Happy 85th

TigerBlog wrote a short piece yesterday for goprincetontigers.com about next week's "A Night With Coaches" event at Conte's.

The event will bring Pete Carril, Jason Garrett and John Thompson to Conte's - the venerable pizza place on Witherspoon Street - this coming Wednesday to benefit the A-T Children's Project and Derek's Dreams.

The "Derek" of Derek's Dreams is Derek DiGregorio, the 17-year-old son of Nadia and Steve DiGregorio. Steve is a former assistant football coach at Princeton.

The A-T Children's Project is desperately trying to find a cure for Ataxia Telangiectasia, a rare neurodegenarative disease from which Derek suffers.

To say that what the DiGregorio's deal with on a daily basis is frightening and intimidating is an understatement. And yet did they get frightened or intimidated? No way.

They, along with some others, especially Howard Levy, the former Princeton basketball player and assistant coach and now the head coach at Mercer County Community College, have attacked head on, holding fund-raisers and creating Derek's Dreams to call attention to a disease that few people know exists.

And, knowing the group the way TB does, it doesn't surprise him at all that they're approaching this fund-raiser in typical fashion, by uniting the Princeton community, bringing together the three wildly successful and popular coaches and doing so in the name of fun.

Of course, the event needs a moderator, and that honor was offered to TigerBlog, who immediately accepted.

He even thought of changing the name of the event from "A Night With Coaches" to "Four Princeton Legends," but he thought better of it.

The instructions he was given were 1) dress very, very casually, like shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops, and 2) try to keep the program equally as casual, with funny stories and all.

TigerBlog can handle both of those. The toughest choice will be which t-shirt to wear. Right now, TigerBlog is leaning towards black "Princeton Lacrosse."

As for funny stories? TigerBlog has said this before, but of the 50 funniest things he's ever seen or heard, Pete Carril is directly responsible for probably 25 of them.

So TigerBlog is looking forward to Wednesday night. Plus, it's for an extraordinarily great cause.

You can find out more about HERE.

Of course, when it came time to write about Carril's accomplishments, TB knew them by heart.
His record of 514-261 at Princeton and 525-273 overall. His 13 Ivy titles. His 11 NCAA appearances. His 1975 NIT championship.

Pete Carril is like no one else who ever was a part of Princeton Athletics. He grew up with little in Bethlehem, the son of a Spanish immigrant who worked for 40 years in the steel mills. His father's legendary work ethic inspired him, and he came to spend the majority of his career at a University where there were very few who came from his background.

It was that mismatched dynamic that worked so well for him and resonated so well with those who played for him. Maybe not while they were undergrads.

But ask them today, and pretty much to a man they will talk about how much they learned from him.

Today is Pete Carril's 85th birthday. He moves a little slower than he used to, but he's still moving, still sharp, still someone whose very presence on campus commands the respect of everyone who happens to be in whatever room he is in at that moment.

TigerBlog remembers writing about Carril on his 80th birthday. Have five years really come and gone since then?

Anywhere, here's what he said back then. It still resonates today, his 85th birthday:

In Carril's own words: "If you lower standards, they turn around and attack you."

TigerBlog maintains that in the long history of Princeton athletics, there are four icons who rise above everyone else. Three were Princeton athletes - Hobey Baker, Dick Kazmaier and Bill Bradley; the fourth is Carril.

TB once wrote that Carril has long been the conscience of Princeton basketball (and to a larger extreme, Princeton athletics), and by that he means that Carril was never one to let anyone get away with anything less than full effort, full commitment. He couldn't be conned as head coach, and he cared little about what a person's background was. Nobody had a free pass on his teams.

He himself grew up poor, and TB has heard stories both heartfelt and hysterical about Carril's experiences as a child and the effect they had on him.

Today, at the age of 80, he's a more mellow person. He's still the conscience of Princeton basketball, but he does so from the perspective of your wise old uncle that you see a few times a year.

And yet, he hasn't slowed a step. He still has the quick wit, the dominating persona, the ability to sniff out the BS immediately.

There has never been anyone to walk into Jadwin Gym quite like Pete Carril. Now that he's 80, there still isn't, and TB suspects it will forever be this way. 

Happy birthday Coach.

Looking forward to hearing you Wednesday.