TigerBlog dealt with a pretty serious issue yesterday, freedom of speech in the world today.
Today will be a little lighter. Much lighter actually.
Why not? There are no athletic events here at Princeton as first semester exams roll along. While the rest of Division I athletics is in the heart of every winter season, Princeton has its unique two-week mid-January break.
So let's start out today with something that can make even the gruffest old dogs among you smile. And what would that be?
Right, a dog who can ride the bus by herself.
Eclipse is a black lab retriever mix in Seattle. Her owner sometimes takes too long to get on the bus to take her to the dog park, so she figured out how to get there herself.
How cute is this? TigerBlog told you so.
What can be sweeter than a dog who can ride the bus in a big city by herself? TigerBlog is feeling all warm and fuzzy just watching the video.
Okay, moving on to another subject.
TigerBlog read a story earlier this week about study that determined how many slices of pizza the average American eat in a lifetime. Any guesses?
Take a few paragraphs to think about it.
There are two things that TigerBlog thinks everybody likes, and that's pizza and the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing." The only real debate on pizza is what to have on it.
TigerBlog isn't sure when pizza started to get all dressed up. When TB was a kid, a fancy pizza had two toppings, like peppers and onions or mushrooms and sausage. Now you can get almost anything on a pizza.
TB's favorite is probably chicken parmigiana pizza. He's waiting for the study to prove that it's low-fat.
Anyway, apparently the average American eats 6,000 slices of pizza in a lifetime. TB lost track a long time ago, but he senses he'll get there.
Next up on "Keep It Light Friday" is TB's trip to the supermarket yesterday. What would you do in this situation?
TB bought 13 items, but four of them were baguettes. So would you have gone to the "10 items or less" line? After all, if you count the four baguettes as one item, then TB had nine items.
He didn't. He went to the regular one, but he chose really poorly and got stuck behind someone who took forever. Why do people move so slowly sometimes? Are they that unaware of the world around them? That tortures TB.
A Seattle-New England Super Bowl will torture TB as well, though he's pretty sure that's where this is heading this weekend. In that case, he'd root for Seattle, because 1) BrotherBlog lives there and 2) because of Eclipse.
Oh, and back at the supermarket. TigerBlog doesn't think he'd be a good checkout person, because he'd constantly be making comments to the people about what they were buying. Sarcastic comments, probably.
Let's see, anything else to cover? Two pieces of business, TB supposes.
First check out the Princeton football references in this piece about what Ohio State could do with its three quarterbacks.
Also, Sean Driscoll joined the staff here this week as the head women's soccer coach. He comes to Princeton after spending five years as the associate head coach at Fairfield, Before that, he was the head coach at Manhattan, and he led the Jaspers to a 12-5-2 record his final year for the best record in program history.
When TB met Driscoll when he was here earlier this week, he asked him about his experiences with the Jaspers. Driscoll told the story about practices at Von Cortlandt Park, where his team would have to move homeless people out of the way before training sessions began.
Now he comes to Princeton, where he may have to move a grad student or two off of Plummer Field before his team can get started.
The Tigers scored a lot of goals last year, and they will return eight of their top nine scorers for 2015, including Tyler Lussi, who has 28 goals in her first two seasons and has two years to get 19 more to tie the school record.
Driscoll seemed wildly enthusiastic about taking over at Princeton. He mentioned his first time on the campus, when he made a stop here while at a nearby camp and thinking that it would be incredible to coach her one day.
Now the job is his. But opening day is months away. Even spring practice is a few weeks away.
For that matter, the next athletic event in any sport is still more than a week away.
It's a quiet Friday around here.
It's a good day to lighten up.
Showing posts with label women's soccer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women's soccer. Show all posts
Friday, January 16, 2015
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Saying Goodbye
The single most competitive person that TigerBlog has ever met has coached her final game at Princeton University.
It's hard for TigerBlog to think about Princeton women's soccer without Julie Shackford, just as it was hard once for him to imagine Princeton men's basketball without Pete Carril or Princeton men's lacrosse without Bill Tierney.
For 20 years, she was the face of the program. And what a run she had with the Tigers.
Her record at Princeton was 203-115-29, meaning that she averaged more than 10 wins per season at a program that averaged 7.7 in the 15 years before her arrival. She went 42-21-4 at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Princeton; Carnegie Mellon didn't have a program before she started one.
To put that in historical context, she is one of only five coaches in Ivy League history - three men's, two women's - to reach 200 wins.
She led Princeton to six Ivy League championships and eight NCAA tournament appearances. No other Ivy League coach has ever taken a women's soccer team to the NCAA tournament more times.
Her 2004 season was her best, as she took Princeton to the NCAA Final Four, something no other Ivy women's soccer coach has ever done. She was the Division I coach of the year that year as well.
In 2012 she led Princeton to another 7-0-0 league record, making her one of two coaches to have done so twice. She was the regional coach of the year in 2012 - her third such honor - after Princeton won an away NCAA tournament game for the first time in program history, at West Virginia.
Her 2004 Final Four run featured four NCAA wins, all at home. The quarterfinal game was against Washington on a very cold night, when 2,504 fans packed into antiquated Lourie-Love Field.
Today, Princeton soccer plays on beautiful Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. It's part of Shackford's legacy, the momentum for the new facility having grown from that Final Four run.
When it came to coaching at Princeton, she was demanding. Strong-willed. Fierce. Intense.
TB once heard her scold her team for playing soft, yelling this at them: "You're playing like girls out there. You need to be women."
The second he heard her say that, TB was immediately struck by it, by how perfectly it sums her up. Don't play like men. Play like women. Strong women. Because women can do anything, on their terms.
And an army of women who came through Princeton benefited. And as a result, they stayed loyal. Very loyal.
Year after year they came back, to watch, to support the current team, to continue to share their lives with each other and with the woman who had coached them.
They were there Saturday night, when Shackford - they all call her "Shacks" - finally had coached her last game. And now they were at a reception for her in the Frick chemistry building, there to show one more time just how much she meant to every one of them.
To be a Division I head coach for 20 years is not easy. You think you know the toll it takes, but you don't - not unless you see it up close, first hand.
TigerBlog knows. He's had great relationships with so many Princeton coaches, but he'll never be as close to any of them as he was to Julie Shackford. He helped her raise her kids - Kayleigh, Cameron and Keegan - from the time they were in diapers.
He was with her long enough to see what her life as the Princeton women's soccer coach was really, truly like. What the wins were like. How long it took her to get past each and every loss.
Why didn't she recruit this kid? Why didn't she play that kid more, the other kid less?
When you're the head coach, it falls to you to make the biggest decisions about the program. It's not easy. And then your record is so public. Either you won, or you lost.
It wears you out. It's why coaches get burned out.
If you go to a game and the team you're rooting for loses, it stinks a little. Then you go home and go about your day and hey, there are other things that take your attention.
When you're the head coach? No. It consumes you. Overwhelms you. The highs, and the lows. TigerBlog saw it from Julie Shackford so many times, for so many years.
To be able to do that for 20 years? It's way, way more impressive than you realize.
How did she do that? Like TB said, she is the single most competitive person he has ever met. She competed with him in anything she could - ping pong, beach soccer, the jumbles, crossword puzzles song lyrics, basketball in the street, anything. TB can't even write those without thinking back to them and laughing.
Now she is leaving, moving to Virginia and getting married. It's time for the next chapter in her life. TB is happy for his former partner.
She's earned it.
She spent 20 years here living a tough life, one that plays with every emotion a person has. One that requires you to constantly be accountable, often for things out of your control, like a shot that hits a crossbar or a ref who calls a penalty kick or a poorly timed pulled hamstring - or any number of other things.
You're responsible for some pretty formative years for your players, and it's impossible to underestimate how important that relationship can be.
It makes for sleepless nights. It makes for twisted emotions.
It takes a special person to do it.
And that's what Julie Shackford is.
And now that special person is moving on.
Like TB said, she's earned it - and he's happy for her.
It's hard for TigerBlog to think about Princeton women's soccer without Julie Shackford, just as it was hard once for him to imagine Princeton men's basketball without Pete Carril or Princeton men's lacrosse without Bill Tierney.
For 20 years, she was the face of the program. And what a run she had with the Tigers.
Her record at Princeton was 203-115-29, meaning that she averaged more than 10 wins per season at a program that averaged 7.7 in the 15 years before her arrival. She went 42-21-4 at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Princeton; Carnegie Mellon didn't have a program before she started one.
To put that in historical context, she is one of only five coaches in Ivy League history - three men's, two women's - to reach 200 wins.
She led Princeton to six Ivy League championships and eight NCAA tournament appearances. No other Ivy League coach has ever taken a women's soccer team to the NCAA tournament more times.
Her 2004 season was her best, as she took Princeton to the NCAA Final Four, something no other Ivy women's soccer coach has ever done. She was the Division I coach of the year that year as well.
In 2012 she led Princeton to another 7-0-0 league record, making her one of two coaches to have done so twice. She was the regional coach of the year in 2012 - her third such honor - after Princeton won an away NCAA tournament game for the first time in program history, at West Virginia.
Her 2004 Final Four run featured four NCAA wins, all at home. The quarterfinal game was against Washington on a very cold night, when 2,504 fans packed into antiquated Lourie-Love Field.
Today, Princeton soccer plays on beautiful Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. It's part of Shackford's legacy, the momentum for the new facility having grown from that Final Four run.
When it came to coaching at Princeton, she was demanding. Strong-willed. Fierce. Intense.
TB once heard her scold her team for playing soft, yelling this at them: "You're playing like girls out there. You need to be women."
The second he heard her say that, TB was immediately struck by it, by how perfectly it sums her up. Don't play like men. Play like women. Strong women. Because women can do anything, on their terms.
And an army of women who came through Princeton benefited. And as a result, they stayed loyal. Very loyal.
Year after year they came back, to watch, to support the current team, to continue to share their lives with each other and with the woman who had coached them.
They were there Saturday night, when Shackford - they all call her "Shacks" - finally had coached her last game. And now they were at a reception for her in the Frick chemistry building, there to show one more time just how much she meant to every one of them.
To be a Division I head coach for 20 years is not easy. You think you know the toll it takes, but you don't - not unless you see it up close, first hand.
TigerBlog knows. He's had great relationships with so many Princeton coaches, but he'll never be as close to any of them as he was to Julie Shackford. He helped her raise her kids - Kayleigh, Cameron and Keegan - from the time they were in diapers.
He was with her long enough to see what her life as the Princeton women's soccer coach was really, truly like. What the wins were like. How long it took her to get past each and every loss.
Why didn't she recruit this kid? Why didn't she play that kid more, the other kid less?
When you're the head coach, it falls to you to make the biggest decisions about the program. It's not easy. And then your record is so public. Either you won, or you lost.
It wears you out. It's why coaches get burned out.
If you go to a game and the team you're rooting for loses, it stinks a little. Then you go home and go about your day and hey, there are other things that take your attention.
When you're the head coach? No. It consumes you. Overwhelms you. The highs, and the lows. TigerBlog saw it from Julie Shackford so many times, for so many years.
To be able to do that for 20 years? It's way, way more impressive than you realize.
How did she do that? Like TB said, she is the single most competitive person he has ever met. She competed with him in anything she could - ping pong, beach soccer, the jumbles, crossword puzzles song lyrics, basketball in the street, anything. TB can't even write those without thinking back to them and laughing.
Now she is leaving, moving to Virginia and getting married. It's time for the next chapter in her life. TB is happy for his former partner.
She's earned it.
She spent 20 years here living a tough life, one that plays with every emotion a person has. One that requires you to constantly be accountable, often for things out of your control, like a shot that hits a crossbar or a ref who calls a penalty kick or a poorly timed pulled hamstring - or any number of other things.
You're responsible for some pretty formative years for your players, and it's impossible to underestimate how important that relationship can be.
It makes for sleepless nights. It makes for twisted emotions.
It takes a special person to do it.
And that's what Julie Shackford is.
And now that special person is moving on.
Like TB said, she's earned it - and he's happy for her.
Monday, November 3, 2014
At Home In Ithaca
When summer lacrosse tournaments or camp games end in ties, a standard tiebreaking procedure is the dreaded "Braveheart."
What's a Braveheart? It's one-on-one, full-field lacrosse, along with goalies. Each team sends out one player to face-off and then play one-on-one until somebody scores. It usually doesn't last too long, since it's a bit difficult to chase someone the length of a lacrosse field once you've given up a step.
TigerBlog thought this would have been a much cooler way to decide who advanced at the Liberty Hockey Invitational first round games Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, rather than having a conventional three-round shootout.
UConn and Merrimack opened the tournament with a 2-2 tie, and Princeton and Yale concluded the day with their own 2-2 tie. Because of the tournament format, though, someone had to advance to the final, so there was a shootout.
How about a Braveheart instead? Each team sends out the goalie and one skater. They face off and play until someone scores. How much more fun would that be?
Hey, the NHL should adopt this too.
TigerBlog doesn't know much about hockey. He does know that Princeton has scored three goals this year, and they're all by freshmen. That's a good sign.
The Princeton-Yale game was a good one, the first for head coach Ron Fogarty with the Tigers, against the team that won the NCAA championship two years ago. The incredible thing about the game is that the teams meet again twice more in the regular season, and the next meeting was to be one day short of exactly three months later.
What will happen between then and now? A lot. But still, it was an entertaining day of hockey in Newark, and TB got a chance to see the arena, which he had not before.
At the same time, the Princeton women's hockey team was knocking off Cornell, who has dominated Ivy League women's hockey for the last few years. That game was played in Ithaca.
And this weekend, if it was Princeton-Cornell in Ithaca, Princeton won.
The Tigers and Big Red played in Ithaca in six different sports in a 28-hour stretch beginning with that women's hockey game, and Princeton went 6-0 in those six events. Maybe it's because Ithaca is Mollie Marcoux's hometown?
Anyway, if you're keeping track, Princeton defeated Cornell in women's hockey, field hockey, football, women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer between last Friday and Saturday. It's left some of those teams right in the thick of the Ivy championship hunt.
* Field hockey
Princeton is tied with Columbia at 5-1 in the Ivy League. The Tigers host Penn Saturday, while Columbia is at Harvard.
Should only one win, then it would be outright Ivy League champion and the league's NCAA tournament representative. If they both win, then they share the title, but Columbia would be the league's automatic bid by virtue of its win over Princeton. In other words, Princeton needs to beat Penn and have Harvard beat Columbia to get to the NCAA tournament.
Penn and Harvard are both 3-3 in the league.
Things can get a bit murkier if Princeton and Columbia both lose and Cornell defeats Dartmouth, which would mean a three-way tie for the title. In that case, TigerBlog is pretty sure that there would be a random draw for the Ivy automatic bid, since all three would be 1-1 against each other and have a loss to either Penn or Harvard, who would be tied in the standings. TB has been wrong about these things before.
* Men's soccer
Don't look now - or actually look now - but Princeton is tied for first in the Ivy League men's soccer race. Princeton and Dartmouth are both 3-1-1, for 10 points. Harvard and Penn are both next with eight points.
There are two weeks left in the Ivy season, and Princeton hosts Penn and is at Yale. There is also a game Wednesday at American, a team earning votes in the national poll.
Should Princeton win its last two league games, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. Because Princeton's loss is to Dartmouth, Princeton would not get the league's automatic bid in a two-way tie, though TB figures the Tigers would be right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid.
* Women's soccer
This is the final week of Julie Shackford's 20-year career as the women's soccer coach at Princeton. Her team can still get a share of the Ivy League title but cannot get the league's NCAA tournament bid.
Princeton has 10 points, trailing Harvard (13) and Dartmouth (12). A Tiger win over Penn Saturday, coupled with a Harvard loss to Columbia (eight points) and Dartmouth loss or tie in its game with Cornell (three points) gives Princeton a tie for the league championship. The Tigers cannot win a tiebreaker in either a two-way tie with Harvard or three-way tie with Harvard and Dartmouth, and Princeton cannot have a two-way tie with Dartmouth.
* Women's volleyball
There are two weekends and four matches left for each Ivy League women's volleyball team. Princeton is currently 7-3, trailing only Harvard and Yale, who are both 8-2.
The good news for Princeton is that they play both again, this Friday at home against Harvard and then the following Friday at Yale. Princeton is also home with Dartmouth Saturday.
The bad news? Princeton went 0-3 against those three the first time around. Still, the Tigers have a chance, and that's all they could really ask for at this point.
* Football
Princeton defeated Cornell 38-27 Saturday, going to 3-1 in the Ivy League with three games left, including one this Saturday at home at 3:30 against Penn.
Right now, Harvard is 4-0, followed by Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth all at 3-1. Princeton ends it season at Yale and home with Dartmouth.
Harvard knocked off Dartmouth Saturday in a match of the last two Ivy unbeatens. Harvard has also beaten Princeton.
Obviously, the Crimson finish the season against Yale, at home no less. Yale appears to have the best chance to knock off Harvard, who also has Columbia (0-4) and Penn (1-3) to go.
Princeton needs to win out and have someone beat Harvard. If that happens, then Princeton would be co-champion.
What's a Braveheart? It's one-on-one, full-field lacrosse, along with goalies. Each team sends out one player to face-off and then play one-on-one until somebody scores. It usually doesn't last too long, since it's a bit difficult to chase someone the length of a lacrosse field once you've given up a step.
TigerBlog thought this would have been a much cooler way to decide who advanced at the Liberty Hockey Invitational first round games Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, rather than having a conventional three-round shootout.
UConn and Merrimack opened the tournament with a 2-2 tie, and Princeton and Yale concluded the day with their own 2-2 tie. Because of the tournament format, though, someone had to advance to the final, so there was a shootout.
How about a Braveheart instead? Each team sends out the goalie and one skater. They face off and play until someone scores. How much more fun would that be?
Hey, the NHL should adopt this too.
TigerBlog doesn't know much about hockey. He does know that Princeton has scored three goals this year, and they're all by freshmen. That's a good sign.
The Princeton-Yale game was a good one, the first for head coach Ron Fogarty with the Tigers, against the team that won the NCAA championship two years ago. The incredible thing about the game is that the teams meet again twice more in the regular season, and the next meeting was to be one day short of exactly three months later.
What will happen between then and now? A lot. But still, it was an entertaining day of hockey in Newark, and TB got a chance to see the arena, which he had not before.
At the same time, the Princeton women's hockey team was knocking off Cornell, who has dominated Ivy League women's hockey for the last few years. That game was played in Ithaca.
And this weekend, if it was Princeton-Cornell in Ithaca, Princeton won.
The Tigers and Big Red played in Ithaca in six different sports in a 28-hour stretch beginning with that women's hockey game, and Princeton went 6-0 in those six events. Maybe it's because Ithaca is Mollie Marcoux's hometown?
Anyway, if you're keeping track, Princeton defeated Cornell in women's hockey, field hockey, football, women's volleyball, women's soccer and men's soccer between last Friday and Saturday. It's left some of those teams right in the thick of the Ivy championship hunt.
* Field hockey
Princeton is tied with Columbia at 5-1 in the Ivy League. The Tigers host Penn Saturday, while Columbia is at Harvard.
Should only one win, then it would be outright Ivy League champion and the league's NCAA tournament representative. If they both win, then they share the title, but Columbia would be the league's automatic bid by virtue of its win over Princeton. In other words, Princeton needs to beat Penn and have Harvard beat Columbia to get to the NCAA tournament.
Penn and Harvard are both 3-3 in the league.
Things can get a bit murkier if Princeton and Columbia both lose and Cornell defeats Dartmouth, which would mean a three-way tie for the title. In that case, TigerBlog is pretty sure that there would be a random draw for the Ivy automatic bid, since all three would be 1-1 against each other and have a loss to either Penn or Harvard, who would be tied in the standings. TB has been wrong about these things before.
* Men's soccer
Don't look now - or actually look now - but Princeton is tied for first in the Ivy League men's soccer race. Princeton and Dartmouth are both 3-1-1, for 10 points. Harvard and Penn are both next with eight points.
There are two weeks left in the Ivy season, and Princeton hosts Penn and is at Yale. There is also a game Wednesday at American, a team earning votes in the national poll.
Should Princeton win its last two league games, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. Because Princeton's loss is to Dartmouth, Princeton would not get the league's automatic bid in a two-way tie, though TB figures the Tigers would be right in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid.
* Women's soccer
This is the final week of Julie Shackford's 20-year career as the women's soccer coach at Princeton. Her team can still get a share of the Ivy League title but cannot get the league's NCAA tournament bid.
Princeton has 10 points, trailing Harvard (13) and Dartmouth (12). A Tiger win over Penn Saturday, coupled with a Harvard loss to Columbia (eight points) and Dartmouth loss or tie in its game with Cornell (three points) gives Princeton a tie for the league championship. The Tigers cannot win a tiebreaker in either a two-way tie with Harvard or three-way tie with Harvard and Dartmouth, and Princeton cannot have a two-way tie with Dartmouth.
* Women's volleyball
There are two weekends and four matches left for each Ivy League women's volleyball team. Princeton is currently 7-3, trailing only Harvard and Yale, who are both 8-2.
The good news for Princeton is that they play both again, this Friday at home against Harvard and then the following Friday at Yale. Princeton is also home with Dartmouth Saturday.
The bad news? Princeton went 0-3 against those three the first time around. Still, the Tigers have a chance, and that's all they could really ask for at this point.
* Football
Princeton defeated Cornell 38-27 Saturday, going to 3-1 in the Ivy League with three games left, including one this Saturday at home at 3:30 against Penn.
Right now, Harvard is 4-0, followed by Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth all at 3-1. Princeton ends it season at Yale and home with Dartmouth.
Harvard knocked off Dartmouth Saturday in a match of the last two Ivy unbeatens. Harvard has also beaten Princeton.
Obviously, the Crimson finish the season against Yale, at home no less. Yale appears to have the best chance to knock off Harvard, who also has Columbia (0-4) and Penn (1-3) to go.
Princeton needs to win out and have someone beat Harvard. If that happens, then Princeton would be co-champion.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Where's The Play At The Plate?
It's not just that Madison Bumgarner was unhittable. It's that he was unhittable and completely emotionless.
It wasn't like it was the World Series, let alone Game 7 of the World Series. It could have been a spring training game or an early-summer game against a team that was going nowhere, like the Yankees or something.
There as Bumgarner, inning after scoreless inning. And each time, he showed absolutely no emotion of any kind. Got the ball. Got the out. Back to the dugout.
The nightmare scenario that every Kansas City Royal feared the most played out last night in Game 7, when Bumgarner came on in the fifth inning with his San Francisco Giants up 3-2. And that would be that. Final score, 3-2.
Bumgarner went five innings and allowed two hits, walking none and striking out four. He was on total cruise control - until an incredible moment with two out in the ninth, at which point the big lefty had retired 14 straight.
Alex Gordon dropped a line drive just in front of San Francisco centerfielder Gregor Blanco, who saw it roll to the wall and get kicked around just enough to make it even more interesting .
Gordon made it to third relatively easily. He was held the whole way by third base coach Mike Jirschele. And TigerBlog was left to wonder one thing: Why, why, why didn't the coach send Gordon?
Yeah, his odds of scoring weren't great. By the time he would have rounded third, shortstop Brandon Crawford would have had the ball on the outfield grass.
On the other hand, what happened next was inevitable. Bumgarner got Salvador Perez to pop out to third. End of World Series.
Yes, nobody today is saying that the third base coach blew it. Then again, nobody is saying the Royals won either.
Here is a quote form Jirschele:
"Believe me, I wanted to send him. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to go the whole offseason with Alex getting thrown out halfway to home plate right there."
Oh, but you're okay going the whole offseason knowing you lost but nobody is blaming you? With the way Bumgarner was throwing and the way Perez was hurting, what were the chances he'd tie the game there? Less than the chances that Crawford was gong to make a bad throw home - hey, maybe he would have been so shocked .
This was their one chance, and they didn't take advantage of it. And they lost. Yes, nobody is blaming Jirschele or Gordon, and yes they would have been all over them if Gordon had been thrown out at the plate.
Sadly, in sports, that often trumps everything.
Oh well, the Royals gave it a good run. It wasn't a great World Series, but it was a World Series of greatness - Madison Bumgarner's.
TigerBlog didn't see much of it, and then again, nobody did, as it was the lowest rated World Series ever. Just wait 50 more years, when the Major League Lacrosse championship game is the biggest sporting event.
It was the lacrosse banquet Saturday night that caused TigerBlog to miss the soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium against Harvard. And he got a little hung up all week and so it's not until Thursday until TB points out something fairly obvious and yet still incredible.
There were 14 goals scored on Myslik Field that night.
Fourteen? That's a lot of goals.
The women lost 5-4 to Harvard as Tyler Lussi scored all four goals. The men won 3-2.
In the women's game the winning goal came on a penalty kick with 10 minutes left. As with all penalty kicks awarded in tie games with 10 minutes to go, the punishment did not fit the crime.
TigerBlog hasn't looked up when the last time at least 14 goals were scored in one day on a Princeton soccer field. If he had to guess, he'd guess it's been awhile, if ever.
When the dust settled from it all, the women found themselves not quite mathematically out of the league race, thought it would take a lot for them to win the Ivy title. The men? They're right in the thick of it.
On the women's side, it looks like the champion will be either Harvard or Dartmouth, most likely Harvard, even if the Crimson lose to the Big Green Saturday and definitely Harvard if the Crimson win or tie.
Harvard is 4-0-1 for 13 points, followed by 2-0-3 Dartmouth with nine. Should they tie this weekend, then Harvard would clinch the title with 14 points, while Dartmouth would find itself in the strange position of being undefeated in the league - and mathematically eliminated.
If Dartmouth wins, then it would be one point back of Harvard with one game to play. The Crimson still have Columbia to go, while the Green have Cornell.
Princeton? The Tigers are tied with Columbia with seven points, six points back of the Crimson. The best Princeton could do is tie for the title, and the only way that would happen would be if Princeton won its two games (at Cornell Saturday, home with Penn Nov. 8), Harvard lost both of its and Dartmouth beat Harvard and then either tied or lost to Cornell. Columbia is in the same boat as Princeton, needing two wins to get to 13 and then some help.
If Princeton sweeps and Harvard gets swept, there could be a three-way or four-way tie for first. Princeton would not win the tiebreaker in any scenario, so the Tigers cannot win the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Princeton does have a non-league game Tuesday at home against North Carolina State as well.
By the way, contrast that with what have happened if the PK hadn't been called and that game ended in a tie. Princeton would have eight points. Harvard would have 11. It would be a much, much, much different race. In the end, that call could have done as much to determine the league race as anything.
Now TigerBlog did not see it. He wasn't there and hasn't seen the replay. He's not saying it was a bad call or anything like that. He's saying it was a season-changing call though.
As for the men, they have played one fewer game than the women to date, so it's harder to figure out what's what at this point.
The knowns are that 1) no team is unbeaten, 2) Dartmouth is alone in first with nine points and 3) Princeton, Harvard and Penn are all tied for second with three.
As with the women, Harvard and Dartmouth play this weekend.
Princeton's regular season ends with a game at Cornell, a midweek game at American, a home game Nov. 8 against Penn and a game at Yale Nov. 15.
It wasn't like it was the World Series, let alone Game 7 of the World Series. It could have been a spring training game or an early-summer game against a team that was going nowhere, like the Yankees or something.
There as Bumgarner, inning after scoreless inning. And each time, he showed absolutely no emotion of any kind. Got the ball. Got the out. Back to the dugout.
The nightmare scenario that every Kansas City Royal feared the most played out last night in Game 7, when Bumgarner came on in the fifth inning with his San Francisco Giants up 3-2. And that would be that. Final score, 3-2.
Bumgarner went five innings and allowed two hits, walking none and striking out four. He was on total cruise control - until an incredible moment with two out in the ninth, at which point the big lefty had retired 14 straight.
Alex Gordon dropped a line drive just in front of San Francisco centerfielder Gregor Blanco, who saw it roll to the wall and get kicked around just enough to make it even more interesting .
Gordon made it to third relatively easily. He was held the whole way by third base coach Mike Jirschele. And TigerBlog was left to wonder one thing: Why, why, why didn't the coach send Gordon?
Yeah, his odds of scoring weren't great. By the time he would have rounded third, shortstop Brandon Crawford would have had the ball on the outfield grass.
On the other hand, what happened next was inevitable. Bumgarner got Salvador Perez to pop out to third. End of World Series.
Yes, nobody today is saying that the third base coach blew it. Then again, nobody is saying the Royals won either.
Here is a quote form Jirschele:
"Believe me, I wanted to send him. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to go the whole offseason with Alex getting thrown out halfway to home plate right there."
Oh, but you're okay going the whole offseason knowing you lost but nobody is blaming you? With the way Bumgarner was throwing and the way Perez was hurting, what were the chances he'd tie the game there? Less than the chances that Crawford was gong to make a bad throw home - hey, maybe he would have been so shocked .
This was their one chance, and they didn't take advantage of it. And they lost. Yes, nobody is blaming Jirschele or Gordon, and yes they would have been all over them if Gordon had been thrown out at the plate.
Sadly, in sports, that often trumps everything.
Oh well, the Royals gave it a good run. It wasn't a great World Series, but it was a World Series of greatness - Madison Bumgarner's.
TigerBlog didn't see much of it, and then again, nobody did, as it was the lowest rated World Series ever. Just wait 50 more years, when the Major League Lacrosse championship game is the biggest sporting event.
It was the lacrosse banquet Saturday night that caused TigerBlog to miss the soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium against Harvard. And he got a little hung up all week and so it's not until Thursday until TB points out something fairly obvious and yet still incredible.
There were 14 goals scored on Myslik Field that night.
Fourteen? That's a lot of goals.
The women lost 5-4 to Harvard as Tyler Lussi scored all four goals. The men won 3-2.
In the women's game the winning goal came on a penalty kick with 10 minutes left. As with all penalty kicks awarded in tie games with 10 minutes to go, the punishment did not fit the crime.
TigerBlog hasn't looked up when the last time at least 14 goals were scored in one day on a Princeton soccer field. If he had to guess, he'd guess it's been awhile, if ever.
When the dust settled from it all, the women found themselves not quite mathematically out of the league race, thought it would take a lot for them to win the Ivy title. The men? They're right in the thick of it.
On the women's side, it looks like the champion will be either Harvard or Dartmouth, most likely Harvard, even if the Crimson lose to the Big Green Saturday and definitely Harvard if the Crimson win or tie.
Harvard is 4-0-1 for 13 points, followed by 2-0-3 Dartmouth with nine. Should they tie this weekend, then Harvard would clinch the title with 14 points, while Dartmouth would find itself in the strange position of being undefeated in the league - and mathematically eliminated.
If Dartmouth wins, then it would be one point back of Harvard with one game to play. The Crimson still have Columbia to go, while the Green have Cornell.
Princeton? The Tigers are tied with Columbia with seven points, six points back of the Crimson. The best Princeton could do is tie for the title, and the only way that would happen would be if Princeton won its two games (at Cornell Saturday, home with Penn Nov. 8), Harvard lost both of its and Dartmouth beat Harvard and then either tied or lost to Cornell. Columbia is in the same boat as Princeton, needing two wins to get to 13 and then some help.
If Princeton sweeps and Harvard gets swept, there could be a three-way or four-way tie for first. Princeton would not win the tiebreaker in any scenario, so the Tigers cannot win the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Princeton does have a non-league game Tuesday at home against North Carolina State as well.
By the way, contrast that with what have happened if the PK hadn't been called and that game ended in a tie. Princeton would have eight points. Harvard would have 11. It would be a much, much, much different race. In the end, that call could have done as much to determine the league race as anything.
Now TigerBlog did not see it. He wasn't there and hasn't seen the replay. He's not saying it was a bad call or anything like that. He's saying it was a season-changing call though.
As for the men, they have played one fewer game than the women to date, so it's harder to figure out what's what at this point.
The knowns are that 1) no team is unbeaten, 2) Dartmouth is alone in first with nine points and 3) Princeton, Harvard and Penn are all tied for second with three.
As with the women, Harvard and Dartmouth play this weekend.
Princeton's regular season ends with a game at Cornell, a midweek game at American, a home game Nov. 8 against Penn and a game at Yale Nov. 15.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Princeton Hosts Harvard - Times Four
TigerBlog has written about Oscar Pistorius before.
If you don't want to click on the link, TB will give you the gist in one paragraph:
TB couldn't believe it when he saw the news. And he was mad at himself, mad for once again believing in an athlete, holding that athlete up to be more than he was, to be a great international citizen, when all he really is is a murderer who can run fast on fake legs.
That was from Feb. 15, 2013, right after it came out that Pistorius - the South African double-amputee turned Olympic runner - had killed his girlfriend, the beautiful model Reeva Steenkamp.
Now Pistorius sits in the medical wing of a South African prison. His sentence is five years, but it appears that he'll be out in 10 months. And he'll serve his time in the medical wing, with other disabled prisoners.
Less than a year. For murder.
What strikes TB about it most now is that Pistorius is in the medical wing, and not the most worse main area of the prison, because of his disability, the very thing he fought against being labeled with when he wanted to run in the Olympics, or, in other words, he's disabled when it suits him.
And yes, TigerBlog read how Pistorius suffers from depression. Unfortunately, that's not as serious as Steenkamp, who suffers from being dead.
This entire story from the beginning has really affected TigerBlog, probably because of how much he allowed himself to admire Pistorius during the last Olympics. Never again. TigerBlog will never again look at a professional athlete with that kind of admiration.
TigerBlog has not yet watched a pitch of the World Series. He has watched very little NFL football this year. He watched almost none of the NBA and NHL regular seasons or playoffs last year.
He did watch a lot of the World Cup, and clearly those guys aren't saints either. So why that event? Maybe it's the fact that the players aren't being paid additionally for competing, that they're doing it for love of the game and because of the great respect the event has earned?
It wasn't until today that TigerBlog wondered if part of the reason he watches so little of the major sports leagues now is because of Pistorius? Maybe TB just reached his breaking point?
Anyway, no segue today. Let's just get to the four Princeton-Harvard matchups Saturday, going in chronological order:
* Field Hockey at noon
Unlike most years, this current Ivy League field hockey race is actually just that, a race. Princeton, winner of 19 of the last 20 Ivy titles in the sport, is in a dogfight with five teams.
The Tigers, who lost earlier this year to Columbia, are one of four teams at 3-1, along with the Lions, Cornell (whom Princeton plays next week) and Dartmouth (whom Princeton has already beaten). Harvard is 2-2 and still hoping to get back into the hunt, though a loss to Princeton would pretty much end that hope. Harvard did deal Cornell its first league loss of the year a week ago.
Princeton, after playing Harvard Saturday, will host Connecticut Sunday at 1 in a matchup of the last two NCAA champions.
* Football at 1
There are three 2-0 teams in the Ivy League, and two of them play here Saturday at 1. The last two times these teams played, the results were wild - a 29-point fourth-quarter rally for a 39-34 Princeton win two years ago and a 51-48 three OT win for Princeton last year. The winning points in both came from Quinn Epperly to Roman Wilson.
Couple all that with the nearly perfect weather forecast, and TigerBlog is hoping to see a huge crowd in the stands Saturday.
Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth are all 2-0. Yale is 1-1, with a loss to Dartmouth. Penn is also 1-1, and the Quakers play the Bulldogs Saturday in what amounts to an elimination game. If one assumes that Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale are the main contenders, then the schedule is a great one, since only one head-to-head game among that group has been played to date.
As a little added bonus, Harvard is 26-1 against all other opponents and 0-2 against Princeton in its last 29 games.
* Women's soccer at 4
The Ivy League women's soccer picture will be much clearer come Saturday night.
Harvard is currently 3-0-1 in the league for 10 points. Princeton and Columbia are 2-1-1, with seven points. Dartmouth is hanging around at 1-0-3, which adds up to six points. In addition to Princeton-Harvard, Columbia hosts Dartmouth Saturday.
There could be a three-way tie for first with wins by Princeton and Columbia should both win. On the other hand, a Harvard win and Dartmouth-Columbia tie would mean that the Crimson would be five points ahead of the Lions and six points ahead of the Tigers and Big Green. Dartmouth is rooting for a Princeton win to go along with its own win, which would mean Harvard and Princeton with 10 points and Dartmouth with nine.
Dartmouth takes on Harvard next weekend.
* Men's soccer at 7
As is the case on the women's side, Harvard is the lone Ivy unbeaten on the women's side, at 2-0-1. Also like the women, the Princeton men would tie Harvard with a win, though unlike the women, that wouldn't guarantee first place.
Dartmouth and Penn are both 2-1. Columbia and Brown join Princeton at 1-1-1. In other words, one week behind the women's race, the men's side is a bit more crowded.
The bottom line for Princeton is that a win would be huge, not that anyone needs TigerBlog to tell them that.
Harvard opened the year at 0-3 and then won eight straight before tying Brown last week.
And there you have it. Princeton vs. Harvard, four times, on Princeton's campus, on a perfect fall Saturday.
Of course, just how perfect remains to be seen, depending on the results.
If you don't want to click on the link, TB will give you the gist in one paragraph:
TB couldn't believe it when he saw the news. And he was mad at himself, mad for once again believing in an athlete, holding that athlete up to be more than he was, to be a great international citizen, when all he really is is a murderer who can run fast on fake legs.
That was from Feb. 15, 2013, right after it came out that Pistorius - the South African double-amputee turned Olympic runner - had killed his girlfriend, the beautiful model Reeva Steenkamp.
Now Pistorius sits in the medical wing of a South African prison. His sentence is five years, but it appears that he'll be out in 10 months. And he'll serve his time in the medical wing, with other disabled prisoners.
Less than a year. For murder.
What strikes TB about it most now is that Pistorius is in the medical wing, and not the most worse main area of the prison, because of his disability, the very thing he fought against being labeled with when he wanted to run in the Olympics, or, in other words, he's disabled when it suits him.
And yes, TigerBlog read how Pistorius suffers from depression. Unfortunately, that's not as serious as Steenkamp, who suffers from being dead.
This entire story from the beginning has really affected TigerBlog, probably because of how much he allowed himself to admire Pistorius during the last Olympics. Never again. TigerBlog will never again look at a professional athlete with that kind of admiration.
TigerBlog has not yet watched a pitch of the World Series. He has watched very little NFL football this year. He watched almost none of the NBA and NHL regular seasons or playoffs last year.
He did watch a lot of the World Cup, and clearly those guys aren't saints either. So why that event? Maybe it's the fact that the players aren't being paid additionally for competing, that they're doing it for love of the game and because of the great respect the event has earned?
It wasn't until today that TigerBlog wondered if part of the reason he watches so little of the major sports leagues now is because of Pistorius? Maybe TB just reached his breaking point?
Anyway, no segue today. Let's just get to the four Princeton-Harvard matchups Saturday, going in chronological order:
* Field Hockey at noon
Unlike most years, this current Ivy League field hockey race is actually just that, a race. Princeton, winner of 19 of the last 20 Ivy titles in the sport, is in a dogfight with five teams.
The Tigers, who lost earlier this year to Columbia, are one of four teams at 3-1, along with the Lions, Cornell (whom Princeton plays next week) and Dartmouth (whom Princeton has already beaten). Harvard is 2-2 and still hoping to get back into the hunt, though a loss to Princeton would pretty much end that hope. Harvard did deal Cornell its first league loss of the year a week ago.
Princeton, after playing Harvard Saturday, will host Connecticut Sunday at 1 in a matchup of the last two NCAA champions.
* Football at 1
There are three 2-0 teams in the Ivy League, and two of them play here Saturday at 1. The last two times these teams played, the results were wild - a 29-point fourth-quarter rally for a 39-34 Princeton win two years ago and a 51-48 three OT win for Princeton last year. The winning points in both came from Quinn Epperly to Roman Wilson.
Couple all that with the nearly perfect weather forecast, and TigerBlog is hoping to see a huge crowd in the stands Saturday.
Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth are all 2-0. Yale is 1-1, with a loss to Dartmouth. Penn is also 1-1, and the Quakers play the Bulldogs Saturday in what amounts to an elimination game. If one assumes that Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale are the main contenders, then the schedule is a great one, since only one head-to-head game among that group has been played to date.
As a little added bonus, Harvard is 26-1 against all other opponents and 0-2 against Princeton in its last 29 games.
* Women's soccer at 4
The Ivy League women's soccer picture will be much clearer come Saturday night.
Harvard is currently 3-0-1 in the league for 10 points. Princeton and Columbia are 2-1-1, with seven points. Dartmouth is hanging around at 1-0-3, which adds up to six points. In addition to Princeton-Harvard, Columbia hosts Dartmouth Saturday.
There could be a three-way tie for first with wins by Princeton and Columbia should both win. On the other hand, a Harvard win and Dartmouth-Columbia tie would mean that the Crimson would be five points ahead of the Lions and six points ahead of the Tigers and Big Green. Dartmouth is rooting for a Princeton win to go along with its own win, which would mean Harvard and Princeton with 10 points and Dartmouth with nine.
Dartmouth takes on Harvard next weekend.
* Men's soccer at 7
As is the case on the women's side, Harvard is the lone Ivy unbeaten on the women's side, at 2-0-1. Also like the women, the Princeton men would tie Harvard with a win, though unlike the women, that wouldn't guarantee first place.
Dartmouth and Penn are both 2-1. Columbia and Brown join Princeton at 1-1-1. In other words, one week behind the women's race, the men's side is a bit more crowded.
The bottom line for Princeton is that a win would be huge, not that anyone needs TigerBlog to tell them that.
Harvard opened the year at 0-3 and then won eight straight before tying Brown last week.
And there you have it. Princeton vs. Harvard, four times, on Princeton's campus, on a perfect fall Saturday.
Of course, just how perfect remains to be seen, depending on the results.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Better Today Than Saturday
The outside temperature gauge on TigerBlog's dashboard as he pulled into Lot 21 read 53 degrees. As he got out of his car, the first thing he had to get was his umbrella.
That's the kind of morning it is around here.
As he started the short walk into the building, TigerBlog had one thought: Better today than Saturday.
When his colleague Craig Sachson walked in, the first thing he said was this: Better today than Saturday.
In between, TigerBlog talked to one person, Ryan Yurko, whose exact title is either "Assistant Director of Athletics For Finance and Administration" or "guy who has something to do with money." And what did Yurko say?
Right. Better today than Saturday.
The unanimous thinking in Jadwin this morning seems to be that it's worth it to have a rainy Wednesday in exchange for Saturday's forecast, which is this: Sunny, high 67, zero percent chance of rain.
And that makes today not that big a deal.
What's going on Saturday? A lot.
Princeton is home against Harvard in four different events, beginning at noon in field hockey and continuing with football at 1, women's soccer at 4 and men's soccer at 7. Admission to three of those four is free.
All four are huge games in their Ivy League races. Each one will have a direct impact on who wins the championship in each sport, even with several weeks to go for each.
But hey, that's not for right now.
For now, TigerBlog wants to talk about Yurko.
One of TB's favorite words to describe people is "amiable," as in "having or displaying a friendly and pleasant manner." If anyone fits that description, it's Yurko.
He's a Midwesterner, transplanted here to the East, and he's pretty much what you'd expect from someone from Indiana, which is interesting, because as TigerBlog writes these words, his iTunes is playing the music from "Hoosiers."
That's actually true.
Yurko came up with an idea that TigerBlog thought wasn't too bad. Play the last two Harvard football games on the website in advance of Saturday's game, sort of like ESPN does before a big game. Of course if they were Ivy League Digital Network games (as opposed to ESPN3; TB can't remember), they'd already be archived.
But it wasn't a bad idea.
From there, Yurko went down the path of suggesting a regular feature of old games, and the first one he mentioned was the 1989 NCAA men's basketball game against Georgetown, which he had never seen. TigerBlog suggested that if Yurko did watch the game, he'd come away shocked by how in control of the game the Tigers were and how much it got away at the end.
After that, TigerBlog took Yurko through Ivy League men's basketball of the 1990s, which was a glorious time for the Princeton-Penn rivalry.
Princeton won in 1989 and played Georgetown, losing 50-49 in the classic 16 vs. 1 game. Princeton also won the next three years, making the class of 1992 the only one in Ivy men's basketball history (since freshmen became eligible in the 1970s) to win four league titles in four years.
Princeton also lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament all four of those years, by a total of 15 points. The losses were by one to Georgetown, four to Arkansas, two to Villanova and eight to Syracuse.
TigerBlog is still bothered by the Villanova loss in the Carrier Dome. It's one of his five worst losses for Princeton Athletics that he has experienced, maybe even second, behind the loss to Michigan State in 1998 in the second round.
Penn then went 42-0 between 1993 and 1995, with an NCAA win over Nebraska in 1994 at the Nassau Coliseum. Then Penn beat Princeton in the first game of the 1996 Ivy season before the Tigers won 12 straight and the Quakers stumbled against Yale and Dartmouth. Penn beat Princeton on the final day of the regular season to force a playoff, and Princeton then won that historic game, the one at Lehigh on the night Pete Carril quite casually mentioned that he was retiring.
Then it was the win over UCLA. And then two more Ivy titles, as well as a 27-2 record and Top 10 ranking in 1998.
What's fascinating about it to TigerBlog is that there are fewer and fewer people who work here who were here for those days.
There's a real value to what Gary Walters always called "institutional memory," and it's one of TigerBlog's best things. Writing here every day helps to maintain that.
TB was a history major at Penn, and he's always loved the historical side of Princeton Athletics. It's how he came across the fact that Princeton Athletics turns 150 next month - spoiler alert - there will be a lot more on this subject in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, TB also tried to get across to Yurko how much he would have loved to have seen what Jadwin Gym was like for some of those games, back before the Princeton Offense was copied and dispersed throughout the entire basketball world and before every game was on TV someplace.
It's sort of like Palmer Stadium in the older days. TB has seen pictures of it. He wonders what it would have been like.
And TigerBlog could probably have talked for 10 hours about those 10 years of Ivy basketball, from 1989-1998. They were really special times in Princeton history, and TB had a front row seat for all of it.
Yurko probably would have listened. That's what amiable people from Indiana do.
That's the kind of morning it is around here.
As he started the short walk into the building, TigerBlog had one thought: Better today than Saturday.
When his colleague Craig Sachson walked in, the first thing he said was this: Better today than Saturday.
In between, TigerBlog talked to one person, Ryan Yurko, whose exact title is either "Assistant Director of Athletics For Finance and Administration" or "guy who has something to do with money." And what did Yurko say?
Right. Better today than Saturday.
The unanimous thinking in Jadwin this morning seems to be that it's worth it to have a rainy Wednesday in exchange for Saturday's forecast, which is this: Sunny, high 67, zero percent chance of rain.
And that makes today not that big a deal.
What's going on Saturday? A lot.
Princeton is home against Harvard in four different events, beginning at noon in field hockey and continuing with football at 1, women's soccer at 4 and men's soccer at 7. Admission to three of those four is free.
All four are huge games in their Ivy League races. Each one will have a direct impact on who wins the championship in each sport, even with several weeks to go for each.
But hey, that's not for right now.
For now, TigerBlog wants to talk about Yurko.
One of TB's favorite words to describe people is "amiable," as in "having or displaying a friendly and pleasant manner." If anyone fits that description, it's Yurko.
He's a Midwesterner, transplanted here to the East, and he's pretty much what you'd expect from someone from Indiana, which is interesting, because as TigerBlog writes these words, his iTunes is playing the music from "Hoosiers."
That's actually true.
Yurko came up with an idea that TigerBlog thought wasn't too bad. Play the last two Harvard football games on the website in advance of Saturday's game, sort of like ESPN does before a big game. Of course if they were Ivy League Digital Network games (as opposed to ESPN3; TB can't remember), they'd already be archived.
But it wasn't a bad idea.
From there, Yurko went down the path of suggesting a regular feature of old games, and the first one he mentioned was the 1989 NCAA men's basketball game against Georgetown, which he had never seen. TigerBlog suggested that if Yurko did watch the game, he'd come away shocked by how in control of the game the Tigers were and how much it got away at the end.
After that, TigerBlog took Yurko through Ivy League men's basketball of the 1990s, which was a glorious time for the Princeton-Penn rivalry.
Princeton won in 1989 and played Georgetown, losing 50-49 in the classic 16 vs. 1 game. Princeton also won the next three years, making the class of 1992 the only one in Ivy men's basketball history (since freshmen became eligible in the 1970s) to win four league titles in four years.
Princeton also lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament all four of those years, by a total of 15 points. The losses were by one to Georgetown, four to Arkansas, two to Villanova and eight to Syracuse.
TigerBlog is still bothered by the Villanova loss in the Carrier Dome. It's one of his five worst losses for Princeton Athletics that he has experienced, maybe even second, behind the loss to Michigan State in 1998 in the second round.
Penn then went 42-0 between 1993 and 1995, with an NCAA win over Nebraska in 1994 at the Nassau Coliseum. Then Penn beat Princeton in the first game of the 1996 Ivy season before the Tigers won 12 straight and the Quakers stumbled against Yale and Dartmouth. Penn beat Princeton on the final day of the regular season to force a playoff, and Princeton then won that historic game, the one at Lehigh on the night Pete Carril quite casually mentioned that he was retiring.
Then it was the win over UCLA. And then two more Ivy titles, as well as a 27-2 record and Top 10 ranking in 1998.
What's fascinating about it to TigerBlog is that there are fewer and fewer people who work here who were here for those days.
There's a real value to what Gary Walters always called "institutional memory," and it's one of TigerBlog's best things. Writing here every day helps to maintain that.
TB was a history major at Penn, and he's always loved the historical side of Princeton Athletics. It's how he came across the fact that Princeton Athletics turns 150 next month - spoiler alert - there will be a lot more on this subject in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, TB also tried to get across to Yurko how much he would have loved to have seen what Jadwin Gym was like for some of those games, back before the Princeton Offense was copied and dispersed throughout the entire basketball world and before every game was on TV someplace.
It's sort of like Palmer Stadium in the older days. TB has seen pictures of it. He wonders what it would have been like.
And TigerBlog could probably have talked for 10 hours about those 10 years of Ivy basketball, from 1989-1998. They were really special times in Princeton history, and TB had a front row seat for all of it.
Yurko probably would have listened. That's what amiable people from Indiana do.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
One Time
It has to be so unfair to be a fan of the Baltimore Orioles.
Here your team emerges from nearly 20 years of chronically bad baseball. Finally, your team gets out of the shadows of the Yankees and Red Sox, who have won eight World Series between them in the last 18 years, and makes it to the American League Championship Series.
Surely this is an underdog team well worth rooting for, no? So what happens to your team? It finds waiting for it the Kansas City Royals, who are an even bigger underdog Cinderella type, and suddenly every neutral fan is against you.
It's hard to root against the Royals, who have an even bigger record of futility during the last 20, or even nearly 30, years than the Orioles.
Beginning in 1975, the Royals finished first or second 10 straight times and won the 1985 World Series, the only one in franchise history. Since then, though, the bottom basically fell out of a team that had little money and little fan interest.
By 1992, the Royals were in the their third straight year of finishing sixth in the AL West, and attendance dipped below 2,000,000. At no point since has it made it back, including this year.
Kansas City is playing in its first postseason since 1985 - and making the most of it. First there was a thrilling comeback win over Oakland in the wild card game, followed by sweeps over the Angels and Orioles that have put the Royals back in the World Series.
And they're 8-0 in the postseason. How nuts is that?
It's even nuttier when you consider that four of those eight wins are by one run and four of those wins were in extra innings. Of the other four games, two were decided by one run. The last two wins against the Orioles were 2-1 and 2-1.
By the way, here's a list of all Kansas City Royals players TigerBlog could have named before the playoffs began - .........
That's supposed to mean he couldn't have named any.
One thing these Royals have done is make it clear that these days, nothing is more overrated than starting pitching. Kansas City has won basically every game because of three bullpen guys whom TB had never heard of but who are completely lights out. Take yesterday. It was 2-1 in the sixth - and 2-1 when it ended.
The ability to win close games in the postseason is what defines greatness. Of Princeton's nine NCAA lacrosse championships between the men's and women's teams, five were won in overtime.
TigerBlog has been struck by the number of close games that Princeton teams have been playing this fall. Or at least he thought he was.
The numbers don't always back up what is originally suspected, so he figured he'd look.
He researched the football, two soccer and field hockey teams. He wasn't sure what to do with women's volleyball, since no game can be a one-point win but a match can be won 3-2.
Here's what he found:
* the men's soccer team has played 11 games, of which eight have been decided by either one goal or ended in a tie
* the women's soccer team has played 11 games, of which six have been decided by either one goal ended in a tie
* the football team has played four games, of which one has been decided by one point
* the field hockey team has played 12 games, of which six have been decided by one goal - and three have gone to overtime
* the women's volleyball team has played 15 matches, of which six ended 3-2, though it's not quite the same thing as one one-point game
Either way, add that up, and between the five sports, you have 53 games, of which 27 - or one more than half - have been either ties or one-point, one-goal or one-game margins.
If you factor out volleyball, then you have 38 games and 21 one-point margins. That's a lot, no?
TigerBlog didn't add this up, but the men's soccer team has probably played more than 80 percent of its season so far with the score either tied or one team up by one. That puts a ton of pressure on each possession, even in soccer, which has more possessions than any other sport, TB would guess.
Is this an anomaly? A year ago, Princeton played 17 men's soccer games, and 13 of them were one-goal or tie games. The women had eight in 17 games. The field hockey team had eight in 19 games. The football team had two in 10 games.
That's 31 of 63, or 49 percent, as opposed to 55 percent this year.
What does all this mean? Maybe it's just the nature of soccer and field hockey to play close games.
Maybe it's means nothing.
Or maybe it means that if you come watch a Princeton game, it's likely to go down to the wire. And other than football, it's free.
Yeah, let's go with that.
Here your team emerges from nearly 20 years of chronically bad baseball. Finally, your team gets out of the shadows of the Yankees and Red Sox, who have won eight World Series between them in the last 18 years, and makes it to the American League Championship Series.
Surely this is an underdog team well worth rooting for, no? So what happens to your team? It finds waiting for it the Kansas City Royals, who are an even bigger underdog Cinderella type, and suddenly every neutral fan is against you.
It's hard to root against the Royals, who have an even bigger record of futility during the last 20, or even nearly 30, years than the Orioles.
Beginning in 1975, the Royals finished first or second 10 straight times and won the 1985 World Series, the only one in franchise history. Since then, though, the bottom basically fell out of a team that had little money and little fan interest.
By 1992, the Royals were in the their third straight year of finishing sixth in the AL West, and attendance dipped below 2,000,000. At no point since has it made it back, including this year.
Kansas City is playing in its first postseason since 1985 - and making the most of it. First there was a thrilling comeback win over Oakland in the wild card game, followed by sweeps over the Angels and Orioles that have put the Royals back in the World Series.
And they're 8-0 in the postseason. How nuts is that?
It's even nuttier when you consider that four of those eight wins are by one run and four of those wins were in extra innings. Of the other four games, two were decided by one run. The last two wins against the Orioles were 2-1 and 2-1.
By the way, here's a list of all Kansas City Royals players TigerBlog could have named before the playoffs began - .........
That's supposed to mean he couldn't have named any.
One thing these Royals have done is make it clear that these days, nothing is more overrated than starting pitching. Kansas City has won basically every game because of three bullpen guys whom TB had never heard of but who are completely lights out. Take yesterday. It was 2-1 in the sixth - and 2-1 when it ended.
The ability to win close games in the postseason is what defines greatness. Of Princeton's nine NCAA lacrosse championships between the men's and women's teams, five were won in overtime.
TigerBlog has been struck by the number of close games that Princeton teams have been playing this fall. Or at least he thought he was.
The numbers don't always back up what is originally suspected, so he figured he'd look.
He researched the football, two soccer and field hockey teams. He wasn't sure what to do with women's volleyball, since no game can be a one-point win but a match can be won 3-2.
Here's what he found:
* the men's soccer team has played 11 games, of which eight have been decided by either one goal or ended in a tie
* the women's soccer team has played 11 games, of which six have been decided by either one goal ended in a tie
* the football team has played four games, of which one has been decided by one point
* the field hockey team has played 12 games, of which six have been decided by one goal - and three have gone to overtime
* the women's volleyball team has played 15 matches, of which six ended 3-2, though it's not quite the same thing as one one-point game
Either way, add that up, and between the five sports, you have 53 games, of which 27 - or one more than half - have been either ties or one-point, one-goal or one-game margins.
If you factor out volleyball, then you have 38 games and 21 one-point margins. That's a lot, no?
TigerBlog didn't add this up, but the men's soccer team has probably played more than 80 percent of its season so far with the score either tied or one team up by one. That puts a ton of pressure on each possession, even in soccer, which has more possessions than any other sport, TB would guess.
Is this an anomaly? A year ago, Princeton played 17 men's soccer games, and 13 of them were one-goal or tie games. The women had eight in 17 games. The field hockey team had eight in 19 games. The football team had two in 10 games.
That's 31 of 63, or 49 percent, as opposed to 55 percent this year.
What does all this mean? Maybe it's just the nature of soccer and field hockey to play close games.
Maybe it's means nothing.
Or maybe it means that if you come watch a Princeton game, it's likely to go down to the wire. And other than football, it's free.
Yeah, let's go with that.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
UDub, And Princeton Soccer Dubs
BrotherBlog's official title is Associate Director for the Center for Law, Science and Global Health at the University of Washington.
BB has lived in Seattle for a long time. TigerBlog has been there, and as cities go, it's not a bad one, even if it has way more homeless people than TB thought it would and that the smell of a certain weed permeates most downtown blocks. There is water everywhere, and TB recommends the short ferry ride to Bainbridge Island across the Puget Sound because of 1) the island itself and 2) the view of Seattle on the way back.
The Space Needle is a great place. So are the football and baseball stadiums.
Oh, and apparently it rains there a lot, though as TB has only been there in the summer, he has yet to see one drop on any of his trips.
TB has spent some time on the campus of UDub, as they call it out there. It has a great football stadium, one that backs up onto Lake Washington. On the other side of campus, there is a fountain that offers beyond it an unobstructed view of Mt. Ranier.
TB's brother-in-law - himself the MLIS Program Chair in the UDub Information School - jokes that the view of the mountain draws students to the university in the summer and then they spend four years unable to see it because of the clouds that come in from September through June.
So that's a really quick overview of what TB thinks of when he thinks of Seattle.
Here's what he doesn't think of: college men's soccer.
And yet, to his wild amazement, there is UDub, ranked No. 1 right now in the latest NSCAA poll. Actually, the Huskies have had a solid men's soccer program, making the NCAA tournament every year but two from 1995-2007, before having a postseason drought that ended in 2012.
Last year, Washington was 16-2-4 and reached the NCAA quarterfinals before losing to New Mexico.
And TB never knew any of this.
He first looked at the soccer standings last week, and he was taken aback by the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 25. Last week, that was Dartmouth, before the Big Green lost to Boston University. Now Dartmouth is in the receiving votes category, while BU went from receiving votes to No. 22.
Harvard is also receiving votes in this week's poll.
On the women's side, no Ivy League team is ranked or receiving votes.
So what does all this mean?
Let's start with the men. It means that Princeton is pretty good. The Tigers lost to Dartmouth 2-1 in overtime in the Ivy opener two weeks ago and are 6-3-2 overall after last night's 1-0 win over Loyola.
Princeton dominated the game against the Greyhounds, outshooting them 19-3, but it wasn't until a late penalty kick on a hand ball that was so obvious that nobody in green bothered protesting.
Next up for Princeton is Columbia in New York Saturday. Princeton, Columbia, Penn and Brown are all 1-1; Harvard and Dartmouth are 2-0.
Princeton got a late goal from Joe Saitta Saturday to knock off Brown 2-1 at home in what was a huge moment of the season. After the Columbia game is an entire week to get ready for a home game against Harvard.
Princeton has scored 22 goals, of which 16 have come from Thomas Sanner and Cameron Porter.
The Princeton women are also relying on a one-two scoring punch, this from Tyler Lussi and Lauren Lazo.
Princeton is 5-3-3 overall and 2-0-1 in the league, tied for first with Harvard. Princeton is also at Columbia Saturday on the women's side.
As for Lussi and Lazo, they have done the men one better, literally. The Princeton women also have 22 goals as a team, and Lussi and Lazo have combined for 17 of them.
Lussi has 11 goals in 11 games, which makes her one of five players in Division I who is averaging at least one goal per game. She also already tied for 11th on the single-season goals list at Princeton (the record is 20, set by current assistant Esmeralda Negron in the 2004 Final Four season), and with two more goals she will tie for 10th all-time at Princeton in career goals scored, despite the fact that she's about two-thirds of the way through her sophomore year.
Lussi scored two more last night in a 3-0 win over Army. Lazo had the other.
The world of Ivy League soccer isn't easy, and it is one of the most competitive top-to-bottom sports the league has. Princeton found out the hard way how subtle things can be, going from 7-0-0 two years ago on the women's side to seventh place last year.
Now Princeton is back in the thick of the league race, with four league games to go. Having two pure goal scorers is a major plus in that chase.
As for UDub's men, they are next at UCLA, who happens to be ranked No. 1 for the women (and No. 14 for the men).
If TB had to guess, he'd say that his brother has no idea about any of this.
BB has lived in Seattle for a long time. TigerBlog has been there, and as cities go, it's not a bad one, even if it has way more homeless people than TB thought it would and that the smell of a certain weed permeates most downtown blocks. There is water everywhere, and TB recommends the short ferry ride to Bainbridge Island across the Puget Sound because of 1) the island itself and 2) the view of Seattle on the way back.
The Space Needle is a great place. So are the football and baseball stadiums.
Oh, and apparently it rains there a lot, though as TB has only been there in the summer, he has yet to see one drop on any of his trips.
TB has spent some time on the campus of UDub, as they call it out there. It has a great football stadium, one that backs up onto Lake Washington. On the other side of campus, there is a fountain that offers beyond it an unobstructed view of Mt. Ranier.
TB's brother-in-law - himself the MLIS Program Chair in the UDub Information School - jokes that the view of the mountain draws students to the university in the summer and then they spend four years unable to see it because of the clouds that come in from September through June.
So that's a really quick overview of what TB thinks of when he thinks of Seattle.
Here's what he doesn't think of: college men's soccer.
And yet, to his wild amazement, there is UDub, ranked No. 1 right now in the latest NSCAA poll. Actually, the Huskies have had a solid men's soccer program, making the NCAA tournament every year but two from 1995-2007, before having a postseason drought that ended in 2012.
Last year, Washington was 16-2-4 and reached the NCAA quarterfinals before losing to New Mexico.
And TB never knew any of this.
He first looked at the soccer standings last week, and he was taken aback by the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 25. Last week, that was Dartmouth, before the Big Green lost to Boston University. Now Dartmouth is in the receiving votes category, while BU went from receiving votes to No. 22.
Harvard is also receiving votes in this week's poll.
On the women's side, no Ivy League team is ranked or receiving votes.
So what does all this mean?
Let's start with the men. It means that Princeton is pretty good. The Tigers lost to Dartmouth 2-1 in overtime in the Ivy opener two weeks ago and are 6-3-2 overall after last night's 1-0 win over Loyola.
Princeton dominated the game against the Greyhounds, outshooting them 19-3, but it wasn't until a late penalty kick on a hand ball that was so obvious that nobody in green bothered protesting.
Next up for Princeton is Columbia in New York Saturday. Princeton, Columbia, Penn and Brown are all 1-1; Harvard and Dartmouth are 2-0.
Princeton got a late goal from Joe Saitta Saturday to knock off Brown 2-1 at home in what was a huge moment of the season. After the Columbia game is an entire week to get ready for a home game against Harvard.
Princeton has scored 22 goals, of which 16 have come from Thomas Sanner and Cameron Porter.
The Princeton women are also relying on a one-two scoring punch, this from Tyler Lussi and Lauren Lazo.
Princeton is 5-3-3 overall and 2-0-1 in the league, tied for first with Harvard. Princeton is also at Columbia Saturday on the women's side.
As for Lussi and Lazo, they have done the men one better, literally. The Princeton women also have 22 goals as a team, and Lussi and Lazo have combined for 17 of them.
Lussi has 11 goals in 11 games, which makes her one of five players in Division I who is averaging at least one goal per game. She also already tied for 11th on the single-season goals list at Princeton (the record is 20, set by current assistant Esmeralda Negron in the 2004 Final Four season), and with two more goals she will tie for 10th all-time at Princeton in career goals scored, despite the fact that she's about two-thirds of the way through her sophomore year.
Lussi scored two more last night in a 3-0 win over Army. Lazo had the other.
The world of Ivy League soccer isn't easy, and it is one of the most competitive top-to-bottom sports the league has. Princeton found out the hard way how subtle things can be, going from 7-0-0 two years ago on the women's side to seventh place last year.
Now Princeton is back in the thick of the league race, with four league games to go. Having two pure goal scorers is a major plus in that chase.
As for UDub's men, they are next at UCLA, who happens to be ranked No. 1 for the women (and No. 14 for the men).
If TB had to guess, he'd say that his brother has no idea about any of this.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Remember All Their Faces
TigerBlog saw a commercial for the first of the two Monday night NFL games.
It started out with the predictable "Eli Manning and the Giants take on ...", at which point TigerBlog had hoped it would say "Caraun Reid and the Lions." But no. It had Matthew Stafford instead.
Who makes these decisions?
Reid, after all, is a rookie back up defensive lineman. Why wouldn't he be featured, instead of Stafford, the starting quarterback?
Okay, TB gets it.
Still, Reid is a Princeton grad making his NFL debut. Against Eli Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. What could be better?
Reid is one of two Princeton alums in the NFL this year, along with Mike Catapano of the Chiefs, though Catapano is on the Physically Unable To Perform list to start the year. TigerBlog will root for both of them.
He'll root for the Lions as well. It can't be easy to be a a Lions' fan.
The team last won an NFL championship in 1957, and the Lions are one of four teams to have never played in a Super Bowl. TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs to come up with the other three.
On the other hand, the Lions seem to be pointed in the right direction. They have the franchise quarterback and enough good pieces around him, and the division they play in isn't overly strong.
Plus, the Lions are owned by the Ford family, the same people who brought you the Ford Family Director of Athletics position at Princeton. So TB will root for them. Oh, and 10-time Heptagonal champion John Mack - a former OAC student worker - is a huge, longtime, loyal Lions fans, and he deserves a Super Bowl more than anyone TB knows.
Anyway, the Browns, Texans and Jaguars are the other three who have never been in a Super Bowl. The Browns aren't exactly easy to root for either, and 2014 hasn't quite started off in a fan-friendly way.
So it's Giants-Lions at 7:10 tonight.
Before you watch the football game, you can go to Roberts Stadium and see Princeton take on Seton Hall in women's soccer at 5. It's an interesting start time. It's 5, not 7.
Princeton opened its season with a 5-0 loss to Rutgers Friday night, but it wasn't quite that bad. Princeton was right there with unbeaten Rutgers until it ran out of steam, largely because it was playing Game 1 versus Game 4 for the Scarlet Knights.
This time, the challenge is another Big East team. Oh wait, Rutgers is in the Big Ten. TB has to keep reminding himself of that. Is Seton Hall still in the Big East? Is there still a Big East?
The answers are yes and yes.
Seton Hall has also lost to Rutgers. That score was 1-0.
This will be Game 6 for the Pirates. That's extraordinary. Seton Hall defeated Wagner 3-0 in its opener and has since lost to Rutgers, Rider, Monmouth and Stony Brook - all by one goal. The first three of those losses were by 1-0 scores.
If you want a closer look at the women's soccer team, TigerBlog suggests clicking HERE.
And what will you find if you click there?
Well, if you're a fan of "Orange Is The New Black," you'll get it immediately. It's a video created by women's soccer goalkeeper Darcy Hargadon, who TB believes is not related to the late Director of Admissions Fred Hargadon.
Darcy has done other videos, and she is tremendous at it. This one is her best.
The Netflix show "Orange is the New Black" is about life in a women's prison. It starts out with the song in the video that Darcy did, and it follows the same style as the one Darcy did, only Darcy substituted the faces of the inmates with the faces of her women's soccer teammates.
As for the game, it's a 5 pm start, not 7.
It's the first of two home soccer games this week, with St. John's at Roberts Stadium Wednesday night to take on the men's team. That game kicks off 7.
The women are at La Salle Friday night and then home against Villanova Sunday at 4 in an ESPNU game.
Oh, and the video?
It's really, really well done. Even if you're not a fan of the show.
It's definitely worth the 1:18 of your time it takes to see it.
In fact, here's the link again: Princeton women's soccer, Orange is the New Black.
It started out with the predictable "Eli Manning and the Giants take on ...", at which point TigerBlog had hoped it would say "Caraun Reid and the Lions." But no. It had Matthew Stafford instead.
Who makes these decisions?
Reid, after all, is a rookie back up defensive lineman. Why wouldn't he be featured, instead of Stafford, the starting quarterback?
Okay, TB gets it.
Still, Reid is a Princeton grad making his NFL debut. Against Eli Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. What could be better?
Reid is one of two Princeton alums in the NFL this year, along with Mike Catapano of the Chiefs, though Catapano is on the Physically Unable To Perform list to start the year. TigerBlog will root for both of them.
He'll root for the Lions as well. It can't be easy to be a a Lions' fan.
The team last won an NFL championship in 1957, and the Lions are one of four teams to have never played in a Super Bowl. TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs to come up with the other three.
On the other hand, the Lions seem to be pointed in the right direction. They have the franchise quarterback and enough good pieces around him, and the division they play in isn't overly strong.
Plus, the Lions are owned by the Ford family, the same people who brought you the Ford Family Director of Athletics position at Princeton. So TB will root for them. Oh, and 10-time Heptagonal champion John Mack - a former OAC student worker - is a huge, longtime, loyal Lions fans, and he deserves a Super Bowl more than anyone TB knows.
Anyway, the Browns, Texans and Jaguars are the other three who have never been in a Super Bowl. The Browns aren't exactly easy to root for either, and 2014 hasn't quite started off in a fan-friendly way.
So it's Giants-Lions at 7:10 tonight.
Before you watch the football game, you can go to Roberts Stadium and see Princeton take on Seton Hall in women's soccer at 5. It's an interesting start time. It's 5, not 7.
Princeton opened its season with a 5-0 loss to Rutgers Friday night, but it wasn't quite that bad. Princeton was right there with unbeaten Rutgers until it ran out of steam, largely because it was playing Game 1 versus Game 4 for the Scarlet Knights.
This time, the challenge is another Big East team. Oh wait, Rutgers is in the Big Ten. TB has to keep reminding himself of that. Is Seton Hall still in the Big East? Is there still a Big East?
The answers are yes and yes.
Seton Hall has also lost to Rutgers. That score was 1-0.
This will be Game 6 for the Pirates. That's extraordinary. Seton Hall defeated Wagner 3-0 in its opener and has since lost to Rutgers, Rider, Monmouth and Stony Brook - all by one goal. The first three of those losses were by 1-0 scores.
If you want a closer look at the women's soccer team, TigerBlog suggests clicking HERE.
And what will you find if you click there?
Well, if you're a fan of "Orange Is The New Black," you'll get it immediately. It's a video created by women's soccer goalkeeper Darcy Hargadon, who TB believes is not related to the late Director of Admissions Fred Hargadon.
Darcy has done other videos, and she is tremendous at it. This one is her best.
The Netflix show "Orange is the New Black" is about life in a women's prison. It starts out with the song in the video that Darcy did, and it follows the same style as the one Darcy did, only Darcy substituted the faces of the inmates with the faces of her women's soccer teammates.
As for the game, it's a 5 pm start, not 7.
It's the first of two home soccer games this week, with St. John's at Roberts Stadium Wednesday night to take on the men's team. That game kicks off 7.
The women are at La Salle Friday night and then home against Villanova Sunday at 4 in an ESPNU game.
Oh, and the video?
It's really, really well done. Even if you're not a fan of the show.
It's definitely worth the 1:18 of your time it takes to see it.
In fact, here's the link again: Princeton women's soccer, Orange is the New Black.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Off And Running
TigerBlog stopped at the bank machine this past Saturday morning.
When he got there, a man about 10 years or so older than TB was just finishing his transaction and getting back into his car. As it was a nice day, he had the top down on his convertible.
TigerBlog has never owned a convertible. In fact, he can't remember ever being in one, other than when he was really, really little and FatherBlog had one.
As the man got back into his car to drive away, he cranked his music to a very high level. TB found this odd, as the man was probably in his 60s, as opposed to his teens or 20s.
And then there was the song itself. It took TB a second to get it, but then he figured it out. It was "Silhouettes On The Shade," a song TB recognized from Saturday night oldies of long ago. He couldn't remember who sang it and never would have come up with The Rays.
"Silhouettes On The Shade" is a doo-wop song from 1957. It was redone many times, including by the Four Seasons, Frankie Lymon, Herman's Hermits and the Crests.
At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.
Anyway, the man from the bank machine was dressed for golf, and TB assumed that's where he was going next. Was this the music he listened to to get him pumped to play? Maybe.
Perhaps that was his standard Saturday morning pre-tee psych music.
One of the most common sites before any athletic event is that of the competitors with headphones on, listening to whatever it is that gets them ready to go. TigerBlog, were he about to play in the Super Bowl or - even bigger - the Major League Lacrosse championship game - would listen to "Born To Run," of course.
Anytime television cameras go into the locker room or shows an athlete not yet in uniform out on the field or court or walking off a bus, there they are, the headphone. Hey, you can go into a Princeton locker room before a game and see the same thing.
Oh, and this is completely unrelated to anything, but TigerBlog has been in the writing business for more than 30 years and has never gotten a definitive answer to the question of whether or not it should be "lockerroom" or "locker room."
There are other avenues for inspiration.
Mollie Marcoux turned to one such avenue yesterday as she led her first department-wide staff meeting.
Before she ever spoke, there was Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in "Miracle." It was the scene in the lockerroom (or is it locker room?) before the U.S. played the Soviet Union.
Go ahead. Watch it. Click right HERE and do it. And try not to get moved by it.
Watch whatever you need. Listen to whatever gets you going.
Tonight is opening night, for Princeton Athletics 2014-15.
It's actually late for opening night. Pretty much every school everywhere has already played.
Princeton has one home game today. The women's soccer team opens Julie Shackford's final season as head coach with a game against Rutgers at 7.
Admission is free. As in no charge. So be there.
Rutgers comes into the game having already played three times - and won all three. It's a tough task for a team in its opener to play a team playing its fourth game.
The field hockey team is at Duke, who is 2-0. The men's soccer team is at FDU, who is 0-2.
The women's volleyball team is actually the first team to play, as it goes at 12:30 today against Charlotte at Temple's tournament.
There is a difference between being in shape and being in game shape. The challenge for tonight isn't just the opponents themselves but the transition to competing in games that matter.
However it goes, tonight is the start of a new year. By the time June rolls around, Princeton will have had more than 600 other athletic contests. Will there be a national champion for the 44th straight year?
What teams will surprise? Which teams will win as they are expected to do? What will be the biggest story of the year?
It starts tonight.
Opening day.
Tramps like us? Baby, we were born to run.
When he got there, a man about 10 years or so older than TB was just finishing his transaction and getting back into his car. As it was a nice day, he had the top down on his convertible.
TigerBlog has never owned a convertible. In fact, he can't remember ever being in one, other than when he was really, really little and FatherBlog had one.
As the man got back into his car to drive away, he cranked his music to a very high level. TB found this odd, as the man was probably in his 60s, as opposed to his teens or 20s.
And then there was the song itself. It took TB a second to get it, but then he figured it out. It was "Silhouettes On The Shade," a song TB recognized from Saturday night oldies of long ago. He couldn't remember who sang it and never would have come up with The Rays.
"Silhouettes On The Shade" is a doo-wop song from 1957. It was redone many times, including by the Four Seasons, Frankie Lymon, Herman's Hermits and the Crests.
At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.
Anyway, the man from the bank machine was dressed for golf, and TB assumed that's where he was going next. Was this the music he listened to to get him pumped to play? Maybe.
Perhaps that was his standard Saturday morning pre-tee psych music.
One of the most common sites before any athletic event is that of the competitors with headphones on, listening to whatever it is that gets them ready to go. TigerBlog, were he about to play in the Super Bowl or - even bigger - the Major League Lacrosse championship game - would listen to "Born To Run," of course.
Anytime television cameras go into the locker room or shows an athlete not yet in uniform out on the field or court or walking off a bus, there they are, the headphone. Hey, you can go into a Princeton locker room before a game and see the same thing.
Oh, and this is completely unrelated to anything, but TigerBlog has been in the writing business for more than 30 years and has never gotten a definitive answer to the question of whether or not it should be "lockerroom" or "locker room."
There are other avenues for inspiration.
Mollie Marcoux turned to one such avenue yesterday as she led her first department-wide staff meeting.
Before she ever spoke, there was Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in "Miracle." It was the scene in the lockerroom (or is it locker room?) before the U.S. played the Soviet Union.
Go ahead. Watch it. Click right HERE and do it. And try not to get moved by it.
Watch whatever you need. Listen to whatever gets you going.
Tonight is opening night, for Princeton Athletics 2014-15.
It's actually late for opening night. Pretty much every school everywhere has already played.
Princeton has one home game today. The women's soccer team opens Julie Shackford's final season as head coach with a game against Rutgers at 7.
Admission is free. As in no charge. So be there.
Rutgers comes into the game having already played three times - and won all three. It's a tough task for a team in its opener to play a team playing its fourth game.
The field hockey team is at Duke, who is 2-0. The men's soccer team is at FDU, who is 0-2.
The women's volleyball team is actually the first team to play, as it goes at 12:30 today against Charlotte at Temple's tournament.
There is a difference between being in shape and being in game shape. The challenge for tonight isn't just the opponents themselves but the transition to competing in games that matter.
However it goes, tonight is the start of a new year. By the time June rolls around, Princeton will have had more than 600 other athletic contests. Will there be a national champion for the 44th straight year?
What teams will surprise? Which teams will win as they are expected to do? What will be the biggest story of the year?
It starts tonight.
Opening day.
Tramps like us? Baby, we were born to run.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Guest TigerBlog - Emily Benhcke's Thoughts On Shacks
In the entire history of Princeton Athletics, how many people have been a head coach for at least 20 seasons? What would you guess?
It turns out the answer is 24, including two – Richard Vaughan and Jimmy Reed – who coached at least 20 seasons with two different teams. Or so TigerBlog thinks, assuming that the same Richard Vaughan coached hockey and sprint football and the same Jimmy Reed coached soccer and wrestling.
Some of the names on the list are obvious. Pete Carril. Cappy Cappon. Larry Ellis. Betty Constable. Eddie Donovan. Louise Gengler. Glenn Nelson.
Princeton has six active coaches who have coached here for at least 20 seasons: men’s track and field coach Fred Samara, women’s track and field coach Peter Farrell, women’s swimming coach Susan Teeter, men’s swimming coach Rob Orr, women’s squash coach Gail Ramsay and women’s lacrosse coach Chris Sailer.
Princeton will have a 25th coach and seventh active coach join that list, but she will go no further than 20 seasons here. Julie Shackford, the women’s soccer coach, announced today that the 2014 season at Princeton will be her 20th and final one.
Shackford is 196-106-26 in her first 19 seasons at Princeton, so she obviously needs four wins to reach 200. The next-best total by a Princeton soccer coach is 136, by Reed, who spent 29 seasons coaching the men’s team. Shackford is 238-130-30 overall with her four years as the head coach at Carnegie Mellon added in.
Her resume also includes six Ivy League titles and eight NCAA tournament appearances, the most by an Ivy women’s soccer coach. She is one of two Ivy coaches to go 7-0-0 in women’s soccer twice, something she did in 2004 and 2012.
Speaking of 2004, she did something that year that no other Ivy women’s soccer coach has ever matched, taking Princeton all the way to the NCAA Final Four. In fact, it’s the only time an Ivy League team has reached the Final Four of a 64-team NCAA tournament.
On the day that she announces her retirement, TigerBlog turned to Emily Behncke, a two-time first-team All-Ivy League selection, the 2005 Ivy Player of the Year and one of the stars of the 2004 Final Four team, to talk about her head coach, whom her players almost exclusively call "Shacks":
It's impossible to express in just a few words the profound impact Shacks has made on the Princeton soccer program.
It’s easy to start with the six Ivy League championships, eight NCAA appearances, and magical Final Four run of 2004, but her impact goes far beyond the soccer field.
My memories of Shacks go back nearly 20 years, from those first games I watched as a middle schooler when my brothers were on the men’s soccer team, to my own years playing at Princeton, to her continued success with the program that I’ve witnessed as an alum.
What stands out most for me – and what I believe will be her lasting legacy for the hundreds of players who played for her during her 20 years as head of the Princeton women’s soccer program – is her passion for her players' success. Shacks cares deeply for each of her players, and more than anything, is driven to help them realize and achieve their full potential.
She doesn’t back away from some tough love to help her players achieve that goal. For me personally, that led to some seriously sore biceps as a freshman.
“Behncke, you’re positioning is off… push ups! Behncke, no square balls… push ups! Behncke, you just need to get stronger… push ups!”
But it’s because of Shacks and what she grew that I was able to compete in a Final Four, play professionally in Sweden, and, most importantly, be a part of program that remains almost as much a part of my life now as it was during my four years on campus.
When her players walk off Myslik Field for the last time as graduating seniors, chances are they will have experienced many memorable nights, captured an Ivy League title, and played in the NCAA tournament. But what is most important to Shacks is the progress each player has made throughout her career and the fact that her players can graduate proud of their contributions to the program, without any regrets.
And although she demands a lot from her players, Shacks constantly finds creative ways to keep things fun.
Our beloved “PGGs” (Pre-Game-Games) got so competitive she frequently had to cut them off so we wouldn’t wipe ourselves out before the actual league game. Blue/White challenges during practice drew some of the fiercest one-on-one battles I’ve seen in college soccer. “Phantom Menace” pranks amongst the team were encouraged, even though they were largely aimed at the coaching staff.
And we all still talk about who’s earned the “yellow jersey” – an initiative she implemented after getting swept up in the Tour de France excitement one year. She really lives her mantra, “it doesn’t get any better than this” and she made us all believe it. Even after long bus rides home from away games or cold November practices in the rain, we all still felt fortunate to be there, to be part of something that special.
I now spend more time behind a desk than running around a field, but the lessons I learned from her during my four years at Princeton remain surprisingly relevant.
Whether you’re nervous about a pre-season run test or your first client presentation, it’s important to remember, "You'll pass out before you die." If you find yourself in a tough game against Harvard with an unforgiving referee or you’re negotiating a new deal, “expect the unexpected.” Have patience – it will all come "in due time."
And most importantly, whatever stage of life you’re in, "it doesn't get any better than this."
Shacks has amassed many accolades during her coaching career, most notably as 2004 Division I Coach of the Year. And although she rarely spoke of her own glory days, she has just as many success stories from her playing days at William & Mary, where she was a three-time All America.
As impressive as those stats are they don’t show the impact she’s had on the hundreds of players she’s coached over the past 19 seasons at Princeton. Despite all of the games her team won, the individual rewards she received, and the six Ivy League championships she won, her lasting legacy to the program and the community will always be that she helped every one of the young women who played for her identify their full potential and continue to strive to realize that potential long after they left the comfort, friendship, and family that she created at Princeton.
It turns out the answer is 24, including two – Richard Vaughan and Jimmy Reed – who coached at least 20 seasons with two different teams. Or so TigerBlog thinks, assuming that the same Richard Vaughan coached hockey and sprint football and the same Jimmy Reed coached soccer and wrestling.
Some of the names on the list are obvious. Pete Carril. Cappy Cappon. Larry Ellis. Betty Constable. Eddie Donovan. Louise Gengler. Glenn Nelson.
Princeton has six active coaches who have coached here for at least 20 seasons: men’s track and field coach Fred Samara, women’s track and field coach Peter Farrell, women’s swimming coach Susan Teeter, men’s swimming coach Rob Orr, women’s squash coach Gail Ramsay and women’s lacrosse coach Chris Sailer.
Princeton will have a 25th coach and seventh active coach join that list, but she will go no further than 20 seasons here. Julie Shackford, the women’s soccer coach, announced today that the 2014 season at Princeton will be her 20th and final one.
Shackford is 196-106-26 in her first 19 seasons at Princeton, so she obviously needs four wins to reach 200. The next-best total by a Princeton soccer coach is 136, by Reed, who spent 29 seasons coaching the men’s team. Shackford is 238-130-30 overall with her four years as the head coach at Carnegie Mellon added in.
Her resume also includes six Ivy League titles and eight NCAA tournament appearances, the most by an Ivy women’s soccer coach. She is one of two Ivy coaches to go 7-0-0 in women’s soccer twice, something she did in 2004 and 2012.
Speaking of 2004, she did something that year that no other Ivy women’s soccer coach has ever matched, taking Princeton all the way to the NCAA Final Four. In fact, it’s the only time an Ivy League team has reached the Final Four of a 64-team NCAA tournament.
On the day that she announces her retirement, TigerBlog turned to Emily Behncke, a two-time first-team All-Ivy League selection, the 2005 Ivy Player of the Year and one of the stars of the 2004 Final Four team, to talk about her head coach, whom her players almost exclusively call "Shacks":
It's impossible to express in just a few words the profound impact Shacks has made on the Princeton soccer program.
It’s easy to start with the six Ivy League championships, eight NCAA appearances, and magical Final Four run of 2004, but her impact goes far beyond the soccer field.
My memories of Shacks go back nearly 20 years, from those first games I watched as a middle schooler when my brothers were on the men’s soccer team, to my own years playing at Princeton, to her continued success with the program that I’ve witnessed as an alum.
What stands out most for me – and what I believe will be her lasting legacy for the hundreds of players who played for her during her 20 years as head of the Princeton women’s soccer program – is her passion for her players' success. Shacks cares deeply for each of her players, and more than anything, is driven to help them realize and achieve their full potential.
She doesn’t back away from some tough love to help her players achieve that goal. For me personally, that led to some seriously sore biceps as a freshman.
“Behncke, you’re positioning is off… push ups! Behncke, no square balls… push ups! Behncke, you just need to get stronger… push ups!”
But it’s because of Shacks and what she grew that I was able to compete in a Final Four, play professionally in Sweden, and, most importantly, be a part of program that remains almost as much a part of my life now as it was during my four years on campus.
When her players walk off Myslik Field for the last time as graduating seniors, chances are they will have experienced many memorable nights, captured an Ivy League title, and played in the NCAA tournament. But what is most important to Shacks is the progress each player has made throughout her career and the fact that her players can graduate proud of their contributions to the program, without any regrets.
And although she demands a lot from her players, Shacks constantly finds creative ways to keep things fun.
Our beloved “PGGs” (Pre-Game-Games) got so competitive she frequently had to cut them off so we wouldn’t wipe ourselves out before the actual league game. Blue/White challenges during practice drew some of the fiercest one-on-one battles I’ve seen in college soccer. “Phantom Menace” pranks amongst the team were encouraged, even though they were largely aimed at the coaching staff.
And we all still talk about who’s earned the “yellow jersey” – an initiative she implemented after getting swept up in the Tour de France excitement one year. She really lives her mantra, “it doesn’t get any better than this” and she made us all believe it. Even after long bus rides home from away games or cold November practices in the rain, we all still felt fortunate to be there, to be part of something that special.
I now spend more time behind a desk than running around a field, but the lessons I learned from her during my four years at Princeton remain surprisingly relevant.
Whether you’re nervous about a pre-season run test or your first client presentation, it’s important to remember, "You'll pass out before you die." If you find yourself in a tough game against Harvard with an unforgiving referee or you’re negotiating a new deal, “expect the unexpected.” Have patience – it will all come "in due time."
And most importantly, whatever stage of life you’re in, "it doesn't get any better than this."
Shacks has amassed many accolades during her coaching career, most notably as 2004 Division I Coach of the Year. And although she rarely spoke of her own glory days, she has just as many success stories from her playing days at William & Mary, where she was a three-time All America.
As impressive as those stats are they don’t show the impact she’s had on the hundreds of players she’s coached over the past 19 seasons at Princeton. Despite all of the games her team won, the individual rewards she received, and the six Ivy League championships she won, her lasting legacy to the program and the community will always be that she helped every one of the young women who played for her identify their full potential and continue to strive to realize that potential long after they left the comfort, friendship, and family that she created at Princeton.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Hot Dogging
TigerBlog and TigerBlog Jr. were watching soccer over the weekend, and when one game ended, the coverage immediately switched to the hot dog eating contest that was coming up.
TB thinks he'd rather binge-watch every episode of the Kardashians than listen to the fawning coverage of the hot dog eating contest, which takes place on the Fourth of July at Nathan's. To TB, it's pretty much everything that's awful about contemporary American society - the hot dog eating contest, that is, though the Kardashians are also.
The point of the hot dog eating contest is to see how many hot dogs a person can eat in 10 minutes, bun included. In other words, it's a celebration of gluttony.
Here is the United States, a country blessed with riches that most of the globe can't even fathom. And with so many people on Earth who have nothing to eat at all, here is a contest in which the goal is to eat as much as possible.
How in the world does that look to the, uh, world? Well, TB will tell you. It looks awful.
And it's not just that there's a contest like this. It's that it's on national TV, generating big ratings, presumably. It's a celebration of gluttony, as TB said.
Beyond that, there's the whole glorification of the people who are good at this.
TigerBlog could eat two, maybe three, hot dogs in 10 minutes without starting to feel a bit queasy. The winners of the contest could get into the 60s, which would be six hot dogs per minute or one hot dogs every 10 seconds.
Puke.
TB would have laughed, had he not been so appalled, when the ESPN announcer interviewed one of the contestants and called him "one of the world's greatest eaters." Actually, he's one of the world's worst eaters, since a great eater wouldn't abuse his system that way and would presumably make much healthier food choices.
Anyway, when it came time for the contest itself, TB told TBJ that if he wanted to watch it, he had to go in another room. Instead, TBJ switched to the Indiana Jones marathon that was on and started watching the second one, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," which features some odd food choices of its own, including giant bugs, soup with eyeballs and of course for dessert, chilled monkey brains.
The hot dog eating contest is sort of like the Kardashians in that it is about celebrity for the sake of celebrity, regardless of what it takes to achieve it. In the case of the Kardashians, it's about shamelessness. In the case of the hot dog eaters, it's about the same thing, only in a different way.
What it's not about is athletics. It's not a sport to eat hot dogs. The people who were featured in the contest weren't athletes.
Princeton has 38 varsity teams, and none of them are hot dog eating.
One of them is women's soccer. Among the summer news that has gone scrolling through goprincetontigers.com was the announcement that Alex Valerio was named the head women's soccer coach at St. Thomas University in Canada.
Valerio, an Ottawa native, is a 2011 Princeton grad who started 20 games in her career with the Tigers.
TigerBlog didn't realize that there was college soccer in Canada. He knew there was college basketball.
Back on the day after Thanksgiving in 1999, Princeton played Ohio University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was the nightcap of a day that included four other games - a high school girls game, a high school boys game, a college women's game and a college men's game prior to Princeton-Ohio. All of the other teams were Canadian.
TB isn't quite sure how Princeton ended up in that game, which was played in the Atlantic time zone, one hour earlier than Eastern. It's one of seven time zones in which TB has seen Princeton play a game that counted, with two others for games that didn't count.
Work in college athletics? See the world.
TB remembers that Chris Young blocked a ton of shots - nine, a school single-game record - and came within two rebounds and one blocked shot of the only triple-double in school history. TB also remembers having great salmon before the game and how clean Halifax was, as well as how nice the arena was.
Anyway, that game was TB's only Princeton game in Canada. But still, if there's Canadian college basketball, which not Canadian college soccer?
St. Thomas is in New Brunswick, and the team plays in the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association, a nine-team league. Valerio's team finished third in the league last year, behind the University of King's College and Mount Saint Vincent's, which are both in Halifax.
TigerBlog has no idea how the quality of Canadian women's college soccer is. He wonders if Valerio's goal is to coach in the United States or stay in Canada.
Either way, she has her first head coaching job three years after graduation from Princeton.
It's a great start to a career.
Alex Valerio is a friendly, respectful, engaging young woman with a very sharp sense of humor, qualities that certainly help in coaching. TB wishes her luck.
TB thinks he'd rather binge-watch every episode of the Kardashians than listen to the fawning coverage of the hot dog eating contest, which takes place on the Fourth of July at Nathan's. To TB, it's pretty much everything that's awful about contemporary American society - the hot dog eating contest, that is, though the Kardashians are also.
The point of the hot dog eating contest is to see how many hot dogs a person can eat in 10 minutes, bun included. In other words, it's a celebration of gluttony.
Here is the United States, a country blessed with riches that most of the globe can't even fathom. And with so many people on Earth who have nothing to eat at all, here is a contest in which the goal is to eat as much as possible.
How in the world does that look to the, uh, world? Well, TB will tell you. It looks awful.
And it's not just that there's a contest like this. It's that it's on national TV, generating big ratings, presumably. It's a celebration of gluttony, as TB said.
Beyond that, there's the whole glorification of the people who are good at this.
TigerBlog could eat two, maybe three, hot dogs in 10 minutes without starting to feel a bit queasy. The winners of the contest could get into the 60s, which would be six hot dogs per minute or one hot dogs every 10 seconds.
Puke.
TB would have laughed, had he not been so appalled, when the ESPN announcer interviewed one of the contestants and called him "one of the world's greatest eaters." Actually, he's one of the world's worst eaters, since a great eater wouldn't abuse his system that way and would presumably make much healthier food choices.
Anyway, when it came time for the contest itself, TB told TBJ that if he wanted to watch it, he had to go in another room. Instead, TBJ switched to the Indiana Jones marathon that was on and started watching the second one, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," which features some odd food choices of its own, including giant bugs, soup with eyeballs and of course for dessert, chilled monkey brains.
The hot dog eating contest is sort of like the Kardashians in that it is about celebrity for the sake of celebrity, regardless of what it takes to achieve it. In the case of the Kardashians, it's about shamelessness. In the case of the hot dog eaters, it's about the same thing, only in a different way.
What it's not about is athletics. It's not a sport to eat hot dogs. The people who were featured in the contest weren't athletes.
Princeton has 38 varsity teams, and none of them are hot dog eating.
One of them is women's soccer. Among the summer news that has gone scrolling through goprincetontigers.com was the announcement that Alex Valerio was named the head women's soccer coach at St. Thomas University in Canada.
Valerio, an Ottawa native, is a 2011 Princeton grad who started 20 games in her career with the Tigers.
TigerBlog didn't realize that there was college soccer in Canada. He knew there was college basketball.
Back on the day after Thanksgiving in 1999, Princeton played Ohio University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was the nightcap of a day that included four other games - a high school girls game, a high school boys game, a college women's game and a college men's game prior to Princeton-Ohio. All of the other teams were Canadian.
TB isn't quite sure how Princeton ended up in that game, which was played in the Atlantic time zone, one hour earlier than Eastern. It's one of seven time zones in which TB has seen Princeton play a game that counted, with two others for games that didn't count.
Work in college athletics? See the world.
TB remembers that Chris Young blocked a ton of shots - nine, a school single-game record - and came within two rebounds and one blocked shot of the only triple-double in school history. TB also remembers having great salmon before the game and how clean Halifax was, as well as how nice the arena was.
Anyway, that game was TB's only Princeton game in Canada. But still, if there's Canadian college basketball, which not Canadian college soccer?
St. Thomas is in New Brunswick, and the team plays in the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association, a nine-team league. Valerio's team finished third in the league last year, behind the University of King's College and Mount Saint Vincent's, which are both in Halifax.
TigerBlog has no idea how the quality of Canadian women's college soccer is. He wonders if Valerio's goal is to coach in the United States or stay in Canada.
Either way, she has her first head coaching job three years after graduation from Princeton.
It's a great start to a career.
Alex Valerio is a friendly, respectful, engaging young woman with a very sharp sense of humor, qualities that certainly help in coaching. TB wishes her luck.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
The Drama, Made For TV
It's 5 in the afternoon Tuesday, and it appears the entire country has stopped to watch a soccer game.
And who ever thought they'd see that?
A few hours ago, TigerBlog saw the end of the Argentina-Switzerland game. The Argentines scored in the final seconds of stoppage time to win 1-0 in what was part of a five-minute stretch of what might have been the very best live television he's ever seen.
Well, other than when the Giants won the Super Bowl against the Patriots when they were undefeated. And the Miracle on Ice game against the Soviet Union wasn't televised live.
Argentina-Switzerland was. And the end was insane enough. What the TV production did was even more astonishing.
The goal came on a nice breakout, and the replays of the shot itself showed how agonizingly close the Swiss goalkeeper came to getting his hand on it. Those were great pictures themselves, though they were eclipsed completely by what happened next.
First, there was the closeup of No. 2 from Switzerland, who had closed from far off the play only to come up just short of stopping it. And, as the goal came in the 119th minute, it was clear that it was going to take a lot of the Swiss to have a chance to tie.
And so there was No. 2, inside the goal where the ball had just been, with his face sticking through the mesh in the back, with a look on his face that was a combination of total exhaustion and total resignation that it was likely over for his team. And smartly, the TV truck stayed with him. It was as poignant a shot as TB can remember.
Except it wasn't quite over.
The Swiss came back the other way, and - with the goalkeeper in the box - had another player knock a header off the side goalpost, and then just miss the put-back after that. The replays were great, and the reactions of the announcers conveyed the sheer astonishment of the miracle that was oh-so-close but would not be achieved.
As for the U.S., now it's the second half. The Americans are playing Belgium, and it's scoreless in the second half. Tim Howard appears to be the reason why.
The knockout round can turn into a hold-on-and-pray-to-get-to-penalty-kicks situation, something that the Costa Ricans did to perfection Sunday. Los Ticos, whom TB and TigerBlog Jr. are both on board 100% with after seeing a World Cup qualifier in the country two years ago against El Salvador during the men's lacrosse team's trip there, were a man down for most of the second half and both overtimes.
Costa Rica tried desperately to hold onto its 1-0 lead, only to have Greece tie it in stoppage time. But the Costa Ricans managed to hold on through 30 additional minutes and then went an impressive 5 for 5 in PKs to get the win.
TBJ was texting back-and-forth with Diego Quesada, who was one of Princeton's three tour guides on the trip, during the game. It's hard to really comprehend what it means to such a small country to get to the World Cup quarterfinals, but perhaps this exchange will give some insight:
Diego: We did it!!!!!!
TBJ: Yes, I saw. It was fantastic.
Diego: Bro, how I cried!!!!!!
That sums it up.
TigerBlog has written this before, but he was late coming to the World Cup party. It wasn't until 2006 that he was really interested; he hardly missed a game in 2010.
He is fascinated by how much the World Cup has been embraced now in this country. TB never thought he'd see that.
Princeton's ESPNU contract will feature two soccer games this fall, the men against Georgetown and the women against Villanova. The men have been on several times before during Princeton's time with ESPN; this will be the first time for the women.
TB wonders if the choice that ESPNU made to do two soccer games, including one women's game, has something to do with the World Cup and its ratings. Yes, ESPNU will like it because it loves events that fit into tidy time slots, and soccer is one of those.
TB thinks this is more a soccer-related thing than a time-slot related thing though. And hey, it's great for Princeton.
Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer in the U.S. anywhere. Having two games on ESPNU will be a great way to showcase the facility and for the two Princeton teams.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to play a scoreless game against Belgium, and the drama builds. The best part of all of this could possibly be the commentators, especially Ian Darke, who is as absolutely good as it gets. He's like Mike Emrick.
Hey, maybe he can do one of the games at Princeton this fall.
Now that would be tremendous.
And now it's an hour later, and the U.S. has lost 2-1. It was 0-0 at the end of regulation, 2-0 Belgium at the end of the first 15-minute extra session - and then the last 15 minutes was again amazing drama.
The U.S. scored- Michael Bradley to 19-year-old Julian Green - and then almost tied it on a ridiculous play off a free kick. It just wasn't to be - despite an epic performance by Howard.
The World Cup marches on now, without the U.S. team. The Americans did better four years ago under Bob Bradley than they did this year with Jurgen Klinsmann, since the U.S. won its group last time and finished second this time before losing both times in the first game of the knockout round.
Perhaps if the U.S. had shown up against Germany instead of being contest to lose, then it might still be playing, since it would have been Algeria instead of Belgium.
Not that it matters now. TigerBlog will still be into it.
With drama like this, who could shut off the TV?
And who ever thought they'd see that?
A few hours ago, TigerBlog saw the end of the Argentina-Switzerland game. The Argentines scored in the final seconds of stoppage time to win 1-0 in what was part of a five-minute stretch of what might have been the very best live television he's ever seen.
Well, other than when the Giants won the Super Bowl against the Patriots when they were undefeated. And the Miracle on Ice game against the Soviet Union wasn't televised live.
Argentina-Switzerland was. And the end was insane enough. What the TV production did was even more astonishing.
The goal came on a nice breakout, and the replays of the shot itself showed how agonizingly close the Swiss goalkeeper came to getting his hand on it. Those were great pictures themselves, though they were eclipsed completely by what happened next.
First, there was the closeup of No. 2 from Switzerland, who had closed from far off the play only to come up just short of stopping it. And, as the goal came in the 119th minute, it was clear that it was going to take a lot of the Swiss to have a chance to tie.
And so there was No. 2, inside the goal where the ball had just been, with his face sticking through the mesh in the back, with a look on his face that was a combination of total exhaustion and total resignation that it was likely over for his team. And smartly, the TV truck stayed with him. It was as poignant a shot as TB can remember.
Except it wasn't quite over.
The Swiss came back the other way, and - with the goalkeeper in the box - had another player knock a header off the side goalpost, and then just miss the put-back after that. The replays were great, and the reactions of the announcers conveyed the sheer astonishment of the miracle that was oh-so-close but would not be achieved.
As for the U.S., now it's the second half. The Americans are playing Belgium, and it's scoreless in the second half. Tim Howard appears to be the reason why.
The knockout round can turn into a hold-on-and-pray-to-get-to-penalty-kicks situation, something that the Costa Ricans did to perfection Sunday. Los Ticos, whom TB and TigerBlog Jr. are both on board 100% with after seeing a World Cup qualifier in the country two years ago against El Salvador during the men's lacrosse team's trip there, were a man down for most of the second half and both overtimes.
Costa Rica tried desperately to hold onto its 1-0 lead, only to have Greece tie it in stoppage time. But the Costa Ricans managed to hold on through 30 additional minutes and then went an impressive 5 for 5 in PKs to get the win.
TBJ was texting back-and-forth with Diego Quesada, who was one of Princeton's three tour guides on the trip, during the game. It's hard to really comprehend what it means to such a small country to get to the World Cup quarterfinals, but perhaps this exchange will give some insight:
Diego: We did it!!!!!!
TBJ: Yes, I saw. It was fantastic.
Diego: Bro, how I cried!!!!!!
That sums it up.
TigerBlog has written this before, but he was late coming to the World Cup party. It wasn't until 2006 that he was really interested; he hardly missed a game in 2010.
He is fascinated by how much the World Cup has been embraced now in this country. TB never thought he'd see that.
Princeton's ESPNU contract will feature two soccer games this fall, the men against Georgetown and the women against Villanova. The men have been on several times before during Princeton's time with ESPN; this will be the first time for the women.
TB wonders if the choice that ESPNU made to do two soccer games, including one women's game, has something to do with the World Cup and its ratings. Yes, ESPNU will like it because it loves events that fit into tidy time slots, and soccer is one of those.
TB thinks this is more a soccer-related thing than a time-slot related thing though. And hey, it's great for Princeton.
Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer in the U.S. anywhere. Having two games on ESPNU will be a great way to showcase the facility and for the two Princeton teams.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to play a scoreless game against Belgium, and the drama builds. The best part of all of this could possibly be the commentators, especially Ian Darke, who is as absolutely good as it gets. He's like Mike Emrick.
Hey, maybe he can do one of the games at Princeton this fall.
Now that would be tremendous.
And now it's an hour later, and the U.S. has lost 2-1. It was 0-0 at the end of regulation, 2-0 Belgium at the end of the first 15-minute extra session - and then the last 15 minutes was again amazing drama.
The U.S. scored- Michael Bradley to 19-year-old Julian Green - and then almost tied it on a ridiculous play off a free kick. It just wasn't to be - despite an epic performance by Howard.
The World Cup marches on now, without the U.S. team. The Americans did better four years ago under Bob Bradley than they did this year with Jurgen Klinsmann, since the U.S. won its group last time and finished second this time before losing both times in the first game of the knockout round.
Perhaps if the U.S. had shown up against Germany instead of being contest to lose, then it might still be playing, since it would have been Algeria instead of Belgium.
Not that it matters now. TigerBlog will still be into it.
With drama like this, who could shut off the TV?
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
0-0, And 167-23-10
TigerBlog didn't get in front of the TV until only 25 minutes or so were left in the Brazil-Mexico game yesterday.
As it turned out, TB didn't miss any goals, and there would be none after he started watching either.
Some 0-0 ties are tediously boring. Some are sloppy. Some have a near-miss or two and that's about it.
And then there was the Brazil-Mexico game. This had to be the greatest 0-0 game ever, with great chances, tons of drama, a ton at stake and a epic performance by Mexico's goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa to keep it scoreless.
In a World Cup that to date has had some fairly high-scoring games, the Brazil-Mexico game has been the best one so far. And that includes the U.S. and its own fairly dramatic game, a 2-1 win over Ghana.
Belgium's 2-1 comeback win over Algeria was another exciting game, as both goals came late and from players who had subbed in. For that matter, John Brooks' game-winner for the U.S. team was the first in World Cup history for an American sub.
The 2014 World Cup is off to a great start, as almost every game has been entertaining. There can be a tendency to play scared on the biggest stage, afraid to take chances for fear of giving up a tournament-changing goal on a counter.
TB is very interested in seeing how Spain bounces back today against a Chilean team that defeated Australia 3-1 in its opener. Spain, the defending champ and No. 1-ranked team in the world, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in its first game.
TigerBlog can't imagine what it must be like to play in the World Cup for these players, what a complete thrill it must be. He also wonders what percentage of the players in Brazil for the 2014 event will never play in another World Cup, and for that matter how many players will play in their three games of the Group stage, not advance to the knockout rounds and have that be their only World Cup experience for their lifetimes.
Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery, way back when he was first starting out as a volunteer assistant coach at Penn, told TigerBlog that there's nothing like playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, even if it's done only once in a career. TB assumes the World Cup is like that, only on an order about 100 times higher.
For those in this country who still resist the World Cup, TigerBlog says that you're really missing the boat. It's a phenomenal event, unlike anything else in the world. It's bigger than the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament - even the lacrosse one - rolled into one.
TigerBlog thought the 0-0 tie was extraordinary in that both teams were going all-out to score, as opposed to playing it conservatively for the tie, even though the time really helped Mexico, a team that barely got into the field in the first place.
TigerBlog wondered about how common 0-0 ties were in soccer at Princeton.
Princeton's men have played one 0-0 game in each of the last three seasons and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2004. Princeton played two in 2013 and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2009.
It's apparently much rarer in Princeton hockey than it is in soccer.
The women have played exactly 800 games in program history and have two 0-0 ties, in 2004-05 and 2007-08.
And the men? The Princeton men have played 2,323 games and have had exactly one 0-0 tie, in 2006 against Union.
Between the teams, that's 3,123 games and three 0-0 ties, or one every 1,041 games.
Princeton and incoming Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux introduced Ron Fogarty as the new head coach of men's hockey. Fogarty comes to Princeton from Division III Adrian College in Michigan.
Fogarty spent seven years coaching at Adrian, a school that did not have a hockey program before that. In those seven years, Fogarty took Adrian to a 167-23-10, five NCAA tournaments and one NCAA championship game. That's pretty impressive stuff.
Fogarty also knows his way around the ECAC. He was a player at Colgate, graduating in 1995, and he also coached at his alma mater and Clarkson before moving on to Bowling Green and then ultimately to Adrian.
The trip back to the ECAC lands him at Princeton, a team against which he was 3-4-1 as a player. Princeton hockey has a strong fan base and a rink that is a great place to see a game, and now it has a new head coach.
Princeton went 6-26-0 last year, but 12 of the 26 losses were by one or two goals.
And now the transition to the Ron Fogarty era begins. His track record is extraordinary, with that gaudy 167-23-10 record for a .860 winning percentage that led active Division III coaches.
And that was with a program that didn't exist before he got there.
Now he's at Princeton. It'll be 90-something degrees today and the World Cup is just getting into full swing, leaving it fairly far away from thoughts of the winter. Opening day for Princeton hockey is more than four months away.
When it comes, it'll be with Ron Fogarty on the bench.
Welcome to Princeton. Hopefully it'll be for a long and successful tenure.
As it turned out, TB didn't miss any goals, and there would be none after he started watching either.
Some 0-0 ties are tediously boring. Some are sloppy. Some have a near-miss or two and that's about it.
And then there was the Brazil-Mexico game. This had to be the greatest 0-0 game ever, with great chances, tons of drama, a ton at stake and a epic performance by Mexico's goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa to keep it scoreless.
In a World Cup that to date has had some fairly high-scoring games, the Brazil-Mexico game has been the best one so far. And that includes the U.S. and its own fairly dramatic game, a 2-1 win over Ghana.
Belgium's 2-1 comeback win over Algeria was another exciting game, as both goals came late and from players who had subbed in. For that matter, John Brooks' game-winner for the U.S. team was the first in World Cup history for an American sub.
The 2014 World Cup is off to a great start, as almost every game has been entertaining. There can be a tendency to play scared on the biggest stage, afraid to take chances for fear of giving up a tournament-changing goal on a counter.
TB is very interested in seeing how Spain bounces back today against a Chilean team that defeated Australia 3-1 in its opener. Spain, the defending champ and No. 1-ranked team in the world, lost 5-1 to the Netherlands in its first game.
TigerBlog can't imagine what it must be like to play in the World Cup for these players, what a complete thrill it must be. He also wonders what percentage of the players in Brazil for the 2014 event will never play in another World Cup, and for that matter how many players will play in their three games of the Group stage, not advance to the knockout rounds and have that be their only World Cup experience for their lifetimes.
Iowa men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery, way back when he was first starting out as a volunteer assistant coach at Penn, told TigerBlog that there's nothing like playing in the NCAA basketball tournament, even if it's done only once in a career. TB assumes the World Cup is like that, only on an order about 100 times higher.
For those in this country who still resist the World Cup, TigerBlog says that you're really missing the boat. It's a phenomenal event, unlike anything else in the world. It's bigger than the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA tournament - even the lacrosse one - rolled into one.
TigerBlog thought the 0-0 tie was extraordinary in that both teams were going all-out to score, as opposed to playing it conservatively for the tie, even though the time really helped Mexico, a team that barely got into the field in the first place.
TigerBlog wondered about how common 0-0 ties were in soccer at Princeton.
Princeton's men have played one 0-0 game in each of the last three seasons and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2004. Princeton played two in 2013 and last played consecutive 0-0 ties in 2009.
It's apparently much rarer in Princeton hockey than it is in soccer.
The women have played exactly 800 games in program history and have two 0-0 ties, in 2004-05 and 2007-08.
And the men? The Princeton men have played 2,323 games and have had exactly one 0-0 tie, in 2006 against Union.
Between the teams, that's 3,123 games and three 0-0 ties, or one every 1,041 games.
Princeton and incoming Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux introduced Ron Fogarty as the new head coach of men's hockey. Fogarty comes to Princeton from Division III Adrian College in Michigan.
Fogarty spent seven years coaching at Adrian, a school that did not have a hockey program before that. In those seven years, Fogarty took Adrian to a 167-23-10, five NCAA tournaments and one NCAA championship game. That's pretty impressive stuff.
Fogarty also knows his way around the ECAC. He was a player at Colgate, graduating in 1995, and he also coached at his alma mater and Clarkson before moving on to Bowling Green and then ultimately to Adrian.
The trip back to the ECAC lands him at Princeton, a team against which he was 3-4-1 as a player. Princeton hockey has a strong fan base and a rink that is a great place to see a game, and now it has a new head coach.
Princeton went 6-26-0 last year, but 12 of the 26 losses were by one or two goals.
And now the transition to the Ron Fogarty era begins. His track record is extraordinary, with that gaudy 167-23-10 record for a .860 winning percentage that led active Division III coaches.
And that was with a program that didn't exist before he got there.
Now he's at Princeton. It'll be 90-something degrees today and the World Cup is just getting into full swing, leaving it fairly far away from thoughts of the winter. Opening day for Princeton hockey is more than four months away.
When it comes, it'll be with Ron Fogarty on the bench.
Welcome to Princeton. Hopefully it'll be for a long and successful tenure.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Princeton vs. Cornell x 9
At first, it appeared that there was only one, a teenage boy, dressed as a hunter. As TigerBlog answered the door, the kid said that there had been a report of zombies in the area.
Just as TB began to process that, the second kid jumped out from behind the bushes, dressed as a zombie. It was a tad startling, TB will admit.
The first kid then "attacked" the second kid, presumably saving TB's house from the zombie menace. TB was so impressed he had them take extra candy.
Performance trick or treating with a zombie theme. Good stuff.
Most of the trick-or-treaters were little kids, dressed in all kinds of wholesome costumes. Of course, maybe they just appeared wholesome; after all, when Miss TigerBlog was still Little Miss TigerBlog, the most popular costume was "Hannah Montana."
If you care, which you probably don't, TB didn't have a single piece of candy.
And that's that for Halloween 2013.
Now it's time to shift attention from orange and black to Orange and Black vs. Big Red.
The last time TigerBlog saw a Princeton-Cornell game, it was the semifinals of the Ivy League men's lacrosse tournament, when Mike McDonald scored seven goals, Kip Orban ripped one of the most unstoppable shots ever and Princeton won 14-13 in overtime in one of the best games TB has ever seen.
He doubts the Princeton-Cornell rivalry will match that night back in May this weekend, but it certainly won't be lacking in opportunities.
You think Princeton played Harvard a lot last weekend, when they got together five times? Princeton and Cornell meet in nine sports in the next 35 or so hours.
Eight sports:
men's hockey (tonight in Ithaca)
women's hockey (tonight at 7 at Baker Rink)
men's and women's cross country (tomorrow at 11 and noon at West Windsor Fields as part of the Ivy League Heptagonal championships)
field hockey (tomorrow at noon on Bedford Field)
football (tomorrow at 1 on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium)
men's soccer (tomorrow at 4 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium)
women's volleyball (tomorrow at 5 at Dillon Gym)
women's soccer (tomorrow at 7 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium)
Yup. Nine sports competing against Cornell in two days.
TigerBlog would put Princeton-Cornell men's lacrosse up there with any rivalry in any Ivy League sport right now, maybe even at the top. In general, though, Princeton-Cornell isn't quite what Princeton-Penn or Princeton-Harvard-Yale are to most Princeton fans.
Still, all league rivalries are big, and this weekend features some huge events between the Tigers and Big Red. And TB cannot imagine there are too many other instances of two colleges meeting in nine sports in two days.
The rain that soaked TigerBlog on the way from the parking lot to the building has stopped, and the sun is supposed to shine all weekend on the greater Princeton metropolitan area.
Of the nine events, five directly impact the Ivy League championship race - the two cross country races, men's soccer, field hockey and football.
Princeton is 3-0 in the league in football after last weekend's riveting 51-48 three OT win over Harvard. Princeton and Penn are the only unbeatens in the league right now.
A year ago, Princeton was also 3-0 after a win over Harvard and then lost three of the last four, starting in Ithaca.
So what is different this year? Cornell still has Jeff Mathews, who recently passed Tiger offensive coordinator James Perry as the league's all-time passing yardage leader. Mathews has had great games in his career against Princeton, throwing for 998 in three games, one of which was in a driving snowstorm, ironically enough, not in Ithaca but rather Princeton two years ago,
But this isn't the same Princeton team. A year ago, Princeton was coming off back to back 1-9s and just figuring out how to be competitive. This year, Princeton is better both physically and mentally and probably more able to handle the week after the huge win and before the big game at Penn next week.
Tomorrow will tell, of course.
Conventional wisdom is that it's going to be a high-scoring game, as Princeton's offense has been rolling and Mathews can usually be counted on to put up big numbers himself. Add in perfect weather conditions and that's certainly possible.
Either way, it's a huge moment for the Tigers. At the very least, a win would improve the Tigers to 6-1 overall and guarantee the first winning record for the program since its 2006 Ivy League championship. Hey, when you were 1-9 and 1-9 two and three years ago, that's not something to take for granted.
Of course, that's not what the Tigers are thinking. They're thinking big.
One Saturday at a time. The test this weekend is big. Big Red actually.
In football and eight other sports.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Fireworks Are Hailing Over Little Eden Tonight
One of TigerBlog's favorite Bruce Springsteen songs - which makes it one of his favorite songs by any artist - is the song "4th of July, Asbury Park."
The first word of the song is "Sandy," the name of the girl that the singer is hoping to spend his Fourth of July with on the Asbury Park boardwalk. It doesn't get much more Springsteen than that.
When TB hears the song, it takes him right to that boardwalk. Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie? If you've been to the boardwalk in Asbury Park, you know immediately that the most famous line in the song refers to the fortune teller who operated out of a little white shack with an eyeball painted on the side.
The Sandy in the song is a Jersey Shore girl, one who is listening to the singer tell her how he's tired of "hanging in those dusty arcades, banging them pleasure machines; chasing the factory girls underneath the boardwalk."
Sandy, he tells her, "the Aurora is rising behind us. The pier lights our carnival life on the water." Love me tonight, he says, "and I promise I'll love you forever."
The song is from 1973, from the album "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle." TigerBlog was a kid then, growing up not far from Asbury Park.
Even now, 40 years later and 1,000-plus times having heard it, TigerBlog is whisked immediately to the Jersey Shore when he hears it, taken back to a place with heart and character and toughness and color, a place with its unique sights, sounds, smells.
It's not a pristine place by any stretch, but it has something that those beaches don't. It has its own feel, and either you love it or you hate it, and if you're in the first group, there's no place quite like it; if you're in the second, then you're missing the whole point of the place.
A storm named, ironically enough, Sandy, came through here one year ago tonight and destroyed much of that same Jersey Shore. Asbury Park was hit hard by Sandy, though not nearly as hard as so many other areas a little further south, most notably Seaside Heights, and to the north, most notably the Rockaway beaches of Queens.
There are areas that still have not recovered, houses that will never be rebuilt, businesses that will never reopen.
A bit more inland, here in Princeton, the rain never hit that overwhelmingly, but the wind knocked out power, in some places for a month.
TigerBlog was relatively safe during the storm, though the only place he could find that had power was his office, where he slept for one night and where he went to charge his phone and laptop, which were his only sources of information and entertainment.
Work? Princeton was closed for three days, Monday through Wednesday. Shockingly, it reopened Thursday; most schools wouldn't be back until the following week.
The 2012 Ivy League Heptagonal cross country championships were held at Princeton's West Windsor Fields the weekend before the storm hit, with competition on a perfect autumn Saturday, when talk of the coming storm was just starting to dominate every conversation.
The 2011 Heps? Also at West Windsor Fields. This time, the story wasn't about the weather that was coming but the weather had already arrived, as the most significant snow fall of that entire winter came actually in the fall. It looks pretty now in the pictures from that day, but it made running at Heps treacherous - and destroyed the home weekend scheduled with Cornell.
This weekend's schedule is similar to what it was going to be two years ago, with football, field hockey, women's soccer, men's soccer and women's volleyball all hosting Cornell Saturday.
The day starts with the Heps cross country championships, which this year will be an incredible event, with multiple nationally ranked teams in both races.
It even includes women's hockey against Colgate, rather than Cornell.
In other words, Saturday is one of those ridiculously busy days around here, the kind that really make working in Ivy League athletics challenging and rewarding.
The weather forecast is for absolutely completely perfect conditions, sunny and the mid-60s. It may rain Friday, but it'll clear out long before the games start Saturday. Maybe the cross country course will be a bit muddy, but doesn't that make it better?
There is no forecast for a repeat of 2011's blizzard of 2012's superstorm.
The first made for some cool pictures.
The second is still being felt not far from here.
The first word of the song is "Sandy," the name of the girl that the singer is hoping to spend his Fourth of July with on the Asbury Park boardwalk. It doesn't get much more Springsteen than that.
When TB hears the song, it takes him right to that boardwalk. Did you hear the cops finally busted Madam Marie? If you've been to the boardwalk in Asbury Park, you know immediately that the most famous line in the song refers to the fortune teller who operated out of a little white shack with an eyeball painted on the side.
The Sandy in the song is a Jersey Shore girl, one who is listening to the singer tell her how he's tired of "hanging in those dusty arcades, banging them pleasure machines; chasing the factory girls underneath the boardwalk."
Sandy, he tells her, "the Aurora is rising behind us. The pier lights our carnival life on the water." Love me tonight, he says, "and I promise I'll love you forever."
The song is from 1973, from the album "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle." TigerBlog was a kid then, growing up not far from Asbury Park.
Even now, 40 years later and 1,000-plus times having heard it, TigerBlog is whisked immediately to the Jersey Shore when he hears it, taken back to a place with heart and character and toughness and color, a place with its unique sights, sounds, smells.
It's not a pristine place by any stretch, but it has something that those beaches don't. It has its own feel, and either you love it or you hate it, and if you're in the first group, there's no place quite like it; if you're in the second, then you're missing the whole point of the place.
A storm named, ironically enough, Sandy, came through here one year ago tonight and destroyed much of that same Jersey Shore. Asbury Park was hit hard by Sandy, though not nearly as hard as so many other areas a little further south, most notably Seaside Heights, and to the north, most notably the Rockaway beaches of Queens.
There are areas that still have not recovered, houses that will never be rebuilt, businesses that will never reopen.
A bit more inland, here in Princeton, the rain never hit that overwhelmingly, but the wind knocked out power, in some places for a month.
TigerBlog was relatively safe during the storm, though the only place he could find that had power was his office, where he slept for one night and where he went to charge his phone and laptop, which were his only sources of information and entertainment.
Work? Princeton was closed for three days, Monday through Wednesday. Shockingly, it reopened Thursday; most schools wouldn't be back until the following week.
The 2012 Ivy League Heptagonal cross country championships were held at Princeton's West Windsor Fields the weekend before the storm hit, with competition on a perfect autumn Saturday, when talk of the coming storm was just starting to dominate every conversation.
The 2011 Heps? Also at West Windsor Fields. This time, the story wasn't about the weather that was coming but the weather had already arrived, as the most significant snow fall of that entire winter came actually in the fall. It looks pretty now in the pictures from that day, but it made running at Heps treacherous - and destroyed the home weekend scheduled with Cornell.
This weekend's schedule is similar to what it was going to be two years ago, with football, field hockey, women's soccer, men's soccer and women's volleyball all hosting Cornell Saturday.
The day starts with the Heps cross country championships, which this year will be an incredible event, with multiple nationally ranked teams in both races.
It even includes women's hockey against Colgate, rather than Cornell.
In other words, Saturday is one of those ridiculously busy days around here, the kind that really make working in Ivy League athletics challenging and rewarding.
The weather forecast is for absolutely completely perfect conditions, sunny and the mid-60s. It may rain Friday, but it'll clear out long before the games start Saturday. Maybe the cross country course will be a bit muddy, but doesn't that make it better?
There is no forecast for a repeat of 2011's blizzard of 2012's superstorm.
The first made for some cool pictures.
The second is still being felt not far from here.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Princeton vs. Harvard x 5
TigerBlog has always tried to get his kids - and other people's kids - to understand how to avoid trouble.
His basic rule is this: If they have to stop and ask themselves if what they're thinking about doing is a good idea, it isn't. When in doubt, don't do it.
He's recently added this corollary: the busier teenage kids are, the less likely they are to get in trouble. It can be sports, music, other extra-curricular activities, schoolwork - every hour they spend doing those things is one hour less that they can be bored and open to bad decisions.
Beyond that, when teenage kids do get in trouble, it usually seems to include one or more of these five things: hanging out with the wrong people, being out after midnight, drugs/alcohol, sex and/or gambling.
The last one isn't something that gets the attention of the others, but it can be just as devastating.
And it's everywhere, especially in the NFL, with its point spreads, over-unders, Super Bowl polls and everything else.
Gambling can become as addicting as drugs, and TB had a friend in college who fell into the pattern of losing and then trying to make it back on the next game, only to dig the hole deeper until it became a huge problem.
Few things pose a bigger threat to the integrity of athletics than gambling, and point-shaving scandals have been hugely devastating. That's part of the reason that the NCAA is so adamant about getting its anti-gambling messages out there.
And if you work at an NCAA school, you can't miss the message. Gambling - any gambling on any sport that the NCAA sponsors - is not permitted. In any form. No matter how small.
The OAC has an NCAA basketball pool each year, but for no money. Even if it was for a $5 or something like that, it would be a very big deal, and people's jobs could be lost over it.
TB and his co-workers are constantly making wager-like comments but never, ever would actually include money as part of the deal.
Wager-like comments?
Like yesterday, for instance, when this was the question:
"If you get two points for a win and one for a tie, who would win Saturday, Princeton or Harvard?"
It's a huge Saturday in Cambridge, as Princeton takes on Harvard - five times.
It starts at noon with field hockey and continues at 1 with football, 4 with men's soccer and women's hockey and 7 with women's soccer.
It's the weekend following midterms, which means that Princeton's teams will be either 1) tired or 2) chomping at the bit.
Princeton is currently in first place or tied for first place in the league in field hockey, football and men's soccer. Harvard is currently in first place or tied for first in football and women's soccer and is very much in the thick of it in men's soccer.
In other words, these games will be huge.
In men's soccer, for instance, Princeton is 2-0-1, tied with Penn and Yale. Harvard is 2-1-0, which leaves the Crimson right there as the league race is at the halfway point.
Of the eight men's soccer teams in the Ivy League, only three are currently over .500 overall.
In women's soccer, all eight schools are at least .500 and seven are over .500. Princeton has had some awful luck in its league games, and the Tigers season shows how hard it is to go 7-0-0, which is what they did a year ago.
Only five teams have ever gone 7-0-0 in Ivy women's soccer. Harvard is currently 4-0-0 and the only Ivy team that has a chance for a perfect league record and is 8-0-1 in its last nine games. Don't think Princeton wants to ruin all that?
The reverse is true in field hockey, where Princeton is alone in first at 4-0 and Harvard is 1-3, tied for sixth. Women's hockey season is just starting out.
And then there's football.
Princeton is 2-0 in the league. So is Harvard. So is Penn, for that matter. Princeton has looked great this year. Harvard is very strong. Penn is the defending champion.
And of course Harvard remembers what happened last year, when Princeton came from 34-10 down with 12 minutes to go to beat the Crimson 39-34.
At the time it seemed miraculous. Now? The idea that Princeton can score 29 points in 12 minutes hardly seems shocking.
The fall/winter overlap is starting, but even with that, the only home events this weekend are in men's water polo. The men's hockey team is close to home, playing at the Prudential Center in Newark in the Liberty Hockey Invitational today at 4 and tomorrow at 7.
The big games are in Cambridge this weekend though.
Princeton vs. Harvard, times five.
His basic rule is this: If they have to stop and ask themselves if what they're thinking about doing is a good idea, it isn't. When in doubt, don't do it.
He's recently added this corollary: the busier teenage kids are, the less likely they are to get in trouble. It can be sports, music, other extra-curricular activities, schoolwork - every hour they spend doing those things is one hour less that they can be bored and open to bad decisions.
Beyond that, when teenage kids do get in trouble, it usually seems to include one or more of these five things: hanging out with the wrong people, being out after midnight, drugs/alcohol, sex and/or gambling.
The last one isn't something that gets the attention of the others, but it can be just as devastating.
And it's everywhere, especially in the NFL, with its point spreads, over-unders, Super Bowl polls and everything else.
Gambling can become as addicting as drugs, and TB had a friend in college who fell into the pattern of losing and then trying to make it back on the next game, only to dig the hole deeper until it became a huge problem.
Few things pose a bigger threat to the integrity of athletics than gambling, and point-shaving scandals have been hugely devastating. That's part of the reason that the NCAA is so adamant about getting its anti-gambling messages out there.
And if you work at an NCAA school, you can't miss the message. Gambling - any gambling on any sport that the NCAA sponsors - is not permitted. In any form. No matter how small.
The OAC has an NCAA basketball pool each year, but for no money. Even if it was for a $5 or something like that, it would be a very big deal, and people's jobs could be lost over it.
TB and his co-workers are constantly making wager-like comments but never, ever would actually include money as part of the deal.
Wager-like comments?
Like yesterday, for instance, when this was the question:
"If you get two points for a win and one for a tie, who would win Saturday, Princeton or Harvard?"
It's a huge Saturday in Cambridge, as Princeton takes on Harvard - five times.
It starts at noon with field hockey and continues at 1 with football, 4 with men's soccer and women's hockey and 7 with women's soccer.
It's the weekend following midterms, which means that Princeton's teams will be either 1) tired or 2) chomping at the bit.
Princeton is currently in first place or tied for first place in the league in field hockey, football and men's soccer. Harvard is currently in first place or tied for first in football and women's soccer and is very much in the thick of it in men's soccer.
In other words, these games will be huge.
In men's soccer, for instance, Princeton is 2-0-1, tied with Penn and Yale. Harvard is 2-1-0, which leaves the Crimson right there as the league race is at the halfway point.
Of the eight men's soccer teams in the Ivy League, only three are currently over .500 overall.
In women's soccer, all eight schools are at least .500 and seven are over .500. Princeton has had some awful luck in its league games, and the Tigers season shows how hard it is to go 7-0-0, which is what they did a year ago.
Only five teams have ever gone 7-0-0 in Ivy women's soccer. Harvard is currently 4-0-0 and the only Ivy team that has a chance for a perfect league record and is 8-0-1 in its last nine games. Don't think Princeton wants to ruin all that?
The reverse is true in field hockey, where Princeton is alone in first at 4-0 and Harvard is 1-3, tied for sixth. Women's hockey season is just starting out.
And then there's football.
Princeton is 2-0 in the league. So is Harvard. So is Penn, for that matter. Princeton has looked great this year. Harvard is very strong. Penn is the defending champion.
And of course Harvard remembers what happened last year, when Princeton came from 34-10 down with 12 minutes to go to beat the Crimson 39-34.
At the time it seemed miraculous. Now? The idea that Princeton can score 29 points in 12 minutes hardly seems shocking.
The fall/winter overlap is starting, but even with that, the only home events this weekend are in men's water polo. The men's hockey team is close to home, playing at the Prudential Center in Newark in the Liberty Hockey Invitational today at 4 and tomorrow at 7.
The big games are in Cambridge this weekend though.
Princeton vs. Harvard, times five.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Twin Celebrations
Janine and Rochelle Willis look completely alike, even by identical twin standards.
All identical twins are, well, identical. For the most part. There's always something that gives one away or the other.
In the case of the Willis twins? No way. They look more alike than any two identical twins TigerBlog has ever seen.
TigerBlog couldn't tell them apart nine years ago, when they were defenders on the Princeton women's soccer team. And he certainly hadn't gotten any closer to figuring out who was who when he saw the two of them at Roberts Stadium Saturday.
Actually, he couldn't tell which Willis was which when he was putting together the video for the Princeton soccer NCAA Final Four celebration, which was what brought the Willis twins to the soccer doubleheader against Columbia.
The video was part of the dinner that followed the two games, and it was in honor of the program's two NCAA Final Four teams - the 1993 men and the 2004 women.
As TB was putting the video together, he had some pretty good clips of the women's team bowling, eating in a hotel, getting ready for their Final Four game, that sort of stuff. And the twins were featured prominently.
Except he didn't know which was which. So he had to make three small videos of the clips he had and then ask which Willis it was.
And so it was that shortly before halftime TB was hugged by one Willis and then the other, and he has no idea which one was which.
TB isn't much of a hugger. MotherBlog? Now there was a hugger. All 5' 3" of her. She could hug with the best of them.
As for TB, he's much happier standing off to the side.
This past Saturday wasn't a day for that.
Almost every member of the 2004 women's team came back nine years after they stampeded through the Ivy League, into the national Top 10 and all the way to the Final Four in Cary, N.C. Now they were back, in their late 20s and early 30s, some of them married and mothers themselves, all of them with a lifetime bond with each other that appears a decade later as unbreakable as it was the night they beat Washington to reach the Final Four.
The 1993 men's team was back as well.
It was 11 years earlier that the men's team knocked off Columbia, Penn State and Hartwick to get to the Final Four. Princeton had gone 6-1-0 in the Ivy League in 1993, with the loss to Columbia. There was also a loss to Hartwick in the regular season.
The three NCAA tournament wins that year were by a combined 10-2, as the Tigers avenged two of their losses along the way.
TigerBlog was the OAC contact for the 2004 women's team, and he covered the 1993 men's team's three NCAA wins while at the newspaper. He knew the women's players well, recognized each of them - not that it was that hard to do, since they don't look any older than when they played.
The men are now in their late 30s and early 40s. TB didn't know them nearly as well, but he recognized a few faces and most of the names.
Like the women, they had done something extraordinary together, and like the women, it was obvious that the men had something special that will never go away.
Princeton is one of 11 schools to have reached the NCAA Final Four in both men's and women's soccer in the last 20 years. The men are the most recent Ivy school to reach the Final Four, and the women are the only Ivy school ever to do so, as well as the only Ivy school to reach the Final Four in a 64-team NCAA bracket.
Oh, and the other 10 schools? It's: North Carolina, UMass, Santa Clara, Stanford, SMU, Duke, UConn, Portland, Ohio State and Wake Forest.
That's pretty good company.
TB's job Saturday was to help coordinate the halftime celebrations. As he did so, it dawned on him that he had been at all seven NCAA tournament wins between the two teams, and he couldn't help but wonder how many others in attendance had also been at all seven.
When the women's ceremony was over, the team posed for pictures off to the side. They stood together, and then there was picture of each class - which they called "seniors," "juniors," "sophomores" and "freshmen," as if they will hold those designations forever when they are together.
As TB did the video for the dinner, he was taken back to both team's biggest moments. He also noticed that the writer for the 1993 men's soccer team for the Daily Princetonian was none other than Grant Wahl, now among the top soccer writers in the world.
Mostly he thought back to Lourie-Love Field, the place that Roberts Stadium replaced. Myslik Field, the Roberts Stadium game field, is on the same spot that used to be Lourie-Love, except that Roberts Stadium has actual concrete, seats with backs, a concourse, bathrooms and concession stands.
What TB remembered most was three women's games. First, there was the win over Harvard, when Emily Behncke tied it with about 40 seconds left in regulation, Emily Vogelzang kept it going with a save on a breakaway in OT and then Esmeralda Negron won it.
Then there was the Sweet 16 win over Boston College, on a pair of Behncke goals. And then there was the win over Washington, with an early goal by Behncke and then, after U-W tied it, goals in the second half by Negron and Kristina Fontanez to win it.
TB saw how the crowd size built at Lourie-Love one game to the next to the next, until more than 2,500 jammed into the place for the Washington game. It was the momentum from that run that led to the construction of Roberts Stadium.
Unlike its replacement, Lourie-Love wasn't exactly a palace. It had rickety wooden stands - and that was it.
But it was a great place to watch a game, especially in the falls of 1993 and 2004, when two groups of Princeton soccer players put together something unbelievably special.
They came back Saturday to hug - and to celebrate and remember.
Celebrate, that is, their trips to the Final Four.
Remember, that is, the unbreakable, unforgettable, clearly obvious connection that they will have forever.
All identical twins are, well, identical. For the most part. There's always something that gives one away or the other.
In the case of the Willis twins? No way. They look more alike than any two identical twins TigerBlog has ever seen.
TigerBlog couldn't tell them apart nine years ago, when they were defenders on the Princeton women's soccer team. And he certainly hadn't gotten any closer to figuring out who was who when he saw the two of them at Roberts Stadium Saturday.
Actually, he couldn't tell which Willis was which when he was putting together the video for the Princeton soccer NCAA Final Four celebration, which was what brought the Willis twins to the soccer doubleheader against Columbia.
The video was part of the dinner that followed the two games, and it was in honor of the program's two NCAA Final Four teams - the 1993 men and the 2004 women.
As TB was putting the video together, he had some pretty good clips of the women's team bowling, eating in a hotel, getting ready for their Final Four game, that sort of stuff. And the twins were featured prominently.
Except he didn't know which was which. So he had to make three small videos of the clips he had and then ask which Willis it was.
And so it was that shortly before halftime TB was hugged by one Willis and then the other, and he has no idea which one was which.
TB isn't much of a hugger. MotherBlog? Now there was a hugger. All 5' 3" of her. She could hug with the best of them.
As for TB, he's much happier standing off to the side.
This past Saturday wasn't a day for that.
Almost every member of the 2004 women's team came back nine years after they stampeded through the Ivy League, into the national Top 10 and all the way to the Final Four in Cary, N.C. Now they were back, in their late 20s and early 30s, some of them married and mothers themselves, all of them with a lifetime bond with each other that appears a decade later as unbreakable as it was the night they beat Washington to reach the Final Four.
The 1993 men's team was back as well.
It was 11 years earlier that the men's team knocked off Columbia, Penn State and Hartwick to get to the Final Four. Princeton had gone 6-1-0 in the Ivy League in 1993, with the loss to Columbia. There was also a loss to Hartwick in the regular season.
The three NCAA tournament wins that year were by a combined 10-2, as the Tigers avenged two of their losses along the way.
TigerBlog was the OAC contact for the 2004 women's team, and he covered the 1993 men's team's three NCAA wins while at the newspaper. He knew the women's players well, recognized each of them - not that it was that hard to do, since they don't look any older than when they played.
The men are now in their late 30s and early 40s. TB didn't know them nearly as well, but he recognized a few faces and most of the names.
Like the women, they had done something extraordinary together, and like the women, it was obvious that the men had something special that will never go away.
Princeton is one of 11 schools to have reached the NCAA Final Four in both men's and women's soccer in the last 20 years. The men are the most recent Ivy school to reach the Final Four, and the women are the only Ivy school ever to do so, as well as the only Ivy school to reach the Final Four in a 64-team NCAA bracket.
Oh, and the other 10 schools? It's: North Carolina, UMass, Santa Clara, Stanford, SMU, Duke, UConn, Portland, Ohio State and Wake Forest.
That's pretty good company.
TB's job Saturday was to help coordinate the halftime celebrations. As he did so, it dawned on him that he had been at all seven NCAA tournament wins between the two teams, and he couldn't help but wonder how many others in attendance had also been at all seven.
When the women's ceremony was over, the team posed for pictures off to the side. They stood together, and then there was picture of each class - which they called "seniors," "juniors," "sophomores" and "freshmen," as if they will hold those designations forever when they are together.
As TB did the video for the dinner, he was taken back to both team's biggest moments. He also noticed that the writer for the 1993 men's soccer team for the Daily Princetonian was none other than Grant Wahl, now among the top soccer writers in the world.
Mostly he thought back to Lourie-Love Field, the place that Roberts Stadium replaced. Myslik Field, the Roberts Stadium game field, is on the same spot that used to be Lourie-Love, except that Roberts Stadium has actual concrete, seats with backs, a concourse, bathrooms and concession stands.
What TB remembered most was three women's games. First, there was the win over Harvard, when Emily Behncke tied it with about 40 seconds left in regulation, Emily Vogelzang kept it going with a save on a breakaway in OT and then Esmeralda Negron won it.
Then there was the Sweet 16 win over Boston College, on a pair of Behncke goals. And then there was the win over Washington, with an early goal by Behncke and then, after U-W tied it, goals in the second half by Negron and Kristina Fontanez to win it.
TB saw how the crowd size built at Lourie-Love one game to the next to the next, until more than 2,500 jammed into the place for the Washington game. It was the momentum from that run that led to the construction of Roberts Stadium.
Unlike its replacement, Lourie-Love wasn't exactly a palace. It had rickety wooden stands - and that was it.
But it was a great place to watch a game, especially in the falls of 1993 and 2004, when two groups of Princeton soccer players put together something unbelievably special.
They came back Saturday to hug - and to celebrate and remember.
Celebrate, that is, their trips to the Final Four.
Remember, that is, the unbreakable, unforgettable, clearly obvious connection that they will have forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
