Noon Hoops

TigerBlog did something Monday that he hadn't done since May of 2008: He played squash.

TB, for some reason, thought he was capable of playing lacrosse against people half his age, and the result was a patellar tendon that needed to be sewn back together. And though it took nearly two years, TB made it back to his favorite form of exercise, playing squash. And, he's probably going to stay away from lacrosse again.

Squash is a tremendous workout, for those who've never played it. Also, if your response is "I've played racquetball," well, it's a completely different game from squash. For starters, the ball bounces all over the place in racquetball; in squash it hardly bounces at all. The result is that you have to chase the ball all over the court, and TB guarantees you'll be very, very sore the day after you play for the first time.

TB turned to squash about five or six years ago after being a regular in the Jadwin Gym lunchtime basketball game. Squash proved to be a great substitute, and TB was soon playing up to four or five times a week. Then, of course, lacrosse derailed it all.

One of the great parts of working in a gymnasium is the access to a workout during the day, and with the huge numbers of young people and former college athletes who work here, there are far more people who are exercising than those who don't.

On any given day, you can see people running, lifting weights, riding bikes, playing squash or pretty much anything.

Still, as far as Jadwin Gym and working out go, the granddaddy of them all is the lunchtime basketball game.

It's an even that dates back as far as the building itself, back to when Pete Carril would shoot 30 foot set shots against Hank Towns and Cap Crossland while smoking a cigar. It continues literally to this day, as there will probably be a game today.

TigerBlog first played in the mid-'90s, after watching for a few weeks after he started working here. His first-ever made basket at lunchtime was a hook shot from the baseline, which prompted then-assistant coach Bill Carmody to say: "who are you, Rick Hielscher?"

Just for some time context, and all.

TB once made a list of all the players he'd played against at lunchtime, and it was a list that had more than 200 names on it. They include Carril, Carmody, Joe Scott and John Thompson, four of the last five head men's coaches at Princeton, and playing with and against those guys was an education.

For starters, none of the four ever stopped talking while they played. If any of them played on Carril's team, they had hand signals and verbal signals that only they knew, which often resulted in back cuts, wide open looks and the like.

By the time TB began to play, Carril was way past his prime as a player, but he was a reliable shooter from as far back as he wanted to go. He was the worst player to have to guard, because you figured you needed to take it easy on him because of his age. As soon as you did, of course, he'd step further back and hit another set shot.

He was also, of course, funny, in his usual way. One time, when another player went down with a knee injury that turned out to be a torn ACL, everyone gathered around while someone ran to get an athletic trainer. In the silence, while the player was down, Carril walked up to him and said: "Now might not be the best time to tell you that you traveled."

Thompson is the most prolific passing forward in Princeton history, and he played the same way at lunch. He would rarely shoot, and would for the most part only shoot if the person guarding him dropped off to defend passing lanes. He spent the whole time moving people around, and he would always, always find the open man.

Scott played somewhat the same as Thompson, and his most famous lunchtime command was "stay wide," which basically meant "get out of the way of our offense." Alexander Wolff, the great writer from Sports Illustrated, actually participated in one of the games and wrote about his experiences as part of his book about basketball around the world entitled "Big Game, Small World." In it, he quotes Scott as telling him to "stay wide." He also mentions what a great passer TigerBlog is, but that's another story for another day.

Carmody could pass, dribble and shoot, and he was a tenacious defender. He was also a running commentary on the game, with quips like "What? You don't like layups?"

The games then were a combination of pickup game and Princeton offense, because that's how everyone wanted to play when Carril was on the court. It continued when Carril left and the other coaches remained, because that's how they wanted to play.

The game wasn't only about those four. It also attracted some less-well-known people, such as the guy named James who wandered in off the street one day and stayed for about five years. Turned out his was a psychology graduate student who became a regular, and he brought with him a quick first step, no defense and the desire to call too many fouls.

The football office has long provided great depth during lunchtime basketball, and this group has usually been 1) young, 2) in shape, 3) physical and 4) competitive. It's a pretty good combination.

TigerBlog remembers playing with a part-time assistant named Jeff Vartabedian, who stood about 6-4 and could have scored 1,000 points had he played basketball and not football in college. Vartabedian, it appears from Google, is now the head coach at Wilbraham and Monson Academy. When Vartabedian put up a 15-foot jump shot, it had about an 80% chance of going in.

The lunchtime game has a long history of including women, and there are several former women's college stars who rank among the best players to play at lunchtime. Jen Scanlon and Mary Gleason, assistant women's coaches here under Richard Barron, were both great three-point shooters who could also go to the basket. Leah Scott (formerly Spraragen), who is married to Joe Scott, was a point guard at Princeton during her playing days, and he almost never turned the ball over at lunch. Carrie Moore, who scored 2,216 points in college, today is among the leading scorers at lunchtime.

There have been others who have left quite a mark on the noontime games. Chuck Yrigoyen, now the commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, played for decades first as a member of the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications and then after he moved to the Ivy League. Chuck could be relied on for shooting 12-foot shots with no arc that would either go in (50% of the time) or elicit comments like "I am the worst basketball player of all time" (the other 50% of the time).

Chuck Sullivan was an intern in the OAC when he played. Carril guarded him, and after Chuck managed to throw one in without looking, Carril announced that his man "has every shot in the deck." Today, more than 15 years later, Sullivan still regards that as among his proudest moments.

The game used to evolve from a bunch of early-morning phone calls and walks up to the basketball office and down to the football office. Eventually, TigerBlog put together an email list looking for people who were in. The goal is to get at least eight players, but 10 is better. There have been times where there have been twice that many and two games have been played. Usually, there's around 10-13 players, and those who lose are off for the next game, with the extra spots filled by making foul shots.

The email list was transfered from TB to John Mack, now at Northwestern, when TB turned to squash. Mack, a 10-time Heptagonal champion, turned over that job to Jon Kurian, who is the unofficial lunchtime basketball commissioner today. His daily email goes to 67 people, many of whom don't work here anymore.

One who recently left is Mike Cross, who went to be the athletic director at Bradley. Anytime Princeton athletics made a hire in the 10 years that Cross was here, his standard assessment was to suggest whether or not this person was "making us stronger at lunchtime."

See, for those who've played or continue to play, lunchtime basketball is more than just a game. It's one of those things that stands out about working here, something that has fostered great friendships and battles, classic games and even a fight or two.

TigerBlog is glad to be back on the squash court, and hopefully there won't be any more setbacks to playing.

One day, though, he'll venture back to the basketball court at lunchtime. When he does, all of the memories will come flooding back.

Like everyone else who's played there, TB will cherish those experiences forever.