The image is indelible. It is so etched in the memories of sports fans that it seems impossible to obscure. On the sidelines of a filled basketball arena stands a man who is five feet, six inches tall, but his white scraggly hair standing on end allows him to approach six feet.
On the court, his team waits and moves and then waits some more before a single player dressed in black and orange flashes to the basket completely unguarded. The scene seems surreal for as the player makes his backdoor cut, the opposing coach wonders where his defender is, and how the player could be that open and how many more times would they have had to practice this defense to have prevented the play from happening. By now, the man with the black-and-orange Tigers jersey has already put the ball softly in the hoop and retreated to a defensive stance ready to fool the opposition all over again.
There was nothing but passion in the coaching style of the diminutive Pete Carril. During his 29-year coaching career with Princeton University that began in 1967-68, he amassed a record of 514-261 (.663), having suffered only one losing season -- 11-15 in 1984-85 -- and one .500 year -- 13-13, in 1985-86. What is perhaps even more impressive was that he amassed a career 312-98 (.761) Ivy League record -- never suffering a losing season in Ancient Eight play. He remains the winningest coach in Ivy League history.
His teams were cautious but consistently good on offense -- his 1986-87 team's mark of .541 still ranks as the highest single season field goal percentage in Princeton history and amongst the best ever. When his teams were not playing intelligent, ball-control offense, they were being stingy on the defensive end. Near the end of his career, Carril told the press after holding Dartmouth to 39 points that "they [Dartmouth] have guardable players, and we guarded them." During 14 of his final 21 seasons, Carril's team held their opponents to fewer points than any other team in the nation. Oh, how times have changed.
With Carril's retirement, where would you guess that he would land next? Coaching in a recreational basketball league? At a publishing company to write a book on the merits of solid defense? Working for the pentagon? Alas, all of these are wrong.
Since retiring from the collegiate ranks, Carril joined the NBA's Sacramento Kings as an assistant coach prior to the 1996-97 season. Three years later, one might flip on the tube in anticipation of a Chris Webber backdoor cut or a perfect trap created by Vlade Divac and Corliss Williamson. But, no. Rather, the Sacramento Kings are careless but talented, turnover-prone but explosive, mistake-filled but dynamically exciting.
Don't get me wrong. This Kings team is good, no, very good. They very nearly knocked off Utah in last year's playoffs and are a force in the talent-laden Western Conference this season as well. But, where is the "judicious" offense that Carril made into an art form in Central New Jersey? Where is the patience that had opposing coach after opposing coach yanking out their hairs by the very roots?
Sacramento averages 105.6 points per game -- best in the NBA -- and often shoots before the timer has the chance to reset the 24-second clock upon a change of possession. The Kings also sit 26th of 29 teams in points allowed at an astronomical 102.4 points per game. Despite the porous defense, Sacramento is 23-4 when they score 100 points or more.
Ultimately, a more prudent question arises. Has the game passed Carril by? Absolutely not. Turn on the television the next time Sacramento is on. Pete Carril no longer paces the sidelines in a shirt and tie. He sits relaxed in a turtleneck and a jacket watching Jason Williams throw two around-the-back passes to the waiting hands of Webber only to duck as the next one whizzes into the third row. Does he cringe or shudder? Not in the least.
He realizes that he is coaching as different a game as baseball and cricket. This is not Ivy League basketball, it's the NBA and Pete knows it. He is cool in the same vein that your grandfather is -- he has an enormous knowledge of the past but the patience to watch life change before his very eyes. He knows he cannot run the same plays he did at Princeton and that a 2-3 zone will not only be ineffectual but illegal.
Unlike the John Caliparis and Bob Knights of the world, Carril can coach at every level. Forcing Jason Williams to run the offense that frustrates every team in the Ancient Eight would be comical. His current duties include player development and offensive schemes.
In what was the cherry on top of a sundae-like career, Carril was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 29, 1997. It seems ironic that the last basket scored for a Carril team at Princeton came on a dunk. Now it seems that dunks are all he has been watching from the sidelines.
College basketball fans remember well the first round of the NCAA Tournament when Carril's Tigers upset the defending champion UCLA Bruins, 43-41, on a backdoor layup that had been run a million times over by the Princeton squad. As Phil Jackson and the Lakers and Mike Dunleavy and the Trail Blazers prepare for the playoffs, here's to hoping they look past the videotape from four years ago and Carril gets one last chance to fool us all.
