feel like you can play handball against a curb, and on other days you feel like you can fly to the moon.
Al McGuire