Through The Record Book

TigerBlog remembers being at Rutgers one night for a men's lacrosse game. Chris Massey, who was part of the great attack unit along with Jesse Hubbard and Jon Hess that brought Princeton the NCAA title three straight times before they graduated in 1998, needed a goal in the game to break the Princeton record for consecutive games with at least one goal.

Massey didn't score in the first quarter, and then-assistant coach David Metzbower was getting a bit annoyed by how much it seemed everyone was pressing to get Massey his goal. TB, standing on the sideline, remembers how Metz told Massey to "get this over with." Within a few seconds, Massey had his goal.

TB has always been hugely interested in Princeton records and, by extension, the likelihood that current athletes will break them.

As an aside, when TB was in the newspaper business, he was taught that there's no such thing as a "new school record," since saying "so and so set a new school record" and "so and so set a school record" say the same thing. That's one of those style points that TB never bought into it.

Despite having seen hundreds of Princeton games, TB hasn't really seen too many Princeton career records set in person.

He was there when Esmeralda Negron set the school record for goals in a career in soccer. He was there when Hubbard broke Justin Tortolani's record for goals in a career in men's lacrosse, and for that matter when Tortolani broke Wick Sollers' record.

TB does not remember being there when Keith Elias broke the record for career rushing yards. He knows he was not there when Bill Bradley broke the previous record for points in a career.

As a matter of fact, how many games did it take Bradley to do so? The record when Bradley arrived at Princeton was 1,451, set by Pete Campbell before he graduated in 1962. Bradley, who was a freshman when Campbell was a senior, scored 682 points as a sophomore and 936 as a junior; he passed Campbell in against Columbia in his 49th career game.

Bradley destroyed the Princeton basketball record book, even without the three-point shot and a fourth year of varsity to play. It's unlikely anyone will ever come close to what he's accomplished here, and in fact, nobody has: Bradley has the 11 highest single-game scoring totals in Princeton history.

When TB wrote about Negron the other day, he mentioned how Negron had scored more goals (47) than any other male or female soccer player in school history. That got him thinking about where men and women stood when you compared similar records in similar sports.

If you do so, you find out some interesting things.

Start with basketball. Bradley is so far out in front of everyone else who has ever played with 2,503 points, but the four other players who ever scored at least 1,600 points were all women: Sandi Bittler (1,683), Meagan Cowher (1,671), C.B. Tomasiewicz (1,622) and Becky Brown (1,608). Niveen Rasheed, not to jinx her, would reach 1,788 points by repeating her freshman total of 447 points the next three years.

How about home runs? The Princeton baseball record is 26, set by Matt Evans; four softball players have more than 30 (Jamie Lettire with 38, Kelsey Quist and Melissa Finley with 37, Kat Welsh with 30).

John Cook's record for goals in a career in men's hockey (67) has stood since 1963, and John Messuri's record for points in a career (178) is 21 years old.

On the women's side, three women's hockey players scored more than 200 points: Kathy Issel (218), Mollie Marcoux (216) and Kelly O'Dell (207), while Cook's record would rank 13th for the women. O'Dell (121) and Marcoux (120) nearly doubled the men's record.

In lacrosse, Bill Tierney said nobody would ever break Tortolani's record when it was at 120. Since then, Hubbard (163), Massey (146) and Sean Hartofilis (126) have all done so.

Also beating Tortolani? The top 10 women listed in the record book, starting at No. 1 with Crista Samaras at 189.

Cassie Nichols is third all-time in Princeton women's water polo history with 255 goals - which is one more than the men's record of 254, held by John Stover. For the women, No. 1 is Adele McCarthy-Beauvais with 325, while No. 2 is Elyse Colgan with 272.

In other words, if you take the biggest career scoring record for the sports that are easily compared, you have men with the first spot in basketball (followed by four women) and then the women with the top spot in soccer, baseball/softball, lacrosse, hockey and water polo.

And, the women don't just have the top spot. They have the top few spots.

So why would that be? Why would women's records eclipse men's? For the most part, both teams are playing similar numbers of games, so that's not it.

At the risk of offending someone, is it possible that there are fewer great women's athletes, so the ones who do dominate are able to do so at a greater extent than the men?

Is it that Princeton has built in a short time (comparably, at least compared to the men) a great tradition of women's athletics, complete with some sure fire Hall of Fame coaches? That part is a huge factor as well.

Or is it another reason? TB isn't sure, but he does find it interesting.