Spoon And Hank

The skies threatened Wednesday morning, so the annual department end-of-year picnic/barbecue was moved inside the boathouse.

The athletic year includes three times when the entire department gets together socially. The first is after the staff welcome back meeting in September. The second is the Christmas party (or holiday party, if the word "Christmas" scares you; it does not scare TigerBlog). The third is the end-of-year BBQ.

A few years ago, the tradition of having a department softball game seemed to fade away, possibly because of the time that John Cornell, who now is the head of marketing at the College of Coastal Georgia, took a line drive off the bat of Associate AD Chris Brock right off his face.

Departmental gatherings are always interesting for TigerBlog. On the one hand, the Department of Athletics is a fairly small, close-knit unit, while on the other hand, there are so many fragmented sub-sections of the department spread out between Jadwin, Dillon, the boathouse, the grounds crew building and elsewhere that there are large numbers of people in the department that TB goes days and weeks without seeing.

The man of the hour at yesterday's gathering has been known in these parts for the last 25 years simply as "Spoon," which is a shortened version of his last name, Witherspoon. Jeremiah Witherspoon spent 25 years working on the equipment staff here at Princeton, until his retirement this past year.

And so there was Spoon yesterday, uncomfortably the center of attention as he received a few gifts (he'll make best use of the Princeton golf bag) and several impromptu salutes from coaches who'd known him here for years and even before that as Princeton undergraduates.

Spoon was then asked to say a few words, and he spoke emotionally about the great honor he had to work here and the great young people he got to meet.

It's what everyone says when asked to talk about what it's meant to them to work at Princeton athletics. Always, without fail, they start with the honor of working at this University and the great young people they get to meet, work with and hopefully help.

Spoon is one of those people that everyone likes. In his 25 years here, he was probably in a bad mood every now and then, but he never showed it. Instead, it was always a joke, a warm hello, a question about how the family was doing, something like that. Always in genuine fashion.

When athletes come to Princeton, or any other school, TigerBlog assumes they are doing so because - athletically at least - they like the coaches, felt the current players were a nice group, have an idea that they'd fit in well on the team.

It's unlikely that too many of them give any thought to who is in charge of washing their uniforms or cutting the grass on the field or taping their ankles or writing the story on the website or any of the other things that surround a program. And yet when they get here, those people become tremendously important to them and to their experience in college.

To that end, a person like Spoon was in perfect position to impact a great number of athletes in his 25 years. Clearly, he did.

Another person who had a similar time at Princeton was the former head equipment manager, Hank Towns, who came to the luncheon to see his old friend and colleague.

Hank left Princeton after the 2003-04 academic year. TB put Hank's picture on the final football game program of the 2003 season, and TB still has a framed version of it on his wall in his office. This should give a sense of how much TB has always liked Hank, dating back nearly 30 years now.

Hank hasn't been around much in the six years since he's retired. When he does come to an event, he is treated as royalty, as he was at Wednesday's indoor picnic.

TB has always been fascinated by the contrast between Hank and the athletes he worked with and how those athletes from whatever background they came from cherish the time they spent with him.

Hank went to Trenton High and then to Grambling, where he played football for Eddie Robinson. He worked at Princeton with kids who in many cases came from backgrounds of privilege, and all of the Princeton undergraduates were living out the opportunity to attend one of the world's top institutions and play the sport of their choice there at the same time.

And yet Hank was always there to keep them grounded. As was Spoon.

You could fill the boathouse dozens of times over with people who came to Princeton and learned a ton from people like Spoon and Hank. It's one of the great by-products of the athletic experience at a place like this.

TB thought about that Wednesday, as he stood in the back next to Hank, listening to Spoon.