At 65, Rookie Feels His Way Carril Enjoys A New Career As An Assistant In The Nba

In a season full of strange new experiences, Pete Carril, 65-year-old rookie, is halfway through one of the strangest. It is the longest road trip of his life, six games in 11 days.

It is familiar territory, but it still feels weird.

“I’ve always been a one-suitcase man,” Carril said. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it.”

Forty-four years into his coaching career, Pete Carril finds himself on a new coast, in a new apartment, in a whole new 82-game grind. He has brought his stogie-smoking, hair-pulling, rumpled-genius legend to the NBA, and the Sacramento Kings, where he is an assistant coach to Garry St. Jean, a subordinate of his former Princeton backcourt star, Geoff Petrie, the Kings’ GM, the consummate basketball professor trying to sell millionaires on the virtue of the back cut.

Petrie and Carril had agreed in principle that Carril would join the Kings when he retired from Princeton. The decision came last March, right after Princeton beat Penn for Carril’s 13th Ivy League title, and just before Carril scored the last and greatest victory of his career: a 43-41 upset over defending national champion UCLA in the NCAA Tournament.

If you were expecting a misty-eyed stroll, you’ve got the wrong legend.

“It’s part of ancient history now,” Carril said with a gravelly chuckle. “It’s the Greeks and the Romans.”

That game was in Indianapolis. Carril made his first visit back there on a Thanksgiving date with the Pacers.

On Saturday, his Kings lost to the New York Knicks, 115-101, at Madison Square Garden. That marked Carril’s first return to the Garden since 1981 when Princeton lost to Ohio State.

Carril is perfectly content to not be a head man anymore, to see his longtime assistant, Bill Carmody, taking over in his place. This was a calculated decision. For years he said he had seen his assistants drink coffee before games. He never could, because his stomach would have been jumpier than a cat in a dog pound.

“Now I’m having coffee before every game,” Carril said. “Being a head coach is like being in the infantry. You get all the flak, all the bullet shots. You make all the tough decisions. You talk to the reporters. You’re on TV. I’d had enough. This is just perfect for me. Whenever Garry wants something from me, I’m ready to give it to him. But the gut-wrenching things you have as a coach, you don’t need it.”

It has greatly eased Carril’s transition that he has a history with St. Jean, from the latter’s days as a Nets assistant. If the move was Petrie’s idea, St. Jean was quick to second it.

“He smokes a quality cigar,” St. Jean said. “He has a beautiful hair style. He has great tie attire, and a fabulous Columbo trench coat. Above and beyond all that, what we got is a tremendous guy who has a wealth of knowledge about the game of life and the game of basketball. He’s been a big plus for our staff and a big plus for our team. We just both wish we were winning more.”

A big part of the problem is that the Kings, who are 5-12, have been averaging 20 turnovers a game. For a crusty perfectionist such as Carril, that is akin to using a Magic Marker on the Mona Lisa.

“It’s been rough on me,” Carril said. “I used to get really upset at Princeton when we had 10 turnovers.”

Carril gets in the office at 9 a.m. and on game days may not get home until after midnight. He’s watching lots of film, and live games. He’s learning the art of note-taking, which he never believed in, because he felt that if he was taking too many notes, it meant he wasn’t watching enough. He is astounded by the detail of NBA scouting reports on upcoming opponents, 15 or 20 pages packed with tendencies, percentages, strengths and weaknesses.

“I used to do my scouting reports on a chewing gum wrapper,” Carril said.

Carril has done much individual work with Kings players, nobody more than Corliss Williamson. He’s helped Williamson to adjust to his new small-forward position, to face the basket and refine his outside shot.

“Definitely, I’m really happy he’s a part of the program,” said Williamson, who said any early player concerns about what Carril could offer have all but vanished. “In the beginning, guys were trying to figure him out. By now I think they all realize that the things he has incorporated into our offense are really helping us.”

Those things include constant motion, lots of picks and a multitude of back-door possibilities.

Said Petrie, “He lives for the game, whether it’s college or the pros. He just wants to stay around it for as long as he feels he’s useful.”

Petrie said he has no doubt that will be for a long time.

Apart from travel and ties (he hadn’t worn one on the sideline for two decades, until now), one of the biggest changes for Carril is that the typical pro player is not the captive audience his Princeton players were. His Tigers may not have been thrilled about his tongue-lashings and fundamental-poundings, but they heard him.

Now?

“You have the sense you’re not always listened to,” Carril said. “You have to methodically go about getting your points across when you’re asked to give them. As an assistant coach, you’re better off seen and not heard.”

Carril said about the only things he knows about Sacramento are how to get from his apartment to the airport to Arco Arena. He has found a couple of restaurants he likes that serve his favorite food: mashed potatoes. He’s had somewhat less success finding places where it’s OK to smoke cigars.

It’s all part of the learning experience of a 65-year-old rookie, the only rookie in the NBA who has been nominated for the Basketball Hall of Fame. Pete Carril is enjoying being out of the infantry, but otherwise he is the same old rumpled legend, doing his damnedest to see the game played perfectly.

“To be in a game for more than 40 years and still be so in love with it, that’s tremendous,” St. Jean said. “He just comes after it every day.”