Frank McGuire

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Frank Joseph McGuire (November 8, 1914 - November 11, 1994) was an American athletic coach who gained his greatest renown in collegiate basketball.

Born in New York City as the youngest of thirteen children in an Irish-American family, to New York police officer, Robert McGuire and his wife, the former Anne Lynch (his father dying when Frank was only two years old), McGuire graduated from St. John's University in 1936. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, interrupting his work as a teacher and coach at his high school. Prior to 1947 he also played pro basketball briefly in the American Basketball League; he then became the head basketball and baseball coach at his alma mater.

After bringing the baseball team to the College World Series in 1949 and the basketball team to the Final Four in 1952 – becoming one of only three coaches to achieve both accomplishments – he left St. John's to become basketball coach at the University of North Carolina. He guided North Carolina to the 1957 NCAA title, winning the championship game 54-53 in triple overtime against the Wilt Chamberlain-led Kansas team, and finishing the season with a perfect 32-0 record.

In 1960, allegations of minor NCAA violations created a rift between McGuire and Chancellor William Aycock leading McGuire to resign after the season. The man who replaced him was Dean Smith, his assistant coach whom he recommended for the job. Shortly after he left North Carolina, McGuire became the head coach of the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors and coached Chamberlain during the Warriors' last season before they moved to San Francisco, California. McGuire resigned rather than move west with the team. During his season playing for McGuire, Chamberlain set his all time record for scoring average in a season, of 50.4 points per game.

Following his brief period in the NBA, McGuire became basketball coach at the University of South Carolina in 1964.

The Gamecocks quickly achieved national prominence and went undefeated in the ACC in 1970 and won the ACC tourney in 1971, after which USC would leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and became an independent. To this day, that is the only ACC tourney title won by a school based in the state of South Carolina. McGuire would then go on to take USC to the NCAA tournament several times as an independent.

McGuire holds the record for most victories in a season without a loss, together with Bobby Knight of the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, at 32-0.

He achieved the number one ranking with both the University of North Carolina and South Carolina, and is one of three coaches--Larry Brown and Roy Williams are the others--to take two different schools to the NCAA Finals.

McGuire was famous for using his New York City ties to enlist players to come south to play at UNC and USC, and was known as one of the top recruiters in the sport, frequently joking about how successful his New York City players, many of them Jewish and Catholic, were in Baptist-prevalent North Carolina and South Carolina.

Players that he coached or successfully recruited at the two schools include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Donnie Walsh, Doug Moe, Billy Cunningham, Bobby Cremins, John Roche, Tom Owens, Kevin Joyce, Brian Winters, Mike Dunleavy, Sr. and Alex English.

After having been the first coach to take two different schools to the finals of the NCAA basketball tournament, in 1971 he became the second coach – joining Eddie Hickey – to take three different schools to the NCAA tournament. McGuire was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977, and retired in 1980.

He is the winningest coach in South Carolina history, and is still the second-winningest coach in North Carolina history. He died three days after his 80th birthday in Columbia, South Carolina.

He is not related to the late Marquette coach Al McGuire, who was a coaching contemporary of his.

[edit] External links

• Basketball Hall of Fame

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