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

Al McGuire

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Al McGuire
Age: 72 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 7
Died: 2001
Died: January 26
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
Queens
New York
Sports
Winning
War
Important
Really
Overrated
Time
Surgery
Basketball
Leadership

More quotes by Al McGuire

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The people who know basketball, their elevators don't go to the top.
Al McGuire
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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
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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
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When I'm losing, they call me nuts. When I'm winning, they call me eccentric.
Al McGuire
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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
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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
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Our guys took Shop and Advanced Shop. Shop is when you make a chair. Advanced Shop is when you paint it.
Al McGuire
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I'm an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.
Al McGuire
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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
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It's a profession in which, the longer you stay, the closer you are to being fired.
Al McGuire
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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
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Help one kid at a time. He'll maybe go back and help a few more.
Al McGuire
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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
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That's it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons.
Al McGuire
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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
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Live in the moment that you are in.
Al McGuire
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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
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We rush for the stars as we crawl toward our graves.
Al McGuire
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God didn't miss any of us.
Al McGuire
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If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.
Al McGuire