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.

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.

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.

Don't call me son unless you're going to include me in your will. (When Adolph Rupp called him, "Son.")

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

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.

The 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.