https://www.facebook.com/AlMcGuiresWarriors/posts/1146302855482196:0The most vicious and chaotic brawl in Marquette history erupted on this date in 1972, when Al's 2nd ranked Warriors traveled to Columbia, South Carolina to defeat future Milwaukee Buck Brian Winters and Frank McGuire's 4th ranked South Carolina Gamecocks 72-71 in an epic, nationally televised contest that was so wild and intense it became the subject of a feature article in the following week's Sports Illustrated.
“It is against my better judgment to go play in Columbia, South Carolina,” Al admitted in the days leading up to the game.
Al had traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina ahead of his team to visit old friends from his days coaching at Belmont Abbey College, about 15 minutes west of Charlotte.
"I left Milwaukee this morning," Al said on the Wednesday before the Sunday game, "and my assistant asked me where I was going. This is a big game. Kids get ready for big games. It's the easy ones you have to worry about."
Frank McGuire (no relation), who won a National Championship with North Carolina in 1957, was Al's mentor and friend, and had actually begun his college coaching career at St. John's in 1947 when Al was a freshman and his brother Dick a junior.
In fact, it was Frank McGuire who, while still coaching at North Carolina, had recommended Al to the Benedictine monks of Belmont Abbey, which was just down the road from Chapel Hill.
Frank McGuire also eventually recommended Al to the Jesuit priests at Marquette after he turned the Warrior job down to coach the Gamecocks in 1964.
"I thought he would leave me there forever to die in a monastery," Al liked to joke.
“But I owe a lot to Frank,” said Al. “I respect him very much but this is no love affair. I’ll just have to step away from him for a couple hours on Sunday afternoon.”
"The student-against-teacher situation tears your gut out," continued Al. "I'd give anything not to play this game. But, really, I consider it a favor to me to do a favor for Frank. Maybe it's the first time I ever get to pay him back for all he's done. Loyalty-- that's what he always taught us....This man-- I have to show respect. I don't know if I can wash out what this man means to me for the time it takes to win a game."
Apparently, Al could and did.
Despite the showing of friendship and respect between Al and his old coach, Al's All-American center Jim Chones wasn't fooled.
"For starters, the two coaches, Al and Frank McGuire, didn't like each other very much," recalls Chones. "You know what it's like when two Irish guys don't like each other, they don't hold back."
In the 2nd half, South Carolina sophomore Ed Peterson came off the bench to score 14 points and help engineer a late Gamecock run from 12 down to go up by one with 2:35 left.
"My assistant coach scouted them and must have got mixed up about Peterson," Al muttered later. "I said, 'Who is the guy?' and he makes five baskets in a row."
With just over 1:00 left in the game, Allie McGuire hit two free throws and the Warrior defense shut down the Gamecocks on two straight possessions to eke out the 1-point win and improve Marquette's record to 9-0.
Chones was the game's top scorer with 17 points while Marcus Washington chipped in with 16 and Larry McNeill 15.
But the scoring and the relationship between Al and Frank McGuire were only part of the story.
Sports Illustrated's Curry Kirkpatrick described the game as "a savage and bloody conflict" in which "several brawls had broken out" with "a good three minutes of heavy punching on both sides."
Kirkpatrick added that "(Bob) Lackey elbowed (Tom) Riker in the neck," "Riker flashed a left cross on Lackey's side-whiskers," Chones "opened a nasty cut under (Danny) Traylor's eye," and "Larry McNeill grabbed a chair."
According to the Milwaukee Sentinel’s Bob Wolf, even “little Marcus Washington got into three secondary fights and was floored each time.”
"I was looking the other way and Riker just hit me,” explained Lackey, who needed two stitches to close his wound. “There was no reason for it. He just hit me....The dude sucker-punched me."
Lackey protested that he had been unfairly ejected along with Riker and rationalized his involvement in the brawl by remarking after the game, "If I'm leavin', I want some action."
"Lackey hit me in the back of the head when the whistle blew-- at least he tried to, and that's good enough," said Riker after the game. "You're bound to get shoved and roughed up during the game, but after the whistle it's bush league so I tagged him."
“Riker punched Lackey,” recalled Al's former recruit Brian Winters while with the Bucks years later, “and Lackey pushed back, and they rolled on the floor. It got to be a real melee, a real bad scene all around.”
But while Frank McGuire ran into the middle of the fray to help restore order, Al calmly remained on the bench, dismissively calling the wild fracas "a waltz."
"A bar-hall bouncer wouldn't take his coat off for this one," Al scoffed.
"As for the game, we didn't get a call for probably three quarters of it," remembers Chones. "They also had a 6'11" left-hander who was just the enforcer in the ACC. I think his name was Richert (Riker) or something. The entire South Carolina team just beat up other teams. Dean Smith even petitioned the league to put an end to it. So they had a huge team. They were very skilled too. There were cheap shots flying during the game like the kind that we would only see on the playground. I will never forget it. Bob Lackey was on the free throw line and Richert (Riker) took the ball and threw it at Lackey after he made his first free throw."
"Immediately after that, Lackey looked at Al and Al didn't move," continued Chones. "He was just sitting on the bench with his legs crossed. We all knew what that meant. Lackey picked the ball up and drilled Rickert in the face. All of a sudden, there were people all over the floor and the two teams were fighting. In the middle of the fight, Danny Traylor looks at me and was probably thinking, 'He looks pretty skinny, I'll go after him.' I actually got the guy pretty good. I popped him right on the chin actually. Soon after that, a security guard from the arena peeled me off of him. The guard opened his jacket and pulled out a gun on me and then I knew the fight was over. But we whipped the crap out of them. The fans kept calling us racial names because we were mostly black and they didn't have any black players. That was the times, you know?"
"Through all of this, Al was still sitting on the bench with his legs crossed," laughs Chones. "Al finally got up and took all of us off of the floor and into the locker room. They already had all of our things packed in our bags and instead of staying overnight, they told us we were getting out of South Carolina as soon as we could. It was incredible."
"Al claimed it wasn’t even a good barroom brawl, but it was something, believe me,” remembered Hank Raymonds years later. “Some players grabbed steel chairs and were ready to use them as weapons. I was right in the middle of it, too.”
“They (the South Carolina band) finally stopped it by playing the national anthem,” recalled Raymonds.
Indeed, an unimpressed Al simply said after the game, "The fight really meant nothing, it's best to ignore it."
