Former Red Knights remember Pete Carril
Carril, who led Reading High boys basketball from 1958-66 before gaining fame at Princeton, died Monday at the age of 92
When Dick Graul was at Northeast Junior High, he said he was just a regular kid who wanted to play sports.
The only problem, he recalled, was he really wasn’t good at any of them. So, he often was forced to watch when he ventured to the playground at 11th and Pike.
“I never got picked to play games like three-on-three, two-on-two or whatever,” Graul said. “Nobody wanted me.”
He did catch one person’s eye, that of then-Reading High boys basketball coach Pete Carril, who died Monday at the age of 92.
“Carril started coming around the playground and he started showing me a few things in between ninth and 10th grade,” Graul remembered. “And the guys came down from Albright to play, a whole bunch of those guys. And Carril always picked me on his team. He’d show me what to do, this and that, just little things.
“And I had no bad habits, because I wasn’t playing organized ball. That’s how it all started. I was nothing really. What he did for me, what he showed me, when I think back, it was amazing.
“He made me what I was in basketball, a kid that nobody wanted to play with. I don’t know what he saw. He saw something. I don’t know.”
What the 6-4 Graul became was a firstteam All-State pick by The Associated Press and United Press International, the first to accomplish that feat in program history. He averaged 18.4 points per game as a senior.
That story illustrates Carril’s qualities during a coaching career that started at Easton, went from Reading High to Lehigh to Princeton and ended in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
Carril compiled a 145-42 record and won two District 3 titles as head coach of the Red Knights from 1958-59 through 196566. He was a brilliant basketball mind who saw things on the court that others didn’t see; who else would play Joe Natale, 5-10, at center and Graul at guard?
He stressed fundamentals, the bounce pass, playing hard and teamwork. While he became known for his patient Princeton offense, his players said defense was what he most emphasized. He could be stern — his players say they feared him — but he also became a lifelong friend.
“At the same time that he made you work so hard, he made sure that he was your friend,” said Natale, a second-team AllState selection who averaged 15.5 points per game as a senior in 1960-61. “He made sure that you could go to him and ask him anything that you needed to ask.
“I have all the respect in the world for him. I loved him. He’s probably one of my very best friends in my whole life.”
To show Carril’s level of discipline, Natale recalled the day he had to get his hair cut three times because it wasn’t short enough following the first two trims. To make up for the lost practice time, Carril had Natale run. A lot.
“With every group,” he said. “Really hard. I ran 71 times.”
Bill Jankans, a first-team All-State pick and third-team All-American as a senior in 1965-66, said Carril never changed. He was the same guy when Jankans, who lives in California, visited him during his tenure as an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings that ended 2011, as he was when Jankans first met him in the 1960s.
“He’s been the same person, same style,” said Jankans, who averaged more than 20 points and 15 rebounds in his 71-game high school career. “He was a great person. He loved coaching and he loved his players. He’d sit down and talk to you if you had problems. He was like a dad to us.
“I could call Coach at any time. I’d call late at night. He’s up anyway. We’d talk in high school. You could always talk to Coach about anything. When he was coaching in Sacramento. I could call him. Anything. He’s always open like a library. Always open. That’s what I loved about him.”
People often have the image of the rumpled Carril during his time at Princeton in the 1990s. But he was an All-State point guard at Bethlehem Liberty as a senior in 1948 and was an All-American at Lafayette.
“I was 18, 6-5, skinny, 185 pounds,” said Jankans, who went on to play at Long Beach State and was drafted by the Detroit Pistons. “Fast as I wanted to be, and me and Coach played one-on-one. I could never beat Coach one-on-one. Ever. He made me fall on the floor. He was so quick. He’d spin you around.”
Gary Walters has the unique perspective of playing for Carril at Reading High from 1960-63, being an assistant coach with him at Princeton for two seasons — including in 1975, when the Tigers won the NIT — and eventually becoming Princeton’s athletic director in 1994 for Carril’s final two seasons as head coach.
“He was by far the most formative mentor in my life,” said Walters, a point guard who averaged 12.3 points as a senior at Reading High. “Were it not for him, I would not have accomplished nearly half the things. He made me realize the potential I had athletically and academically.”
Walters ended up being on the cover of Sports Illustrated with Princeton teammate Chris Thomforde in February 1967 while playing for coach Butch van Breda Kolff, who was Carril’s college coach at Lafayette.
When van Breda Kolff left Princeton to become coach of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, Walters said he and Thomforde went to the administration to sell Carril’s candidacy.
“I’m happy to say that we succeeded,” Walters said. “So the rest is history: 29 years. Hall of Fame. Central influence on the lives of many basketball players who played for Coach at Princeton.”
The impact he had on his players at Reading High and beyond is clear.
The impact he had on the Red Knights program is just as clear. He laid the foundation for the success that continues today.
“I can’t say enough about this man,” Red Knights great Donyell Marshall, who was a senior in 1991, posted on Twitter Monday night. “He taught me so much about the game of basketball and life. Some of my best times in life was working Princeton BB Camps and having Coach Carril work with me every night when camp ended. Still coached me till your last breath. Love you. R.I.P.”
Jim Gano, who played for Carril in high school at Easton, later became an assistant coach for him at Reading before eventually having his own highly successful 10-year run as Red Knights coach.
“He was a big part of everything,” Gano said of the impact Carril had on him. “Other than my own family, I’d say he was the biggest influence in my life. Period.
“He helped me relative to coaching and
understanding a lot of things about hard work and all that kind of stuff.”
Carril led Princeton to a 514-261 record from 1967-96, 13 Ivy League titles and that NIT championship. Twice his teams advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, including in his final season when the Tigers shocked defending national champion UCLA.
Gano, as a lot of former players did, made trips to Princeton to watch the Tigers practice and/or play games.
“He would play with the custodians or whoever was around there,” Gano said. “That was the one thing about him that I admired. You wouldn’t know the difference if he was sitting in a furnace room with the custodians or over at the ballroom with the president of the university. He’d fit right in with everybody. He seemed to be able to mix in with everybody. And I think that was a key, he could deal with all kinds of people.”
When Carril returned to Reading, as he often did, he’d have dinner with his former players. He continued to get to know their families. Graul remembered having to go to Carril’s house in high school so he could meet his girlfriend, who became his wife.
“Not only do my children know him,” Natale said, “but my grandchildren know him and they call him Coach. They feel the same about him that we do.”
To the end, Carril never stopped being a part of their lives.
“I think this is the important thing,” Walters said. “His immortality is his teaching; the concept of passing it forward and enabling people to become better, to get better. So, he inspired me in so many ways.”
“I love the man,” Jankans said. “Bottom line, we all loved that man. He kept us straight. I feel like without him, I’d probably be in the street somewhere, probably be dead by now, but he kept me straight. I listened to him.
“Growing up you gotta believe in somebody, and I believed in him, no question about that. I’m going to miss him. He was a great man. I can see his smile now. He was a character.”