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

The class and success of Princeton University's basketball program can be traced to two words: Pete Carril. Carril coached the perennial Ivy League powerhouse for 29 seasons before his 1996 retirement, and his hardwood hard line couldn't have been simpler: play smart. Of course, it helped that his players were smart enough--they did get into Princeton--to compensate for any lack of size and talent. Carril preached winning through intelligence, selfless play, and dogged defense. The Smart Take from the Strong is his bible. While it makes a pass here and there at biography, the book's beauty is the keenness of its Carrilion collection of on- and off-the-court parables and beatitudes. How can you turn a deaf ear to eternal verities such as "Bad shooters are always open" and "The ability to rebound is in inverse proportion to the distance your house is from the nearest railroad tracks"? And how can you not love a coach who can suggest, when pondering why the university kept rehiring him, "I think they kept me because some of my players seemed to be better people for the experience," and not have it sound like a crow?