Boston Heps

TigerBlog's Friday was set up perfectly.

Long, but perfectly.

Heps cross country in the morning at Van Cortlandt Park. Princeton-Yale field hockey at 5 in New Haven. 

He would even throw in breakfast at the diner with FatherBlog. And yes, that means having to drive him around on his errands, but hey, he's 88, so why not?

And then? He learned that Heps is not Friday at Van Cortlandt Park but Saturday in Boston. 

What? So now it'll just be the diner, the errands and the field hockey game.

The Ivy League men's cross country champion has been crowned at the Heptagonal race since 1939, with the exception of 1944 and 1945 during World War II and then in 2020 due to Covid. 

From that first year through 1978, each Heps championship meet was held at Van Cortlandt Park, which TB should have mentioned by now is in the Bronx. Was the 1939 meet like the contemporary ones, with its team tents all lined up along the finish area and alums who flocked to see it all?

The women's Heps dates to 1977, but it was a separate event for the first three years, first in New Haven, and then Ithaca and Philadelphia the following two years. The 1979 men's race was in Bethlehem, Pa., at Saucon Valley Golf Club, and then the two races  were first held at the same venue together in 1980. 

That venue? Van Cortlandt Park.

The women ran in 1981 at Franklin Park in Dorcester, Mass., before returning the following year to rejoin the men at Van Cortlandt Park. The race never moved from there again until 2011, when it was first held at Princeton's West Windsor Fields. Perhaps the forces of the universe didn't agree with that move — that 2011 race famously was held during a late October blizzard in Princeton.

The next 10 Heps saw Princeton host seven and three return to Van Cortlandt Park. And now, this Saturday, it returns to that same Franklin Park.

TigerBlog isn't sure where the course is set, but there is a zoo in Franklin Park that has both a "Lions Den" and a "Tigers Tale." Is that a good omen for Columbia and Princeton? 

The national women's rankings include only one Ivy school, and that is Harvard, who is 26th. Regionally, Penn is third and Princeton is sixth in the Mid-Atlantic Region, while over in the Northeast Region, Harvard is No. 1, followed by No. 8 Columbia, No. 11 Dartmouth and No. 13 Yale. 

On the men's side, there are two teams in the national rankings, the top 15, actually. Harvard comes in at No. 7. Princeton is at No. 15. Both teams made big jumps last week.

Villanova and Princeton are 1-2 in the Mid-Atlantic rankings this week, with Penn at No. 7. Harvard is behind Syracuse in the Northeast Region, followed by No. 5 Yale, No. 7 Cornell, No. 10 Columbia and No. 11 Dartmouth.  

That's a lot of high quality Ivy League cross country teams.

By the way, the same school is ranked No. 1 in both the women's and men's national poll. Can you name it? 

The women's race will be held at 11 Saturday, followed at noon by the men's race. 

TB's colleague Joey Maruschak will be covering those two races and then taking the short trip over to Harvard, where Princeton will be playing men's soccer at 1. If you're going to be in the area, you should do the same.

TB won't be there, sadly. Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events on the Ivy League calendar, and he hasn't missed many in the last 30 years or so.  

Some Ivy League championships take months to play out. Getting off to a slow start can be overcome. A key injury here or an unlucky bounce there doesn't doom the entire season.

In Ivy League cross country, the championship season comes and goes in just a few minutes. You have to be ready on that day, for that course. That's part of its lure. That's part of its challenge as well. That's part of why it's such a great event.

That, and the party atmosphere that exists on the grounds before, during and after the race. TB will be missing it.

And the No. 1 team in both polls? That's Northern Arizona.