Dog Surfing

Well, it's officially summer. 

And what does that mean? You know. It's dog-surfing season. 

Dog-surfing? 

TigerBlog watched the end of Game 1 of the Men's College World Series best-of-three championship series between LSU and Coastal Carolina Saturday night. It was a riveting Game 1, in which LSU scored one run in the first and then won 1-0 behind a complete-game, 130-pitch three-hitter from Kade Anderson. 

Shockingly, it seemed like his mother was nervous, excited and ultimately thrilled — at least that was TB's take from the endless times the broadcast cut to her in the stands.  

A game like that is next to impossible these days in the Major Leagues, by the way. LSU, by the way, won the second game 5-3 yesterday to take the national championship. 

Anyway, when the game ended, TB flipped through the channels for a second and then saw what will undoubtedly replace baseball and every other sport as America's Pastime. Yup. It's dog surfing.

This couldn't be real, right? Dogs on surfboards? This had to be AI, or a dream or something. 

Nope. It's legit. And it's riveting. 

Surf's up, pup. 

There are different categories based on the size of the dog and whether or not it's a tandem, which could mean either two dogs or one dog and one human. 

This is great stuff. TB watched for five minutes and already was annoyed at the judges for putting Rosie second in the mid-size dog category. Rosie should have won easily. 

Also, the TV feed had a Go Pro that was on the front of the surfboard. Did the dogs look happy? They certainly looked wet. One looked a bit concerned. Another looked annoyed — Why are the humans harshing my mellow? 

It all made him want to write about dogs in today's entry. Maybe he could write about the Waterdogs of the Premier Lacrosse League, but that would have been too easy. 

You know what else would have been easy? Going through the current issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Get it? PAW.

While going through the PAW online, TB did come across THIS story about women's basketball alum Abby Meyers and her recent season of playing in Israel. There are no dogs in the story, though it does mention yaks.  

Were there any great moments of dogs in Princeton Athletic history?

How about foxes? They're sort of like dogs. Princeton Foxes include Stephanie Fox (softball ’93), Kevin Fox (football ’77), Finn Fox (men's lacrosse rising sophomore) and J.R. Fox (men's basketball ’39).

There have been cats, that's for sure. For starters, there's the whole "Tigers" thing, right?  

Then there have been cats such as Kat Sharkey (field hockey ’13), Cat Caro (field hockey ’17), Kat Holmes (fencing ’17), to name a few. Former men's lacrosse player Cathal Roberts' nickname was "Big Cat."

There have been bears too: Bear Lockshin, Bear Altemus, Bear Goldstein, all of whom were men's lacrosse players.  

Rabbits? Well, there was women's basketball player McKenna Haire. And men's soccer player Antoine Hoppenot.  

Some others that popped into TB's mind: current men's lacrosse player Cody Lam and former women's soccer player Catherine Byrd.  

There haven't been any alpaca, though there was an All-American football player in the 1920s named Al Packer. Just kidding. TB is pretty sure nobody named Al Packer ever played anything at Princeton. He just thinks alpaca are cute. 

They are, right? 

So dogs? 

Ryan Boyle had a dog named Gus when he played lacrosse at Princeton. TB remembers seeing Boyle and Gus walk away together after more than one game. 

Then there is Watson. He's a Princeton Bulldog, belonging to the family of former women's lacrosse player Shea Smith. 

Ah, Watson. If anyone can relate to you, it's TigerBlog. You know, the whole shifting allegiances from one Ivy League school to another. 

In his case, it was his alma mater to Princeton. In your case, it was your distant cousin the mascot in New Haven to Princeton. Watson was a frequent visitor to Princeton games as well. 

There are probably way more animal references that TB might have seen had he spent more time on it. Has there been a letterwinner named "Lyons?" An All-American named "Deer."

There have to be some Tigers who were nicknamed "Moose" or "Horse" or something like that. This requires more research.  

In the meantime, there's this from the Beach Boys:

Little surfer
Little dog
Wagging through the morning fog.
Do you love me, do you surfer dog? 

Ah, yes. America's Pastime. Dog surfing.

It's here to stay.