February 5, 2012

Diary Series: Brian Earl, Asst. Coach - Princeton

It’s a pretty stressful time at Princeton right now.  A unique aspect of the Princeton experience is that finals for the first semester are scheduled after the traditional winter break.  So the students have spent the last three weeks studying for exams, writing lengthy papers, and participating in rigorous study groups.  Hopefully they don’t all end up like this…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgS4WIA-vM0

Our players are not exempt from this grueling experience.  They must turn in papers on time, and take exams with their classmates.  And because of a quirk in the Ivy League schedule, we were forced to play back-to-back games at Cornell and Columbia during this exam period.  The stretch ends with a trip to our archrival, the University of Pennsylvania, just one day after finals are over.

As coaches, we have tried to minimize our demands on the players. Many of the exam-period practices are voluntary. The numbers for these sessions have been lean, and the players who make it down to the gym have been dazed.  I found myself reprimanding a player today for showing up late and playing lethargically during a scrimmage.  It turns out that he hadn’t slept last night. Such all-nighters are not uncommon.

I had some time to hit the road during this January exam period, and talked to one of my coaching colleagues about our programs, our seasons so far, the difficulty of the Princeton finals period.  He had seen a bit of our win at Florida State and commented about how a couple of our players could play anywhere (two of our guys had 25 points in the triple OT win).  “But,” he said “how do you convince a 17- year-old kid to put that kind of work in off the court?”  

Most 17-year-olds have a very short-term view of his world.  So we talk about what his four years as a player will look like.  We talk about Jadwin Gym’s 6,800-seat capacity.  We talk about last year’s NCAA tournament appearance.  We talk about the 23 previous Tiger appearances.  We talk about our Nike and ESPN contracts.  We talk about Princeton’s professional basketball players.  We talk about everything a young man dreams about when he thinks of big-time basketball.

But we tell our recruits not to only base their decision on the next four years. Look at the next 40. Our guys who “can play anywhere” were offered scholarships by BCS schools. But they chose Princeton because it is the #1 undergraduate institution in the world; because the basketball program alone boasts alumni that include a former Senator and presidential candidate, the editor-in-chief of Time magazine, and six Division 1 men’s basketball coaches.  He knows that four years of work, both on and off the court, will be rewarded with a lifetime of opportunity.    

Which leads me to the second-most asked question I answer when I talk to my colleagues.  “What do your guys end up doing when they are done playing?”

My reply … “Whatever they want!”