PETE CARRIL

Pete Carril was a regular guy.

Looked a bit like Professor Irwin Corey, an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as “The World’s Foremost Authority.”

Corey died at 102 in 2017.

Carril died yesterday (August 15); he was 92.

He was a knowledgeable, feisty bantam cock.

Smart as hell.

And a great coach.

A very close friend of mine who played for Carril at Princeton, explained to me that the coach recruited players whom he thought were made in his own image.

Not who resembled him–thank goodness–but who shared his philosophies and principles on and off the court.

And to be clear, Pete Carril was a hardwood authority of epic proportion.

He devoted most of his life to basketball despite being a “5-foot-7 guy from the Ivy League,” as he often joked.

He was enshrined in both the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997.

As a coach, that is–not a player–although he played at Lafayette College under the colorful Butch Van Breda Kolff, where he was a Little All-American selection.

Surely, Carril learned plenty from Van Breda Kolff and others along the way.

He coached basketball at Princeton for 29 years (1967–1996).

His record at Princeton was 514–261, with 13 Ivy titles, 11 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, 2 in the NIT–which the Tigers won in 1975–and only one losing season.

Fourteen of his Princeton squads led the nation in defense.

All while abiding by the Ivy League mandate: no athletic scholarships.

What?

Think about that.

He preached a deliberate off-the-ball offense which demanded that players pass the ball and set screens, until a shooter was open, or a teammate broke free to the basket in a patented backdoor play.

Boring?

Maybe.

But it worked.

Famously.

The scores were low, and no matter how much opponents prepared, they were rendered frustrated.

Without poise.

And eventually, losing.

“Playing Princeton is kind of like going to the dentist,” espoused Jim Valvano, the NC State coach who died in 1993 at 47.

“You know that down the road it can make you better, but while it’s happening it can be very, very painful.”

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick got it.

“I wish you’d all known Pete Carril.

Or maybe not.

He was a required taste.

He could be nasty to refs, and occasionally to his own players.

He could make courtside ear-witnesses squirm in discomfort.

And he didn’t suffer reporters who asked questions he didn’t want to answer.”

Mushnick’s been around the block a time or two.

“The first time I met him, he snapped at me and was about to snap more–until I snapped back.

That, I was told, was the key to his well-concealed heart.”

It seems that in February 1980–42+ years ago–Mushnick was assigned to cover the Columbia-Princeton game.

Not much of a game: Tigers 77-Lions 50.

Perhaps closer at halftime, when Carril and Columbia coach Buddy Mahar–both vertically challenged, if you will–moved off the court while swapping blows.

Punches.

None landed.

Probably a good thing.

But Mushnick had a story to write and a deadline to meet.

So, “after the game, I naturally asked Carril about the halftime hassle.

He shot me a glare and demanded to know who sent me.

When I told him he spit fire:

‘You came all the way from New York to write about that?!,’ Carril queried with more than a dash of vitriol.

Mushnick got in his grill.

You just won by 27, what the hell would you write about?

Carril glared, thought about it, then nodded.

We were good.”

I asked my pal who played for Carril, the name of the joint the coach frequented on a regular basis, to relax, play cards, maybe eat, drink, etc.

Conte’s was the name.

A legendary Princeton pizza-and-pitcher hangout where the corner table was his.

And he held court there.

An average Joe in an average Joe place.

But there was nothing average about Pete Carril.

Quite to the contrary.

Even though none of his teams won a national title, it never bothered him.

“Winning a national championship is not something you’re going to see us do at Princeton,” he said in his final years there.

“I resigned myself to that years ago.

What does it mean anyway?

When I’m dead, maybe two guys will walk past my grave, and one will say to the other: ‘Poor guy. Never won a national championship.’

And I won’t hear a word they say.”

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in August 2022.]