As Promised

The Princeton women's soccer team is home again tonight (7), when Penn State comes to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium.

Penn State is currently the No. 10 team in the country. Princeton is currently 2-0-0. It figures to be a good one.

TigerBlog didn't realize that Penn State and Princeton have such a minimal history in women's soccer. He just assumed they must have played a lot through the years. 

He was there in 2002 at the University of Maryland, where Penn State beat Princeton in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. As he recalls, it was 2-0 Penn State after about 10 minutes or so and it just stayed that way the rest of the night. 

That game was the third in the series, after the teams played in 1980 and 1981. They met again last year in State College, and that somehow was the first matchup between the teams since that NCAA tournament game. 

Admission tonight is free. Make sure you're there.

Meanwhile, as promised, here is proof that TigerBlog in fact once did have long hair, parted in the middle and feathered back. 

Like he said, this was the way it was in the 1970s and 1980s. 

That is, of course, TB's student ID from Penn. It's his replacement one actually, since he lost his original one — just the same way he's lost two or three of his Princeton IDs through the years. 

You want to know something really amazing about the student ID from the 1980s? Directly below TB's name was his social security number. Yup. Everyone's social security number was displayed right there.

In fact, if you wanted to go check on your grade for a test in a class, you would go outside the professor's office and everyone's grade would be listed by social security number. Those were the days. 

Also as promised, TigerBlog's first of three feature stories on Princeton's gold medalists from this past Olympic Games in Paris was posted on goprincetontigers.com yesterday. 

You can read it HERE.

The story is about Hannah Scott, who won gold in the women's quad sculls rowing with Great Britain. The race was the singular highlight for TB of these Games, as the British boat trailed for the entire 2,000 meters until it just somehow nipped the Netherlands at the finish line. 

TigerBlog wrote this the day after it happened, when he watched the race online, with the British announcers:

And then it changed on a dime. Suddenly, instead of talking about the certainty of a win by the Netherlands, one of the two blokes on the call went into Paul Revere mode and shouted "The Brits are coming! The Brits are coming!"

When TB spoke to Scott for the story, she was at her parents' house in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, about an hour from Belfast. With her medal, she became the second Northern Ireland woman to win Olympic gold.

Scott spoke about the first woman who did, Mary Peters, who won the pentathlon in Munich in 1972. Peters is now 85, and TB was able to get in touch with her through her foundation, the Mary Peters Trust, which has helped countless athletes in Northern Ireland get the resources they need to be successful.

Of course, if you know the history of Northern Ireland, you know all about The Troubles, the war that tore the country apart beginning in 1968. This was one of the things that Peters said: 

“There were three soldiers who were lured to a party next door to my flat, and the IRA shot all three soldiers dead. I heard the shots. You’d be on the bus, and there would be bombs going off in the city.”

That's a lot to take in when you're a young athlete. Or a young person. Or an old person. 

Scott mentioned the lingering effects of The Troubles that can still be felt in Northern Ireland these days. It's hard to imagine.

Peters and Scott met at the victory parade in Scott's honor after she returned to the small town. Those were happier times than when Peters returned to Northern Ireland with her gold medal 52 years ago. 

You'll have to read the rest of the story to find out why.

Up next in TB's series will be another rower, American Nick Mead. That one will be up in the middle of next week.