On Your Marks ...

When TigerBlog heard that Kate Joyce was taking photos for Princeton Athletics, he thought that could possibly make for a good feature story.

When he heard the rest of it from her, and saw some of her photos, he was pretty much amazed.

Joyce, a senior, is a two-time All-American javelin thrower for Princeton. If you want to know why she won't be a three-time All-American, you'll have to read the story, which you can do so HERE.

If you do read it, you'll learn all about her story, which is fascinating. Here are a few teasers:

* she was very late coming to the javelin. TigerBlog, in fact, considered referring to her as the Roy Hobbs of javelin throwing

* she finished sixth at the NCAA championships as a sophomore

* the story mentions snowy egrets and gray treefrogs

* the word "mangled" makes an appearance. It's a word that has only previously been used twice in the entire history of the blog, and both times it was in reference to a headline that appeared in the New York Daily News after the 1995 Princeton-Columbia football game at Palmer Stadium: "Title Hopes, Quarterback Left Mangled In New Jersey"

If that doesn't get your attention, then just read it anyway. You'll see one of the best things about Princeton Athletics — each athlete took a different path to get here and then a different path once here. As such, they all take something unique from the experience, even as they are part of a larger team structure that shares common goals and outcomes. 

You can learn a lot from such things, and those lessons last forever.

In Joyce's case, that is certainly true. Even if it hasn't played out the way she would have wanted, she still has gotten so much out of her time at Princeton and with the women's track and field team that, in a weird way, it's likely that she wouldn't change a thing if she could.

As a javelin thrower, Joyce wouldn't have been competing at Ivy League Heps this weekend anyway. The javelin is not an indoor event, for obvious reasons.

The rest of the Princeton men and women will be at Harvard Saturday and Sunday for the Indoor Heps championships. It's a weekend in which three Ivy League championships are on the line, with the two at indoor track and field and also women's swimming and diving, which begins tonight and runs (swims?) through Saturday at Brown.

There are two events tonight, in fact, at the swimming championships — the 200 yard medley relay and the 800 yard freestyle relay. The meet ends Saturday with another relay, the 400 free relay, which is the 20th and final event of the program.

If you think that championship meets like this are just about who has the best runners, throwers, jumpers, divers and swimmers, there's a lot more to it. In fact, the strategy that goes into figuring out who will be in which events, where to get the most points, where to possibly leave yourself a little short for a bigger payoff later, is very difficult and very scientific. 

If you thought there was no such thing as X's and O's in these sports, ask a coach about what goes into it. There's a lot more to it than just "okay, you swim here, you run there."

The women's indoor track and field team has finished second each of the last two seasons. Princeton is the defending champion in both men's indoor track and field and women's swimming and diving. Both teams will try to win again, this time with different head coaches — Jason Vigilante and Abby Brethauer.

The men's indoor track and field team has won 24 Ivy titles. The women's swimming and diving team has won 25. 

The men's swimming and diving championships are next weekend, at Harvard.

If you've never been to one of these meets, you're missing out on something special. They are, at first glance, apparently organized chaos, but they are incredibly intense and dramatic. 

For more information on the Heps event, click HERE.

For more information on women's swimming and diving, click HERE.