RIP, Mr. Carril

 This past week, I saw the obituaries for Pete Carril in the newspapers. When I was a student, Mr. Carril was the basketball coach at Reading High in Reading, PA. Home games were always a thrill because he coached great teams at RHS before moving on to college coaching, first at Lehigh University and then for 29 years at Princeton, where he is credited with creating March Madness as the name for the NCAA finals. I want to comment on his teaching my high school civics class, not basketball.


I was a college prep student at Reading High. Every student had to take a civics course prior to graduation and Mr. Carril was my teacher. I remember many discussions in his class about how the government was structured, how it came to be that way, why understanding its working was important to our democracy, and why being an informed voter was important. The 17-year-old me took this in and I think it has stuck with me ever since. Margan and I have been members of the League of Women Voters since 2016, working on issues of voter education and registration. Mr. Carril’s teaching comes back often in doing that work.


An informed citizenry that understands the issues is vital for our country. We see this acutely today with a large portion of the electorate that has been swayed by a deceitful demagogue who perpetrated “The Big Lie” when he was defeated at the polls and fomented a (fortunately failed) coup, complete with a violent insurrection and takeover of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. His acolytes, fed lies, propaganda, and disinformation, are still anxious to do his bidding, including violence. As Colbert King noted today in the Washington Post, voters tell you who they are by who they vote for.


We have an opportunity in November to vote for people at the federal, state, and local levels who are rational and have prepared themselves with truth and facts, not disinformation. Thus a Congresswoman who posits that we will have to go to bed when the sun sets if we rely on renewable energy. We will have to wait longer to vote out others, like the Senator who said the three branches of government are the House, the Senate, and the executive. Or the Senator who is a disinformation machine all unto himself. These are a few people who would have definitely benefited from Mr. Carril’s civics class.


So, RIP, Mr. Carril. You were a great basketball coach but also a great civic teacher. We could use many more like you today.

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