Web Update: Jadwin basketball court to be named for coaching legend Pete Carril

The athletics department announced Monday that the basketball court at Jadwin Gymnasium will be named Carril Court to honor Pete Carril, the Hall-of-Fame coach who led the men's basketball team for 29 years.

"This is a fitting tribute to a coach who did as much to influence the sport of basketball as anyone in the late 20th century," athletics director Gary Walters '67 said in a statement. "He has also had an indelible mark on everyone who has played for him."

During Carril's tenure, which spanned from the 1967-68 season until the 1995-96 season, the team won 13 Ivy League championships and went to 11 NCAA tournaments and two National Invitational Tournaments, winning one in 1975.

A Pennsylvania native and the son of a steel mill worker, Carril played basketball for Lafayette College before joining the Army. He then coached at Pennsylvania high schools, including Reading High School, where he coached Walters. Later, Carril became head coach at Lehigh before replacing Butch van Breda Kolff as the head Princeton coach. Van Breda Kolff, who passed away in 2007, had also coached Carril at Lafayette.

After the historic upset, then-junior captain Sydney Johnson '97 quoted Carril in saying, " 'It doesn't matter if I believe . . . It matters if you believe.' " Johnson returned to Princeton to become head coach of the men's basketball team in 2007.

Carril developed the Princeton Offense, a style of play characterized by frequent passing, movement without the ball, back-door cuts and three-point shooting that has become the hallmark of Princeton basketball and has been adopted by a number of professional basketball teams.

Carril, who can today be found sitting in the bleachers at Princeton home games, will be honored in a ceremony at the Dartmouth game on Feb. 21, 2009.

More to come