Top 50 Al McGuire Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Keep it simple. When you get too complex, you forget the obvious.”

— Al McGuire

Featured in: Common Sense Quotes

2. “Live every day as if it were Saturday night.”

— Al McGuire

3. “The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.”

— Al McGuire

4. “The world is run by C students.”

— Al McGuire

5. “That’s it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons.”

— Al McGuire

6. “There’s no one who’s dropped on top of the mountain. You’ve got to work your way to the top.”

— Al McGuire

7. “I let ballplayers yell back at me because I wasn’t trying to prove I’m boss. I know I’m boss.”

— Al McGuire

Featured in: Boss Quotes

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

— Al McGuire

9. “Life is what you allow yourself not to see.”

— Al McGuire

10. “If the waitress has dirty ankles, the chili is good.”

— Al McGuire

11. “When a guy takes off his coat, he’s not going to fight. When a guy takes off his wristwatch, watch out!”

— Al McGuire

12. “I had my moment on the stage. The trick in life is to know when to leave.”

— Al McGuire

13. “We rush for the stars as we crawl toward our graves.”

— Al McGuire

14. “I’m an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.”

— Al McGuire

15. “I don’t think any decent human being enjoys recruiting.”

— Al McGuire

16. “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

17. “Our guys took Shop and Advanced Shop. Shop is when you make a chair. Advanced Shop is when you paint it.”

— Al McGuire

18. “Don’t be just another guy going down the street and going nowhere.”

— Al McGuire

19. “The next time I will cry is when I die. My life has been that beautiful.”

— Al McGuire

20. “The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.”

— Al McGuire

21. “A team should be an extension of a coach’s personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.”

— Al McGuire

22. “Winning is only important in war and surgery.”

— Al McGuire

23. “Dean Meminger was quicker than 11:15 Mass at a seaside resort.”

— Al McGuire

24. “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

25. “Make your life exciting. Do what you have to do as long as you don’t hurt people.”

— Al McGuire

26. “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

27. “Every obnoxious fan has a wife at home that dominates him.”

— Al McGuire

28. “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

29. “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

30. “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

31. “Help one kid at a time. He’ll maybe go back and help a few more.”

— Al McGuire

32. “I come from New York where, if you fall down, someone will pick you up by your wallet.”

— Al McGuire

33. “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

34. “Live in the moment that you are in.”

— Al McGuire

35. “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

36. “If you’re straight with your players, they’ll be straight with you.”

— Al McGuire

37. “God didn’t miss any of us.”

— Al McGuire

38. “All love affairs end. Eventually the girl is gonna put curlers in her hair.”

— Al McGuire

39. “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

40. “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

41. “When I’m losing, they call me nuts. When I’m winning, they call me eccentric.”

— Al McGuire

42. “I don’t discuss basketball. I dictate basketball. I’m not interested in philosophy classes.”

— Al McGuire

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

— Al McGuire

44. “If winning weren’t important nobody would keep score.”

— Al McGuire

45. “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

46. “It’s a profession in which, the longer you stay, the closer you are to being fired.”

— Al McGuire

47. “Can’t win without talent, you know.”

— Al McGuire

48. “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

49. “You measure a player from the head up.”

— Al McGuire

50. “The people who know basketball, their elevators don’t go to the top.”

— Al McGuire