End Of The Search

TigerBlog is a big fan of Christian Swezey of Inside Lacrosse, and it’s a good thing, because TB has heard from Swezey almost hourly for the last few days.

Swezey was checking in often to see if Princeton had an announcement about a new men’s lacrosse coach. TB offered the same quote each time: “Princeton does not comment publicly on ongoing coaching searches.”

TB, even in his newspaper days, never really understood the desire to be the one who broke the story, whatever that story happened to be. As soon as you know something, everyone else does as well. Still, the intensity with which multiple outlets pushed for information was interesting to watch.

Now that the search is no longer ongoing, Princeton can comment all it wants about the hiring of Chris Bates, formerly at Drexel, as the new men’s lacrosse coach here.

TigerBlog’s first comment is to say that this was definitely a 2009-era search. While TB is impressed with the final product of the traditional reporting done by several outside outlets (with no help from the inside, Inside Lacrosse and the Daily Princetonian both reported Bates as the new coach on Sunday), it’s been amusing to see the amount of attention focused on the Web towards the Princeton search.

There were a flood of names linked to the position that never should have been, and there were moments when information that was flat-out wrong was presented as factual. Most of this information was not on actual media sites like Inside Lacrosse or a newspaper but instead on message boards. Again, as TB has said often of late, the average person reading about the Princeton search will remember the names they saw and the reasons why those names were associated with the Princeton position more than they’ll remember where they read them and who wrote them. Again, the quantity of information is staggering, and there is no mechanism to hold the information to any sense of accountability or accuracy. It’s just how it works these days, and again, the sport of lacrosse has benefited from the Web as much as any sport out there.

TB’s second comment is about how the world of college sports information and media relations has continued to evolve. The words “press conference” never entered TB’s mind when learning of Bates’ hire; instead, we here at TigerBlog HQ began to figure out a way to blend together our official announcement, our own video Q&A and a blog entry with an eye on a chat in the near future.

As for the media, we wanted to make sure that the new coach was available to those who wanted to speak to him, but we never felt the need to set up a traditional press conference.

So, here is our multi-platform package. Enjoy.

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Congratulations to John Mack, an Associate AD at Northwestern and a former Princeton athletic department staff member and 10-time Heptagonal track champion, who got married Sunday in St. Louis.

TigerBlog has 10 pictures hanging on the wall above his computer, and one of the 10 is of John Mack as he opens up a huge lead on the field in a 400-meter race. John Mack is one of TB’s all-time favorite Princeton athletes, as well as a fairly beloved figure among Princeton athletic staffers who were here before he left to go to Chicago.

Again, congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Mack.