Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Mr. President, The Princeton Website Has Been Updated

Suppose, for a minute, that it's the early evening of Oct. 3. Princeton and Columbia have just finished their football game, and alums of both schools are checking out the Websites of both schools to find out as much about the outcome as they can.

Does that mean that in the White House, President Obama, Columbia Class of 1983, might be checking out goprincetontigers.com?

TigerBlog has often wondered who the most famous and influential people who come to goprincetontigers.com are. Goprincetontigers.com will be 10 years old this October, meaning three Presidents have had a chance to go to the page. All three - Yale Law School grad Bill Clinton, Yale undergrad and Harvard Business School grad George W. Bush and now Obama – have some Ivy League connection. All three are obviously sports fans, especially Bush and Obama.

So maybe they have checked out the site. At least once? You couldn't see some interest on Bush's part on a Princeton-Yale game? Obama is a huge basketball fan whose brother-in-law is one of the leading scorers in Princeton basketball history? Maybe he read TigerBlog's Pete Carril feature? Or maybe the Princeton-Brown basketball recaps when Craig Robinson was still the Bears coach and Obama was winding down after a long day on the campaign trail?

And how about the first lady, Michelle Obama, who herself is an alum? Certainly she's been on our site, no?

Forget just the Presidents. Who else out there has seen goprincetontigers.com? The Website approaches one million page views per month during the peak months during the athletic year and has more than 80,000 unique visitors during those times. TigerBlog is starting to catch on as well. Certainly someone famous out there has stumbled upon it.

There is a huge list of alums in government. Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court justice, is an alum, as is the current nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, played lacrosse here. Maybe he posted something here on TigerBlog after Bill Tierney and David Metzbower left? Or maybe Buzzy Krongard, former CIA head and lacrosse Hall of Famer, did so?
Donald Rumsfeld played sprint football and wrestled; he has to be a reader. So, too, is the former Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich, a football alum.

There are a ton of Princeton alums in the entertainment world. How about Dean Cain? He's definitely a reader. TigerBlog remembers covering games when Cain was an All-America defensive back at Princeton (and running into him on campus after he'd become Superman on TV) and being impressed with how down-to-Earth he was (and probably still is). Cain was also a volleyball player here at Princeton and a huge Glenn Nelson fan; he definitely read Craig Sachson's piece on the longtime Tiger volleyball coach.

But what about his college girlfriend Brooke Shields? Does she read our site? David Duchovny has often said he played basketball and baseball at Princeton (records indicate he never lettered in either). He must be a loyal reader. How about Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper John in the series M*A*S*H? Trapper supposedly played football at Dartmouth; certainly the person who played him must be a goprincetontigers.com reader.

Ethan Coen is a Princeton grad. Maybe between takes of filming, among others, "No Country For Old Men," Coen checked out some Princeton stuff. Of course, he couldn't have done so during the filming of "Fargo," since that was the pre-goprincetontigers.com years. Maybe he called the Tiger Sportsline?

TB knows that John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is a loyal reader. How about the other great Princeton alums in literature and media?

Meg Whitman surely has two tabs open at once, one on ebay and one on goprincetontigers.com. What about the other Princetonians in business?

Or maybe we have a loyal reader who's not even a Princeton alum. It could be anyone. Bernie Madoff? The Pope? Bill Simmons? James Earl Jones? Sylvester Stallone? Anyone.

Actually, it got TigerBlog to thinking. If TB could pick five famous people to read goprincetontigers.com and TigerBlog each day, which five would it be?

* LeBron James - would make a good commercial. LeBron wakes up, checks out goprincetontigers.com and then goes on with his day
* George H.W. Bush - anyone who celebrates his 85th birthday by jumping out of an airplane is okay with TigerBlog
* Robert DeNiro - yeah, we're talking to you
* Bruce Springsteen - let him appreciate TigerBlog for once, instead of the other way around
* Morgan Freeman - because how great would it be to have Morgan Freeman call you on the phone one day and tell you in that voice how much he likes your blog?

So come on, all you famous goprincetontigers.com readers out there. Let us know who you are.

TigerBlog knows you're out there.

No comments: