You don’t remember the games as much as you remember the moments. That was the real joy of residing in Al McGuire’s shadow, those tiny, sweet moments as perfectly shaped as a two-carat diamond.
This was 1970-something . . . Marquette vs. who knows at the Mecca. Doc Ike has taken the last pull of his cigarette. Buffalo Bob Weingardt has taped his last ankle. Father Piotrowski has just finished leading us in prayer to the Queen of Victory. Hank Raymonds walks onto the floor clutching the day’s game plan in his hand as if it were a relay baton. I follow. We wait for what the Mecca P.A. announcer likes to call “six of Marquette’s silver-helmeted finest” to present the colors for the singing of the national anthem. And we wait for Al.
Just as the ROTC detail arrives, so does the nation’s finest coach. The lights dim. But before the anthem is concluded, before Bill Geishecker will “Ring out a hoya,” before Willie Wampum starts his war dance, before the crowd belts out “and the home of the brave,” a single voice is heard from the far reaches of the arena. It resonates as if the Archangel Michael himself is calling the little Jesuit school into battle.
“Give `em hell, Al!”
As if he needed a reminder.
Al McGuire gave life hell. There was no governor switch on Al’s 72 years. But by way of habit, “Give ’em hell, Al,” became our rallying cry, our basketball security blanket. We even had buttons made up for the NCAA tournament and wore the slogan with pride.
Al didn’t need a button or a lone voice from the rafters to tell him what he already knew. The wit and charm that so characterized the man was counterbalanced by the fierce competitiveness that defined him as a coach. Telling Al to give ’em hell was like reminding a kleptomaniac he had to steal.
We were an eclectic collection at Marquette, led by a man who often said he was ahead of his time, and he was right, of course. We were a ragtag team of wannabe academicians, of street urchins. Most of our players came from places where the front lawn was a sidewalk, where wrought iron was the window security system of choice, where the zip codes meant Bed Stuy or South Bronx. Added to the mix was the occasional kid from true-life places such as Abbottsford, Wis.–Lake Wobegon before there was a Lake Wobegon.
It is said that the will of a team must come from the will of its coach. That was us. That was Al. Al’s teams were disciplined, controlled, master evaluators of each situation. Every possession was a fight. Everything was contested–each pass, each dribble, each rebound, each shot. To do less would be an insult to those buttons we wore on our lapels.
On a campus that was home to such scholars as Dr. Barrett of the biology department, of Drs. Riley and Hackey of the history department and Dr. Prucha of the sociology department, no one taught a more lasting lesson than the Irish guy from Brooklyn. Before there were Tuesdays with Morrie, there were Mondays with McGuire.
We learned our lessons together: scholarship players and walk-ons, blacks and whites, those who had a modicum of affluence and those who came from abject poverty. It didn’t matter to Al–the lessons were one-size-fits-all. We would sit there spellbound and reflect on simple little phrases such as, “A poor man isn’t a man without a cent, but a man without a dream.” From this stream of consciousness you would find something related to winning a basketball game, but the real message had more to do with the importance of pride, of fulfilling your potential, of playing as part of a team.
Coach never saw color, he saw character. During the turbulent, burn-baby-burn ’60s and ’70s, this was a man more concerned about giving opportunities than simply winning games. Make no mistake, he loved to win. He was a competitor extraordinaire, and throughout his life a score was most certainly kept. Ever the true Warrior, Al loved who he was fighting for and hated who he was fighting against, whether it was his charity run to cure childhood diseases or the Blue Demons of DePaul. He was consumed by Irish Alzheimer’s: He forgot everything but his enemies. That said, the grace and good nature of the man was exemplified by the authenticity he extended to others and the way he lived his life.
Coach not only played five black players, but he also insisted they work to understand themselves and understand the importance an education would have not only on their own lives, but on the lives of others as well. He spent as much time discussing shot selection as he did the necessity to treat people well, irrespective of their color or station in life. To see the world through Coach’s eyes was to understand that the lowliest campus worker was afforded the same dignity as a college president. Titles meant nothing to Coach. It mattered little what you did; it mattered much more how you did it.
Coach was looked upon by some of his peers as a court jester of sorts. It was a mistake made by those unwilling or unable to recognize the effect of his love and quirky street wisdom. To play for him was to be captivated by his passion and enthralled by his intensity. He was carpe diem personified. He seized the day and refused to let it go.
I remember the moments. I remember that he cared little for material possessions and social status. I remember him tossing his keys into his unlocked car in the middle of a parking lot and saying, “A Black Plague to whoever steals this car.” I remember the tenderness and goodness with which he treated his grandchildren. I remember, and always will, the way he cherished and celebrated the ordinary yet priceless flashes of life: a hug, a walk, a kiss, a win, even a loss, when, emotionally wrought, you felt as if you had “played handball against the curb,” as he liked to say. He treasured the middle ground more than a championship banner, and he lived to help others. “Al’s Run” here, thousands of dollars for a charity there, send someone a toy soldier, another guy gets a WienerMobile, and yeah, he would say, “I’ll do that Annie Oakley up in Escanaba, Michigan, so I can help somebody out who has MS.”
Nobody worked the clock better than Coach. He understood time was your most valuable commodity, both on the court and in life. He chased those hands around the clock face, not vice versa.
He stayed the course and held true to his principles and beliefs. He was not a religious man in the conventional sense, but he was a spiritual man. He understood himself and where he fit into the greater scheme of things. We all should be so disposed as to not look for God too high up or too far away.
It was Thoreau who wrote that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Not Coach. He lived his with a brass band leading the way. There was nothing quiet about him. The same should go for his legacy.
“Give ’em hell, Al!”
Not anymore. I think not.
Al McGuire plays now where Irish eyes always are smiling, where he’ll never fall off the bike, and where you wake up every Sunday morning and you can always find your score in the left-hand column. It’s all seashells and balloons from here on, Coach.
The last Warrior has “a roof for the rain, a wall for the wind, and tea beside the fire, friends to be near him, laughter to cheer him and all that his heart desires.”
