Smile

The Princeton men's basketball team released its schedule yesterday, so you can start planning your attendance. 

You're in good shape if you're in New Jersey, where Princeton will play 17 times. Also, the same seems to apply to South Carolina, where the Tigers will play four times. 

You can see the entire schedule HERE.

And, to really get you ready, here's Xavian Lee, who will be back for his junior year, along with Caden Pierce (whose brother Alec caught a 60-yard TD pass for the Colts in their game this past Sunday). 

Whatever he's doing, he's smiling, which is not unusual for him. Actually, he can be today's inspiration, for the theme of "pictures that will make you smile."

There's this one, for instance. It's of one of Princeton field hockey player Beth Yeager's parents' new labs:

The Princeton vest really makes the whole look even better.

This picture was taken at Sunday's postgame tailgate outside of Trager Stadium at the University of Louisville, where the Tigers opened their season with a 1-0 win over the host team and then a 2-0 loss to two-time defending NCAA champion North Carolina. If you want to get people to smile, a good starting place would be not one but two lab puppies.

Here's the other one, in the arms of Molly Nye, who, by the way, is one of six freshmen who are playing significant minutes already for Princeton:

C'mon now. That doesn't make your heart melt? 

In the realm of humans, here's another one to bring joy to any bad day. This came from the women's volleyball team's season opening tournament at Villanova:

Now that's what is known in the Office of Athletic Communications as "Jubo," short for "jubilation." Princeton went 2-1 at the tournament, with five-set wins over Old Dominion and Loyola before a loss to the host Wildcats. The Tigers were represented on the all-tournament team by sophomores Sydney Bold and Erin McNair.

Meanwhile, back at field hockey, here's another example of "Jubo." This time it's Princeton's Aimee Jungfer after she scored the Princeton goal to beat Louisville:

In fairness, it doesn't take scoring a game-winning goal to get Jungfer to get that look on her face. For her a smile is pretty much a constant.

For instance, she's on a quest to spot random cars with license plates from all 50 states, which is why she screamed "Idaho" very loudly on the field hockey bus on the way to the Louisville states. If TigerBlog is correct, she's now only missing Hawaii.

Jungfer, by the way, came to Princeton from outside of Melbourne. 

Still not smiling? Okay, try this:

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Who is that behind the camera? That's Fred Samara, the legendary Princeton men's track and field coach who retired before the start of the 2022-23 academic year.

So what's he doing now? Has he become a photographer? 

Samara was photographing Princeton's cross country teams at their season-opening races Friday at the new course on the Meadows Campus. The course will be hosting the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Nov. 2, if you want to get that into your calendar now.

Oh, speaking of Samara, the field hockey team used a lockerroom in the Louisville track and field center for Sunday's game. In the main hallway, there is a list of Louisville men's and women's indoor and outdoor records. 

TB thought to himself that the Princeton records for the same events would be better about 50 percent of the time. Boy was he wrong.

It was closer to 75-80 percent. That will also make you smile, even without a photo.