Pete Carril
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Peter J. "Pete" Carril (born July 10, 1930 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States) is a former professional and collegiate basketball coach.
Son of Spanish immigrants in the USA, Carril is a graduate of Bethlehem High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where he was an all-state selection for Pennsylvania in the 1947-48 season. He played collegiate basketball at Lafayette College under Butch Van Breda Kolff. Following graduation from college he was a teacher and coached high basketball for 12 seasons at Easton (PA) High School and Reading (PA) High School.
One of the most successful collegiate basketball coaches in the history of the game, Carril is known for coaching Princeton University between 1967 and 1996, where he compiled a 514-261 (.658 winning percentage) record as the best record of any coach in Ivy League basketball history. Up until his retirement in 1996, Carril is also the only coach to win 500 games without the benefit of athletic scholarships for his players.[1] He won 13 Ivy League championships during 29 years of coaching, and received 11 NCAA berths and 2 NIT bids. Princeton won the NIT championship in 1975. Carril was noted for a tenacious defense, as his teams were first in the nation in scoring defense for fourteen of his final 21 seasons, including eight in a row, from 1988-1996. His final collegiate victory was an upset against defending champion UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 1996[1]
The most lasting element of his college coaching legacy is likely to be his increasingly popular "Princeton offense", a slow, low-scoring method consisting of passes, movement without the ball and back-door cuts which he developed. John Thompson III, a former assistant to Carril, successfully adopted the "Princeton offense" at Georgetown and coached the Hoyas to the 2007 Final Four.
Carril's Princeton squad defeated defending national champions UCLA in March 1996 by a score of 43-41 in what is considered one of the greatest upsets of all time.[2]
Carril was an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association for 10 years until his retirement in 2006. When Rick Adelman became Sacramento's head coach before the 1998-1999 season, Carril helped Adelman install the Princeton offense and oversaw the Kings' development into one of the NBA's best, most talented, and most potently offensive teams. With the help of such stars as Chris Webber, Peja Stojaković, Brad Miller, Jason Williams, (1998-2001), and Mike Bibby, (2001-2006), Carril showed that the Princeton offense could function in the NBA. In 2007 he volunteered as a coach to the Washington Wizards.[2]
His career collegiate coaching record, including one season at Lehigh, was 525-273. He was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997, following his retirement from Princeton.
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[edit] See also
- Princeton University
- Bill Bradley
- Geoff Petrie
- 1989 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
- 1996 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
[edit] References
- ^ Carril Is Yoda to Notion of Perpetual Motion - New York Times
- ^ Sactown Royalty :: A Sacramento Kings Blog
[edit] External links
- Pete Carril at Basketball Hall of Fame profile.
- Article written by Jerry Price from Princeton Athletics Communications, 2007
- Coaching Profile on the official NBA website
- Professor Pete Carril, 1991 Video Interview on YouTube. By Dan Rydell and Casey McCall of Backdoor Productions.
[edit] Publications
The Smart Take from the Strong: The Basketball Philosophy of Pete Carril. Pete Carril and Dan White, New York: Simon & Schuster (1997), ISBN-10: 068483510X
Play to Win: A Profile of Princeton Basketball Coach Pete Carril. Dan White, Prentice-Hall (1978. ISBN-10: 0136839045
| Preceded by Butch van Breda Kolff |
Princeton Men's Basketball Head Coach 1967 – 1996 |
Succeeded by Bill Carmody |
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