Take A Bow

If you divide 1,989 by 365, you get roughly 5.5.

And that's all TigerBlog wanted to say today about that.

Actually, no, that's not the case. On the other hand, if TigerBlog stumbled across that sentence all by itself, he'd be fairly curious what its significance was.

He'd guess the 365 referred to the number of days in a year, which is even more logical right now, in that it's the first week of the new year.

The 1,989? He'd have no idea. When TB sees "1989," the first thing he thinks of is "Georgetown 50, Princeton 49."

Anyway, if you're still here after that little intro, the 1,989 refers to the number of articles posted to goprincetontigers.com in the calendar year of 2014. The 5.5 refers to the number of stories per day. This is just articles, not bios or stats or things like that.

Obviously some days are busier than others, like a Saturday in early November or March. And the summer isn't as busy and all.

Still, 1,989 is a lot of articles, it seems to TB.

Here's another number - 515. That's the number of original videos that were posted to the website in 2014. That's 515 original videos, all of which were produced in-house.

And that doesn't even count the tweets that were sent out. TigerBlog can't figure out how to find out the exact number for putigers, though there were nearly 3,000 in just four months for putigers_live. There had to be three or four times that number on putigers.

In case you're wondering about the people who do all this, here are their names (alphabetically) and the sports they cover here:

Ben Badua - women's basketball, field hockey, baseball, men's and women's water polo, men's and women's indoor track and field, sprint football (note - Ben took over for Diana Chamorro in mid-2014, so Diana contributed to those totals for the first few months)
Andrew Borders - men's basketball, women's soccer, softball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's golf
John Bullis - videographer
Kristy McNeil - men's and women's hockey, men's soccer, women's lacrosse, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's outdoor track and field
Craig Sachson - football, men's and women's volleyball, wrestling, men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's rowing, men's and women's squash

Oh, and TigerBlog covers men's lacrosse. 

As for the videos, John does the longer videos, such as the Tiger All-Access ones, and he does a great job. He is incredibly creative and talented, and he is also a great combination of the quirky artist and a big energetic dog.

The overwhelming majority of the videos - postgame highlights, interviews, individual features - are created by the sport contacts. And these are people who had no background in video and in fact, other than Ben, were hired with the idea of creating publications as much as anything else.

Anyway, TigerBlog wants to publicly recognize these people. They do a ton of work, and they get very little in the way of recognition. When they do, it's usually because of a mistake, which fortunately is a rare occurrence.

Creating that much content isn't easy. It's even harder when the day is interrupted by stories that need to be posted but weren't planned for, and this happens all the time.

Look at Ben, for instance. In the middle of a busy week with what is now a nationally ranked women's basketball team, all of the sudden here comes water polo coach Luis Nicolao with the news that Ashleigh Johnson has been named the Swimming World Magazine women's water polo Player of the Year.

By the way, there's a pretty good chance that Johnson might just be the best female athlete in Princeton history. With two years to go, she is a must-see at DeNunzio Pool, and your first opportunity to see her this year comes up with the Princeton Invitational Feb. 6-8.

Can Johnson really be the best female athlete at Princeton ever? TigerBlog will revisit this during exam break when he has some more time.

Let's see. What else?

The ECAC has 12 hockey teams. Only one school has the same athletic communications contact for both its men's and women's teams. That would be Princeton.

In fact, it is TigerBlog's understanding that there are only five schools in Division I that have a woman athletic communications contact for men's hockey. Again, Princeton is one of them.

So you would think that would keep Kristy fairly busy. And yet here comes word that Maise Devine, a 2011 grad and women's lacrosse player, was named to the Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 for enterprise technology.

TigerBlog can refer to those two examples because they are the most recent. They happen to Andrew and Craig all the time as well.

TigerBlog talks a lot about how much this profession has changed since he first started here. Back then, this was all about media relations and publications, and the work requirements were much different.

Now, the quantity of work produced here has skyrocketed. So too has the ability to produce it quicker and more efficiently, so there is that balance.

Still, Ben, Andrew, Kristy, John and Craig do a ton of stuff, and they don't get nearly the credit they deserve. It's okay, because this isn't the place to go if you have a big ego.

It is the place to go if you want to have a positive impact on the experience of the athletes, work with the great coaches and help alums, parents, friends and fans stay connected to Princeton Athletics, from basically anywhere in the world.

It's the marriage of that interest and the dedication of the people to supply the fresh content that works so well here. So well, in fact, that there were nearly 10,000,000 page views on goprincetontigers.com in 2014.

So not that they want to, but go ahead guys.

Take a bow.

It's well-deserved.

Then get back to work.