What A Racket

Guess what Princeton head coach TigerBlog met Tuesday morning? 

That would be Karameli Fa'ae'e. It was outside her office at the Meadows campus. TB recognized her immediately from her pictures when she was hired back in May. 

TB spent about five minutes chatting with Fa'ae'e. She's definitely excited for the coming season and for her new job. You could tell that in way fewer than five minutes. 

You know what else you could tell in fewer than five minutes? That she has a really cool New Zealand accent. 

It was only a quick "hi, how are you" conversation, but that was it took to know that you can add Fa'ae'e to the list of people for whom it easy to root. Make sure you get out there to watch the Tigers this fall. And say hello to the coach. She's certainly very approachable. 

Why was TigerBlog at the Meadows campus? Why else? To play tennis. Duh. 

TigerBlog played high school tennis a very long time ago. He played a little bit of tennis through the next few decades, playing lunchtime basketball in Jadwin Gym before finding the squash courts on D level. Those were his exercise home for 15 years or so, with epic matches usually five days a week against his longtime friend and colleague Craig Sachson. 

There was a time during those 15 years when TB tried to play tennis. Have you ever done that after you've played a lot of squash? No? 

Well, this is how it goes. In squash, you never have to worry about hitting the ball out past the baseline, because there isn't one. In tennis, you need a bit more touch on the ball. The first TB tried to hit a tennis ball after all that squash, he launched it over the fence. 

Sadly, all of that squash took its toll — two knee surgeries and a shoulder labrum tear (small one) later, his squash career ended and his bicycling career began. And with that, he went on pedaling. 

Fast forwarding to this past April 19, TB found himself at the indoor courts at Brown, ahead of Princeton's Ivy championship clincher over the Bears. As he waited for the players to come out to warm up, he decided to hit a few balls with head coach Elizabeth Johnson. Suddenly, he wanted to pick up a racket again.

In fact, he got one from men's head coach Billy Pate. And, Tuesday morning, he finally was able to use it. 

The catalyst for this was TB's friend Pattie Friend, the Princeton Athletics superfan and, like TB, an honorary member of the Class of 1965 (her late husband Lloyd was an actual class member). She met Coach Fa'ae'e at the same time as TB, and there is no doubt that 1) Pattie will attend more than the two rugby matches she did this past year and 2) she and the coach will become friends. That's just how she rolls. 

In addition to being a superfan, Pattie is also a longtime tennis player (and at one time, she was the head coach of the Seton Hall men's team). She told TB that she would hit with him, and so off they went to the Si Qin Family Indoor Tennis Center. 

Pattie, as you might expect, is a very consistent player. TigerBlog? He was all over the place. Also, because of his shoulder issue, it's hard for him to serve or hit overheads, so he had to serve underhand. 

Back when he first hurt his shoulder in squash, he began to hit only forehands — righthanded on the right side of the court and lefthanded on the left side. He started to do that on the tennis court, including when men's head coach Billy Pate wandered out to watch. 

A few minutes later, it was a 10-point doubles tiebreaker, with TB and Pate against Pattie and assistant coach Ethan Nittolo. When it came to returning serve, TB asked Pate what side he should be on, and Pate said "if you're hitting lefthanded returns, you should probably take the right side."

If you're wondering, TB and Pate went up 7-4 before Nittolo and Pattie ripped off six straight to win it. Still, just being out on the court was as lot of fun.  

TB hit just enough good shots to make him think he could end up being good again. The odds of that aren't quite as high as the odds that he hurts his shoulder or knees again, but hey, why not, right?