Carroll was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Rita (née Ban) and James Edward "Jim" Carroll. Two of his paternal great-grandparents were Irish immigrants, and his Croatian maternal grandparents emigrated from around the region of Šibenik. Carroll attended Redwood High School in Larkspur, California. After being an athlete in childhood, his lack of physical growth as a teenager caused him frustration in high school sports; weighing just 110 pounds (50 kg) as an incoming freshman, he was required to bring a special doctor\'s clearance in order to try out for football. He was a multi-sport star in football (playing quarterback, wide receiver, and defensive back), basketball, and baseball, earning the school\'s Athlete of the Year honors as a senior in 1969. He was inducted into the charter class of the Redwood High School Athletic Hall of Fame in April 2009. Carroll has stated that one of his favorite players growing up was LSU defensive back Tommy Casanova, and that LSU was a place that he always wanted to coach.\n', '

After high school, Carroll attended junior college at the nearby College of Marin, where he played football for two years (lettering in his second year) before transferring to the University of the Pacific, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. At Pacific, Carroll played free safety for two years for the Tigers, earning All-Pacific Coast Athletic Conference honors both years (1971–72) and earning his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1973.\n', '

After graduation, Carroll tried out for the Honolulu Hawaiians of the World Football League at their training camp in Riverside but did not make the team due to shoulder problems combined with his small size. To make ends meet, he found a job selling roofing materials in the Bay Area, but he found he was not good at it and soon moved on; it would be his only non-football-related job.\n', '

Return to Pete Carroll Autograph Profile