When Al McGuire died last Friday, just about everyone had a story about him they wanted to share. What they wanted to talk about was an exceptional human being and a life well lived.
That wasn't because McGuire showed up on the planet with an array of benefits. He was born poor, the son of an Irish immigrant saloonkeeper. Years later, he would use what he learned from that starting point to help him recruit basketball players for his teams at Belmont Abby and Marquette. "My rule," he said, "was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house. My world was a cracked sidewalk."
There weren't any great athletic gifts, either. One thing you can learn from Al McGuire is that you have to be realistic about what you're good at and build on that. Al learned that lesson from playground basketball.
Playground basketball hasn't changed much since the days when Al McGuire and his brother Dick were playing against other Italian and Irish kids like Bob Cousy. Today's players are more likely to be African-American, but playground basketball is still just about a pure meritocracy.
It works this way. You get to play early if folks want you on their team. If they don't you get to stand along the fence for a while, waiting your turn to play. And, on the playground they want a good team, because you have to keep winning to play.
This isn't like the pros or college or high school or those games you see on TV where one team scores and then the other team gets the ball. On the playground, it's "winners out." If you score you get the ball and another chance to score. If you can't stop the other team from scoring, you may never even get to take a shot.
And if you win, you don't get lots of bucks or headlines. But you do get to play again. The winning team gets to keep the court and play against the next challenger. If you're good, and your team is good, you can play all day. Otherwise, it's back to standing by the fence and waiting.
The problem was, that as a basketball player, Al just wasn't that good. He was pretty good, but not good enough to get picked early on good teams based on his basketball skills alone.
So he learned if he played defense and he let others score and if he was fun to have around, he'd get to play, even if there were other players who were better. So that's what he worked on. He worked on his defense and he worked on his jokes. He worked hard to be successful.
He learned about success and hard work from his father. John McGuire had a successful saloon business. In part it was because he made it a friendly place, where people laughed and told stories. But he worked hard behind the scenes to make it the best. As neighbors would say, "He took pride in the place."
Other saloonkeepers back then would clean their beer pipes twice a year. The McGuires, father and sons, cleaned the pipes every Monday. Without fail. Later in life, Al McGuire would put together successful basketball teams by mixing pretty good talent and lots of hard work. He did a lot of the work himself.
It was McGuire, the head coach, who was willing to go to the tough neighborhoods to recruit. Other head coaches sent assistants. Some didn't send anyone. George Thompson, who came from the hard streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant said he chose Marquette because McGuire was the only coach who was willing to meet him in his own neighborhood.
There were times when Al McGuire made it look like he was doing it all with a street-smart wisecrack and some good Irish stories. That was fine with McGuire. It meant they'd underestimate him and his teams.
McGuire worked hard to put together one of the best recruiting and scouting systems in the college game. He worked hard on a play system that helped the street kids he recruited play with discipline. He worked hard to set an example and set standards that helped those young players turn into successful gentlemen whether they continued to play ball or not.
Sometimes he needled them. Maurice Lucas was one of the top-recruited players in the country when he landed at Marquette. He was very full of himself. McGuire told reporters they needed two lockers for Maurice. There was one for him and one for his head.
Sometimes he encouraged them to do what was right for them, even when it might not be for him or the program. One of McGuire's top players at Marquette was big Jim Chones. Chones and grown up really poor, the oldest of six children raised by a widow.
The New York Nets of the old American Basketball Association came calling. They offered Chones almost two million dollars to leave school early and turn pro. He asked his coach for advice. "I looked into my refrigerator and I looked into Jimmy's," McGuire said, "and I said, Jimmy, take the money."
He worked hard on strategy, too, and on appearance. He took pride in the place. It was like cleaning the beer pipes. And it led to success.
There was lots of success in Al's life. He won games and championships and a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame. As a broadcaster he won fame and made lots of money. But achievement was only part of this life.
Mostly, what you can learn from Al McGuire is that a successful life is more than just achievement. When the news media approached people who knew him for a reaction to his death, his achievements were only a small part of what they talked about. Mostly they had those stories they wanted to tell and those memories they wanted to share.
The president of Marquette University, probably put it best, in a way summing up for the rest of us. "Al McGuire was not just a great coach and a teller of stories in the Irish tradition. He also had a gift for seeing the wonder and goodness of God's creation, sometimes in the most unlikely places, and sharing that discovery with those around him."
Al McGuire loved toy soldiers, and seashells, and balloons and clowns and weepy country songs. Mostly, though, he liked people, he cared about them, and he took the time to nourish his relationships with them. And he set an example of both courage and compassion that stands with any I've ever seen.
Al McGuire died Friday after a long fight with leukemia. He had disconnected the intravenous cables that brought him drugs and blood. He hadn't eaten meat for almost two weeks, so his one-time assistant and long-time friend, Rick Majerus, brought in a hamburger with onions and a hot fudge sundae. When he died, he had his family around him.
So it seems, we're still learning from Al McGuire. This time, again, by example from a life that's a pretty good script for a good life. Know what you're good at. Work hard to develop it. And take time for the people and the beauty. Thanks for the lesson, Al.
This feature appeared on 29 January 2001
