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

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
Team
Surly
Obnoxious
Arrogant
Coaches
Personality

More quotes by 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 don't discuss basketball. I dictate basketball. I'm not interested in philosophy classes.
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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The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.
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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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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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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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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That's it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons.
Al McGuire
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If winning weren't important nobody would keep score.
Al McGuire
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Keep it simple, when you get too complex you forget the obvious.
Al McGuire
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Winning is only important in war and surgery.
Al McGuire
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Can't win without talent, you know.
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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Remember, half the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.
Al McGuire
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Live every day as if it were Saturday night.
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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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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A team should be an extension of a coach's personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.
Al McGuire
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You measure a player from the head up.
Al McGuire