Hey Day

The 1983-84 academic year in West Philadelphia was a good one. It started when TigerBlog drew the No. 28 in the room drawer, which landed him and roommate Eric Weiss in a two-bedroom double on the 22nd floor of High Rise South, which could be the single-greatest dorm room on the campus.

By the time Hey Day (the tradition of when juniors become seniors, complete with the destroying straw hats; TigerBlog still has a picture of him, Weiss and Ed Mikus Jr. in red Hey Day shirts and mashed hats, with long hair that long ago vanished) rolled around in May, TB had met Mikus, Frohman, Glazer, Baker, Hatke and all the others who to this day come into Jadwin Gym for the Princeton-Penn games and shake their head when they see TigerBlog in his Princeton gear.

Yes, 1983-84 was good times in West Philly. As a matter of fact, it was the year that Penn won the highest number of Ivy titles in school history, a total of eight.

Other league schools and their highs for Ivy titles? Brown won seven in 1999-2000. Columbia? Five in 2006-07. Cornell won nine in 2005-06. Dartmouth has won five on five occasions, most recently in 1992-93. Yale's best is seven, achieved in the first year of full Ivy competition (1956-57) and repeated in 1989-90.

Harvard, among the other seven schools, is the only one who ever reached double figures, something the Crimson have done three times. Harvard's best was 14 Ivy titles in 2004-05.

This past weekend, Princeton won the Ivy League championship in men's lightweight rowing and women's track and field. Combining with the men's lacrosse championship (for a good story on Princeton lacrosse and the McBride cousins, check out M.A. Mehta in the Star-Ledger from Sunday), Princeton won three this spring and now has 11 for the academic year.

Those 11 championships tie for the eighth best total in school history. Princeton has now reached double figures in Ivy titles in 17 different academic years, with a high of 14 twice.

As TigerBlog has often said, it's easy to take this success for granted, but it's not something that happens accidentally.

So don't take it for granted. Don't think that Princeton is entitled to the Ivy titles every year, because the other seven schools are out there all the time working hard to knock the Tigers out of the top spot.

At the same time, enjoy it. Just take it easy on any straw hats you might see. Let our friends in West Philadelphia have their fun.