Last night Penn and Princeton played their 215th basketball game against each other. The game on the court may have diminished in quality from previous years, but the state of the programs is still strong.
And what makes Penn and Princeton special is not just their seemingly endless string of Ivy League Championships or the crowds that come to watch them play, it is the tradition of the programs. Both the Tigers and the Quakers have a history of producing other Division I coaches that no other Ivy team can duplicate.
By my count there are at least 10 Division I coaches not named Glen Miller or Joe Scott who have a connection to Penn or Princeton, including the Ivy League's own Craig Robinson of Brown and Steve Donahue of Cornell.
Coaches, assistant coaches and players from the two programs have gone on to coach all around Division I and even the NBA. Princeton legend and all-time Ivy wins leader Pete Carril spent several years as an assistant to the Sacramento Kings. Chuck Daly, who had a .708 winning percentage at Penn in the 70s, led the Detroit Pistons to two NBA titles.
The legacies of these coaches continue to this day. Carril's students have spread his offense philosophy, in various incarnations, to schools such as Richmond, Georgetown, and Northwestern, where Chris Mooney, John Thompson and Bill Carmody coach, respectively.
While Penn does not have a coaching legacy present in a particular system, the Palestra continues serve as springboard to other positions, including Gil Jackson at Howard, Fran Dunphy at Temple and Fran O'Hanlon at Lafayette.
The historic success of Penn and Princeton, and the rivalry that helps that success continue, is what is responsible for the breeding of so many coaches.
Glen Miller, who was hired by Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, believes in the influence of great coaches.
"Good coaches hire people as assistant coaches with good work ethics and they are driven," Miller said. "You can trace great coaches back to a good mentor."
The latter description is certainly true of Dunphy. He not only left a legacy of 310 wins at Penn, but a legacy of other Division I coaches who will try to replicate his success.
Richmond coach and former Princeton guard Chris Mooney points to the general success of the Penn and Princeton teams.
"The most important thing is they have both been winning for a very long time," Mooney said.
The success of the two programs helps individuals who have been associated with them gain entrance into the elite world of collegiate coaching. However, it is the winning ways of programs that attract people with the talent and drive to be head coaches in the first place.
This is not to say that Yale or Dartmouth or any of the other Ivy schools are incapable of producing future coaches, but it is not their tradition to do so.
The rivalry between Penn and Princeton will ebb and flow, but as long as the programs continue to influence collegiate basketball beyond the confines of Philadelphia and New Jersey, the rivalry and the success will continue.
We may be unknowingly watching the next generation of coaches today. Perhaps someday Mark Zoller will be patrolling a sideline, and Kevin Egee may be helping coach Mike Martin draw up plays.
The only thing that is for sure is that the legacies of Penn and Princeton extend well beyond their 215th meeting.
Matt Meltzer is a senior political science major from Glen Rock, N.J. His e-mail
address is meltzerm@sas.upenn.edu.
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