Maguire University
Encyclopedia
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
invented in 1963 by a group of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
high school basketball coaches, for the sole purpose of securing tickets to the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Final Four
Final four
Final Four isa sports term that is commonly applied to the last four teams remaining in a playoff tournament, most notably NCAA Division I college basketball tournaments. The term usually refers to the four teams who compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final round...
.
Maguire "University" is born
The idea was hatched by then-Fenwick High SchoolFenwick High School
Fenwick High School is a private university-preparatory school located in Oak Park, Illinois, founded in 1929 as part of the Province of St. Albert the Great . It is the only school operated and staffed by the Catholic Order of Dominican friars in the United States. It is named in honor of...
coach Len Tyrrell at Maguire's Pub in Forest Park, Illinois
Forest Park, Illinois
Forest Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago in the United States. The population was 15,688 at the 2000 census...
. The NCAA fell for it, and so did at least one real school: the United States Air Force Academy
United States Air Force Academy
The United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States...
, 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
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. 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."
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.