Game Week

TigerBlog needed to copy 57 rather large video files from one server to another over the weekend.

If he tried to do this from a spot off-campus, it might have taken until November or so. As it was, as he started copying them, the progress bar started calculating how long it would take. An hour. Two hours. Three hours. 

No big deal, right? Progress bars always do that. Then they usually make their way down, usually ending up somewhere between two minutes and 20 minutes. This time? It got to two hours and stayed there.

For the next two hours, TigerBlog sat on a bench in front of Morrison Hall, doing some work and watching the people go by. During his time there, five different people came and sat down on the bench opposite his, and four of them had brought food with them. Each time TB asked the what they'd gotten for him. He got one "it's a surprise" and four strange looks. 

It was also a parade of dogs, one after another, ranging from tiny dogs with tiny legs to the biggest poodle TB has ever seen. Turns out it was a combination poodle/Bernese mountain dog. Either way, he was a big dog. There was also one little dog who was being pushed along in a baby stroller, while another dog walked on a leash and thought "hey, why does he get to sit in there and I have to do all this work?"

The videos were the ones that were taken during picture day two weeks ago of the field hockey players. TB will be turning them into short clips to use on social media as the season goes along. 

The total size of all of them combined was 21GB. When TB first started here, he was pretty happy when they came out with 44MB floppy disks. That's MB, not GB. Those were the days — of very small files. Graphics? Not yet a staple of every day for athletic communications.

These days, graphics are very much the norm, and TB would guess that 90 percent or so of people who work in college athletic communications spend more time making graphics than they do writing (TB would be in the 10 percent). He does make his share of graphics, including a series for the field hockey team for this week entitled "Meet The Tigers," where each of the 21 players on the team gets a graphic. 

Included for each player is a "fun fact," and these have ranged from "I have eaten the same thing for lunch every day since I've been at Princeton" to "I was a national chess champion at age 10" to "I still sleep with my baby blanket" to "I can juggle" and even "I can juggle while on a skateboard." 

This is game week for the field hockey team, the first of the 2023 season, as the Tigers open their season at Penn against Lousville (Friday at 11) and North Carolina (Sunday at 10:30). 

It's also game week No. 1 for the men's soccer team, the men's water polo team, the women's volleyball team, the men's and women's cross country teams and the women's rugby team.

In all, there will be 14 events between Thursday and Tuesday, starting with the third women's soccer game of the season. The women's soccer team is the only team to have started its season to date, and the Tigers put together a 2-0 start over the weekend by outscoring Monmouth and La Salle by a combined 8-0.

Next up for Princeton is Rutgers Thursday night at 7. The Scarlet Knights are l-1-1 on the year, with a win over Holy Cross, a loss to Hofstra and a tie with North Carolina State. 

Of the 14 events, a total of six are at home, with two cross country meets and four soccer games. The men will host Rutgers Friday night at 7 in their first game, and then the women will host Army Saturday. What? No game on Myslik Field Sunday? That's okay: Duke's men will be there Monday at 4. 

The women's volleyball team, who plays at Bucknell over the weekend, hosts Santa Clara a week from today. 

The preseason for any team is an interesting dynamic. It begins with hellos, hugs and how-was-your-summers. Then it gets serious quickly, but there is always something missing — until it's actually game week. 

Then things get more intense and more real. The emotions get ratcheted up a bit. 

That's where most of Princeton's fall teams are this week. It's game week, and they can't wait to get started.