Pretty Much Perfect

You're a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles? It took your team three weeks to establish itself as one of the best in the league and with possibly the league MVP - and the league's most exciting player - as your quarterback.

Except that your quarterback is a convicted felon who spent nearly two years in prison for, what was it, oh yeah, killing dogs. Not that you could tell by the gushing reaction of the media and 99% of the fan base, of course. And yes, he served his sentence and by all accounts seems to have changed considerably from when he was younger. Still, this is the person you're rooting for these days?

Oh, you don't like the Eagles? Your team is the Giants? Well, TigerBlog has a friend whose family has had Giants season tickets going back to Yankee Stadium. This year, they had to get rid of two of them and move from the 40-yard line downstairs all the way upstairs at the new stadium. Their PSLs were $5,000 per seat, and each ticket is $265. Per game.

This past Sunday, they couldn't go, so he offered up the tickets to anyone who would pay face value. And for what? To see the quarterback and about five other players try? To see how many dumb penalties the team could commit?

What's that? You're not a fan of either? You like the Jets?

Well, they are 2-1 and have two big divisional wins under their belt, including the win Sunday night at Miami. And the biggest play of that game? It might have been the 67-yard touchdown pass that came one play after Miami had taken the lead in the third quarter.

Except that the receiver who caught the pass was less than a week removed from a drunk driving arrest, with a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit in most states. It's a miracle he didn't kill himself - or someone else.

Oh, and the rest of the team, from the owner to the coach and on down? Does the word "boorish" work for them?

And that's basically how it is these days for the three NFL teams closest to Princeton.

According to Mapquest, it's 53 miles from here to Lincoln Financial Field and 52 miles from here to the New Meadowlands Stadium (which, by the way, was completely unnecessary, as the old Meadowlands Stadium was perfectly fine).

As TigerBlog walked around the parking lot outside Princeton Stadium Saturday, the NFL seemed a lot further away than just 50 or so miles. In fact, if you had to describe the scene, beginning when TB got there around 4 until the always-idyllic scene of all the kids on the field during the Fifth Quarter, you wouldn't use "boorish," that's for sure.

More like, oh, "perfect." Or at least nearly perfect.

If you're a fan of a Princeton or were just someone looking for a great football experience, you couldn't have done better than the Princeton-Lafayette game Saturday night.

For starters, Princeton won the game 36-33 in two overtimes. The winning touchdown was scored by Jordan Culbreath, who has come back from a nearly fatal battle with aplastic anemia in miraculous fashion.

The win was Bob Surace's first as Tiger head coach. The record for wins by a Princeton coach is 89, held by the very first Princeton coach, Bill Roper, so it's 88 to go to tie for Surace.

The game saw Princeton rally from 11 points down in the third quarter and tie it late in regulation on a field goal by Patrick Jacob, who then added a 39-yarder in the first OT and who is now 8 for 9 on the year.

Quarterback Tommy Wornham's performance earned him Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week honors. Trey Peacock continues to excite the crowd every time the ball is thrown near him, and Andrew Kerr, Jeb Heavenrich, Isaac Serwanga and Harry Flaherty give the Tigers any number of playmakers at receiver.

And for all of that, when it came time to pick the Dining Services Player of the Game, it was none of those guys. Instead, it was linebacker Jon Olafsson, who filled in for the injured Steven Cody with 16 tackles, two more than he had all last year as junior.

Beyond just the on-field entertainment, the rest of the evening at the stadium was equally as enjoyable.

As an aside, TigerBlog is a huge fan of how the stadium looks at night, and it's a shame that there can't be more night games, though TB understands that travel and weather factor into it as the year moves along.

TigerBlog invited the members of TigerBlog Jr.'s summer lacrosse team to come to the game, and he went through Lot 21 trying to meet up with those families at a pregame tailgate. Of course, they weren't the only ones, as the entire parking lot was filled by grills, coolers, footballs, kids, families and everything else.

Off on Finney/Campbell Fields was the youth sports festival that is always hugely popular as part of Community Day, which went on around the outside of the stadium.

And all of this with a ticket price that is $5 if you have season tickets and a top price of $8/ticket for gameday walkups?

TigerBlog is pretty sure that you can't get the kind of affordable family entertainment that you got at Princeton Stadium Saturday night basically anywhere else, whether it's football, the movies or anything.

Throw in the fact that the weather couldn't have been better, and you have one of the great days that Princeton Stadium has known.

It was indeed pretty close to perfect.