Bob Bradley In 32,009 Characters

TigerBlog is more into Twitter than he thought he'd ever be.

It's a great source for links, quick information, pictures, pithy comments. It's replaced the quote in the newspaper as the go-to way for the more famous to make their statements on whatever subject it is they feel the need to be heard on.

For the less famous, it's also perfect for using as an in-game updating tool.

Here at Princeton Athletics, TB is pretty sure that Twitter is going to be a bigger and bigger part of the future. To date, Princeton's Twitter account - putigers - has been used in a somewhat rudimentary way, and a large part of the summer focus here will be figuring out how to maximize our usage of it.

Twitter, of course, limits entries to 140 characters.

It's not easy to be creative in just 140 characters, so in some ways, TB respects what it takes to achieve a level of Twitter creativity. On the other hand, it also further results in the destruction of the written word, grammar and even worse, the ability of contemporary society to focus on something for longer than 140 characters.

So while he sees the value in Twitter, TB is and always be a fan of writing that is longer than 140 characters.

And as such, he was a huge fan of the story that ran on ESPN.com yesterday about former Princeton head men's soccer coach Bob Bradley.

Okay, so Princeton isn't mentioned in the story. And describing Bradley as "former Princeton head men's soccer coach" is true but a tad misleading.

Bradley is of course the former head coach of the U.S. Men's National Team. It was two years ago that Bradley brought the U.S. team to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium to train for the 2010 World Cup.

While in South Africa, Bradley led the Americans to a victory in the Group stage, something even more impressive considering 1) that England was in the same group and 2) the dramatic way in which it happened.

Bradley also led the U.S. team to a win over Spain, the top-ranked team in the world, and to other successes.

Despite his successes, Bradley was cast aside as soon as the team hit a few bumps.

The anti-Bradley contingent argued that he wasn't creative enough or emotional enough. TB would simply counter by pointing out that the U.S. was doing things under Bradley that it hadn't previously done, including having its top players become stars in Europe.

The story on ESPN.com talks about Bradley's new career path, as the head coach of the Eyptian national team.

It's a great piece, one that puts Bradley the man and coach in the context of the unfolding events and political instability in Egypt. The fact that Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley - Bob's brother - came into TB's office while he was reading the story made it a little more surreal.

TB first met Bob Bradley when he was covering Princeton's run to the 1993 NCAA Final Four.

He has seen and spoken to Bradley a few times in the last 15 or so years, most recently over the holidays this past winter, when Bradley and his wife Lindsay were in Princeton.

Bob Bradley is thoughtful. He's passionate about what he does. He's ultra-competitive. He's genuine.

He talks about his time at Princeton with great fondness, and he remains close to many of the people who worked with and coached while he was here.

When TB would read what people would post about Bradley on various message boards when Bradley was the U.S. coach, TB would think "they don't know him at all. He's nothing like that."

What he is is a man who oozes strength of character, and as TB spoke to him far from the heat - figurative and literal - of Cairo, he couldn't help but think of how if anyone could handle that situation, it was Bob Bradley.

Knowing him makes him easy to root for as he attempts to get Egypt to the World Cup.

Don't know him? Read the ESPN.com story.

It's a little unusual for contemporary society, 32,009 characters to be exact, which would be more than 228 Tweets.

It's well worth it, though.

So is rooting for Bob Bradley now that the path to the 2014 World Cup is about to begin.