Tour Guide

TigerBlog has access to one of those electric-powered carts, which makes getting around the campus a snap.

They can't really be called golf carts, since they'll never be used on a golf course.

The top speed for the cart is 26 miles per hour, and TB can get from the front of Jadwin Gym to, say, Dillon Gym in about three minutes or so in the cart.

There used to be two carts, a two-seater and four-seater.

The two-seater had a long metal bed to it, and it made maneuvering through all the barriers on campus difficult. Needless to say, that cart was destroyed after a few years.

The four-seater is actually much smaller, with the front seats, rear seats and a small bed that makes squeezing through smaller openings fairly easy. This is why the four-seater still is going strong.

It doesn't hold a charge the way it did when it was new. Even worse is when the person who has it before you doesn't plug it back in, so that your anticipated three-minute ride to the other side of campus turns into a walk when the key is put into the cart and the battery indicator is on the red.

The indicator has a bunch of green slashes and then a yellow and red one, to show the levels of charge left in the battery. TB has never pushed it beyond the yellow, so he has no idea how far the cart will go on the red.

He does have a fear of having the battery die somewhere in the middle of Washington Road or some other unfortunate spot and having to push the cart somewhere and then figure out how to get it charged.

TB was pleasantly surprised the other day when he put the key in to find the cart fully charged, which meant that his tour of Princeton's athletic facilities would go off unimpeded.

The tour grew out of a request from two colleagues from the University communications office, Martin Mbugua and Daniel Day, to see what the facilities are like.

As an aside, it wasn't until he typed the name that TB realized that Daniel Day was also the name of the one of the main characters in the movie "Animal House." He was the one who drove the motorcycle up the stairs inside the Delta house and who ultimately had no grade point average.

Anyway, TB's tour of the facilities began here at Jadwin Gym at 10:30 and ran for about 90 minutes.

TB is pretty surprised by himself when he goes to other parts of the campus and, even after all this time, doesn't exactly know his way around, so he shouldn't be surprised that others don't know everything about the athletic facilities, including his two guests, who between them have been at Princeton fewer than two years combined.

Jadwin is a fascinating building, with everything that happens on the sublevels. Dan and Martin had no idea, for instance, that there was anything below the main level, let alone that there was an indoor baseball/softball/multipurpose FieldTurf field on E level, next to the indoor tennis courts.

The tour went from Jadwin to DeNunzio Pool to the football stadium and Weaver Track and Field.

Every time TB walks onto Powers Field from one of the tunnels and looks up, he again marvels and how nice the stadium is from the inside. He has the same feeling walking into the pool and looking down onto the deck.

As the tour went along, the progression went from the facilities right here to the soccer field/tennis center/softball field/field hockey construction project and ultimately Class of 1952 Stadium, all of which are fairly centered with each other.

Dan and Martin seemed to enjoy TB's stories about the buildings and their histories, as well as the significance of the people for whom they're named. They loved the FieldTurf on Sherrerd Field, the panoramic look across the soccer stadium, the newly renovated tennis center, all of it.

There was a walk onto the floor at Dillon Gym, which always reminds TB of the pictures he's seen of Bill Bradley as a player, with the same peaked ceiling still there.

After that, it was off to Baker Rink, where the ice was being put back down in advance of hockey camps. TB told Dan and Martin that the rink is the one he thinks if the best to see a game, since every seat is essentially right on top of the action, which of course is very fast-paced.

The cart ride back went to the baseball field. The boathouse and golf course would have to wait for another day.

Maybe TB doesn't dwell on it every day, but the facilities here are tremendous. TB doesn't know what percentage of Princeton's general athletic success can be attributable to having great facilities, but his sense is that it's a piece of it.

And if nothing else, it was fun to be tour guide for 90 minutes. Especially for a tour of something that TB takes such pride in.

He hopes his guests enjoyed the trip in the cart.

And, perhaps, that it moves them to come back to those facilities when there are actually games going on.