The Smart Take from the Strong

Last year, Carril retired from head coaching after 43 years, of which 29 were spent at Princeton. His memoirs, written with freelancer White, are a warm and wise series of random jottings about the values he learned growing up in a Pennsylvania steel town, his views on society, athletes past and present and, of course, his philosophy of winning basketball. Some of his observations are lengthy, like that on defensive fundamentals, while others are disarmingly brief but equally trenchant: ""A good mind has never handicapped a player."" He believes sports do not build character but reveal it, and his greatest enthusiasm is reserved for the team player. He is disarmingly candid about recruiting, which, he confesses, he did badly, probably all to the good because Princeton's sports programs are ultra-clean; he even wonders whether he could have been such a straight arrow if he'd been at a less scrupulous college. (Mar.)