TigerBlog weighed in on the coverage of the Major League Baseball Draft a few days ago. After two more days of listening to draft picks, there are a few more things that come to mind…
Each year there are more than 1,500 players selected in the draft. Add to that a large number of Latin American players that are signed through a different process and you have more than 2,000 players assigned to Major League Baseball teams each season. That’s roughly 65 players per team. Sure, not every drafted player signs a contract. Some college juniors return for their senior seasons and many high school seniors opt to go the college route. Let’s say that for whatever reason 10 picks don’t sign per team and you have about 55 new players per team entering the system each season.
So, where do you put them? Well, most teams have Short Season A and Rookie Ball teams that do not start their seasons until late June. Divide your new players in half and assign them to a pair of teams and they have a place to play.
What immediately stands out in TigerBlog’s mind is the logic that if you’re adding more than 50 players into the system each year, roughly the same amount of players are being dropped from the system.
Using just Princeton as the example, three new Tigers entered the system in the last three days as David Hale, Brad Gemberling and Jack Murphy were all drafted. Conversely, Spencer Lucian, Steven Miller and B.J. Szymanski, who played in the Minor Leagues last season, are now moving on to the next stages of their lives, with Lucian continuing playing in Spain this summer.
Speaking of this year’s draft, Princeton had three players chosen for only the second time in program history. The only time more Tigers were taken came in 2004 when five members of the two-time Ivy League champion were chosen in the first 20 rounds of the draft. That was quite a draft for Princeton, which saw the same amount of players drafted in the first 20 rounds as traditional baseball powers like Rice, Tennessee, UCLA and Vanderbilt. Two of the players chosen in that draft have played in the Major Leagues–Ross Ohlendorf and Will Venable–and a third, Tim Lahey, is currently playing at the AAA level.
Back to the draft, after the televised pomp of the opening three rounds which TigerBlog touched upon here on Wednesday. The draft went back to the conference call that it usually is for rounds 4-50. It makes for stimulating radio…
Arizona’s representative states… With its 24th round pick, Arizona selects ID number 1234 Brad Gemberling, a right hand pitcher from Princeton University in Princeton, N.J…
MLB answers back… Arizona selects ID number 1234 Brad Gemberling from Princeton. Los Angeles Dodgers are next…
And on it goes for hours. It makes it tough when you really are only concerned with where three of the 1,521 drafted players are chosen. Somewhat shockingly, TigerBlog was actually able to see/hear two of the three picks live.
Anyways, congratulations to the 1,521 players drafted over the three days of this year’s draft. TigerBlog will keep close tabs on three of those players, but can’t help but wonder how many of those 1,521 players will one day actually wear a Major League uniform.
Looking at historical trends provided by Major League Baseball, the answer is 200 or 13%. Now if only we could guess which 200. That seems high to TigerBlog, but good luck to all the players in their attempt to make it to the Big Leagues.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tierney's Move And The Changing Media
TigerBlog looked down at his desk and saw the men's lacrosse guide staring back at him. On the cover are the nine then-seniors-to-be, standing arm-in-arm on the shore of a lake. The wording under the picture reads:
"Princeton Men's Lacrosse • Class of 2009 • Upper Lake at Glendalough, Ireland • June 11, 2008"
It dawned on TigerBlog that in had been exactly one year since the trip to the lake, which other than the lacrosse games themselves was the highlight of the trip to Spain and Ireland last June. It began with an excruciating drive on a nasuea-inducing bus through Dublin rush-hour traffic and then up a winding mountain road, followed by a long hike through bug-infested woods. And then, out of almost nowhere, came the lake, a place with seemingly magical powers that at once lifted the malaise of the entire group in a cool burst of mist and wind, surrounded by a hundred different Irish greens in the hills that surrounded the lake on three sides.
Jack Burke, our tour guide in Ireland, said the lake is like a "drug." Even John McPhee, the author and academic-athletic fellow who was on the trip, was impressed by the sheer beauty of the place ... and McPhee has written about nature's best all around the world.
Ah, one year later, and much has changed. By now the news that Bill Tierney is leaving Princeton to become the head men's lacrosse coach at Denver is "old." At the same time, the manner in which the story of Tierney's departure has been told is most definitely "new," which of course is a recurring TigerBlog theme.
The first place TigerBlog saw anything written publicly about Tierney and Denver was on the laxpower.com forum. If you go right now to either laxpower or insidelacrosse.com or any number of other message boards, you can see literally thousands of comments about Tierney, ranging from the flattering to the insulting to the hateful to anything in the middle. There are comments, accusations, conspiracy theories, arguments, counter-arguments and everything else, almost of all of it written anonymously.
In fact, probably 80% or more of what TigerBlog has read about Tierney has come from someone hiding behind an unknown moniker. As an aside, TB has read things that he knows for 100% certainty are not true, and yet he believes them for a few moments and begins to question what he knows to be factual, proving again one of TB's deepest held beliefs, that people believe everything they read, no matter where they read it or who wrote it.
TigerBlog has received a few requests from newspapers to speak with Tierney, Director of Athletcs Gary Walters and some of the players, but there haven't been many. Those that TB has received seem so out of touch with the way the world is working these days. TB has been on newspaper Websites that have linked to goprincetontigers.com, with only a paragraph or two written as introduction.
Beyond that, there is the issue of trying to be all things to all people that newspapers haven't addressed. If there is a small story in a newspaper about Tierney, why go there when with the same number of clicks, a lacrosse fan can go to a sport-specific site and be inundated with coverage? Factor this across all sports, all of which have their own sites?
And what of the "new" media? Let's look at Inside Lacrosse and its coverage as an example. IL followed the story all weekend, updating its site often. It didn't need to wait to print anything; in fact, by the time the next issue of the magazine comes out, the story won't be fresh to anyone.
IL's coverage fit all kinds of criteria for media today: 1) it was timely, 2) it was multi-media and 3) it invited immediate feedback and participation from readers.
Here at TigerBlog HQ, the difference between when Tierney left and when Pete Carril left 13 years earlier is dramatic. When Carril retired, TigerBlog write a short release and then did his best to assist as many media outlets as possible. When Tierney left, the media was secondary to getting information onto goprincetontigers.com (which didn't exist in 1996) and especially on TigerBlog and then getting those links to as many other sites as possible.
As a result, Tuesday's readership on TigerBlog was the second-highest single day total ever (sadly, first was the day when colleague Lorin Maurer was killed in a plane crash).
As for last year's trip and the news a year later that Tierney was leaving, TigerBlog remembers being on the plane home and talking to the coach, jokingly, about where the team would be going on its next trip, in the NCAA-mandated four years. Tierney, who had put in a great deal of time in the planning and administration of the trip, took a deep breath and came back with his own sarcastic reponse, which was something along the lines of "go without me next time."
Who knew he would turn out to be serious?
"Princeton Men's Lacrosse • Class of 2009 • Upper Lake at Glendalough, Ireland • June 11, 2008"
It dawned on TigerBlog that in had been exactly one year since the trip to the lake, which other than the lacrosse games themselves was the highlight of the trip to Spain and Ireland last June. It began with an excruciating drive on a nasuea-inducing bus through Dublin rush-hour traffic and then up a winding mountain road, followed by a long hike through bug-infested woods. And then, out of almost nowhere, came the lake, a place with seemingly magical powers that at once lifted the malaise of the entire group in a cool burst of mist and wind, surrounded by a hundred different Irish greens in the hills that surrounded the lake on three sides.
Jack Burke, our tour guide in Ireland, said the lake is like a "drug." Even John McPhee, the author and academic-athletic fellow who was on the trip, was impressed by the sheer beauty of the place ... and McPhee has written about nature's best all around the world.
Ah, one year later, and much has changed. By now the news that Bill Tierney is leaving Princeton to become the head men's lacrosse coach at Denver is "old." At the same time, the manner in which the story of Tierney's departure has been told is most definitely "new," which of course is a recurring TigerBlog theme.
The first place TigerBlog saw anything written publicly about Tierney and Denver was on the laxpower.com forum. If you go right now to either laxpower or insidelacrosse.com or any number of other message boards, you can see literally thousands of comments about Tierney, ranging from the flattering to the insulting to the hateful to anything in the middle. There are comments, accusations, conspiracy theories, arguments, counter-arguments and everything else, almost of all of it written anonymously.
In fact, probably 80% or more of what TigerBlog has read about Tierney has come from someone hiding behind an unknown moniker. As an aside, TB has read things that he knows for 100% certainty are not true, and yet he believes them for a few moments and begins to question what he knows to be factual, proving again one of TB's deepest held beliefs, that people believe everything they read, no matter where they read it or who wrote it.
TigerBlog has received a few requests from newspapers to speak with Tierney, Director of Athletcs Gary Walters and some of the players, but there haven't been many. Those that TB has received seem so out of touch with the way the world is working these days. TB has been on newspaper Websites that have linked to goprincetontigers.com, with only a paragraph or two written as introduction.
Beyond that, there is the issue of trying to be all things to all people that newspapers haven't addressed. If there is a small story in a newspaper about Tierney, why go there when with the same number of clicks, a lacrosse fan can go to a sport-specific site and be inundated with coverage? Factor this across all sports, all of which have their own sites?
And what of the "new" media? Let's look at Inside Lacrosse and its coverage as an example. IL followed the story all weekend, updating its site often. It didn't need to wait to print anything; in fact, by the time the next issue of the magazine comes out, the story won't be fresh to anyone.
IL's coverage fit all kinds of criteria for media today: 1) it was timely, 2) it was multi-media and 3) it invited immediate feedback and participation from readers.
Here at TigerBlog HQ, the difference between when Tierney left and when Pete Carril left 13 years earlier is dramatic. When Carril retired, TigerBlog write a short release and then did his best to assist as many media outlets as possible. When Tierney left, the media was secondary to getting information onto goprincetontigers.com (which didn't exist in 1996) and especially on TigerBlog and then getting those links to as many other sites as possible.
As a result, Tuesday's readership on TigerBlog was the second-highest single day total ever (sadly, first was the day when colleague Lorin Maurer was killed in a plane crash).
As for last year's trip and the news a year later that Tierney was leaving, TigerBlog remembers being on the plane home and talking to the coach, jokingly, about where the team would be going on its next trip, in the NCAA-mandated four years. Tierney, who had put in a great deal of time in the planning and administration of the trip, took a deep breath and came back with his own sarcastic reponse, which was something along the lines of "go without me next time."
Who knew he would turn out to be serious?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Those Were The Days
When TigerBlog was a kid in the early 1970s, he used to watch the Saturday night lineup on CBS each week. While TB could have it wrong, his memories are of some combination of "All in the Family," "Maude," "M*A*S*H," "The Jeffersons," "The Bob Newhart Show," and lastly "The Carol Burnett Show."
When TigerBlog was a junior in West Philadelphia, the entire 22nd floor of High Rise South would gather in the room of RA Jani Scandura to watch NBC's Thursday night lineup: "The Cosby Show," "Family Ties," "Cheers," "Night Court" and finally "Hill Street Blues," which might be the greatest show in television history not named "The Odd Couple" or "The Sopranos." Of course, being wild West Philadelphia college students, we'd then go out until 4 a.m. every night. Or something like that.
Anyway, getting back to the point, those lineups were television at its finest. The Major League Baseball draft, televised last night, is quite possibly at the exact other end.
TigerBlog only paid tangential attention to the draft, as his interest extended only to see where Princeton's David Hale went. It was hard not to notice, though, how tedious televising the draft was.
It's bad enough that the NFL draft has spawned a whole side profession of Mel Kiper Jrs. and his wannabees, who analyze up and down players who 1) they'd never heard of before, 2) have never actually seen play and 3) have a greater than 50% chance of being busts. It's bad enough to read the next day about which team's draft got an "A" and which got a "D," when the reality is that there will be no way to accurately grade until five years or so later.
The problem is that often in television (news, sports, entertainment, reality; doesn't matter), any bad idea is worth copying and expanding. As such, the NFL draft started it, the NBA draft copied it (though at least the NBA had the common sense to limit it to two rounds and move it along into one semi-concise evening) and now baseball is next.
If anything, the baseball draft makes for worse television, because teams are almost exclusively drafting players nobody has heard of and players who won't reach the major leagues for a few years. It's not as if the a team can fill its need for a first baseman or closer by plugging in its first-round pick.
Baseball has so many problems right now it's hard to count them all. Steroids have made every new star a suspect. Outrageous ticket prices in new ballparks have resulted in empty seats everywhere. The economic model where a team like the Yankees can have one player make more than the entire Pirate roster is a joke.
As TigerBlog likes to say, baseball's lucky that it has a 150 year head start on lacrosse in the national consciousness.
In that vein, it's easy to see why baseball would try to stress the positive aspects of the draft. It's just that it's too contrived, and it makes for awful television.
Instead, TigerBlog would rather go back to CBS of the 1970s or NBC of the 1980s. Maybe MLB Network would have been better of with the Sammy Davis Jr. episode of All in the Family.
When TigerBlog was a junior in West Philadelphia, the entire 22nd floor of High Rise South would gather in the room of RA Jani Scandura to watch NBC's Thursday night lineup: "The Cosby Show," "Family Ties," "Cheers," "Night Court" and finally "Hill Street Blues," which might be the greatest show in television history not named "The Odd Couple" or "The Sopranos." Of course, being wild West Philadelphia college students, we'd then go out until 4 a.m. every night. Or something like that.
Anyway, getting back to the point, those lineups were television at its finest. The Major League Baseball draft, televised last night, is quite possibly at the exact other end.
TigerBlog only paid tangential attention to the draft, as his interest extended only to see where Princeton's David Hale went. It was hard not to notice, though, how tedious televising the draft was.
It's bad enough that the NFL draft has spawned a whole side profession of Mel Kiper Jrs. and his wannabees, who analyze up and down players who 1) they'd never heard of before, 2) have never actually seen play and 3) have a greater than 50% chance of being busts. It's bad enough to read the next day about which team's draft got an "A" and which got a "D," when the reality is that there will be no way to accurately grade until five years or so later.
The problem is that often in television (news, sports, entertainment, reality; doesn't matter), any bad idea is worth copying and expanding. As such, the NFL draft started it, the NBA draft copied it (though at least the NBA had the common sense to limit it to two rounds and move it along into one semi-concise evening) and now baseball is next.
If anything, the baseball draft makes for worse television, because teams are almost exclusively drafting players nobody has heard of and players who won't reach the major leagues for a few years. It's not as if the a team can fill its need for a first baseman or closer by plugging in its first-round pick.
Baseball has so many problems right now it's hard to count them all. Steroids have made every new star a suspect. Outrageous ticket prices in new ballparks have resulted in empty seats everywhere. The economic model where a team like the Yankees can have one player make more than the entire Pirate roster is a joke.
As TigerBlog likes to say, baseball's lucky that it has a 150 year head start on lacrosse in the national consciousness.
In that vein, it's easy to see why baseball would try to stress the positive aspects of the draft. It's just that it's too contrived, and it makes for awful television.
Instead, TigerBlog would rather go back to CBS of the 1970s or NBC of the 1980s. Maybe MLB Network would have been better of with the Sammy Davis Jr. episode of All in the Family.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Former Men's Lacrosse Coach Bill Tierney
TigerBlog stood in the back of the lockerroom four times as a Princeton men's lacrosse national championship celebration played out in front of him (TB was still a newspaper reporter for the first two).
TB was also there for two other NCAA finals that went the other way. He stood off the side, in the background, for big wins and crushing losses, Ivy League championships and losses that ended Ivy titles hopes, great days and tough days.
He's heard Bill Tierney talk to his guys behind closed doors in every possible situation, heard Tierney run the gamut of every possible emotion, string together words that are forever embedded into TigerBlog's memory.
Bill Tierney won 238 games as the head coach of Princeton men's lacrosse. TigerBlog was there for at least 200 of them, including every one of the last 89 and 163 of 167 since TB became the men's lacrosse contact prior to the 1995 season.
And yet when word started to come that Tierney was considering a move to Denver and then later when the Hall of Fame coach confirmed it, TigerBlog's thoughts didn't turn to any one of those wins, any one of those championships, any of those postgame talks.
Instead, TB first thought back to 2006, when TigerBlog Jr. was in third grade and getting ready to play in the Liberty Lacrosse Tournament. The day before the tournament, the mesh on TBJ's only goalie stick broke. Quietly, TBJ whispered to TigerBlog: "Can you call Bill Tierney and ask him what we should do?"
Realizing that it was too late to get the stick restrung, TB did in fact call Tierney, who answered his cell phone while away recruiting. When informed of the problem, Tierney told TigerBlog to go to his house and then told him the code to the garage door opener. Tierney said there'd be four or five goalie sticks there; just grab what you need.
Later on, when TBJ went to Tierney's house to return the sticks after the tournament, Tierney told him that he'd used the stick that Trevor Tierney had used in the 2001 NCAA championship game and that TBJ should keep it.
That's who Bill Tierney is. Yes, he's a Hall of Fame coach. Yes, his move to Denver is one of the most intriguing moments in Division I lacrosse history. Yes, he won 14 Ivy League championships and six NCAA titles and went to 10 Final Fours and eight championship games in 22 seasons at Princeton.
There's also the undeniable fact that before Tierney came to Princeton, the sport of lacrosse hardly existed in the area around TigerBlog HQ. Today, as it's getting harder and harder to field youth baseball teams, every kid out there has a lacrosse stick, and this growth is directly attributable to Bill Tierney.
And yes, he's often a volatile figure on the sidelines during games, and that volatility – and the fact that he won big – made him a polarizing force in lacrosse. All you need to do is read a lacrosse message board to see that he is loved and he is hated and there isn't much in the middle.
Sadly, those who only see the fiery coach are missing more. Much more.
TigerBlog saw Tierney stop practice several times in the mid-1990s to accommodate media people who arrived late for scheduled interviews because of what he saw as a responsibility to help grow the game. TB has seen Tierney at camps, working easily with kids to whom he was lacrosse royalty. TB has seen Tierney talk to youth coaches, who had the same feeling as the kids, and spend literally hours talking about the game itself and his philosophies of coaching.
Earlier this year, a teammate of TBJ's collapsed at the end of a game. A healthy 12 year old who had just played a full game of lacrosse suddenly went down, with a racing heart and trouble breathing. A 911 call later, the boy was off to the hospital. It wasn't until two days later and every test imaginable that it ended up being something reasonably normal for a very tall, very thin, very athletic kid to have happen.
The next day, TigerBlog was telling Tierney the story, mostly focusing on how scary it was. At this point, there had been no follow-up news saying that the boy was fine.
"How can I help?" Tierney asked. "We'll send him a note. Get all the guys to sign a jersey for him. Anything at all. Let me know."
This past season, Tierney and his team became involved with Connor McKemey, a 14-year-old South Carolina lacrosse player who was burned over 85 percent of his body in a house fire at Christmas. This happened while his father was serving as a Marine in Iraq. The team's association with Connor began when Tierney simply wrote the boy a note.
That's Bill Tierney. That's the coach who is leaving Princeton now, who is heading West to help grow the game, to give himself one last new challenge in his coaching career, to be closer to his family, to work with Trevor.
When TigerBlog was walking out of Jadwin Gym yesterday, he saw Pete Carril in the parking lot. Carril stopped and gave his salutory "yoooooo" greeting. After a small chat, Carril continued into the buiding. TigerBlog had written the release about Carril's resignation from Princeton 13 years earlier, and now TB had his laptop with him, ready to write the same about Tierney.
It dawned on TigerBlog that these two men, Carril and Tierney, are quite likely the two greatest coaches in the long history of Princeton athletics. Sure, you can make a case for others, with a list too numerous to write down here.
Carril and Tierney, though, rise above the rest, for their longevity, for their success (and in Tierney's case, the lack of success that immediately preceded him) and for how each impacted the very manner in which his sport was played. And if you want to have two others on your list, that's fine, but Carril and Tierney have to be in the conversation.
Bill Tierney coached at Princeton for 22 years, and TigerBlog had watched him up close for 20 of those years, the last 15 literally from inside the lockerroom. TB watched as the program Tierney built from the ground up rose to the top of the sport on six different occasions and was there for so many glorious wins that he couldn't possibly say which the greatest one was. Was it the 2001 championship game? Maybe the 1998 playoff run? Maybe 2004? Or 1992, the first time? Or 1994, the year that proved 1992 wasn't a fluke? Where to begin? Which game to think of first?
And yet for all of that, on the day that Tierney announced he was leaving Princeton, TigerBlog's thoughts turned first not to a single one of those days but instead to an upset eight-year-old boy, a stick and how Bill Tierney did everything he could do to help.
What else is there to say?
TB was also there for two other NCAA finals that went the other way. He stood off the side, in the background, for big wins and crushing losses, Ivy League championships and losses that ended Ivy titles hopes, great days and tough days.
He's heard Bill Tierney talk to his guys behind closed doors in every possible situation, heard Tierney run the gamut of every possible emotion, string together words that are forever embedded into TigerBlog's memory.
Bill Tierney won 238 games as the head coach of Princeton men's lacrosse. TigerBlog was there for at least 200 of them, including every one of the last 89 and 163 of 167 since TB became the men's lacrosse contact prior to the 1995 season.
And yet when word started to come that Tierney was considering a move to Denver and then later when the Hall of Fame coach confirmed it, TigerBlog's thoughts didn't turn to any one of those wins, any one of those championships, any of those postgame talks.
Instead, TB first thought back to 2006, when TigerBlog Jr. was in third grade and getting ready to play in the Liberty Lacrosse Tournament. The day before the tournament, the mesh on TBJ's only goalie stick broke. Quietly, TBJ whispered to TigerBlog: "Can you call Bill Tierney and ask him what we should do?"
Realizing that it was too late to get the stick restrung, TB did in fact call Tierney, who answered his cell phone while away recruiting. When informed of the problem, Tierney told TigerBlog to go to his house and then told him the code to the garage door opener. Tierney said there'd be four or five goalie sticks there; just grab what you need.
Later on, when TBJ went to Tierney's house to return the sticks after the tournament, Tierney told him that he'd used the stick that Trevor Tierney had used in the 2001 NCAA championship game and that TBJ should keep it.
That's who Bill Tierney is. Yes, he's a Hall of Fame coach. Yes, his move to Denver is one of the most intriguing moments in Division I lacrosse history. Yes, he won 14 Ivy League championships and six NCAA titles and went to 10 Final Fours and eight championship games in 22 seasons at Princeton.
There's also the undeniable fact that before Tierney came to Princeton, the sport of lacrosse hardly existed in the area around TigerBlog HQ. Today, as it's getting harder and harder to field youth baseball teams, every kid out there has a lacrosse stick, and this growth is directly attributable to Bill Tierney.
And yes, he's often a volatile figure on the sidelines during games, and that volatility – and the fact that he won big – made him a polarizing force in lacrosse. All you need to do is read a lacrosse message board to see that he is loved and he is hated and there isn't much in the middle.
Sadly, those who only see the fiery coach are missing more. Much more.
TigerBlog saw Tierney stop practice several times in the mid-1990s to accommodate media people who arrived late for scheduled interviews because of what he saw as a responsibility to help grow the game. TB has seen Tierney at camps, working easily with kids to whom he was lacrosse royalty. TB has seen Tierney talk to youth coaches, who had the same feeling as the kids, and spend literally hours talking about the game itself and his philosophies of coaching.
Earlier this year, a teammate of TBJ's collapsed at the end of a game. A healthy 12 year old who had just played a full game of lacrosse suddenly went down, with a racing heart and trouble breathing. A 911 call later, the boy was off to the hospital. It wasn't until two days later and every test imaginable that it ended up being something reasonably normal for a very tall, very thin, very athletic kid to have happen.
The next day, TigerBlog was telling Tierney the story, mostly focusing on how scary it was. At this point, there had been no follow-up news saying that the boy was fine.
"How can I help?" Tierney asked. "We'll send him a note. Get all the guys to sign a jersey for him. Anything at all. Let me know."
This past season, Tierney and his team became involved with Connor McKemey, a 14-year-old South Carolina lacrosse player who was burned over 85 percent of his body in a house fire at Christmas. This happened while his father was serving as a Marine in Iraq. The team's association with Connor began when Tierney simply wrote the boy a note.
That's Bill Tierney. That's the coach who is leaving Princeton now, who is heading West to help grow the game, to give himself one last new challenge in his coaching career, to be closer to his family, to work with Trevor.
When TigerBlog was walking out of Jadwin Gym yesterday, he saw Pete Carril in the parking lot. Carril stopped and gave his salutory "yoooooo" greeting. After a small chat, Carril continued into the buiding. TigerBlog had written the release about Carril's resignation from Princeton 13 years earlier, and now TB had his laptop with him, ready to write the same about Tierney.
It dawned on TigerBlog that these two men, Carril and Tierney, are quite likely the two greatest coaches in the long history of Princeton athletics. Sure, you can make a case for others, with a list too numerous to write down here.
Carril and Tierney, though, rise above the rest, for their longevity, for their success (and in Tierney's case, the lack of success that immediately preceded him) and for how each impacted the very manner in which his sport was played. And if you want to have two others on your list, that's fine, but Carril and Tierney have to be in the conversation.
Bill Tierney coached at Princeton for 22 years, and TigerBlog had watched him up close for 20 of those years, the last 15 literally from inside the lockerroom. TB watched as the program Tierney built from the ground up rose to the top of the sport on six different occasions and was there for so many glorious wins that he couldn't possibly say which the greatest one was. Was it the 2001 championship game? Maybe the 1998 playoff run? Maybe 2004? Or 1992, the first time? Or 1994, the year that proved 1992 wasn't a fluke? Where to begin? Which game to think of first?
And yet for all of that, on the day that Tierney announced he was leaving Princeton, TigerBlog's thoughts turned first not to a single one of those days but instead to an upset eight-year-old boy, a stick and how Bill Tierney did everything he could do to help.
What else is there to say?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Luke, I Am Your Father...
Men's lightweight rowing coach Greg Hughes is a favorite here at TigerBlog HQ for two reasons. One, he is a forward thinker who has been greatly helpful in our move towards more technological material online.
Two, he makes Darth Vader sound like Mickey Mouse.
Hughes has been a favorite around the boathouse for a much longer time, though. In 1996, as a senior on the men's lightweight crew, he helped Princeton surge to a national championship by the slimmest of margins — .01 of a second. Basically, it's the amount of time it took you to read that last sentence, multiplied by 500.
As the heavyweight assistant coach, he guided a 2003 novice crew that won the Royal Henley regatta and would eventually become a senior class that won the Ivy League title and finished second at nationals.
It was the summer of 2005 when he got the chance to replace his former head coach, the retiring Joe Murtaugh. TigerBlog remembers the moment he saw Hughes in Gary Walters' office, put two and two together and immediately thought that this was the perfect fit. Since then, it's been an upward climb that culminated in the perfect 2009 season.
Men's lightweight rowing is a sport full of parity. The league powers include Ivy League schools, as well as Navy and Georgetown. It's a small pool of young men who can get into those schools, and an even smaller pool that can handle the weight restrictions and still row at a high level. It's a sport where A beats B, B beats C and C beats A. Then they get to the championship weekend, and D wins. And really, nobody saw D after it lost to E, which got killed by A, B and C.
That parity existed this year, except for A. Princeton was A. B might have beaten C, lost to D, tied with E and never raced F. It didn't matter. None of those letters even touched A.
When Princeton was challenged each week of the regular season, it always won. When Princeton had to race two times to win its first Eastern/Ivy League title, it won. When Princeton took four weeks off, flew to Sacramento and had one race to win the national title against a field of letters looking for the stunner, it won.
And it won in style. Five hundred meters into the race, the gold was all but decided.
The driving force has been Hughes, a determined and driven coach who strives for excellence in a sport he obviously has deep respect for. He didn't like a school newspaper headline once that referred to a previous year's win as a "rout" because he thought it disrespected the other school's rowers. He cherishes Sprints because, to him, it's the ultimate in competition.
The program has taken a step forward every year since he's taken over. That trend can't possibly continue next year. Perfection can be matched, but can't be topped.
But if you're going to try matching it, Greg Hughes gives you a chance.
Two, he makes Darth Vader sound like Mickey Mouse.
Hughes has been a favorite around the boathouse for a much longer time, though. In 1996, as a senior on the men's lightweight crew, he helped Princeton surge to a national championship by the slimmest of margins — .01 of a second. Basically, it's the amount of time it took you to read that last sentence, multiplied by 500.
As the heavyweight assistant coach, he guided a 2003 novice crew that won the Royal Henley regatta and would eventually become a senior class that won the Ivy League title and finished second at nationals.
It was the summer of 2005 when he got the chance to replace his former head coach, the retiring Joe Murtaugh. TigerBlog remembers the moment he saw Hughes in Gary Walters' office, put two and two together and immediately thought that this was the perfect fit. Since then, it's been an upward climb that culminated in the perfect 2009 season.
Men's lightweight rowing is a sport full of parity. The league powers include Ivy League schools, as well as Navy and Georgetown. It's a small pool of young men who can get into those schools, and an even smaller pool that can handle the weight restrictions and still row at a high level. It's a sport where A beats B, B beats C and C beats A. Then they get to the championship weekend, and D wins. And really, nobody saw D after it lost to E, which got killed by A, B and C.
That parity existed this year, except for A. Princeton was A. B might have beaten C, lost to D, tied with E and never raced F. It didn't matter. None of those letters even touched A.
When Princeton was challenged each week of the regular season, it always won. When Princeton had to race two times to win its first Eastern/Ivy League title, it won. When Princeton took four weeks off, flew to Sacramento and had one race to win the national title against a field of letters looking for the stunner, it won.
And it won in style. Five hundred meters into the race, the gold was all but decided.
The driving force has been Hughes, a determined and driven coach who strives for excellence in a sport he obviously has deep respect for. He didn't like a school newspaper headline once that referred to a previous year's win as a "rout" because he thought it disrespected the other school's rowers. He cherishes Sprints because, to him, it's the ultimate in competition.
The program has taken a step forward every year since he's taken over. That trend can't possibly continue next year. Perfection can be matched, but can't be topped.
But if you're going to try matching it, Greg Hughes gives you a chance.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Remember That Feat: Men's Tennis
The spring of 2009 marked 45 years since a highly noteworthy achievement in Princeton men’s tennis history, yet there’s no mention of it in the program’s online record book.
Miami’s men’s tennis media guide devotes a whole page to it – page 30 of the 2009 publication, to be precise – but the historical note came to TigerBlog’s attention only after an alumnus mentioned it to head coach Glenn Michibata during reunions weekend.
The lack of info from Princeton’s side wasn’t out of negligence, however, and the alum who reported the achievement explains why.
Alexander Wellford Jr. ’64, now an attorney in Tennessee, e-mailed Michibata to say that Princeton had played Miami in a 1964 match that didn’t count toward Princeton’s record, per Ivy League rules.
(As an aside, the Ivy League has different rules than the rest of Division I in many sports regarding the number of contests teams can play and how early the season can start. In soccer, for example, most other Division I teams can play 20 and start in late August. Princeton can only play 17.)
Since it wasn’t an official match for Princeton, it’s not in the official Princeton record book. But it sure counts for Miami.
The 5-4 win (the three doubles matches used to count individually and now collectively count as one point) ended a string of 137 wins for Miami since 1957. It’s a record that still stands today and is unlikely to be broken since, as the Miami write-up reports, teams now play dual matches in the NCAA tournament. That format has been in place since 1977, and Miami reports that only three teams have gone undefeated since.
Impressive streaks have gone on in other sports, such as the Indiana men's swimming streak of 140 dual meet victories from 1966-1979, as noted by fellow men's tennis alum Herb Fitz Gibbon '64. You can be sure whatever team that eventually broke Indiana's streak was pretty excited about it too.
(As another aside, the Princeton women’s tennis team was part of another long winning streak when it traveled to Stanford this past March, though no such streak-snapping win occurred. The Cardinal have won 151 home matches in a row since 1999.)
The unofficial matches must have been something of a regular occurrence. By Princeton’s record, the Tigers have faced Miami only eight times, all between 1935 and 1998, with Miami leading 6-2. By Miami’s count, the teams have faced off 39 times, with Miami leading 33-5-1. That means Princeton trails only Clemson, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Rollins College, South Florida and Yale as more popular Miami opponents. Perhaps the Tigers and Bulldogs made cooperative ventures to the Sunshine State before spring arrived in the Northeast.
But enough about the ‘Canes. Princeton was more than an upstart in the 60s, as the win against Miami came during a winning streak that lasted 52 matches from 1960 to 1965. The Tigers won five straight EITA titles from 1961-65, and all those wins went on the record of John Conroy, who retired in 1971 as Princeton’s winningest coach.
Conroy had an outstanding career record of 259-37 and has been surpassed in wins only by David Benjamin, who coached Princeton from 1975-2000. Glenn Michibata, with 112 wins, is third on that list after taking over for Benjamin.
As long as Princeton sports have been around, which for some sports means since the 19th century, plenty of little-known nuggets of information like this have to exist. Sometimes, all it takes is 45 years and a tip to unearth them.
Miami’s men’s tennis media guide devotes a whole page to it – page 30 of the 2009 publication, to be precise – but the historical note came to TigerBlog’s attention only after an alumnus mentioned it to head coach Glenn Michibata during reunions weekend.
The lack of info from Princeton’s side wasn’t out of negligence, however, and the alum who reported the achievement explains why.
Alexander Wellford Jr. ’64, now an attorney in Tennessee, e-mailed Michibata to say that Princeton had played Miami in a 1964 match that didn’t count toward Princeton’s record, per Ivy League rules.
(As an aside, the Ivy League has different rules than the rest of Division I in many sports regarding the number of contests teams can play and how early the season can start. In soccer, for example, most other Division I teams can play 20 and start in late August. Princeton can only play 17.)
Since it wasn’t an official match for Princeton, it’s not in the official Princeton record book. But it sure counts for Miami.
The 5-4 win (the three doubles matches used to count individually and now collectively count as one point) ended a string of 137 wins for Miami since 1957. It’s a record that still stands today and is unlikely to be broken since, as the Miami write-up reports, teams now play dual matches in the NCAA tournament. That format has been in place since 1977, and Miami reports that only three teams have gone undefeated since.
Impressive streaks have gone on in other sports, such as the Indiana men's swimming streak of 140 dual meet victories from 1966-1979, as noted by fellow men's tennis alum Herb Fitz Gibbon '64. You can be sure whatever team that eventually broke Indiana's streak was pretty excited about it too.
(As another aside, the Princeton women’s tennis team was part of another long winning streak when it traveled to Stanford this past March, though no such streak-snapping win occurred. The Cardinal have won 151 home matches in a row since 1999.)
The unofficial matches must have been something of a regular occurrence. By Princeton’s record, the Tigers have faced Miami only eight times, all between 1935 and 1998, with Miami leading 6-2. By Miami’s count, the teams have faced off 39 times, with Miami leading 33-5-1. That means Princeton trails only Clemson, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Rollins College, South Florida and Yale as more popular Miami opponents. Perhaps the Tigers and Bulldogs made cooperative ventures to the Sunshine State before spring arrived in the Northeast.
But enough about the ‘Canes. Princeton was more than an upstart in the 60s, as the win against Miami came during a winning streak that lasted 52 matches from 1960 to 1965. The Tigers won five straight EITA titles from 1961-65, and all those wins went on the record of John Conroy, who retired in 1971 as Princeton’s winningest coach.
Conroy had an outstanding career record of 259-37 and has been surpassed in wins only by David Benjamin, who coached Princeton from 1975-2000. Glenn Michibata, with 112 wins, is third on that list after taking over for Benjamin.
As long as Princeton sports have been around, which for some sports means since the 19th century, plenty of little-known nuggets of information like this have to exist. Sometimes, all it takes is 45 years and a tip to unearth them.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Tough Night For The Big Kid
Scott Bradley, for those who don't know him, is the biggest kid in the Princeton Department of Athletics.
Yes, he's a former Major League Baseball player and the overwhelmingly successful coach of the Tiger baseball team, and yes, he's sneaking up on 50 years old. Still, he's basically a big kid.
So you can imagine how the big kid was looking forward to Wednesday night. And why not? It couldn't have aligned better for Bradley in terms of viewing choices.
"Let's just say it ended up not being a great night of television watching," he said, chuckling.
Consider the lineup:
Former Princeton pitcher Ross Ohlendorf to face the Mets at 7.
Former teammate Randy Johnson, whose no-hitter Bradley caught when they were both with the Seattle Mariners, on the mound for the Giants against the Washington Nationals, going for his 300th career win, no less, also at 7.
Former Princeton pitcher Chris Young, on the mound against the Phils at 10. And oh, factor in Will Venable, just recalled from Triple-A and in the Padres' lineup as well.
And to top it all off, Bob and Michael Bradley, Scott's brother and nephew, were to go at 10 as well against Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying with the U.S. national team. Bob, the former Princeton player and coach, is the U.S. team coach; Michael is one of the best players on the team.
So what happened?
"Let's just say that having Ross get rained out was the highlight," Scott Bradley said.
The Mets-Pirates game was a no-go due to the weather. Johnson never got to pitch either, as his game was rained out as well.
As for the two that were played? Well, Young pitched well for six innings but took the loss, and Venable had an 0 for 4 night that included an error.
And that was nothing compared to soccer. The U.S. team gave up a goal in the first two minutes and the another one shortly thereafter to fall into a quick hole. The final was 3-1. Adding insult to injury, Michael Bradley picked up a yellow card and now has to sit out Saturday's home game against Honduras.
As an aside, TigerBlog is hardly a soccer expert, but he does remember that when the World Cup was in the U.S., games couldn't be played at several facilities unless they converted artificial turf to natural grass. The game last night was played on obviously rock-hard artificial turf, which TB dosn't understand.
"It wasn't good," Scott Bradley said.
Contrast that with the night of another big kid, Officer Paul Deppi of the Newtown (Pa.) police department. Deppi started Lower Bucks Lacrosse 16 years ago, and in all that time, he'd never, ever, ever been able to beat the rival neighboring power, Central Bucks. Until last night, that is, when LBL (TigerBlog Jr.'s team) beat Central Bucks 5-3 to advance to the Southeast Pennsylvania Youth Lacrosse Association 5/6 grade Final Four.
And there you have the ups and downs of being a kid, even one in his 40s.
Yes, he's a former Major League Baseball player and the overwhelmingly successful coach of the Tiger baseball team, and yes, he's sneaking up on 50 years old. Still, he's basically a big kid.
So you can imagine how the big kid was looking forward to Wednesday night. And why not? It couldn't have aligned better for Bradley in terms of viewing choices.
"Let's just say it ended up not being a great night of television watching," he said, chuckling.
Consider the lineup:
Former Princeton pitcher Ross Ohlendorf to face the Mets at 7.
Former teammate Randy Johnson, whose no-hitter Bradley caught when they were both with the Seattle Mariners, on the mound for the Giants against the Washington Nationals, going for his 300th career win, no less, also at 7.
Former Princeton pitcher Chris Young, on the mound against the Phils at 10. And oh, factor in Will Venable, just recalled from Triple-A and in the Padres' lineup as well.
And to top it all off, Bob and Michael Bradley, Scott's brother and nephew, were to go at 10 as well against Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying with the U.S. national team. Bob, the former Princeton player and coach, is the U.S. team coach; Michael is one of the best players on the team.
So what happened?
"Let's just say that having Ross get rained out was the highlight," Scott Bradley said.
The Mets-Pirates game was a no-go due to the weather. Johnson never got to pitch either, as his game was rained out as well.
As for the two that were played? Well, Young pitched well for six innings but took the loss, and Venable had an 0 for 4 night that included an error.
And that was nothing compared to soccer. The U.S. team gave up a goal in the first two minutes and the another one shortly thereafter to fall into a quick hole. The final was 3-1. Adding insult to injury, Michael Bradley picked up a yellow card and now has to sit out Saturday's home game against Honduras.
As an aside, TigerBlog is hardly a soccer expert, but he does remember that when the World Cup was in the U.S., games couldn't be played at several facilities unless they converted artificial turf to natural grass. The game last night was played on obviously rock-hard artificial turf, which TB dosn't understand.
"It wasn't good," Scott Bradley said.
Contrast that with the night of another big kid, Officer Paul Deppi of the Newtown (Pa.) police department. Deppi started Lower Bucks Lacrosse 16 years ago, and in all that time, he'd never, ever, ever been able to beat the rival neighboring power, Central Bucks. Until last night, that is, when LBL (TigerBlog Jr.'s team) beat Central Bucks 5-3 to advance to the Southeast Pennsylvania Youth Lacrosse Association 5/6 grade Final Four.
And there you have the ups and downs of being a kid, even one in his 40s.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
All Clear
Don't worry, FatherBlog. TigerBlog's okay.
TigerBlog was in the middle of a conference call discussing the first year of the NCAA's men's lacrosse statistician's manual, which TB had helped put together last year. The group was talking about issues such as whether or not to give a ground ball to a defenseman who gains possession during a flag down situation when an email arrived explaining that a gunman was loose on the Princeton campus.
No other details were included, other than the rather obvious advice to lock the doors and stay inside. About an hour later, a follow up email came announcing simply "all clear."
The hour between the emails was one of eerie silence, broken by some nervous humor. There was also lots of speculation, either that the incident was on the other side of campus or a hoax. Even now, little is known about it, other than it appears to be over and people are starting to come out of buildings.
TB stopped off this morning at TigerBlog Jr.'s middle school for an event, and it conjured up memories of attending public school by the Jersey Shore in the 1970s. At no point during any of that time, or even during four years the University of West Philadelphia, did TigerBlog ever consider the possiblity of a "gunman on campus."
Princeton's campus is an open one in almost every way, and that's one of the great parts of this school. To walk around here is to feel in many ways insulated from trouble, from the problems that could arise in this modern world in major cities not very far from here or from the news stories that too often occur about school shootings here or there. TB is sure the people at Virginia Tech felt the same sort of insulation, before their horrific experience of several years ago.
While it was all unfolding, TigerBlog stopped to consider the possibility that someone would be coming down the balcony with a gun, randomly shooting. Even with the reports of what was going on, it didn't seem possible. TB even joked during the call. "If something happens and TigerBlog doesn't make it, make sure you guys get rid of game-winning goal. It doesn't reflect what it's supposed to."
So now it's a little after noon, and things here are getting back to normal. A Columbine-Virginia Tech situation, mercifully, never unfolded. There's still a bit of unease around, of course. Over time, it'll drift back to that feeling of comfort and insulation.
TigerBlog will go back to writing about the subjects he usually does, such as what today's was going to be about. It was going to start out with the question of which Princeton alum in the Major Leagues has the better ERA and then say it was a trick question, since Chris Young and Ross Ohlendorf, who both pitch tonight, have the same 4.55 ERA. TB was going to throw in something about how Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley said that Will Venable was on his way back to the Padres from Triple-A, where it seemed like he hit a home run or two every game.
And then the first email came. And the morning changed.
As for this afternoon, TigerBlog's two new favorite words are "all clear."
TigerBlog was in the middle of a conference call discussing the first year of the NCAA's men's lacrosse statistician's manual, which TB had helped put together last year. The group was talking about issues such as whether or not to give a ground ball to a defenseman who gains possession during a flag down situation when an email arrived explaining that a gunman was loose on the Princeton campus.
No other details were included, other than the rather obvious advice to lock the doors and stay inside. About an hour later, a follow up email came announcing simply "all clear."
The hour between the emails was one of eerie silence, broken by some nervous humor. There was also lots of speculation, either that the incident was on the other side of campus or a hoax. Even now, little is known about it, other than it appears to be over and people are starting to come out of buildings.
TB stopped off this morning at TigerBlog Jr.'s middle school for an event, and it conjured up memories of attending public school by the Jersey Shore in the 1970s. At no point during any of that time, or even during four years the University of West Philadelphia, did TigerBlog ever consider the possiblity of a "gunman on campus."
Princeton's campus is an open one in almost every way, and that's one of the great parts of this school. To walk around here is to feel in many ways insulated from trouble, from the problems that could arise in this modern world in major cities not very far from here or from the news stories that too often occur about school shootings here or there. TB is sure the people at Virginia Tech felt the same sort of insulation, before their horrific experience of several years ago.
While it was all unfolding, TigerBlog stopped to consider the possibility that someone would be coming down the balcony with a gun, randomly shooting. Even with the reports of what was going on, it didn't seem possible. TB even joked during the call. "If something happens and TigerBlog doesn't make it, make sure you guys get rid of game-winning goal. It doesn't reflect what it's supposed to."
So now it's a little after noon, and things here are getting back to normal. A Columbine-Virginia Tech situation, mercifully, never unfolded. There's still a bit of unease around, of course. Over time, it'll drift back to that feeling of comfort and insulation.
TigerBlog will go back to writing about the subjects he usually does, such as what today's was going to be about. It was going to start out with the question of which Princeton alum in the Major Leagues has the better ERA and then say it was a trick question, since Chris Young and Ross Ohlendorf, who both pitch tonight, have the same 4.55 ERA. TB was going to throw in something about how Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley said that Will Venable was on his way back to the Padres from Triple-A, where it seemed like he hit a home run or two every game.
And then the first email came. And the morning changed.
As for this afternoon, TigerBlog's two new favorite words are "all clear."
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Pomp And Circumstance
Ah, graduation day. It takes TigerBlog back to 1977 and graduation from junior high. TB is still not sure why they have graduation for junior high. It's all the same kids in the same school the next year, so what's the point?
Still, graduation for the Pine Brook Middle School Class of 1977 was held at the local community college. As an aside, to show how the little farm town that TigerBlog grew up in has changed, Pine Brook is now an elementary school and the sprawling new Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School has taken over.
Anyway, at Pine Brook graduation 32 years ago, everyone had to line up by height, from shortest to tallest. TigerBlog was the fourth shortest boy in the class and stood behind one of his best friends, John Conte. TigerBlog then grew nearly a foot in high school, while John Conte today is one of the world's shorter concert pianists.
For some reason, TigerBlog remembers having to be fourth in line at middle school graduation more than anything else about either high school or college graduation. Maybe it's the fact that the ceremonies themselves aren't really what makes or breaks your experience as you go through high school and college.
For those graduating from Princeton today, and especially the more than 200 Princeton grads who were varsity athletes during their time here, the make-or-break of the experience happened long before the diplomas were handed out. Hopefully, it was a good run for all of them, and TB wishes them all well as they move forward.
TigerBlog was invited to the annual Monday before graduation picnic at Bill Tierney's house yesterday, when Tierney and his wife Helen host the seniors who are graduating and their families. During the event, assistant coach Bryce Chase pulled out the release TigerBlog had written on June 14, 2005, entitled "Tierney Announces Princeton Men's Lacrosse Class of 2009."
There were nine recruits in the class, and all nine remained with the program. Eight of the nine were huge contributors this past season, and most played considerably all four years. The ninth player in the group had three major knee injuries that forced him to withdraw for a year; he'll be a senior next year.
Among the comments from Tierney: "Mark is a very fast, left-handed athlete who possesses an accurate hard shot, both on the move and with time and room." The "Mark" in question was Mark Kovler; he would score 91 goals with that accurate hard shot and be a four-time All-America.
Looking at other recruiting releases from four years ago, TigerBlog found some other interesting stuff.
The field hockey release quoted head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn: "I could not be more pleased with the overall quality of this year's incoming class." Four years, four Ivy titles later, seems her optimism was justified.
Guy Gadowsky called Brandon Kushniruk "a winner and a leader." Kushniruk proved him right; he became captain of the team his senior year and was a key member of two NCAA tournament teams.
Bob Callahan called his men's squash recruits "one of the best classes Princeton has ever had." He may have sold Mauricio Sanchez, Hesham El Halaby, Kimlee Wong and the rest short; they won four Ivy titles and may be the best class in Princeton history.
Julie Shackford called Sarah Peteraf a player "with a big upside." Shackford also spoke of how Peteraf, from Hanover, N.H., was from a weaker soccer area and might need some time to adjust. Peteraf went from scoring four goals in her first three years combined to becoming one of the greatest clutch scorers in Princeton history and a first-team All-Ivy selection for the Ivy champion team her senior year.
On the other hand, there's the softball release that talks about Samantha O'Hara and her ability as a power-hitting catcher. O'Hara was unable to come back from a torn ACL she suffered at Princeton, though she became one of the great student workers in recent athletic department memory.
The releases are filled with names that have become familiar to Tiger fans and others who never became starters or even stayed with the programs. Each name, though, belongs to an individual, someone whose road through Princeton began with a few words on goprincetontigers.com, continued with a unique path for each of them and ends today with a short ceremony in front of Nassau Hall.
Good luck to all of them. See you in the P-Rade.
Still, graduation for the Pine Brook Middle School Class of 1977 was held at the local community college. As an aside, to show how the little farm town that TigerBlog grew up in has changed, Pine Brook is now an elementary school and the sprawling new Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School has taken over.
Anyway, at Pine Brook graduation 32 years ago, everyone had to line up by height, from shortest to tallest. TigerBlog was the fourth shortest boy in the class and stood behind one of his best friends, John Conte. TigerBlog then grew nearly a foot in high school, while John Conte today is one of the world's shorter concert pianists.
For some reason, TigerBlog remembers having to be fourth in line at middle school graduation more than anything else about either high school or college graduation. Maybe it's the fact that the ceremonies themselves aren't really what makes or breaks your experience as you go through high school and college.
For those graduating from Princeton today, and especially the more than 200 Princeton grads who were varsity athletes during their time here, the make-or-break of the experience happened long before the diplomas were handed out. Hopefully, it was a good run for all of them, and TB wishes them all well as they move forward.
TigerBlog was invited to the annual Monday before graduation picnic at Bill Tierney's house yesterday, when Tierney and his wife Helen host the seniors who are graduating and their families. During the event, assistant coach Bryce Chase pulled out the release TigerBlog had written on June 14, 2005, entitled "Tierney Announces Princeton Men's Lacrosse Class of 2009."
There were nine recruits in the class, and all nine remained with the program. Eight of the nine were huge contributors this past season, and most played considerably all four years. The ninth player in the group had three major knee injuries that forced him to withdraw for a year; he'll be a senior next year.
Among the comments from Tierney: "Mark is a very fast, left-handed athlete who possesses an accurate hard shot, both on the move and with time and room." The "Mark" in question was Mark Kovler; he would score 91 goals with that accurate hard shot and be a four-time All-America.
Looking at other recruiting releases from four years ago, TigerBlog found some other interesting stuff.
The field hockey release quoted head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn: "I could not be more pleased with the overall quality of this year's incoming class." Four years, four Ivy titles later, seems her optimism was justified.
Guy Gadowsky called Brandon Kushniruk "a winner and a leader." Kushniruk proved him right; he became captain of the team his senior year and was a key member of two NCAA tournament teams.
Bob Callahan called his men's squash recruits "one of the best classes Princeton has ever had." He may have sold Mauricio Sanchez, Hesham El Halaby, Kimlee Wong and the rest short; they won four Ivy titles and may be the best class in Princeton history.
Julie Shackford called Sarah Peteraf a player "with a big upside." Shackford also spoke of how Peteraf, from Hanover, N.H., was from a weaker soccer area and might need some time to adjust. Peteraf went from scoring four goals in her first three years combined to becoming one of the greatest clutch scorers in Princeton history and a first-team All-Ivy selection for the Ivy champion team her senior year.
On the other hand, there's the softball release that talks about Samantha O'Hara and her ability as a power-hitting catcher. O'Hara was unable to come back from a torn ACL she suffered at Princeton, though she became one of the great student workers in recent athletic department memory.
The releases are filled with names that have become familiar to Tiger fans and others who never became starters or even stayed with the programs. Each name, though, belongs to an individual, someone whose road through Princeton began with a few words on goprincetontigers.com, continued with a unique path for each of them and ends today with a short ceremony in front of Nassau Hall.
Good luck to all of them. See you in the P-Rade.
Monday, June 1, 2009
You Didn't Take The Prerequisite?
TigerBlog used to think that Ivy League athletes were no different than athletes at any other school. Then came the 1998 NCAA championship game in men's lacrosse.
About an hour before the game, TigerBlog walked up the hallway from the tunnel at Rutgers Stadium, going past the Maryland lockerroom on the way to Princeton's. The music coming from Maryland's was deafening. There was no music in Princeton's. Instead, the room was quiet, with some small talk going on. Two freshmen who weren't on the 32-man roster for the game were near the door, and TigerBlog overheard their conversation, which was basically about how one couldn't take a class he wanted to the next semester because he didn't realize that he hadn't taken the prerequisite.
Since then, TB has thought that there is a uniqueness to an Ivy League athlete, in much the same way there is to an athlete at the service academies. Ivy League athletes buy into the Ivy League philosophy of having an athletic population that reflects the rest of the student body and sees athletics. At the same time, they recognize that in most cases there are no limits on the level of athletic success an Ivy League athlete or team can achieve.
By now, every Ivy League sports fan has read the Wall Street Journal article by Darren Everson entitled "Can the Ivy League Get Its Game Back?"
With all due respect to the article, TigerBlog asks the following question: What in the world are you watching?
Ivy League athletics are top to bottom extraordinary and in many ways a model for what college athletics should be. Teams across the eight schools have intense competition among themselves in 33 sports, and many - make that nearly all - of those sports are nationally competitive as well.
Ivy League men's hockey, which the article refers to as "becoming weaker," saw three of its six teams reach the NCAA tournament. The NCAA men's lacrosse tournament saw three Ivy teams in the field, with two in the quarterfinals and one in the final. Ivy teams are national factors in those sports, as well as across the board in sports like swimming and diving, track and field, soccer, field hockey, fencing, wrestling, rowing and others.
The article points to a decline in basketball, and while it's possible that there is some merit to the argument, TigerBlog looks back at the mid-1980s as another time when Ivy League basketball was being written off. In fact, the sport reached one of its most glorious eras in the 15 years that followed.
As for football, there are limitations from being in the Football Championship Subdivision. Today's "as an aside" moment is the fact that TigerBlog would love to have been in the meeting when the NCAA decided that the terms "Football Championship Subdivision" and "Football Bowl Subdivision" were the way to go.
Still, the Ivy League was founded on two principles: no postseason in football and no athletic scholarships. It's hard to end those two traditions. Besides, the Ivy League routinely is represented by players in the NFL, and there has been no shortage of players who are eager to play Ivy League football and be part of some highly competitive games.
The WSJ article shows a picture of Harvard in the 1920 Rose Bowl and refers to it as the "glory days." You could go on goprincetontigers.com or cornellbigred.com or gocrimson.com or any other other league sites and find much more recent pictures of the current glory days.
In other words, if you want to write a story about the decline of Ivy athletics, you can. Just like you can write about anything from any slant. It doesn't make it true.
Can the Ivy League fix its sports teams? The rest of college athletics should be so broken.
About an hour before the game, TigerBlog walked up the hallway from the tunnel at Rutgers Stadium, going past the Maryland lockerroom on the way to Princeton's. The music coming from Maryland's was deafening. There was no music in Princeton's. Instead, the room was quiet, with some small talk going on. Two freshmen who weren't on the 32-man roster for the game were near the door, and TigerBlog overheard their conversation, which was basically about how one couldn't take a class he wanted to the next semester because he didn't realize that he hadn't taken the prerequisite.
Since then, TB has thought that there is a uniqueness to an Ivy League athlete, in much the same way there is to an athlete at the service academies. Ivy League athletes buy into the Ivy League philosophy of having an athletic population that reflects the rest of the student body and sees athletics. At the same time, they recognize that in most cases there are no limits on the level of athletic success an Ivy League athlete or team can achieve.
By now, every Ivy League sports fan has read the Wall Street Journal article by Darren Everson entitled "Can the Ivy League Get Its Game Back?"
With all due respect to the article, TigerBlog asks the following question: What in the world are you watching?
Ivy League athletics are top to bottom extraordinary and in many ways a model for what college athletics should be. Teams across the eight schools have intense competition among themselves in 33 sports, and many - make that nearly all - of those sports are nationally competitive as well.
Ivy League men's hockey, which the article refers to as "becoming weaker," saw three of its six teams reach the NCAA tournament. The NCAA men's lacrosse tournament saw three Ivy teams in the field, with two in the quarterfinals and one in the final. Ivy teams are national factors in those sports, as well as across the board in sports like swimming and diving, track and field, soccer, field hockey, fencing, wrestling, rowing and others.
The article points to a decline in basketball, and while it's possible that there is some merit to the argument, TigerBlog looks back at the mid-1980s as another time when Ivy League basketball was being written off. In fact, the sport reached one of its most glorious eras in the 15 years that followed.
As for football, there are limitations from being in the Football Championship Subdivision. Today's "as an aside" moment is the fact that TigerBlog would love to have been in the meeting when the NCAA decided that the terms "Football Championship Subdivision" and "Football Bowl Subdivision" were the way to go.
Still, the Ivy League was founded on two principles: no postseason in football and no athletic scholarships. It's hard to end those two traditions. Besides, the Ivy League routinely is represented by players in the NFL, and there has been no shortage of players who are eager to play Ivy League football and be part of some highly competitive games.
The WSJ article shows a picture of Harvard in the 1920 Rose Bowl and refers to it as the "glory days." You could go on goprincetontigers.com or cornellbigred.com or gocrimson.com or any other other league sites and find much more recent pictures of the current glory days.
In other words, if you want to write a story about the decline of Ivy athletics, you can. Just like you can write about anything from any slant. It doesn't make it true.
Can the Ivy League fix its sports teams? The rest of college athletics should be so broken.
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