The women's basketball team did something in Barcelona that the men's lacrosse team did not, though TigerBlog wishes it had.
What is it? Carla Berube's team, currently on the first leg of its 10-day European trip, did a paella cooking class. How great does that sound?
Forget that. How great does this look?
Had TB known they were going to do that, he might have flown back just to be a part of it. There aren't too many things he likes more than paella, especially genuine Spanish paella.
Much, much closer to home, if you walk from the Stadium Drive parking garage towards Jadwin Gym, you immediately come to the new soccer practice field.
The best time to make this walk is when either the men's or women's team is practicing and the goalkeepers are doing drills at the goal closest to the Roberts Stadium side, as TigerBlog did yesterday.
If that's the case, then you are about 10 feet away from the goal as the shooters take their shots. If gives you a great sense of what it would like to be the goalkeeper, for better and worse.
As TB walked by yesterday morning, he saw men's goalkeeper coach Sam Maira as he worked out the Tigers. In that short time, TB realized that the only saves he would make would be on really, really, really soft shots or if the ball happened to hit him. In the latter case, he'd probably prefer it didn't.
You may recall TB wrote a story this past spring about the lives and minds of goalkeepers. If not, you can read it HERE.
It includes this:
In the world of goalies, either you are one, or you are not one.
After TB walked a few more yards past the soccer practice on his left, he came upon football practice on his right. Football practices are wild to watch. The level of organization that goes into putting together even one session to maximize its worth is wild.
If you think it just happens accidentally, it doesn't. A playbook that has dozens and dozens of plays needs to be practiced to the most minute detail. What you see on gamedays is no fluke.
One thing you definitely see on gamedays nowadays is the Game Day graphic. You've seen these across all sports for years now, on the college and pro — and even high school — levels.
These graphics feature the posed shots of the athletes from the various teams, along with whatever the opponent, location and time are for that particular event. They've become a huge deal for everyone involved.
Last week on the Jadwin E Level tennis courts, photographers Greg Carroccio and Ryan Samson took thousands and thousands of pictures of Princeton's fall teams. Those pictures, once they're all sorted and organized, will be used on Game Day graphics and countless other items of content.
In fact, it was something of an assembly line of photography, and, on the other side of the fence, in the Pit, videography, where similar poses and smiles were being done at the same time. The general tone of the event is festive, and it was hard to go more than a minute or so without hearing laughter.
For the athletes, there are few moments that they seem to enjoy as much as picture day. There are classic "look at the camera and smile" poses, and there are any range of colorful, creative and sometimes crazy poses involving individuals and groups of players.
There was this one, for instance, with Tiger junior field hockey players Clare Brennan, Aimee Jungfer and Lily Webb:
For everyone else, it's a sign that they're all back together and the season and school are approaching. It creates a different feel on the campus, with an energy building as the summer draws to a close.
Those pictures serve all sorts of important purposes, and not only for Princeton Athletics. TB is guessing that there are quite a few of them framed in houses and on desks.
Being an athlete at Princeton is about having a championship experience, in the classroom, on the field and off the field. It's about building relationships and having moments that you'll remember for decades.
Photo day fits into that profile perfectly.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment