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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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Al McGuire
Age: 72 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 7
Died: 2001
Died: January 26
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
Queens
New York
Eccentric
Nuts
Basketball
Losing
Winning
Call

More quotes by Al McGuire

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If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.
Al McGuire
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Don't be just another guy going down the street and going nowhere.
Al McGuire
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I want my team to have my personality: surly, obnoxious, and arrogant.
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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Don't call me son unless you're going to include me in your will. (When Adolph Rupp called him, Son.)
Al McGuire
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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
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A team should be an extension of a coach's personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.
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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Keep it simple, when you get too complex you forget the obvious.
Al McGuire
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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
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All love affairs end. Eventually the girl is gonna put curlers in her hair.
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 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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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
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That's it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons.
Al McGuire
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The world is run by C students
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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The people who know basketball, their elevators don't go to the top.
Al McGuire
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When a guy takes off his coat, he's not going to fight. When a guy takes off his wristwatch, watch out!
Al McGuire
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If winning weren't important nobody would keep score.
Al McGuire