TigerBlog was in the Schoellkopf Field pressbox during Saturday's Princeton-Cornell football game when he saw a very familiar face approach him.
It was none other than Dave Wohlhueter, or, more properly, The Legendary Dave Wohlhueter.
TB first met the Heat, as he's always been known, back in the 1980s, which shows you how long they've known each other. The Heat was the sports information director for Cornell from 1977-98, and he is a member of the CSC Hall of Fame and Cornell Hall of Fame.
Now 85 years old, he is still living his dream life. To give you an example of what that life is, this was his Saturday: 1) the first half of the game between Buffalo State-Ithaca College (he is an Ithaca alum), 2) the second half of Princeton-Cornell football, 3) dinner, 4) Cornell-Minnesota Duluth men's hockey.
It was great to see him, as it always is. Being around The Heat takes TB back to a time when the job was much different, when TB was much younger and when the Ivy League sports info ranks included great people like The Heat, Chris Humm at Brown, Kurt Kehl at Princeton, Chuck Yrigoyen at the Ivy League office, Kathy Slattery at Dartmouth, John Veneziano at Harvard and Bill Steinman at Columbia.
As for TB, he only saw two games this weekend in person. The first was Princeton-Yale field hockey in New Haven Friday evening, when the Tigers won 2-1 in overtime to take the final spot in the Ivy tournament.
His trip began Friday when he stopped off for breakfast with FatherBlog at FB's favorite North Jersey diner. From there, he drove over the George Washington Bridge and got on the Henry Hudson Parkway, which took him right past Van Cortlandt Park.The weather was perfect. The grounds looked spectacular. And there was nobody there.
Had this been most years, TB would have gotten off the highway and watched the Ivy League Heptagonal cross-country championships, which would have just been getting underway.
Instead, for the second time ever, the event was being held at Franklin Park in Boston. Actually, for the men, it was the first time Heps was at Franklin Park, since the only other time Franklin Park hosted was for the 1981 women's race.
Oh well. TB would have loved to have been there. As he's written before, most recently last week, Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events and as big a party as there is in Ivy athletics. Seriously, if you've never been, make sure to go one of these years.
The races in Boston saw unseasonably warm weather, which is presumably less than ideal for cross country. In fact, it's likely that the runners would have preferred rainy and 45, but what they got was sunny and 80.
As for the results, the Princeton men won again, while the Princeton women finished in second. If you're keeping score, that's 24 Ivy League men's cross country titles for Princeton, including three straight and five of the last six.
This time, the Tigers did it as the underdog.
Harvard came into the race as the home team and more importantly as the No. 7 team in the country, while Princeton was ranked 15th. The race itself was filled with drama.
The Crimson went 1-3-5 across the line. Would that be enough? Princeton's top finisher was Nicholas Bendtsen, who finished fourth.
After that, it was a wave of Orange and Black, as Princeton runners came home seventh (Jarrett Kirk), eighth (Connor Nisbet), 10th (Anthony Monte) and 11th (Daniel O'Brien). Would that be enough?
As it turned out, it would. Princeton got some help from two Yale runners and two Dartmouth runners, and when Harvard's next two came home 14th and 20th, the final score was Princeton 40, Harvard 43.
Ah, to have been there trying to calculate in TB's head the numbers and then waiting for the official word, followed by what he assumes was a big-time celebration.
It's part of what makes Heps great.
Up next is the NCAA regionals at Lehigh a week from Friday.
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