Al McGuire famous quotes

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

#Basketball #Kids #Helping

The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
-- Al McGuire

#Funny #Hilarious #Humorous

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

#Basketball #Philosophy #Class

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Education #College

God didn't miss any of us.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Missing

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.'
-- Al McGuire

#Fighting #Night #Missing

The world is run by C students
-- Al McGuire

#Running #World #Students

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

#Basketball #Profession

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

#Basketball #Fighting #Guy

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

#Basketball #Team #Personality

Winning is overrated. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war.
-- Al McGuire

#Leadership #Basketball #Sports

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

#Race #Balloons #Curtains

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Money #Nuts #Differences

Life is what you allow yourself not to see.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Life Is

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Moon #Play

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

#Basketball #New York #Fall

If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Dirty #Ankles

If winning weren't important nobody would keep score.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Winning #Important

Can't win without talent, you know.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Winning #Talent

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

#Basketball #Guy #Paint

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

#Sports #Simple #Forget

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Brother #Nice

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

#Basketball #Oxford #Common Sense

It'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 McGuire

#Moving #Kids #Golf

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

#Graduation #Basketball #Country

Live in the moment that you are in.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Live In The Moment #Moments

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

#Basketball #Hurt #Long

You measure a player from the head up.
-- Al McGuire

#Motivational #Sports #Player

I 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 McGuire

#Sports #Country #Silly

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

#Basketball #Winning #Nuts

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

#Thinking #Enjoy #Decent

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

#Basketball #School #Catholic

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #College #Parent

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

#Basketball #Player

The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Freshman #Sophomore

Winning is only important in war and surgery.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #War #Winning

When I'm losing, they call me nuts. When I'm winning, they call me eccentric.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Winning #Nuts

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

#Basketball #Life Is #Moments

We rush for the stars as we crawl toward our graves.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Stars #Graves

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Jobs #Player

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Believe #Past

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

#Basketball #People #Elevators

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

#Basketball #Boss #Trying

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

#Basketball #Son #Call Me

You better have great practices.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Practice #Coaching

All love affairs end. Eventually the girl is gonna put curlers in her hair.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Girl #Hair

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Player #Students

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

#Basketball #Beautiful #Next

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Inspirational #Funny #Basketball

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

#Basketball #Dean #Resorts

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Kids #House

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.
-- Al McGuire

#Leadership #Sports #Zero

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 McGuire

#Sports #Moving #Successful

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

#Team #Personality #Arrogant

It 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 McGuire

#Team #Men #Average

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

#Mountain #Way

Live every day as if it were Saturday night.
-- Al McGuire

#Basketball #Night #Saturday

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

#Basketball #Guy #Other Guys