TIGER TALES: Former Princeton University men’s basketball player Tom Chestnut ’70 has authored “Princeton Basketball: A Tradition of Excellence,” which was published this May. The 253-page work chronicles the rich history of Princeton men’s and women’s basketball era by era, including contributions from a number of writers with the text supplemented by more than 350 photos. The book is available on the website princetonbasketballbook.com.
By Bill Alden
It started as a proposed magazine article that was initially put on hold but eventually turned into a book.
In 2023, former Princeton University men’s basketball player Tom Chestnut, who played for the Tiger varsity squad in the late’60s, realized that the stellar 1966-67 team was being lost to history.
“About three years ago, I realized that the team that I was a member of, the 1966-67 team that was ranked No. 3 in the country, had a terrific year and nobody had really told their story,” said Chestnut, a 1970 Princeton alum. “Guys were getting into their 80s and it just wasn’t going to be told if somebody didn’t tell it.”
Encouraged by former teammate Ed Hummer, Chestnut decided to put together a piece on the squad.
“My initial thought was to simply write about that team,” said Chestnut. “What very clearly became evident is that you couldn’t write about the ’66-’67 team without writing about the ’65 team and Bill Bradley so I added that in. My hope was to get it published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW). Initially it was quite long; it was 14,000 words and their articles are typically 2,000 words. I heard through various sources that they liked the piece but they didn’t know what to do with it because it was so long.”
Chestnut eventually submitted a scaled down 3,500 word version of the story that was eventually published on the PAW website in December 2024.
In the process of researching and interviewing players for that story, Chestnut realized that he had just scratched the surface of the rich history of Tiger hoops.
“As I thought about it, I wanted to tell the story of Princeton basketball from the beginning,” said Chestnut. “Alexander Wolff (a PU alum, former writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of several basketball books) said about 15 years ago that somebody was going to put together an anthology of various stories about Princeton basketball with no connective tissue. I looked at the pieces, some of them I related to, some of them I didn’t.”
Connecting the dots by plunging into the lore of Princeton men’s and women’s basketball era by era, Chestnut has authored Princeton Basketball: A Tradition of Excellence, which was published this May.
The 253-page coffee table book starts with forwards from Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, hoops legend Bill Bradley, and an appreciation of John McPhee, who wrote the classic biography of Bradley, A Sense of Where You Are, among his many works.
The volume is divided into six sections: “Beginnings,” which starts with James Naismith inventing the game and ends with chronicling Cappy Cappon’s tenure coaching Tiger men’s hoops; “The Rise of Princeton Basketball,” which features the exploits of Bradley and coach Butch van Breda Kolff; “Enter Pete Carril: a 5’6 Force of Nature,” which details the ups and downs of the Carril era including the 1975 NIT championship team, the 1989 NCAA loss to Georgetown and the 1996 NCAA win over UCLA; “We Got Next: The Apprentices Take Over,” which traces the men’s story from coach Bill Carmody and the 1997-98 squad that went 27-2 up through the NCAA Sweet 16 run in 2023 under current coach Mitch Henderson; “The Women Got Game: A Dynasty in the Ivies” which details the start of that program and its ascension into an Ivy power impacting the national scene; and “Life After Princeton,” a “where are they now?” survey of some of the Tiger hoops notables. The book also includes a 32-page appendix containing information on records, stats, and awards for both programs.
In addition to Chestnut’s narrative, the book includes contributions from an impressive lineup of writers including Sean Gregory, Barnes Hauptfuhrer, Jerry Price, Steve Silverman, Jon Solomon, Brett Tomlinson, and the late Grant Wahl in addition to Wolff and McPhee, among others. The text is supplemented by more than 350 photos.
For Chestnut, the project turned into a labor of love. “I took one era at a time and started interviewing a lot of players. The players were terrific, many of them I had never met or didn’t know,” said Chestnut, who played for both coach van Breda Kolff and coach Carril in his Tiger career. “We started talking and very quickly they went back to that era and were telling me the inside stories. That really broadened my horizon. I loved when I would get my head around a particular team or game or era and the words would almost pour out. I loved talking to the players. As a former player myself, we could talk player to player and talk in a different way. We can use terminology. There were players who told me things that I said, ‘Are you OK if I write it like that?’ and they said, ‘Yes.’ I was almost surprised they said yes.”
Having never written a book, Chestnut kept his focus narrow.
“I knew it was a niche book,” said Chestnut. “The thesis that is a common one among younger writers who are writing blogs and so forth is not to write something for the broadest possible audience but to write something for the narrowest possible audience. I wrote this for Princeton basketball players like myself who love the game and love it so much that they spent more time in the gym than they spent in the library and more time with Carril than they spent with any professor. The players basically majored in basketball yet have gone on to these incredible careers.”
Chestnut, 78, who is retired from an impressive career that saw him work at Procter & Gamble and Cablevison, served as the president of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA, and as the president and CEO of AAA Western and Central New York, poured his heart and soul into the writing process.
“It wasn’t something I worked on all day, every day,” said Chestnut. “I certainly thought about it all day, every day, and worked on it pretty much every day to some degree. A lot of it was just talking to people. What became evident was that it was possible to put together this whole story but I didn’t know if I had that in me. This was a passion.”
Making a final push over the winter, Chestnut was able to achieve his goal of bringing the work to Princeton this spring.
“Around the end of the year of 2025 and the start of the year 2026, I sat at my desk and laid out week by week what would have to happen for it to be available for Reunions, recognizing all of the pieces,” said Chestnut, who credited the book’s designer, Jane McGrath, and the proofreading by Tomlinson, a longtime PAW editor, as playing a key role in bringing the project to conclusion. “I needed to get forwards. I needed to get people to write articles. All of the pieces needed to come together and I said, ‘I think I can do this’, and then I talked to the publisher, which is BookBaby. They do two things, which is why I chose them. First of all they publish essentially self-published books that authors write on their own. They also offer a service to help people write books. I wanted to write my book, I didn’t want somebody else telling me how things ought to go. I wanted ideas but I didn’t want them to make decisions, so I just used them to essentially proof the book.”
For Chestnut, making the book resonate for those who have competed for the Tigers was his main objective.
“One of the things I wanted to do is to write this for the players,” said Chestnut. “I figured if I got it right for the players, then it would also work for the fans who always search for the inside stuff. Somehow I have been able to do that.”
In the view of Princeton head coach and former Tiger star Mitch Henderson, Chestnut achieved that goal with aplomb.
“The way it is laid out, there is great humility there from his end,” said Henderson, whose inspirational eulogy at coach Carril’s memorial service is included in the book. “He deserves a lot of credit — it is a really special piece. I would highly recommend it to people. What I love about it is that it is about the players. Great players make good coaches so we have been the beneficiary of being surrounded by some really good players here and Tom highlights that. The other part was the care and attention to detail that Tom took to honor all parts of eras.”
Henderson appreciated how Chestnut covered the current era of Tigers hoops excellence.
“There is a significant chunk in the book about the recent teams,” said Henderson. “The recent teams on both sides have just been so terrific and Tom highlights that in a really special way. It is very meaningful to my guys and Carla (former Tiger women’s had coach Carla Berube) and LB’s (current women’s head coach Lauren Gosselin) players that have come here of late.”
With the work getting published in May, Chestnut was able to bring copies to the Princeton Reunions, where he gifted and sold a number of books.
The book, which is available on the website princetonbasketballbook.com, has already drawn high praise from the Princeton basketball community.
“I have gotten more laudatory feedback from this effort than anything I have ever done in my life,” said Chestnut, noting that former Princeton hoops standout Craig Robinson got back to him before he finished reading the book to say how much he liked the work. “I would say easily 30 people have gotten back to me.”
Chestnut is justifiably proud of the finished product. “It is better than I thought it could possibly be, recognizing along the way I know how the sausage was made,” said Chestnut. “I was seeing a lot of this on my computer. When I saw it as a real book and not on a computer screen, it just jumped out at me. I gave my designer the pictures for the cover and she elegantly and simply put them together with the title.”
By telling the story of Princeton basketball from the beginning in such an elegant and detailed fashion, Chestnut has made sure that none of the great Tiger teams, players, or coaches will be lost to history.
“I made this a coffee table book because I wanted people to be able to sit with the book piece by piece and pick it up one day and riffle through one story and pick it up another day and riffle through the story of their team,” said Chestnut. “I wanted it to be so good that there didn’t need to be another book about Princeton basketball until the next 50 years go by.”