Welcome To Summer

Yesterday, TigerBlog let Zack DiGregorio take the lead.

Today, he offers another great American writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald: 

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy­-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”

As it turned out, that was yesterday. Grrrr. Does TB regret not mentioning it? 

Do you? If so, do you regret it like Daisy did, though Daisy wasn't really one for regrets. When it came to regrets, Tom and Daisy were more carriers than victims.

This, of course, is from "The Great Gatsby."

So what does TB have planned for the day after the summer solstice? 

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There are the wins and the losses. There are the lessons learned from both. There are the practices and bus rides. There's the time management required to excel athletically and as a student.

Beyond all of that, there's also the community spirit that comes out of Princeton Athletics. Tiger coaches and athletes spend hours and hours volunteering their time to open up themselves and their teams for any number of great reasons.

What better way is there to make a real difference for fans, especially young ones, than to be present and accessible. 

Perhaps the ones who benefit the most are the ones from Team IMPACT. Princeton's efforts for the organization have not gone unnoticed. 

In fact, earlier this week, Princeton was named the 2024 Team IMPACT Fellowship Division I Campus of the Year. From the release on goprincetontigers.com:

Princeton has a long history of supporting Team IMPACT, a nonprofit organization that matches children facing serious illness and disability with college sports teams. Since 2011, the Team IMPACT program has matched more than 3,000 children with 750 colleges and universities in all 50 states. Princeton first teamed up with Team IMPACT in 2013 and has since welcomed a total of 14 children to team rosters for multi-year partnerships. The 2023-24 academic year saw children matched with six Tiger teams, including softball, men's golf, men's lacrosse, women's swimming & diving, men's swimming & diving and men's basketball.

You can read the entire story — and see some great pictures — HERE.

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The day before Zack had the floor, TB mentioned Princeton photographer Shelley Szwast. As it turns out, it seems like a lot of people love Shelley. 

At least that's what all of the emails and texts that TB received seem to suggest. It reminded TB of when he was still at the newspaper and wrote two stories about sports movies, including one in which he ranked the best and worst he'd ever seen.

So what happened? In the days before email and texting, there was something called the "mail." In all his time at the paper, he got more letters about that one story than about every other story he ever wrote combined.

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TigerBlog missed more than the Summer Solstice yesterday. It was also the fifth anniversary of the hiring of Carla Berube as the head coach of women's basketball at Princeton.

When TB saw that it was the anniversary, it made him wonder if it seems like it's been a long time or not a long time since Berube joined the Princeton staff. As he's said before, it's one of those situations where it's both.

TigerBlog wrote this about Berube after he first met her in Jadwin Gym that day five years ago:

First, she's extremely nice, friendly, engaging. Second, she has a very easy-going manner, and yeah, that's a great way to describe her. She moves with ease, speaks with ease, carries herself with ease. It gives her a real presence, whether she's at the front of a room filled with media or on the Jadwin court. The third thing that you can't miss is that she loves basketball. She lights up when she talks about it, and you can see her competitive nature come though. You can see how much it means to her, how proud she is what she built in her 17 years at Tufts and how she's looking forward to coaching the Tigers.

That's one of the most prescient things that TB has ever written. If the last five years have proven anything, it's that those words are 100 percent spot on.

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It's the first weekend of summer 2024. Enjoy it.