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

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
Player
Players
Straight
Basketball

More quotes by 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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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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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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Life is what you allow yourself not to see.
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'm an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.
Al McGuire
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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
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The people who know basketball, their elevators don't go to the top.
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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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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The world is run by C students
Al McGuire
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You better have great practices.
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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When I'm losing, they call me nuts. When I'm winning, they call me eccentric.
Al McGuire
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The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.
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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Can't win without talent, you know.
Al McGuire
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I want my team to have my personality: surly, obnoxious, and arrogant.
Al McGuire
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The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
Al McGuire
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I don't think any decent human being enjoys recruiting.
Al McGuire