The Smart Take from the Strong: The Basketball Philosophy of Pete Carril »

Dan White is an award-winning freelance writer, the author of eight books, and a contributor to the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Detroit Free Press.

Bob Knight won three NCAA titles as men's basketball coach at Indiana; he currently coaches at Texas Tech.

“The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong.” So said Pete Carril’s father, a Spanish immigrant who worked for thirty-nine years in a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, steel mill. His son stood only five-foot-six but nonetheless became an All-State basketball player in high school, a Little All-American in college, and a highly successful coach. After twenty-nine years as Princeton University’s basketball coach, he became an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. In 1997 he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Coach Carril inspired his teams with his own strength of character and drive to win, and he demonstrated time and again how a smart and dedicated team could compete successfully against bigger programs and faster, stronger, more athletic players. His teams won thirteen conference championships, made eleven NCAA Tournament appearances, and led the nation in defense fourteen times.

Throughout his reflections on a lifetime spent on the basketball court and the bench, Carril demonstrates deep respect for the contest, his empathy and engagement with the players, humility with his own achievements, a pragmatic vision of discipline and fundamentals, and an enduring joy in the game.

This is an inspiring and wonderful book, even for those who never made a basket.

Publishers Weekly

Last year, Carril retired from head coaching after 43 years, of which 29 were spent at Princeton. His memoirs, written with freelancer White, are a warm and wise series of random jottings about the values he learned growing up in a Pennsylvania steel town, his views on society, athletes past and present and, of course, his philosophy of winning basketball. Some of his observations are lengthy, like that on defensive fundamentals, while others are disarmingly brief but equally trenchant: "A good mind has never handicapped a player." He believes sports do not build character but reveal it, and his greatest enthusiasm is reserved for the team player. He is disarmingly candid about recruiting, which, he confesses, he did badly, probably all to the good because Princeton's sports programs are ultra-clean; he even wonders whether he could have been such a straight arrow if he'd been at a less scrupulous college. (Mar.)