Titan Rallying Cry Part of His Legacy

Al McGuire couldn’t believe the score when it was flashed: Cal State Fullerton 90, New Mexico 85.

The Titans’ first-round upset of the fourth-ranked Lobos in the 1978 NCAA basketball tournament was shocking, so much so that McGuire, then a color commentator for NBC, blurted out, “Cal State Who?” It became a rallying cry for Fullerton’s team and its followers.

Titan fans jeered McGuire before Fullerton’s next game against 11th-ranked San Francisco. Fullerton reached the West Regional final before losing to fifth-ranked Arkansas.

Yet McGuire, who died Friday at age 72, had forgotten much of it. In a 1998 interview he said, “Fullerton? All I can remember is their nickname. They were the Anteaters, right?”

Wrong. UC Irvine’s nickname is the Anteaters.

“Al had trouble with names.” said former Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan, a friend of McGuire’s for more than 25 years. “We would be at clinics and he never knew any of the players. Maybe he knew his players, but he didn’t know the others.

“One time he came to me and said, ‘I got this All-American thing to fill out. Can you put down the 10 best players?’ ”

McGuire was a little sharper as Marquette’s coach, with 11 postseason appearances and an NCAA title in 1977. Mulligan provided Jerome Whitehead, a key player on the 1977 team. Whitehead, who played for Mulligan at Riverside College, scored the game-winning basket in the semifinal against North Carolina Charlotte.

“Al recruited Jerome right off the UCLA campus,” Mulligan said. “Al was doing a clinic there and knew I had Jerome. He called and asked me to bring Whitehead. He walked him around the UCLA campus and sold him on going to Marquette.”

That personality served McGuire well as an NBC broadcaster for 23 years.

“I remember being in a hotel room with Al and [former Texas Coach] Abe Lemons one time,” Mulligan said. “I was talking and finally said to myself, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Here are two of the best talkers I’ve ever heard. Sit and listen.’ That’s all I did for the next hour, let them talk.”