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

An Entertaining Basketball Mind

This book took a while to warm up to. At least, it did for me.

The Smart Take from the Strong is a collection of legendary Princeton coach Pete Carril's thoughts on the game. As the title might suggest, Coach Carril views success in an entirely different light than someone like Rick Pitino would. Princeton's athletes bring one advantage to the court every game, and it's the same advantage they bring to the classroom - they're ambitious and smart as hell.

So, it falls to an Ivy League coach to fill those brains with perceptive strategies and tactics that can even the playing field against taller, stronger, faster, more athletic teams. Carril not only did that, but gave his Tiger teams the emotional toughness to hang in to the final buzzer. It was a combo that led to a 65% win percentage, 13 Ivy titles, 11 NCAA bids, and an NIT championship. Pete ended his career on a high note, upsetting the defending national champs of UCLA in the 1996 tourney in his last collegiate game as head coach.

So, the guy has a lot to say. And the only reason I took a while to warm up to it is because I went in looking for something specific. My interest was more tactical, and the first seventy or so pages of the book were general observations, like this one: "Wherever fast players go, they get there faster than slow players". Funny, but not particularly enlightening.

But I'm happy to report that there's something for everyone in this slim paperback. Around page 90, I began to read sections with titles like "Zone vs. Man-to-Man" and "Defending the Pivot". Yeah. That was more like it.

What I found most interesting was the fact that Carril made a 29-year college career out of dredging as much as he could out of smart and unathletic players, and then turned around and did the opposite. He joined the NBA and taught his Princeton system to players who had all the natural talent in the world, but more often than not, were not Mensa candidates. Talk about being adaptable.

It helps, while reading this book, to go back to the front cover and look at Carril; imagine him saying everything you're reading. Here's an irascible, tough, 5'6" garden gnome in a bow tie telling you how it's going to be on a basketball court. I strongly suspect I could sit and listen to ol' Pete talk for hours if ever given the chance. It has to be a hoot. Case in point: discussing one of his hot-shooting players, Carril says "We called him 'Molasses', because he wasn't the fastest guy around. That was a nickname we used for a lot of players at Princeton." Ha!

Short story long: this book has no narrative structure. It can be set on the bedside table and read in small chunks without a deep time investment. For anyone who wants to understand the mind that gave us the Princeton offense, or find reality-based inspiration for facing overwhelming odds, this book has it all. It's right around 200 pages, so it's an easy read. And, if you find yourself in need of an even quicker fix than that, Pete ends the book with his list of Twenty-five Things to Remember.

Put it on your summer reading list, Einstein.