Rowing For Championships

Little Leon Carr made his appearance in this world over the weekend.

He is the first-born for Colleen and Elliott Carr, his mother the assistant executive director for events and administration and his father one of TigerBlog's colleagues here in the Office of Athletic Communications. 

Last night was Leon's first night at home, something that can be quite scary for the new parents. In TB's case, that meant that he got zero sleep that first night, which featured the words "he can't possibly still be hungry" over and over and over. As it turns out, knowing his son the way he does, perhaps TB would have gotten a better night's sleep all those years ago if the baby had been offered buffalo chicken wings.

Elliott is one of the most-liked people who has ever worked in Jadwin Gym, by the way. This is one of those "good things happen to good people" situations.

The first picture that TB saw of Leon was somewhat predictable. It had a shot of the baby shortly after he arrived, and yet there was already a basketball with him in his little crib. 

The Carrs picked a good time of year to have their first child. 

First of all, you definitely want to have a baby when the weather is nice. Otherwise, you're stuck inside, and the walls seem to close in on you (TB would imagine — both of his kids were born in the summer).

Second, if you work in college athletics, there aren't any in the summer. 

For Princeton, the academic year ended with graduation Tuesday, but the athletic year still has some huge events left. In fact, there are still six teams that have athletes who are competing, with national championships on the line.

The men's and women's track and field teams will be represented at the NCAA championships in Eugene, Ore., beginning this coming Wednesday. 

The other four of those six teams will wrap up their seasons this weekend with the national championships in rowing. There will be three who are doing just off the Princeton campus, while the other will be in Ohio.

Close to home will be the IRA national championships, which will be held on Mercer Lake. If you can believe what Google Maps has to say, that's a 17-minute drive from Princeton's campus.

Among the teams who will be there will be the Princeton women's lightweights, men's lightweights and men's heavyweights. The racing begins early tomorrow (8 am, to be exact), with the finals to be held Sunday.

The complete schedule, and any other information you could possibly want to know, for the three days can be found HERE.

The pre-race rankings have all three Princeton teams right in the mix. If you go by first varsity 8, then the heavyweights are ranked third, behind Washington and Brown, while the men's lights are also third, behind Harvard and Penn. In fact, in the men's lightweight first varsity 8 rankings, the top six teams are all Ivy League teams.

The women's lightweight team is ranked No. 1 and is chasing a fourth-straight national title.

The finals are Sunday, with the lightweight women at 10:20, lightweight men at 10:40 and the heavyweight men at 11.

As for the open women, they'll be rowing in Bethel, Ohio, which is close to Cincinnati, at the NCAA championships. HERE is all of the information on that event.

Princeton is the No. 3 seed in the first varsity 8 (behind Texas and Stanford), is the No. 6 seed in the second varsity 8 and is the third seed in the varsity 4.

The first varsity 8 is unbeaten on the season, with its most recent event a first place finish at the Ivy League championships. The first NCAA race for any of the Princeton boats will be in the first varsity 8 opening round tomorrow at 10:12 am, when the Tigers race in Heat 3, along with Boston U, Penn, Rutgers, Michigan and Jacksonville.

The other Princeton boats all row shortly after that.

The semifinals will be Saturday morning. The three finals will be Sunday morning, with the races at 9:26 (varsity 4), 10 (second varsity 8) and 10:24 (first varsity 8).