Post by hchoops on Aug 15, 2022 15:18:31 GMT -5
www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/34404293/hall-fame-ex-princeton-tigers-coach-pete-carril-dies-92
A terrific obit by Dana O’Neill shake knew him well. There is a Bill Carmody mention.
Remembering Pete Carril, the loveable and brilliant coach who created the Princeton offense
By Dana O'Neil
I can’t remember the opponent, but somewhere late in Pete Carril’s Princeton career, he shuffled — Pete never quite walked — into the postgame interview room. The Tigers were young that year, and plenty of people wondered if basketball’s Einstein could pull anything out of them. Pete stood behind the table and started talking, unspooling a long story about how he was cutting across campus one day and ran into a woman who sidled up to him, suggesting perhaps Princeton might struggle that year. Us diligent reporters busily scribbled down every word he said, as he explained how the woman said “Bob’’ told her it could be a challenging year and “Bob” wondered what to expect, and if maybe it was time for Carril to hang it up …
Finally, Pete reached the end of his tale, all of us poised with pens over notebooks, waiting for the moral of the story. “So I said to her … (dramatic pause) who the #$@&^*! is Bob?” And that was it. The whole story, soup to nuts. Unprintable (in the newspaper era), unusable, and highly entertaining. Pete just looked at us and grinned, sharing one of his “heh heh’ laughs.
As usual Pete Carril was one step ahead of everyone else. Carril, who died Monday at the age of 92, will now be remembered with hosannas about his beautiful basketball mind, a great rewrite of how some people originally perceived his Princeton offense. Before it was lauded as a revolution, it was considered by some as little more than a gimmick, a way for the scholarship-less Tiger nerds to get some level of footing in Division I basketball. They weren’t beating teams so much as boring them to death. The near-miss David vs. Goliath moment in 1989, when Princeton nearly shocked Georgetown, is now revered as the game that saved March Madness, ensuring that the little guy would always be invited to the dance. But as the years went on and the near-upset never materialized, folks like Bob wondered if Carril’s tactics would work
And then, Steve Goodrich found Gabe Lewullis on a backdoor to topple UCLA in the 1996 NCAA Tournament. Two years later, Carril’s longtime assistant and successor, Bill Carmody, using the same scheme, beat UNLV. Suddenly, Carril was brilliant. Iterations of his Princeton offense started showing up all over the NBA, coaches understanding that cutting, movement without the ball and spacing weren’t simply applicable to nerd ball.
Let’s face it. Carril, in his chronically rumpled and frequently stained sweater, was an influencer.
Of course, the challenge of being the smartest man in the room is that not everyone can keep up with you. And there’s no doubt Carril did not suffer fools — particularly basketball ones — well. He dressed down his players with his caustic wit, demanding of them the impossible — basketball perfection. It was not enough to score. The game was to be played properly, the play executed exactly.
Yet his players came back to him — one after another — and remain fiercely loyal to him. Full disclosure: My husband is an athletic trainer at Princeton, and for years, up until Pete’s retirement, worked with the men’s basketball team. So maybe my opinions are colored, but I also know the genuine reverence Carril has been afforded by his athletes and their devotion to him. It’s because they saw what so many people don’t see, what I’ve seen — the imp, the charmer, the kind soul who lived under the gruff demeanor. Long after he retired and even after he stopped consulting with NBA teams, Pete would walk into the athletic training room and ask my husband to help work out one ache or pain or another. One day after my husband lamented the need for a new piece of equipment, Pete came to the office and handed him a blank check. “Here, Georgie (he’s the only person I know who called him Georgie), fill it in and buy that thing you need.’’
The first time I met Carril, I was a nervous, wet-behind-the-ears recent college graduate. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew enough to be intimidated by Carril. He ushered me into his office, and handed me a cupcake. When I sat down, he said, “Here, have a chocolate one, too. Heh. Now you don’t have any hands to write anything down.” I eventually figured out how to double-fist cupcakes and conduct an interview that day, and during the course of my career, had countless chances to actually write down what Pete said.
As Pete’s protege, John Thompson III, was taking the Hoyas on deep NCAA Tournament runs, I joined my mentor, Dick Jerardi, for breakfast at the Princeton Diner. Carril broke down what Thompson was doing with his offense, why it was working, how the Hoyas were winning, and wrapped it all up in only the charming yarn-spinning way he could. Jerardi and I left breakfast that morning mesmerized. It felt like we just saw through a doctoral basketball class.
I still haven’t figured out the mystery. I still don’t know who the #$@&^*! Bob was. Whoever he was, he was wrong. Carril didn’t need to hang it up. He was one step ahead of everyone … including
A terrific obit by Dana O’Neill shake knew him well. There is a Bill Carmody mention.
Remembering Pete Carril, the loveable and brilliant coach who created the Princeton offense
By Dana O'Neil
I can’t remember the opponent, but somewhere late in Pete Carril’s Princeton career, he shuffled — Pete never quite walked — into the postgame interview room. The Tigers were young that year, and plenty of people wondered if basketball’s Einstein could pull anything out of them. Pete stood behind the table and started talking, unspooling a long story about how he was cutting across campus one day and ran into a woman who sidled up to him, suggesting perhaps Princeton might struggle that year. Us diligent reporters busily scribbled down every word he said, as he explained how the woman said “Bob’’ told her it could be a challenging year and “Bob” wondered what to expect, and if maybe it was time for Carril to hang it up …
Finally, Pete reached the end of his tale, all of us poised with pens over notebooks, waiting for the moral of the story. “So I said to her … (dramatic pause) who the #$@&^*! is Bob?” And that was it. The whole story, soup to nuts. Unprintable (in the newspaper era), unusable, and highly entertaining. Pete just looked at us and grinned, sharing one of his “heh heh’ laughs.
As usual Pete Carril was one step ahead of everyone else. Carril, who died Monday at the age of 92, will now be remembered with hosannas about his beautiful basketball mind, a great rewrite of how some people originally perceived his Princeton offense. Before it was lauded as a revolution, it was considered by some as little more than a gimmick, a way for the scholarship-less Tiger nerds to get some level of footing in Division I basketball. They weren’t beating teams so much as boring them to death. The near-miss David vs. Goliath moment in 1989, when Princeton nearly shocked Georgetown, is now revered as the game that saved March Madness, ensuring that the little guy would always be invited to the dance. But as the years went on and the near-upset never materialized, folks like Bob wondered if Carril’s tactics would work
And then, Steve Goodrich found Gabe Lewullis on a backdoor to topple UCLA in the 1996 NCAA Tournament. Two years later, Carril’s longtime assistant and successor, Bill Carmody, using the same scheme, beat UNLV. Suddenly, Carril was brilliant. Iterations of his Princeton offense started showing up all over the NBA, coaches understanding that cutting, movement without the ball and spacing weren’t simply applicable to nerd ball.
Let’s face it. Carril, in his chronically rumpled and frequently stained sweater, was an influencer.
Of course, the challenge of being the smartest man in the room is that not everyone can keep up with you. And there’s no doubt Carril did not suffer fools — particularly basketball ones — well. He dressed down his players with his caustic wit, demanding of them the impossible — basketball perfection. It was not enough to score. The game was to be played properly, the play executed exactly.
Yet his players came back to him — one after another — and remain fiercely loyal to him. Full disclosure: My husband is an athletic trainer at Princeton, and for years, up until Pete’s retirement, worked with the men’s basketball team. So maybe my opinions are colored, but I also know the genuine reverence Carril has been afforded by his athletes and their devotion to him. It’s because they saw what so many people don’t see, what I’ve seen — the imp, the charmer, the kind soul who lived under the gruff demeanor. Long after he retired and even after he stopped consulting with NBA teams, Pete would walk into the athletic training room and ask my husband to help work out one ache or pain or another. One day after my husband lamented the need for a new piece of equipment, Pete came to the office and handed him a blank check. “Here, Georgie (he’s the only person I know who called him Georgie), fill it in and buy that thing you need.’’
The first time I met Carril, I was a nervous, wet-behind-the-ears recent college graduate. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I knew enough to be intimidated by Carril. He ushered me into his office, and handed me a cupcake. When I sat down, he said, “Here, have a chocolate one, too. Heh. Now you don’t have any hands to write anything down.” I eventually figured out how to double-fist cupcakes and conduct an interview that day, and during the course of my career, had countless chances to actually write down what Pete said.
As Pete’s protege, John Thompson III, was taking the Hoyas on deep NCAA Tournament runs, I joined my mentor, Dick Jerardi, for breakfast at the Princeton Diner. Carril broke down what Thompson was doing with his offense, why it was working, how the Hoyas were winning, and wrapped it all up in only the charming yarn-spinning way he could. Jerardi and I left breakfast that morning mesmerized. It felt like we just saw through a doctoral basketball class.
I still haven’t figured out the mystery. I still don’t know who the #$@&^*! Bob was. Whoever he was, he was wrong. Carril didn’t need to hang it up. He was one step ahead of everyone … including
