1.53 Meters

By now you probably are aware of the controversy, such as it is, around the U.S. women's team at the World Cup.

The Americans (TigerBlog actually first wrote "the Tigers" out of reflex) opened the World Cup with a 13-0 win over Thailand in what was the largest blowout in the history of the men's or women's tournament. The issue wasn't how many goals the U.S. scored; it was the way the team celebrated them long after the game was way, way out of reach.

The backlash came from all over, with some defenders mixed in.

For TigerBlog, he thinks that almost anything goes in the World Cup. This isn't a mismatch in a college or high school game. This is the World Cup.

Remember, goal differential could become a tiebreaker at some point. So score as many as you can.

Ah, but as he said, almost anything goes. If you've scored your first World Cup goal, then yes, that's a reason to celebrate. If you've been there before, score and then go line up and keep playing. The excess celebrating is unfortunate.

That would be the case for men or for women too. TB saw some comments, including from U.S. head coach Jill Ellis, that the question wouldn't be asked on the men's side. TB disagrees with that.

Then again, he still clings to the fleeting hope that there will always be a place for something called "good sportsmanship" on the highest levels of competition.

When it comes to soccer on the world stage, TigerBlog trusts Grant Wahl more than anyone else. Grant is a Princeton alum and former Office of Athletic Communications student-worker who is probably the foremost soccer writer in the world these days.

He wrote THIS for SI.com.

Someone who disagreed with him was Diana Matheson, another Princeton alum. Diana played soccer at Princeton and was a first-team All-America on the Tigers' 2004 NCAA Final Four team.

These days, Diana is doing Canadian TV, and she was part of a discussion with three other women who were all in agreement that the Americans should not have celebrated the way they did.

So, to sum it up, TB agreed with Grant about the score and Diana about the celebrating.

As for Diana Matheson, she needs to be in the conversation among the greatest women athletes in Princeton history and especially in the conversation for the most accomplished Princeton athletes beyond just their college careers.

When you think in those terms, you think immediately of Ashleigh Johnson, the women's water polo goalie who won an Olympic gold medal as a Princeton undergrad. Certainly she is either at or near the top of that list.

So is Caroline Lind, the women's open rower who won two Olympic gold medals. TB would have them 1-2.

But Matheson's post-Princeton career was also extraordinary.
 
Matheson made 203 appearances for the Canadian national team, including in the World Cup and the Olympics. In fact, she won two Olympic bronze medals, including when she scored the game-winner in the third-place game in the 2012 Games. She also won a gold medal at the Pan Am Games.

What makes Matheson's international success even more impressive is that she is not exactly tall. In fact, she is barely more than five-feet, or, as her Wikipedia page says, 1.53 meters. In an international game that values physical presence, Matheson was able to use her skill, her field vision, her incredible fitness and her desire to become one of the most successful players of all time.

If you forgot the 2004 Princeton team, by the way, the Tigers became the only Ivy League team ever to reach the Final Four in women's soccer, an accomplishment that still stands. The 2017 Tigers came close, reaching the quarterfinals.

Matheson still ranks second all-time in assists at Princeton, a testament to her ability to see the field. More than stats, though, Matheson at Princeton was what she became internationally - a stabilizing force and calming influence in any situation.

For this World Cup, she is part of the Canadian TV crew.

When TB saw the clip of her after the first game for the U.S., it reminded him of her time at Princeton and what a great player she was here. And after she left.

In fact, she's one of the best Princeton has ever produced. Without a doubt.

The Tour Guides

The theme for today's discussion is that when someone named "Tierney" asks TigerBlog to do a favor, odds are good that he'll do it.

Most recently that would be Trevor Tierney, the former first-team All-American men's lacrosse goalie who graduated after leading Princeton to the 2001 NCAA championship. Trevor was one of three Tierneys on that team, along with his brother Brendan, an attackman who scored the game-winner in the semifinal win over Virginia a year earlier, and his father Bill, who won six of those championships at Princeton and since has added another at Denver.

It was about two weeks ago that Trevor emailed TigerBlog and said that the club team that he runs in Denver had added a girls' team for the first time and that the team would be playing in a tournament near Princeton. Trevor was looking for someone to give the team a tour of the campus.

TB said he would take care of it. No problem.

And so it was last Saturday at around 12:30, after the day started long before that at the bike race in Philadelphia, that TB arrived outside of Jadwin Gym to find a team of eighth grade girls and their parents waiting for him.

None of them had ever been to Princeton. And they had TigerBlog as a tour guide.

Actually, they had two tour guides. Miss TigerBlog was there as well.

TB thought it would be good to bring her, since she could talk about her experiences at Princeton as a student and a lacrosse player. He figured the girls would be really interested in what she had to say about the combination.

When TB mentioned it to his daughter, her immediate reaction was one of these two: 1) "of course, can't wait to help," or 2) "I'll do it for $10."

It was actually somewhere in between. She said she'd do it, but could TB give her 10 for gas? And when TB tried to give her $10, what did she say? "Can you make it $20? I want to get lunch."

Regardless, MTB was there when the tour started. And, as TB thought, the girls had a million questions for her.

The tour started inside Jadwin, on the main court. Then it was the squash courts, Caldwell and then back outside to Finney and Campbell Fields. That's where the questions for MTB really began.

What's it like to be an athlete? How often do you practice? How do you balance school and lacrosse? What is the fall season like? How did you end up here? What are you studying? Do you get to have fun?

And a bunch of others. Lots of them. The one that was TB's favorite was "does everybody get to play the same amount?"

MTB answered all of their questions. She went over the routines and the schedules, in-season and out-of-season. She talked about her experiences and gave them advice. She told them about how important it is to work hard in practice and to make sure you're doing your schoolwork. She talked about what it's like to be a Princeton athlete.

For TigerBlog, it was great. First of all, it hasn't really been all that long since she was the eighth grader looking up to the Princeton Athletes she met along the way.

For another, it was great to see her explain to the girls what it meant to her and what she'd gotten out of being a lacrosse player at Princeton. It's been interesting for TB, to see all of the things he's worked on here for three decades through the eyes of his daughter. It's a new dimension.

The tour went out into the football stadium, and then MTB showed them the walk the team makes on its way to Sherrerd Field. Once there, she showed the girls the facility and answered more questions. Then they all took a few pictures together, and MTB was off to her job.

TigerBlog then showed them around the rest of the campus. He stopped off in the rink and pointed out that Princeton had three players who had gone directly to the NHL this season and asked if Denver could match that.

He showed them all over, to Nassau Hall, the chapel, the eating clubs, Prospect gardens, all over. Pretty much everywhere they went, the kids and their parents stopped for pictures. TB pointed out that if this had been exactly one week earlier, the campus would have been swarming with people, rather than empty. In fact, it was right at 2 that they were at Dillon, where the P-Rade had been one week before.

You know how long it took to show them around? Just short of three hours.

It was well worth it. The kids and their parents loved it.

And for TB, it was a reminder of just how special a campus it is. In fact, one of the parents mentioned that, how lucky it must be to go to work every day at a place like that.

He was right of course.

Between that and the way his daughter had presented her team and her school, it's likely that nobody enjoyed it more than TigerBlog.

Eighth In Insta Interactions

TigerBlog wrote about Derek DiGregorio yesterday and the continuing efforts of his family to raise money to combat Ataxia Telangiectasia, the deadly disease that struck Derek as a child.

What TigerBlog forgot to mention was that Derek is an honorary member of the Princeton Class of 2012, an effort that was spearheaded by former men's soccer player Manny Sardinha. TB was reminded of this in an email yesterday that said: "Manny chose to create a relationship between Derek and his class after featuring Derek's Dreams and the ATCP at an awareness day with the PVC at a men's soccer game.

Derek's Dreams is the foundation that his family created a long time ago. The ATCP is the A-T Children's Project.

The email came from Jess Deutsch, the Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Services. She was also one of the people there Saturday morning at "The Million Dollar Bike Ride" in support of Derek.

Jess is a Princeton alum, as is her husband Ted. She played tennis, and he played baseball.

Thanks Jess for the heads up on Derek and the Class of 2012. It's another way that the Princeton community has rallied around the DiGregorio family.

TB should have remembered about the Class of 2012. Steve Carell was the Class Day speaker, and there was a picture of Carell with Derek, his brothers Zack and Aaron and Howard Levy's children Lior, Mia and Noa.

TB got the email from Jess yesterday morning, right around the time he saw that Dei Lynam had knocked down a hole-in-one. Dei is a longtime NBA commentator on television who, among other things, has been the Princeton women's basketball color commentator on ESPN+ the last two years.

And how did TB see that Dei had a hole-in-one? On Instagram, of course.

TB hasn't talked to Dei since the end of last basketball season, but he feels pretty up-to-date on what's going on with her, her husband, her kids, her family because of her Instagram posts. He can stay in touch with his cousin Nicole the same way.

Dei posted a video of the ground as she walked along, from the fairway to the green and finally the cup, where you could see the golf ball and hear her reaction. It was a very cute video, and it's also a very 2019 way of sharing information.

TB then texted Dei, who responded that it was actually the third hole-in-one of her golfing career. That's three more than TB has had, though he was once playing with someone who had a hole-in-one and who, upon seeing the ball in the cup, replied calmly "this should really help my score."

In other social media news, there's a company called SkullSparks that is in the college athletics social media business. Yesterday, along with Jess' email and Dei's golf video, TB also saw a graphic from SkullSparks, who had researched the main athletics Instagram accounts for FCS schools to determine which ones had the most interactions in 2018.

Princeton was the eighth-ranked team in the top 25 that SkullSparks released. Only one other Ivy League school was in the top 25, and that was Columbia at No. 15.

It's good to see that the social media efforts of Princeton Athletics are, by this analytic, very successful. Princeton's communications, marketing and multimedia teams have put a lot of effort in the area of social media, recognizing the importance of it in today's information market.

In fact, the social media explosion has completely reshaped college athletic communications, much the way that the first athletics websites did so 20 years ago or so. There was a time that the best metric of success for Princeton communications would be the number of page views and unique visitors that goprincetontigers.com would get on a monthly basis.

Now, social media has become more important in many ways - not all, but many. Think about it. Where do you go for information?

TB hopes there will always be a market for postgame stories, but really, the immediacy of social media has overtaken that, TB thinks. As such, it asks all kinds of questions as to the kinds of content that needs to be produced, what's most effective and what's next.

These are the questions that Princeton Athletics continues to ask. The rankings that SkullSparks put out yesterday was a nice reminder that these efforts have been effective.

TB was happy to see that Princeton was eighth.

If you're wondering who was first, it was Villanova. Oh, and Sacred Heart was fifth.

In this case, eighth is good. And a sign that there is always more work to do.

Another Early Morning Ride

TigerBlog wrote this more than two years ago about Zack DiGregorio:
In some ways, the person Zack DiGregorio most reminds TigerBlog of is, well, TigerBlog.

That was back when Zack was a Penn senior and a student worker in the athletic communications office there. He's also a Princeton High grad, and one-time, long ago, he was a Princeton basketball ball boy, along with TigerBlog Jr. and Lior Levy, the son of Princeton basketball alum Howard Levy.

Now two years later Zack is a Penn grad, just like TB. He's also got the same laid-back dry humor and sarcasm that TigerBlog finds to be one of his own most endearing qualities.

Because he knows Zack so well - literally from the day he was born - it came as no shock to him that when TB arrived on the Penn campus Saturday morning - really, really, really early Saturday morning - the first thing Zack said to him was "you're only here because it makes good summer blog content, right?"

If anything, TB would have probably said the same thing to Zack if he'd given him a chance. Yeah, they're alike in a lot of ways.

There is a reality that Zack has lived with for much of his life, though, that TB has not had to face directly. And that reality is why the two of them, and a bunch of others with connections to Princeton Athletics and the DiGregorio family, were at Penn Saturday morning around 6:30.

The occasion was "The Million Dollar Bike Ride," an annual event that raises money to combat any number of rare diseases. And if there are any people out there who know all about rare diseases and fighting to combat them, it's the DiGregorio family.

They have been at this a long time, ever since Zack's brother Derek, the middle of the three boys, was diagnosed with Ataxia-Telangiectasia, a disease that affects about three out of every one million children in this country. The disease, which TB doesn't quite understand, attacks the muscular development of young children, often being mistaken for diseases like cerebral palsey, and then ultimately breaks down the immune system. The mortality rate is nearly 100%, and life expectancy beyond 20 is rare.

And this is what the DiGregorios were thrown into.

TigerBlog has seen a lot of people deal with a lot of things, but he's never seen anything that rivals what the DiGregorios have done. Startling from pretty much zero as far as A-T was concerned, they have attacked their situation through education and fund-raising in ways that have marveled TigerBlog from the start.

Steve DiGregorio, Derek's father, is a former Princeton assistant football coach who has been a high school teacher and coach for nearly 20 years now. He is still one of the most-liked people who has ever worked in Jadwin Gym, though, and the Princeton community has never neglected him or his family.

Steve and his wife Nadia have balanced it all, along with Zack and the youngest brother Aaron, now a track athlete at Franklin & Marshall. And through it all there has been Derek, who has been the biggest marvel of them all, the one who fights it the hardest, who made it through Princeton High School, who won national championships in martial arts, who has never been at a loss for a laugh or a joke and a handshake and a smile.

The bike ride in Philadelphia was the latest effort to make a difference.

Howard Levy was there, along with Lior. So was Ted Deutsch, a Princeton alum and baseball player, as well as his wife Jess, now the Associate Director of Athletics for Student-Athlete Services, two people who also been there every step of the way with this.

Charlie Thompson, the head athletic trainer, and his wife Sandy were also riding. 

The ride itself features team after team of groups who are like the DiGregorios, fighting their own fights against diseases very few people have ever heard of, diseases like A-T, which affects three of every one million children in the country.

There were three different distances - 13 miles, 34 miles or 73 miles. This is where the morning turned into middle school a bit - "well, how far are you going?" "I don't know, how about you?" "Well, I'll go as far as you go."

As it turned out, Howard made the suggestion at the 6.5-mile turnaround for the 13-mile loop that perhaps it would be good to go a little further up Kelly Drive and then came back. TB was okay with that, and he set out, only to find the rest of the group had gone back except for the under-25 crowd. Then he went to the top of this huge hill and came back. 

As for Digger (that's what everyone calls Steve), his bike lost its chain at the start, and before TB could figure anything out, he was riding along alone. Then he found most of the group, and eventually spent a few miles riding with Ted and then a few more with Zack.

These days, Zack is working in the political world. There might be law school in his future. Maybe he and TBJ will one day either 1) start their own law firm or 2) run against each other for something. Or maybe both.

It was fun to ride with him. He's a great kid, well, not a kid anymore, but still, he's a great whatever he is now. With a great future.

Surrounded by a great family. And it's that family that inspires people like TigerBlog to try to help however they can.

Yes, it's good summer blog content. That part is funny.

It's also about the best cause TB knows. That part is very serious.

End Of 2018-19, Day 1

As he's said before, TigerBlog is a huge fan of puzzles.

His favorite is "Boggle," which he plays on his phone. It's a scramble-word game. Two minutes. Find as many words as possible.

He's also stumbled on some on Twitter, including one he saw last Friday.

Hey, the athletic year just ended. What did you expect for today?

Anywhere, here's one of the puzzles that he saw last week, one that has something of a Princeton theme: Add two letters to TIGER, then scramble the letters to form the name of a classic film from the 1950s.

Think about that one. TB will give you the answer later.

As he said, the end of the women's track and field discus event marked the end of the 2018-19 athletic year at Princeton. So what would you like to talk about today? 

How about John Sadak? 

The former Princeton men's and women's basketball play-by-play man made his Major League debut Saturday night when he was part of the New York Mets broadcast team on WCBS radio. Sadak did the game with Howie Rose, the veteran Mets announcer.

Sadak is an outstanding announcer, one of the best. It's just that it's not really easy to make the jump into the Major Leagues.

He spent a lot of time doing Minor League games, in Wilmington and Scranton-Wilkes Barre. He's also had a lot of success of late, including doing NFL games and NBA games. 

And now he can add Major League Baseball to his resume. It couldn't happen for a better guy, just as TB has often said about another former Princeton play-by-play man, Tom McCarthy.

TB saw a tweet from Sadak about his first game for the Mets, which, by the way, was the first of 16 he'll be doing this season. TigerBlog did a lot of Princeton basketball with Sadak, and he answered the tweet with congratulations and a reminder that he has to be Sadak's all-time favorite broadcast partner.

In reality TB knows he isn't. In fact, he's not even Sadak's favorite from Princeton. That would be Noah Savage, whom TB brought in as his replacement to work with Sadak, and the two immediately clicked into a first-class team. When Sadak left, TB moved Derek Jones over from the women's side to do men's play-by-play, and he as well has created a really, really high quality team along with Savage. In fact, both of them got to do games on ESPN this past season.

So congratulations to John Sadak. TB is very happy for him. He'd love to see him get a full-time Major League position.

Still working on the puzzle, by the way? 

With the end of the academic year, TB saw the first real sign that summer is here for Princeton Athletics - the start of sports camp season. The first two, at least the first two he saw, were basketball camps, boys and then girls, in Jadwin Gym.

Pretty soon the campus will be swarming with camps across basically all of Princeton's sports. That's one of the best parts of summer, seeing the facilities swell with kids of all ages and skill levels, with coaches and athletes there with them.

As for the basketball camp, TB wandered into Jadwin Gym to the sound of balls bouncing and saw that it was the girls on the court. On the far side he saw a familiar face, one that he recognized from the pictures he's seen of her after she was hired as the head women's basketball coach at Princeton two weeks ago.

So TB introduced himself to Carla Berube, whom he'd spoken with and texted but never actually met. It was good to say hello. He's looking forward to their first podcast, coming soon.

Also coming soon will be the start of the fall season. If you looked at goprincetontigers.com at one point late last week, you saw the schedules for most of the coming fall seasons.

Yeah, that's getting ahead of things. In the meantime, it's Day 1 post-2018-19.

And oh yeah, the answer to the puzzle? If you forgot, here's the clue again:
Add two letters to TIGER, then scramble the letters to form the name of a classic film from the 1950s.

The answer?

Vertigo.

Hey, there's not another game for nearly three months. TB has to come up with something.

The One Remaining

A week ago, the Princeton campus was swarming with people.

It was Reunions, which brings more than 20,000 people annually to the events and the tents. It's a glorious time to be Princetonian, and as TigerBlog has said before, this is very unique. There's certainly nothing approaching it at his own alma mater.

For three days, the campus swells, parking spots are at a premium and orange and black is everywhere. It's loud and crowded and an endless stream of people, all celebrating at a place that's meant so much to them.

There's every age group, from the old guard to the youngest alums to the little children who are tagging along. It's one massive wave of people.

Then there's Class Day Monday and Commencement Tuesday. They don't have the numbers that Reunions does, but it's still a jammed campus.

And then graduation ceremonies end. And then the campus gets quiet. It's eerie, actually.

TigerBlog has been around here for 30 years, and he's seen it each time. Graduation ends. The campus clears out.

It's strange.

Now it's a week out from Reunions, and graduates have dispersed all over the world. And now there's that real quiet.

The athletic year hasn't quite ended though.

There are nearly 1,000 Princeton athletes, and all but one has finished competing for the year.

The one remaining is Obiageri Amaechi, who competes in the discus throw tomorrow at the NCAA championships in Indianapolis. When she is finished with either her third or sixth throw, depending on if she advances, then the athletic year is over.

Amaechi is a sophomore who finished seventh in the event a year ago, which earned her first-team All-America honors. She is also the Ivy League champion in the event this year, and she is also the Ivy League record-holder in the event.

There are 24 athletes who have advanced to the final tomorrow - it's at 6:05 Eastern time on ESPN3 by the way - from the regionals. There will be two flights of 12 throwers who will get three attempts each, and then the top nine will get three additional throws.

Whoever has the furthest throw wins, whether it's on the first or sixth attempt.

So knowing that, where would you want to go? Last, to know exactly what you need?

Amaechi will be in the exact opposite situation. She throws first in the first flight, which will set the standard.

The top eight finishers earn first-team All-America. The next eight are second-team.

Amaechi is one of three Princeton qualifiers for the NCAAs. The other two - steeplechaser Ed Trippas and hurdler Joey Daniels - competed Wednesday and did not advance.

The steeplechase is TB's favorite track event, and Princeton certainly has a great heritage, most notably with NCAA champ and two-time Olympic finalist Donn Cabral. Trippas, just a sophomore, has two more cracks at it.

As for Daniels, his story is fascinating. When he qualified for the NCAA championships, he became the first Princeton hurdler ever to do so.

In fact, he is just the fourth Ivy League hurdler ever to reach the NCAA finals. And when was the last time an Ivy Leaguer did so?

How about 1960?

Like TB said, that's fascinating. Why would the Ivy League struggle so much to produce good hurdlers?

Daniels didn't reach the final, but he did set an Ivy League record with a 13.70. The old league record was 13.74, set in 2014 by Cornell's Max Hairston. Daniels finished in 12th place, which earns him second-team All-American.

So Amaechi throws at 6:05 tomorrow. ESPN3.

And then the athletic year is over.

It was a year that featured 15 championships, 12 of them in the Ivy League, and a host of other great moments. And, like most athletic years, it seemed to come and go in a blink.

It started with a women's soccer game in August.

It ends tomorrow with one last athlete, looking for one last All-American finish for the year.

Remembering Tyler Campbell ’42

Today is the 75th anniversary of one of the most extraordinary moments in all of history.

As you probably know, it was 75 years ago today that Allied troops crossed the English Channel and landed on the French coastal town of Normandy, where they began what would be a nearly 11-month process of liberating France and eventually destroying Nazi Germany to end World War II in Europe.

The first day was horrific, as 4,414 Allied soldiers - primarily Americans, British and Canadians -  were killed on those beaches, code-named Juno, Sword, Gold, Utah and of course Omaha, where nearly half of those casualties were killed. Another 6,000 were wounded.

Imagine, if you possibly can, the horror of crossing the channel that morning, knowing what probably awaited. It was heroism of the highest order, and there was really no alternative way to win the war. TigerBlog, for one, cannot.

The planning that went into the invasion was enormous, complete with deceptions to fool the Germans as to the actual location of the invasion and the commander who would lead it, as well as parachuting dummies to try to make it seem like there was another attack already underway elsewhere.

In the end, there would be 156,000 Allied troops who would be part of the operation in some fashion.

And that was D-Day, 75 years ago today.

Not that all heroism was reserved for that day. The Allies' march across France and into Germany wasn't easy even after the beachhead at Normandy had been established.

If you've ever been on Finney-Campbell practice fields at Princeton and wondered who Campbell was, he was Tyler Campbell. And who was Tyler Campbell?

Tyler Campbell came to Princeton from Gilman in Baltimore as a member of the Class of 1942. He was small at 150 pounds, but he played hockey and lightweight football at Princeton. And lacrosse.

He was a goalie, in fact, one good enough that he is a member of the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

He was also a chemical engineering major, but he when the Americans were drawn into World War II, Campbell left Princeton to join the Army one year short of getting his degree. He would never make it back to Princeton to finish.

He completed Officer Training School and then volunteered for a front line position. He would be killed on Sept. 21, 1944, in Southern France, at the age of 22.

TigerBlog wrote a feature about Campbell back in 2010. Here's part of what he wrote:
Before his death, Campbell would serve in North Africa and be part of amphibious landings in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio (where he was first wounded) and Southern France. He would be wounded twice, and he would earn a Silver Star, a Bronze Star Medal and an Oak Leaf Cluster to the Bronze Star Medal.
He was promoted to First Lieutenant and then to Captain.

On Jan. 31, 1944, he led his outnumbered platoon against a German unit that was firing on him and his men from a house. Campbell led his men to a covered position and then directed a mortar attack while standing in clear view of the house.

On May 28, 1944, he coordinated an artillery attack on another German position as shells exploded 10 yards from him, this after he again led his platoon into a ditch to shield them from the attack.
On Sept. 13, 1944, eight days before his death, he climbed a tree to give him a clear line of sight to the German position. Wounded once by a shot to his ear, he left briefly for medical attention and then returned to the same tree, ultimately spending 45 minutes in the tree until the German machine gun nest was wiped out.

"They put him in a hospital bed," Cook says. "He just got up, left the hospital and went back to the same tree. Unbelievable."

Five days later, he sat down to write his brother. Three days after that, he was dead.

"On the day that he was killed," General O'Daniel wrote to the Campbells, "near le Marchessant, France, he was leading his company up a heavily wooded hill and while personally directing a flanking movement of one of his platoons, was killed by machine gun fire. He died almost instantly. He was buried on 23 September at the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Juan, France."

You can read the entire story HERE.

Today is the anniversary of D-Day, which started the liberation of France and the end of World War II. It came with an extraordinary cost.

One of those who paid the highest price was a former Princeton men's lacrosse goalie named Tyler Campbell.

The field that bears his name is one that few people ever notice or consider when they walk past it.

Perhaps they should.

To The Class Of 2019

TigerBlog stood on the grass outside of Nassau Hall around 1 yesterday afternoon as the recessional from Commencement was in full swing.

At one point, a father asked him if he would take a picture of the family. That would be the first of four such requests.

TB is also pretty sure he found his way into the background of about 100 pictures, since people were posing everywhere. If you have a picture with someone you can't identify in a bright orange pullover, it was probably TB.

This is a common scene at graduation. There was something that TB had seen never before, in all the years he's gone over to watch the ceremony and its aftermath.

One young man in his cap and gown walked past TB and then heard his name called. He turned, and there were, presumably, his parents. First he got a hug and a congratulations from what appeared to be his father.

Then a woman who TB guesses was the young man's mother went to give him a hug, only she paused just before she got to him. And then she just smiled - and then burst into tears.

TB almost teared up watching it. Almost.

That instantly vaulted to be TB's favorite part of graduation. His second favorite was watching the Princeton athletes, now graduates, getting together one more time as teammates, posing with families and coaches.

Speaking of coaches, if you think it's emotional for the parents, imagine the coaches. They first saw these athletes when they were, what, 15 or 16? And, in accordance with all NCAA rules about contacting prospective student athletes, they began to form relationships with them.

Eventually, they'd come to coach them through four years of ups and downs, with hopefully more of the first than the second. They are intense relationships, between coach and player, even the best players. The dynamic is one where the mentor is trying to push the student to achieve at the very highest level, all while maintaining the other side of the relationship, the one that cares for that athlete as an individual.

And then they get to graduation.

There are two things that seem to be true each year at the ceremony. First, it doesn't matter what time TB gets there or where he's standing; the first person he sees will be men's soccer coach Jim Barlow.

Second, the men's lacrosse players, whom TB wanted to get a picture of, are going to be among the last to walk out.

Both were true again yesterday.

By the time the the lacrosse guys made their way past the area where TB was standing, he'd seen pretty much every other team. It's such a wonderful sight - athletes who wore different versions of orange and black with "Princeton" on them now all wearing caps, gowns and smiles.

After all, they did it. They started off as green freshmen on orientation, and they made it all the way to Nassau Hall on this Tuesday. Every single one of them grows through the process, and the final product is extraordinary to see.

TB could go on and on about graduation. Instead, he'll cut it short today and simply show you (and a big congratulations to all of the members of the Class of 2019):

Women's lacrosse

Women's open rowing

 Wrestling

Women's squash (spelling 2019)

Men's hockey

Field hockey

Women's cross country

Women's soccer

Men's heavyweight rowing

Men's lacrosse

 Men's lightweight rowing

Men's squash

 

 Men's soccer

A Night At The Tewaaraton

TigerBlog and Grant Ament go way back.

To most college lacrosse fans, Ament is the Penn State attackman who shattered the NCAA record with 96 assist this year while leading the Nittany Lions to the Final Four. To TigerBlog, he'll always be the kid who played with and against TigerBlog Jr. starting in fifth grade.

In fact, somewhere on TB's computer, he has a picture of the two of them after they won a tournament the day after Christmas when they were both in sixth grade. He also has the memory of the epic game between TBJ's Lower Bucks team and Grant's Central Bucks team the following spring in the Southeast Pennsylvania playoffs, which Lower Bucks won 5-3.

Back then Grant was a kid who clearly loved to play lacrosse and who would work hard at becoming the best player he could. TB thought his size might hold him back a bit as he got to the highest levels, but that wasn't the case for him - or for another smaller kid who grew up about 20 minutes from where Grant did.

You know him as Princeton's all-time leading scorer, Michael Sowers, who also played with and against TBJ back then.

Those small kids were two of the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, given to the best college lacrosse player each year and presented last Thursday at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian and not very far from the U.S. Capitol building.

TigerBlog went to the ceremony for the first time this year. One of the first people he saw when he walked in was Grant Ament.

He hadn't seen Grant for a long time, maybe back to when Grant was in eighth grade. When he saw TB as he walked towards him, Grant gave him a smile and a hug.

"You've impressed me," TB said to him.

He has, too.

When TBJ first started playing, who would have guessed that the little kids who were just starting out would go on to be so successful years later. That Lower Bucks-Central Bucks game that TB mentioned featured 12 players who would go on to play in college, for instance.

Including, as it would turn out, a Tewaaraton finalist.

There was a reception before the formal program, and that was essentially a who's who of the college lacrosse world. TB saw a lot of friends, including his good friend and counterpart at Loyola, Ryan Eigenbrode, who was there with Pat Spencer, the Greyhounds senior who was one of the two favorites, along with Grant.

The ceremony was a great balance of the five men's and women's finalists with a tribute to the game's Native American roots, which fit the venue, and its history, with celebrations of some of the game's greatest all-time players, who were honored with Legends awards.

There are awards given each year for players who might have won the award had the Tewaaraton been presented prior to 2001. Princeton could win a few of those in the coming years. 

As for the 2019 winners, TigerBlog thought it would be Sam Apuzzo of Boston College on the women's side, after she won last year and led the Eagles back to the NCAA championship game this time around. The winner, though, was Maryland goalie Megan Taylor, who 1) led the Terps past BC in the NCAA final and 2) made 14 saves in a 15-7 win over Princeton in midseason and was very impressive doing so.

On the men's side, the winner was Spencer, the NCAA's career leader in assists and its second all-time leader in points.

There is no voting that was released, but TB would assume it was close between Spencer and Ament, with some votes for Yale face-off man TD Ierlan mixed in.

TB knew the only way Sowers was going to win this year was if the committee asked him to choose the winner, because, as he's said before, there is no player in the country TB would rather have than Sowers.

Still, this wasn't his year for this honor, which traditionally has valued players from teams who make runs deep into May. Hopefully that will be Sowers next year.

As for this year, there was a great turnout by his Princeton teammates in support of the junior attackman. That's the kind of team player he is.

Sowers will enter his senior year as the Division I leader in career points with 255, despite having played four fewer games than second-place Jeff Teat of Cornell, who has 241 points, and six fewer than Grant, who has 240.

Sowers is 45 points away from becoming the 16th Division I player ever to reach 300, and, if he matches his total of 90 points this season, he'd reach 345, which would be seventh-best in history.

In addition to his teammates, Sowers had a big following from his family at the Tewaaraton event. TB's hope is that Princeton makes a good run next year, which will allow everyone who was there this year to be back next year.

Hopefully to see him win.

He's unlike any player TB has ever seen play lacrosse. That's for sure.

Reunions At Reunions

TigerBlog's week began with the sight of Bill Tierney in a Princeton lacrosse shirt and ended with the sight of Brian Earl in a Princeton basketball shirt.

That's a pretty good week. It's also a nostalgic week.

Tierney and Earl, of course, are Princeton legends who are now head coaches at other schools, Tierney with Denver men's lacrosse and Earl with Cornell men's basketball. It's been awhile since TB has seen either in orange and black.

This week was a week for reunions - as in the 1994 men's lacrosse team's recognition on the 25th anniversary of its NCAA title - and Reunions - as in the annual gigantic party that Princeton throws for its alums.

TigerBlog stopped by the men's basketball BBQ outside Jadwin Gym Friday afternoon, and the first person he saw was, of all people, former women's basketball assistant coach Milena Flores. It's always great to see Milena.

As he talked to Milena, he saw Brian, complete with an orange Princeton shirt. Brian was with a bunch of former Princeton players, and there were all kinds of familiar faces under the tent. They spanned a few decades.

As TB saw each face he knew, the natural question became what year did that face graduate, and therefore what Reunion was this one?

He said hi to Mike Brennan, and then a few seconds later, he followed that with this: "Wait, this is your 25th?"

It's hard to believe that it's been 25 years since Mike Brennan graduated from Princeton, or, for that matter, 29 since he came to Princeton.

Brennan came to Princeton from Elizabeth High School in North Jersey, bringing with him a reputation as a blue color point guard whose greatest strength was his toughness. And that's exactly who he was.

TigerBlog remembers vividly how Brennan stepped in for an injured George Leftwich as a freshman and helped Princeton to the 1991 Ivy League title and an NCAA tournament game against Villanova at the Carrier Dome.

That game, a 50-48 Villanova win, remains one of the most excruciating losses TB has witnessed during his time at Princeton. Lance Miller, Villanova's star then, scored the game-winner on a floater in the lane with two seconds left, which ended the careers of the great 1991 class, led by two-time Ivy Player of the Year Kit Mueller.

TigerBlog was in the football press box at the end of that game against Villanova, and he was annoyed that he had to write a story about it.

After he spoke with Brennan yesterday, TB went back and checked the box score from that game and saw Brennan had these three numbers - 27 minutes, nine points, zero turnovers. He'd go on to play a lot of games where he'd go 40 minutes as his career went on.

A basketball guy through and through, Brennan was an assistant coach at Princeton and Georgetown under John Thompson III and is now the head coach at American University these days. TB spoke with Brennan for about 20 minutes, and it was great to catch up with him.

Brennan, by the way, has the exact same voice inflections and personality as he did when he was a player at Princeton and then an assistant coach.

But 25 years? C'mon.

TigerBlog also saw former players like Chris Doyal, Chris Kilburn-Peterson, Howard Levy, Jeff Pagano, Rich Simkus, Gabe Lewullis, Darren Hite among others. Oh, and Earl.

When he left the basketball group, he went over to the track to meet up with John Mack, whose wife was celebrating her 20th (it's his 19th). Mack, of course, is a former Roper Trophy winner from the track and field team who then went on to work at Princeton before going to Northwestern to work in athletics, go to law school and eventually settle outside Detroit as a lawyer.

Mack was the first person TB saw at the track. The second was former women's coach Peter Farrell, who had on an orange fedora.

When TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog were really, really later, John Mack would sometimes babysit for them. He has a lot of experience, what with six sisters of his own.

This time, TB got to see him with his own kids, boys who are 4 and 3 and a girl who is 2. They really, really seemed to like to run around the track, always pausing to get back into their pretend starting blocks and saying "ready, set, go" before heading out for another sprint of anywhere between five yards and maybe 30, all while their father said things like "come back" and "stop" and "be careful" to children who weren't listening.

It was beyond cute.

That was the extent of TB's time at Reunions, though he very much enjoyed his reunions.

He hopes you did too. 

It's always quite a show.