Today, And A Month From Today

Today is BrotherBlog's birthday.

Once again, TigerBlog has not gotten him a card, running his streak of consecutive years of not having gotten his brother a birthday card to somewhere in the neighborhood of a lot. 

Both brothers work on college campuses. TB, as you probably already know, works at Princeton, where he has spent 35 years writing about Tiger athletics. BB works at the University of Washington, where he is a professor in the law school and the interim Dean of Students. Clearly, TigerBlog is the smarter of the two.

BrotherBlog is two years older. He's a good man, TB's brother, and he's done a lot of good in the Pacific Northwest with his volunteer work in the field of justice. He has a good sense of humor and is always there for his brother when he needs him to be.

And, much to his credit, he likes to pretend he cares about things like Princeton Athletics when his brother starts to go in that direction. He's not the biggest sports fan, though he definitely is on the U-W football bandwagon (nothing says Big Ten football quite like the Sept. 27 Washington at Rutgers game).

He's also 50-50 to read the blog on any given day, so TB will still have to call him to say happy birthday.

Meanwhile, one month from today is another big day. 

It will be on Sept. 21 that the Princeton football team will open its season, with a noon kickoff at Lehigh. There are few better ways to start a football season than going to a game at Goodman Stadium, which is 1) close, 2) scenic and 3) the home of a great sausage/onion/pepper sandwich.

That game will be Princeton's opener. It will be Lehigh's fourth. That's a big wild

Lehigh opens its season in nine days, in fact, with a game at Army-West Point. Before playing the Tigers, Lehigh will also take on Wagner and LIU.

The first Princeton win of the season will move Bob Surace into sole possession of second place in career wins by a Tiger head coach. He currently has 78 of those, tying him with Steve Tosches.

The only coach at Princeton who has ever had more was Bill Roper, who won 89 games over the course of three tenures: 1906-08, 1910-11, 1919-30. Why did he leave in between?

First, he left Princeton to coach Missouri in 1909, returning a year later. He left in 1912 to work for Woodrow Wilson but then got back into coaching in 1915 at Swarthmore and then came back to Princeton after World War I.

Roper's record has stood for 94 years, and it'll stand for at least one more, since Surace needs 11 wins to tie him. 

By the way, as TigerBlog was doing some research about James McCormick, who coached Princeton to a 6-1-1 record in the one year that Roper was at Missouri, he came across this from a preview story of when McCormick was Princeton's best player, in 1907. It's from a preview story from a game against Washington & Jefferson:

The contest this afternoon should prove one of the most interesting games played in Princeton this season, and should afford the first real test of the team's strength. The Washington and Jefferson team averages 175 pounds, and the men are exceptionally fast and aggressive.

Ah yes, the dreaded 175 pounders. The current Princeton roster lists only five players who are less than 175 pounds: three defensive backs, one wide receiver and one placekicker. 

For the record, the final score of that 1907 game was Princeton 40, W&J 0. That game was in Week 5, and those were the first points W&J allowed to that point.

TigerBlog loves to go back in time and learn things about Princeton Athletics history that he didn't know much about. It's especially great in the summer.

One month from now, though, will be opening kickoff for 2024. It's always better to watch the current teams. 

Princeton's home opener will be Sept. 28, when Howard will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. The other non-league game is Oct. 12, at Mercer. The Ivy opener is at Columbia Oct. 5.

The entire 2024 Princeton football schedule is HERE. Ticket information is HERE.

And, again, happy birthday to BrotherBlog. TB is sorry about the lack of a card, but he didn't have any stamps.