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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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Al McGuire
Age: 72 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 7
Died: 2001
Died: January 26
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
Queens
New York
Wouldn
Recruit
House
Sidewalk
Kids
Cracked
World
Grass
Rule
Basketball
Fronts
Front

More quotes by Al McGuire

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If winning weren't important nobody would keep score.
Al McGuire
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I don't discuss basketball. I dictate basketball. I'm not interested in philosophy classes.
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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I'm an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.
Al McGuire
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I let ballplayers yell back at me because I wasn't trying to prove I'm boss. I know I'm boss.
Al McGuire
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Make your life exciting. Do what you have to do as long as you don't hurt people.
Al McGuire
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The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
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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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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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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If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.
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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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
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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
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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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I had my moment on the stage. The trick in life is to know when to leave.
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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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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We rush for the stars as we crawl toward our graves.
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