370-249-12

TigerBlog read a story the other day about how the Chicago Bears are trying to limit what the media is able to say about the team during preseason.

Is there nobody there who can tell the people in charge what a mistake they're making? Is nobody on the Bears' payroll able to say "hey, we might as well make the policy be 'let's have all of our media hate us and rip us every chance they get?' "

You can read about it HERE.

TigerBlog's favorite part is the no tweeting of basically anything.

For one thing, TigerBlog finds tweet-by-tweet updates of what happens at a football training camp to be only somewhat more interesting than tweet-by-tweet updates of how high lengths of the blades of grass they're practicing on would be. So it's no big loss to TB.

On the other hand, a lot of people love that stuff. And anyone sitting in the stands watching practice can tweet whatever comes to mind.

The whole purpose, of course, is for the Bears' opponents to have no idea at all what the team is working on during training camp. Football is by far the most paranoid sport out there, and it's .

That's one of the reasons why TigerBlog likes Princeton head football coach Bob Surace so much. He's not nuts about stuff like that.

He also doesn't have to use the word "football" in every sentence, like most football coaches do. You've heard it. We have to run the football, stop them from running the football, on and on.

TigerBlog was working out yesterday morning in the Princeton Varsity Club weight room. At this time of year and at the time that TB works out (morning), there is usually nobody there, so TigerBlog can listen to his music. When it's during the school year, he's stuck with whatever music the athletes like, which rarely overlaps with TB's tastes.

Yesterday morning, he heard noise from the weight room as he walked down the hall, but it wasn't music. It was ESPN radio's "Mike and Mike" show, which new men's assistant basketball coach Donovan Williams was listening to while he worked out.

Jon Gruden was on. Chris Carter was a guest host. Anytime they talked about any coach or any player, they followed it by saying "in the National Football League." Never just the NFL. Never just "he's one of the top young quarterbacks." Always "in the National Football League."

Everyone gets it. Football. Yes.

The first preseason game "in the National Football League" is two days away, when the Steelers and Vikings play Sunday night. Next weekend everyone will be playing.

Princeton is still a few weeks away from starting practice in football, and no Princeton team has yet to start for that matter. It's just a matter of days though. In fact, Princeton's first athletic event is three weeks from today, when the women's soccer team hosts Howard.

TigerBlog usually gets to this long before August starts to reach its midpoint, though this year he has been a tad delinquent.

And what is this particular "this?"

Princeton's overall record from last academic year.

Princeton teams combined to play 631 games in 2014-15. This doesn't count things like cross country invitationals, track meets, large swim meets and such. Just an event where there were two teams, one of whom won and one of whom lost. Or, in the case of 12 games, there was a tie.

Princeton's record for those 631 games was 370-249-12. That's basically a .600 winning percentage. That's not too bad, right?

The men were 166-151-6. The women were 204-98-6.

In Ivy League-only games, Princeton was 144-83-6. That's a .631 percentage in Ivy-only games.

So now that TigerBlog has that out of the way, it's time to get ready for 2015-16. But not exactly time. There's still a few weeks of summer left.

So enjoy the day. And the weekend.

Three weeks til the first Princeton game.

And you can watch a game this weekend, even if it's a preseason game.

You know, "in the National Football League."