Mrs. Guacamole

TigerBlog was at Miss TigerBlog Back To School Night last night.

It was standard middle school stuff, going through her schedule, with abbreviated 12-minute periods to meet each teacher, hear what they'll be doing for the school year, that sort of thing.

The highlight of the night was clearly when MTB's science teacher, Mrs. Giacomelli, said that when her name is entered on an iPhone, it autocorrects to "guacamole." She pointed out that this was ironic, as she doesn't like guacamole.

TigerBlog does. He's a big fan of the avocado.

Anyway, TB had to scramble to get there on time, because he was doing freshman men's lacrosse head shots and bios. TB always likes meeting the freshmen for the first time, putting faces to the names he's heard so much about through the recruiting process.

The bio process always goes basically the same way, with the same basic questions. How many letters in lacrosse? Other sports? Team championships? Individual honors? Stats? Club team? Academic honors? Community service?

What's your date of birth? Parents names. Alma maters. Were they athletes? Siblings?

Then, at the end, TB always says the same thing: "Anything else you'd want to include? Jumped out of an airplane? Climbed a mountain? Caught a 400-pound fish? Sang with the church choir in China?"

And after all the years of doing this, finally, yesterday, someone answered yes to one of those. Freshman men's lacrosse player Jack O'Brien jumped out of a plane this summer while in Cape Cod.

And then there was another first, when freshman Sam Gravitte, asked about what his mother does, responded that she was a Tony Award-winner, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, for her performance in "Jerome Robbins' Broadway." Sam? He played Jean Valjean in a high school production of "Les Miserables."

Then there was the part when TB realized that these freshman were born for the most part after he'd already started working here. That means as they've gone from babies to Princeton lacrosse players, TB has been right here.

When TB first started covering college sports, he wasn't that much older than the people he was writing about. Eventually, the dates of birth were after he'd graduated high school, after he'd graduated college. And now? They're covering his entire tenure at Princeton.

This, by the way, ends the week of nostalgia, the one that included TigerBlog Jr.'s driving Monday and TB's realization yesterday that it's been 30 years of doing this. 

Just as he has for every September since these freshmen were born, TB is looking forward to a pretty big athletic weekend involving Princeton teams.

Fall weekends are not quite like winter or spring ones, simply because there aren't as many teams. And those weekends are nothing compared to the crossovers between seasons.

Still, it's a busy one for Princeton Athletics, with 18 events on the schedule between today and Sunday.

The football team is at Georgetown, where it will be homecoming for the Hoyas. Georgetown football isn't quite like Georgetown basketball, but the Tigers and Hoyas had a pretty entertaining game last year. This time around, it'd be great for Princeton to be 1-1 heading into the Ivy League opener next Saturday against Columbia.

The field hockey team hosts Yale tonight at 7, and the official Bedford Field dedication will be held at halftime. Don't look for the namesake to be there though; Paul Bedford was in the Class of 1897.

The sprint football team is back after having to forfeit last weekend. The Tigers play at Post, and the team came within one scramble off of a fumble in overtime of winning that game.

There are three soccer games at Roberts Stadium this weekend, as the men host Florida International (7) and Florida Gulf Coast (4) tonight and Sunday and the women play Yale tomorrow (4). The Princeton-FGCU soccer game is on ESPNU Sunday.

Florida-Gulf Coast is, of course, the team that came from nowhere to the Sweet 16 in men's basketball last year. The soccer program was also an NCAA tournament team last year.

The women's volleyball team hosts Penn tonight in its Ivy opener.

There's nothing else on campus this weekend - unless you count the men's lacrosse alumni game tomorrow at 1:45.

TB loves the busy home weekends, when there are a ton of events, sandwiched around home football.

This weekend isn't quite on that level, but it's still a good one.