Al McGuire was always a friend and contributor to basketball camps in Wisconsin. (JSOnline.com, File Photo)

And he will be remembered, too, as a faithful friend and contributor to the Milwaukee Bucks Basketball Camps and the clinics that became offshoots of them.

"Al loved to come to the camps and pick the brains of all the coaches we had there," said Jerry Sullivan, the Bucks Camps associate director for 32 years. "We had many of the top college coaches in the country coming to the camps back then, and Al would sit down with them one-on-one, trying to pick up sayings or basketball items that he could use in his coaching.

“And he loved to hear their stories. I'm sure he used a lot of them later in his career when he became a TV announcer."

Unlike many of the collegiate coaching luminaries who appeared at the camps, McGuire never prepared his material.

"Everything he did was off the top of his head," Sullivan said. "He'd say, 'Never ask me to send you anything about what I'm going to talk about, because I don't have anything written down.'"

McGuire became renowned for the clinics he presented for area coaches, too.

"I remember one clinic he gave that was sponsored by Azusa Pacific University," Sullivan said. "Ray Meyer from DePaul and Harvey Schmidt from Illinois were two of the college coaches that were there.

"Al asked the high school kids who were there as helpers to leave the gym. He didn't want the kids to hear what he was going to say. He told the coaches little odds and ends that they could do to extend a timeout, like knocking over the rosin container or a water bottle.

"And he always wanted his best free-throw shooter on the line at crunch time. If one of his poor shooters got fouled, he'd try to send his best guy to the line instead. He often got away with it. Pete Hassemer (another WBCA Hall-of-Famer who coached at Cudahy High School against Sullivan and his arch-rival South Milwaukee teams) was there, and after he heard what Al said, he tried it a number of times. When we'd play Cudahy, I'd tell him ahead of time not to pull that on us!"

McGuire proceeded to tell his coaching colleagues all sorts of little tricks they could pull to try to get an edge.

"But Al didn't want the kids to hear what he told them," Sullivan said. "I'll never forget that."

McGuire never let his celebrity get the best of him, either.

"I remember when Al's grandson and granddaughter came to our Bucks Camps at Carroll College," Sullivan said. "Al would come over on awards day through the back door, unnoticed. I always respected him for that, because he didn't want to take anything attention away from the kids and their families.

"My son Danny was an instructor at those camps, and later on, Al pulled him aside and told him, 'If you ever need a letter of reference or a recommendation for a coaching job, let me know and I'll do it for you.' He did that for a number of young coaches if he recognized ones that he thought had coaching potential. He didn't have to do that, but he did."

McGuire was never one to draw up an elaborate camp presentation, but he always came through.

"The first time I met him was maybe in his first or second year at Marquette," Sullivan said. "We had a 9:30 a.m. camp at University School, and Al was supposed to be there at 9:15. He wasn't there, so I called and asked him if he had forgotten.

"Al said, 'Aw, man, I'm sorry. I got in late last night, and I'll have to back out.'

"I told him that we had 125 kids waiting there to see hium, and he said, 'OK, I'll be there.’ He showed up about a half-hour later. He looked pretty rough -- I don't know if he'd come in from a recruiting trip out of town or what -- but he stayed the whole time, did a great job and signed autographs afterward."

As McGuire's involvement in the camps continued, he began to bring along his young Marquette assistant, Rick Majerus.

Majerus would become a regular at the camps as well. He went on to become Marquette's head coach and then an assistant coach with the Bucks before leaving the state to put in successful stints as head coach at Ball State University and the University of Utah.

"Al and Rick Majerus really worked hard at our camps," Sullivan said. "Most of the coaches did. Even Adolph Rupp, as old as he was, sat there with a group of freshmen and sophomores and would have them running his Kentucky offense in 15 or 20 minutes. He'd get up in their face and tell them if they made a mistake -- any little detail -- and he'd tell them in no uncertain terms. And they remembered it."

Majerus did not fool around during his presentations, either.

"Rick didn't have any patience for mediocrity," Sullivan said. "If you didn't want to learn, he didn't have time for you. Dorm Grams, one of our directors, would help kids who got lonesome or homesick, and he'd help them through the camps. He saved so many campers for us.

"Rick would have no patience with those kind of kids. He always worked very hard, and he expected the kids to cooperate. He'd go from 9 to 12:30 without stopping. The other coaches who were there would love how much basketball he covered -- every phase of the game."

Sullivan got to know Majerus pretty well during his camp and clinic appearances.

"He was popular at the camps and clinics because he was so informative and also very funny," Sullivan said. "He was always poking fun at himself, whether it was his size, his appetite, his inability to stay married, or the fact that he lived in hotels.

"But when he was doing the camps, it was all serious business, and the kids had better be ready to learn. He was always so dependable, too. A lot of those camps and clinics were great exposure for him, too, because of all the high school coaches that were there. Rick and a lot of our camp coaches would use those contacts someday if one of those high-school coaches had a player they needed.

"That helped the Bucks Camps really make a name for themselves."

To read the 5th installment in this series, click here.