Maguire University is a fictitious college invented in 1963 by a group of Chicago high school basketball coaches, for the sole purpose of securing tickets to the NCAA Final Four.
The idea was hatched by then-Fenwick High School coach Len Tyrrell at Maguire's Pub in Forest Park, Illinois. The NCAA fell for it, and so did at least one real school: the United States Air Force Academy, who contacted Tyrrell (Maguire's self-proclaimed "Chancellor") and asked to play his nonexistent team.
Maguire (nicknamed "the Jollymen") received Final Four tickets for two years, until Bill Jauss wrote about the scam in The Chicago Tribune. The NCAA was not amused. The coaches then had to acquire their own tickets, and at least one of them has attended every Final Four (or, as they call it, Final Five) ever since. Maguire's motto, "We Play Hurt," is a reference to the hangovers accrued by Maguire's "students." [1]
Tyrrell grew the faux-university's "enrollment" from the original eight members to well over 150 in the thirty-plus years he ran the phony school. He was also named Maguire's first Hall of Fame member, after resigning his position in 2000. Kelly's Pub, on Webster Street in Chicago, serves as the college's "campus" since the closing of Maguire's Pub in 1988.
Maguire's 2011 Final Five Headquarters will be located at the Courtyard Marriott in Downtown Houston located in the Humble Suite on the 9th Floor. The Maguire University 50th Year Celebration is scheduled for New Orleans in 2012 at the Hotel Marais.