The Doneger Brothers

TigerBlog Jr. has been coming to Princeton athletic events since he was a mere BabyBlog.

Through the years, TBJ found many of his earliest heroes in Orange and Black. Chris Young, for instance, once lifted TBJ up over his head so he could shoot into the basket on the side court at Jadwin when TBJ was, what, two?

As time has gone on, he's gotten to know more than his share of Princeton athletes, seeing them as a ballboy or in interview rooms or on road trips or any number of other situations. There are so many that he's liked that it'd be hard to name them all here.

There are, though, two who stand out as his absolute favorites.

One is John Mack, a 10-time Heptagonal track champ and now an Associate Athletic Director at Northwestern. Mack really got to know TBJ after he graduated and started working at Princeton, so there is a bit of an asterisk there.

No, the unquestioned favorite Princeton athlete for TBJ is former men's lacrosse player Jason Doneger, who graduated in 2005.

TigerBlog has a great picture of Doneger and TBJ after a game from either 2004 or 2005. The picture is on the concourse of Class of 1952 Stadium, and Doneger is holding his lacrosse equipment in his right hand an TBJ in his left.

Doneger is the middle of three brothers, all of whom were big-time Division I lacrosse players from Lynbrook High School on Long Island.

Adam Doneger, the oldest, was a first-team All-America at Johns Hopkins. Jason and Michael, the youngest who also played at Hopkins, weren't first-team All-Americas, but they both have something the older brother doesn't have - NCAA championship rings.

Adam Doneger, as an aside, has one of the hardest shots in the history of lacrosse. He was also, if TB's memory is correct, a member of the winning U.S. team at the 2002 World Championships and the Rookie of the Year in Major League Lacrosse.

Jason Doneger was a member of the 2001 NCAA champion Princeton team. He also ranks seventh all-time at Princeton in goals scored in a career with 105 and, again if TB's memory serves him correctly, had exactly 100 more goals than assists in his career.

He and Sean Hartofilis, who both scored 41 goals in 2003, are the last two Princeton players to reach the 40-goal mark in a season. Doneger led the Ivy League in goals scored (in league games) twice in his career.

Michael Doneger was an attackman at Hopkins and a member of the 2005 and 2007 NCAA championship teams, as well as the 2008 runner-up Blue Jays.

TB never got to know the older or younger Doneger brothers, but he always rooted for the collective family group.

He finds himself rooting for the Donegers again, at least Michael Doneger, though not just because of the family name

Michael Doneger has gone from Hopkins to become an aspiring filmmaker. He recently was one of 6,000 entrants in the Doritos/Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl contest, which invited submissions of commercials for one of the two products.

The top five were chosen and put on a website, and the top three in the voting will have their commercials air during the Super Bowl.

Rather than prejudice himself simply by voting for Doneger, TB enlisted two coworkers to watch all five finalists and see which one they liked the best. Both of them chose Doneger's.

TB watched all five and agreed.

Of course the entire purpose here isn't necessarily to endorse Doneger's video, other than to say that if its the one you like the best, vote for it. By the way, his is the one where the guy in the commercial looks like he played college lacrosse.

The entire contest shows again the continued evolution of the media world, away from structured corporate settings and further and further toward the individual.

In the little world of the OAC, this continues to be our biggest challenge. The future is clearly video and multimedia, and the level of expectation of the audience is for the quality of video that is usually seen on television.

At Princeton, it seems like a hundred years ago that media guides were still the primary focus, but it's really only been two. Since then, huge strides have been made in the world of producing video, but there are all kinds of issues that still need to be improved in the very, very near future.

Of course, in fairness to Princeton's video, the people producing it are still essentially novices.

Of course, all 6,000 of the videos that were entered, and not just the five finalists, were created by some individual, rather than as the result of the traditional path of creating commercials.

The fact that three of these will air during the Super Bowl is even more ironic, in that Super Bowl commercials are the gold standard for commercial advertising.

What would it do to the corporate heads if one of the winners from an amateur contest gets better reviews that the ones that had so many more resources - human and financial - behind them?

That day will be hear soon, if it isn't here already.

And if that day happens to be this coming Feb. 6, hey, it might as well involve a Doneger.