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

Most people zero in on their failures. I try to keep all my attention on a pyramid type philosophy rather than the averaging-down philosophy.

I don’t know why people question the academic training of an athlete.

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.

My rule was I wouldn’t recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.

Live every day as if it were Saturday night.

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

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.

Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.

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.

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

Can’t win without talent, you know.

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.

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.

Don’t call me son unless you’re going to include me in your will. (When Adolph Rupp called him, “Son.”)

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

The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

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.

When I was losing, they called me nuts. When I was winning they called me eccentric.

What we went to World War II for, at least in my mind, was not getting taken care of. It was supposed to be a brave new world, but we were getting back into the old ruts, and we were in a cold war with Russia.

It drives me nuts how I rely on my wife for everything. I can’t imagine a day without her!

Especially when it comes down to football and basketball, it’s just nuts.

I have to get back to the hotel. But I don’t know the way. I always rely on Shouji so I didn’t notice where we were going.