Lady TigerBlog Sees All

The NCAA women’s lacrosse selection show will be held on Sunday, May 3 between 10-11 p.m., on CSTV. Since Inside Lacrosse has not included a bracketology report for the women’s tournament, we charged Lady TigerBlog with predicting what the selection committee will decide.

Here is her report:

So far, five automatic bids have been awarded. Maryland (ACC), UMASS (A-10), Notre Dame (BIG EAST), Penn (Ivy) and Colgate (Patriot). Fairfield and Sacred Heart will be in the play-in game on Saturday, May 2.

Drum roll please….

1. Northwestern
16. Fairfield/Sacred Heart
Although the American Lacrosse Conference does not receive an automatic bid, the four-time national champion Northwestern should already have the No. 1 seed locked. The Wildcats are 17-0, are ranked No. 1 in both national polls and is No. 1 in the latest NCAA RPI rankings. Because the bottom few seeds are all in the Northeast and would all have to fly to Evanston, TB thinks it will be the winner of the play-in game headed West.

2. Maryland
15. UMASS
Maryland (Princeton’s opponent this Saturday) is also undefeated with an 18-0 record and ranked No. 2 in both polls and in the RPI. The Terps won the ACC Tournament for an automatic bid. Maryland took a 16-4 win over the Minutewomen in late February.

3. Penn
14. Colgate
Ivy League champion Penn has just one loss (to Northwestern) and is third in both polls. The Quakers are fourth in the RPI, but were the national runner-up in 2008. Colgate gets the autobid for the Patriot League, and has a 14-4 record. It wouldn’t be a far trip for the Raiders who are used to traveling to Pennsylvania to play league opponents Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell. The teams faced each other last year in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, with Penn's coming away with a 16-7 victory.

4. Duke
13. William & Mary
After Duke’s upset of UNC in the ACC tournament, the Blue Devils moved up in the rankings. Duke holds down the No. 4 position in both polls, and has the fifth-best RPI. The team is 13-5 overall. Lady TigerBlog predicts that William & Mary will win the CAA to get this slot. W&M is 10-5 and ranked No. 20 in one poll and receiving votes in another. The Tribe ranks No. 19 in the RPI. Duke posted an 18-11 win over William & Mary in late February.

5. UNC
12. Vanderbilt
Deciding the No. 5 and 6 seeds between UNC and Princeton was a toss up for LTB. It came down to travel…and the fact that Princeton played Vanderbilt last season in the tournament. In that case, give the No. 5 seed to North Carolina. UNC was upset by Duke in the ACC Tournament, 14-4. The Tar Heels have the third-best RPI and are ranked No. 5/6 in the national polls. LTB gives Vanderbilt the final at-large bid, assuming Boston University wins the America East and William & Mary take the CAA crown. Vandy is 9-5 overall, 12th in the RPI and No. 11/12 in the polls. UNC opened the 2009 season with a 14-13 overtime win over Vanderbilt.

6. Princeton
11. Boston University
As mentioned above, give the Tigers the No. 6 seed. The team is No. 5/7 in the polls and 10th in the RPI. The win over No. 16 Loyola last night may help, but the Tigers still have to contend with an undefeated Terrapin squad on Saturday. LTB predicts Boston University will win the America East. The Terriers are 13-3, and No. 10/12 in the polls and 13th in the RPI. The two teams have never met before.

7. Notre Dame
10. Virginia
Notre Dame received the autobid for the BIG EAST, winning the tournament as the No. 3 seed. The Irish are 14-4 and ranked No. 6 in the national polls and in the RPI. Virginia is an at-large selection with an 11-7 mark and in the No. 9/10 slots in the national polls. The Cavaliers are ninth in the RPI.

8. Georgetown
9. Syracuse
Although the teams are in same conference, theyseem about equal. The regular season game between the teams was decided after four overtimes with Georgetown winning, 11-10. Georgetown fell to Notre Dame in the BIG EAST championship as the No. 1 seed, after Notre Dame upset the No. 2 seed Syracuse.

That's the end of Lady TigerBlog's report. Not a bad effort.

If her predictions are correct, then Princeton will be one of seven, eight or nine schools with a team in both the men's and women's lacrosse tournaments.

A Treatise Upon Thunder

So if you go to dictionary.com and enter the word "bracketology," it'll give you a bunch of other suggestions as the word you're looking for isn't really a word. The first choice is "brontology," which is defined as "a treatise upon thunder." TigerBlog has no idea what that means and chooses not to attempt to use it in a sentence.

Going to the much more reasonable wiktionary.org, the definition becomes "the study of thunder." This leaves TB to wonder if there are professional brontologists out there.

Back to bracketology, who cares if it's a real word or not. As TigerBlog mentioned Monday, everyone knows what bracketology is, and in many ways, the sporting public likes the subject more than the actual NCAA tournament games that follow.

All of that brings us to the little brother of the original bracketology, the one about the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament that Inside Lacrosse put out today on its Website.

According to this version, Princeton will host Maryland in the first round as the fourth seed. The winner would be sent to the quarterfinal at Navy to play the winner of UMBC and fifth-seeded North Carolina.

Cornell, as the eighth seed at home against UMass, and Brown, unseeded and at No. 7 Notre Dame, are also in the field. Duke earns the No. 1 seed, according to IL.

So what are we to make of this? Seeding for a 16-team has to be infinitely easier than seeding for a 65-team men's basketball tournament. The history of the selections makes the criteria well-known, and the NCAA released the RPI yesterday (Princeton, who fell to seventh, was actually hurt by a 14-7 win over Dartmouth).

Are the IL folks onto something here? They could be, but it doesn't matter. If they get only 15 of 16 right, the one they get wrong trickles down to the whole bracket. In the case of men's lacrosse, there are issues related to travel that impact the bracket, and the eight unseeded teams are matched up by geography and other factors, so it's not like No. 1 plays No. 16, No. 2 plays No. 15, etc.

Princeton's seed will be affected for the negative with a loss to Brown this weekend, while a win would add one more quality win to the resume. Either way, it appears that the three Ivy schools can feel pretty comfortable about their postseason status, which makes this weekend's game at Class of 1952 Stadium different from last year's between the teams in Providence, after which neither team got in the tournament.

Will it really be Princeton vs. Maryland next weekend at Class of 1952 Stadium? Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, it doesn't change this fact: TigerBlog was probably not the only lacrosse fan interested in checking out IL this morning to see what was in store for his favorite team in an imaginary bracket.

TigerBlog hasn't quite figured out yet why seeing something that has no impact on the actual final tournament field holds such an allure, though he's pretty sure it has something to do with one of his deepest beliefs: People believe everything they read.

Or maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe TB needs someone smarter to explain it to him.

Is there a brontologist in the house?

Thoughts For Late August, er, April

A guy named Vinnie used to work here in the Office of Athletic Communications, and no, this isn't a joke.

Anyway, the OAC didn't used to have working air conditioning, and during one particularly brutal summer stretch, Vinnie called OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration) to complain that it was about a million degrees here. When they suggested starting with his department head, Vinnie replied: "I'd ask him, but I can't chisel the ice off his door from his room air conditioner."

Times have changed since then. Here it is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave for April, and the air conditioning has been turned on here on the balcony level of Jadwin Gym. This wasn't the case yesterday or over the weekend, which made the OAC and the other offices on the balcony oppressively hot. By contrast, today is an extraordinarily pleasant one here.

Ah, but as the temperatures soar above 90, it's important to remember that it's still the spring here. Spring sports are reaching the end of their schedules, though some have a chance to make their springs roll closer to summer:

* the baseball team is at Cornell tomorrow in a one-game playoff for the Gehrig Division championship. In a deja vu deal, the Tigers were just there Sunday for two games, and they came agonizingly close to winning it until a two-run eighth for the Big Red forced the one-game playoff. So, back on the buses the Tigers go, heading back to Ithaca for nine more innings. For the winner there is a trip to Hanover for the weekend to take on Dartmouth in the best-of-three Ivy League Championship Series. The Big Green went 16-4 in the league in the regular season to win the Rolfe Division by a game over Brown at 15-5, while Princeton and Cornell tied at 10-10 each. Dartmouth went 4-0 against Cornell/Princeton during a weekend earlier this month, winning each game by at least three runs. The winner of tomorrow's game, though, will have some momentum, as well as rested pitchers, for the ILCS. The team with the better regular-season record doesn't always win the ILCS.

* speaking of Gehrig and Rolfe, have many players on Princeton, Cornell and Dartmouth can identify who Gehrig and Rolfe were? The divisions were named for Lou Gehrig, who played at Columbia before becoming one of the greatest hitters in Major League Baseball history with the Yankees, and Red Rolfe, Gehrig's Yankee teammate who played at Dartmouth and then returned to Dartmouth as athletic director after his Major League playing and managing career. Ask any current college baseball player who the "Pride of the Yankees" was, and they're likely to say Derek Jeter. As long as they don't say A-Rod, then it's probably okay.

* the women's tennis team find out its NCAA tournament assignment today. Selections are on ESPNEWS at 5:20 this afternoon.

* the women's lacrosse team is headed to the NCAA tournament, but first there is the last home regular season game tomorrow night against Loyola followed by a game at Maryland Saturday. NCAA women's lacrosse selections are Sunday evening at 8. The first-round will be on Mothers' Day.

* the men's lacrosse team plays its Ivy League "co-championship" game Saturday against Brown at Class of 1952 Stadium at 1 as the winner will share the league title with Cornell. Should Brown win, it would earn the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament; should Princeton win, Cornell would get the automatic bid. Even without the bid, it's likely that all three Ivy schools will be in the field of 16 when it is announced Sunday at 9 on ESPNU. This is a contrast to last year, when Princeton and Brown played a "co-championship" game in Providence that saw the Bears win, the final goal of the game scored by Princeton goalie Alex Hewit and neither team make the NCAA tournament.

* the Ivy League championships in men's and women's track and field will be decided at Heps on May 9-10 at Penn. The Ivy League championships for men's rowing will be decided at Eastern Sprints on May 10 in Worcester, while women's open Ivy rowing will be decided on May 17 in Camden.

* finally, a story about sportsmanship that has nothing to do with Princeton. TigerBlog Jr. was playing lacrosse (5/6 grade level) last Saturday in a tournament, and after the first game, which TBJ's team won 4-2, the players were going through the handshake line. The best player on the other team was No. 10, a big attackman. No. 10 had a difficult time against TBJ's team's best defender (a big kid named Matt Anderson). As the two reached each other in a line that otherwise included the requisite "good game, good game, good game" pounding of gloves, No. 10 suddenly stopped and said to Matt: "You are really good." Matt said to him: "You are a tough player." Then they shook hands, as opposed to just bumping gloves against each other. Hopefully these 11- or 12-year-old kids won't give in to the constant barrage of images of chest-pounding me-ism that surrounds them.

What Can The OAC Learn From Mel Kiper?

There is nothing that is forced on the national sporting public quite like the NFL draft. Here is something that probably generates more text than any other single sporting entity with the possible exception of NCAA men's basketball tournament selections.

Notice the use of the word "entity" and not "event," as neither of these is actually what you would consider a sporting event, meaning a real game.

No, the draft, and the NCAA tournament, are about the lead-up to an event. How many mock drafts did you see last week, last month? How many lists of players whose "stock is rising" and "stock is falling?" Or lists of "all-time busts" or "all-time sleepers?"

It's like the NCAA tournament, to a certain extent, with its bracketology and last four in and last four out and bracket this and bracket that. There are people whose full-time professions are to know everything about the draft (or tournament). They go on TV and the Web all year long, and the sporting public is supposed to gobble this stuff up like it's gospel, and at the end of the day, what do they really know?

At least in the NCAA tournament you're talking about teams you've heard of. For the NFL draft, does any random sportswriter really know if Baylor offensive tackle Jason Smith, the second pick in the draft, is really better than Arizona's Eben Britton, who went 39th to Jacksonville in the second round? TigerBlog watches his fair share of college football and never heard of either one before the draft, but TB can tell you that they're both 6' 6" and 309 pounds and that they both have exactly the same chance of being great NFL players. And yet the fact that almost none of these reporters have ever heard of these guys either until they read about them in some draft guide prevents them from writing about them with great authority.

The personnel people, who are paid huge amounts of money to know this stuff, get as many picks wrong as they do right. Of the last eight NFL Defensive Rookies of the Year, only one, Julius Peppers in 2002, was picked higher than 10th (Peppers, by the way, destroyed Princeton in the opening round of the 2001 NCAA basketball tournament in the Superdome in New Orleans). Two of the eight were second-round picks. What happened to the 40 or so defensive players picked higher than these guys?

Now that TigerBlog got that out of his system, he can get to the main point, which is that the lead-up to the NFL draft far exceeds the event itself. In many ways, the NCAA tournament is becoming anti-climactic after the months of build-up as well.

In other words, it seems like interest in greater in reading out something before it happens. Once it happens, fans appear to move quickly on to the next event rather than focusing on a review of what just happened.

Back here in the Office of Athletic Communications, this raises the question of what Princeton fans want to read. Are they more interested in game stories or a preview of the next game? And if you knew those answers, what would you do differently?

Checking page views for men's lacrosse for the month of April shows that only three of the top 10 most-viewed entries were game recaps, while four were preview stories, one was a feature, one was Greg Seaman's video of the trip to Syracuse and one was an Ivy League Player of the Week story.

TigerBlog is sure that the times they are a-changin' when it comes to athletic communications. The profession bears little resemblance to the one of 15 years ago, and TB wants to see Princeton be out front as it continues to evolve. Being on top of what people want to read/see/view/etc. is a huge part of it, and there are lessons to learn from the coverage of events like the NFL draft.

For this, we say "thank you, Mel Kiper."

"Princeton Wins; Carril Quits"

TigerBlog spent 11 years in the newspaper business, and he rarely if ever found anyone who understood that the person who wrote the story and the person who wrote the headline were two different people. TB has endless memories of people who said that they didn't like the headline, which was actually written by a copy editor who never left the desk.

TB also spent his newspaper summers primarily on the desk, as well as some other nights though the years. The editing system at the Trenton Times back then factored in the size of the headline and how many columns it was supposed to be and then spit back to you whether it was too long, too short or just right. If it didn't fit, you had to constantly adjust the headline until it was right (or close enough). The worst were one column headlines, where nothing creative ever worked. TB has memories of sitting in front of the screen for what seemed like hours trying to get something clever. It either came to you in a flash or wasn't going to happen.

Looking back on those days, TigerBlog can remember some of the better efforts at headlines. For instance, there was the night that then-Phils centerfielder Lenny Dykstra had to fly back from Pittsburgh for an emergency appendectomy. TB came up with a headline of: "Dykstra's Appendix Out At Home," which went over six columns and fit exactly on the first try. The same was true of a headline the day the Eagles brought in two potential placekickers when their incumbent was struggling: "Eagle Kicking Circus Auditions Two New Clowns." Again, six columns and a perfect fit.

OAC Emeritus Director Kurt Kehl, now the Vice President of Communications for the Washington Capitals, was a big fan of headlines that made reference to the picture that accompanied them, something Sports Illustrated did well. TB wrote a feature on Darrell Oliveira, a dominant and somewhat underrated defensive end on the 1995 Ivy League champion football team, and the story talked about how Oliveira's grandfather had taught him to read from the street signs they saw while driving around New Bedford, Mass. The story included a picture of Oliveira as he deflected a pass in Palmer Stadium. The headline: "No Passing."

The Trenton Times headline on the game story from the 1996 Ivy League men's basketball playoff game between Princeton and Penn is a classic: "Princeton Wins; Carril Quits."

Headline writing for the Web is infinitely easier, as the length isn't as important. TigerBlog also believed in his newspaper days that all headlines on college and especially high school stories should include an athlete's name, and that is something that has carried over to goprincetontigers.com for the most part.

Why all of this talk of headlines? TigerBlog has always been fascinated by the idea that every college or pro sporting event gets summed up somewhere (newspaper, Web site, etc.) by a simple headline that it many ways tells the whole story.

Princeton plays baseball this weekend against Cornell, a team with which it is tied for the Gehrig Division lead. Take today's doubleheader, for instance. The teams are going to play for five, six, seven hours. When they're done, it'll be able to be condensed to something like:
"Princeton Sweeps Cornell, On Verge Of Division Title" or "Cornell Sweeps Princeton, On Verge Of Division Title" or "Princeton, Cornell Split, Still Tied For Lead."

TigerBlog also thinks there's a large segment of readers of newspapers and Websites who don't read past the headline. This blog tries to have headlines that leave you a bit confused as to what the story is about, so you'll want to read on.

Event headlines, though, are different. They're clear and consise and fascinating.

So what's it going to be this weekend? "Kovler Scores Four As Tigers Roll" or "Dartmouth Tops Princeton For Second Straight Year?" "Aboff Leads Women's Golf To Ivy Title" or "Princeton Second At Ivy Championships?"

TigerBlog's best goprincetontigers.com headline was after Ryan Boyle scored with four seconds left in the 2002 NCAA quarterfinals against Georgetown. Headline? "Final 0:04."

Not bad, right?

Two Not-So-Blind Mice

So there were two visitors this morning to TigerBlog HQ. A mother mouse, and her baby friend. TigerBlog has been working in this building for more than 20 years, and these are the first two mice he can remember actually in the office. There have been other visitors through the years, including cockroaches bigger than the two mice who visited this morning.

The mice received varying degrees of welcome by those who saw them, including a shriek or two as they were escorted out of the building. One suggestion was made to use TigerCam to film the little guys and the reactions they inspired by those who saw them.

Ah, TigerCam. TigerBlog. TigerZone. TigerVision. TigerText. TB can't remember the first time someone came up with the idea to take two words, condense them into one and capitalize the first letter of the second word. Maybe it was "SportsCenter?"

Anyway, for those who haven't noticed, the Office of Athletic Communications has invested in a flip camera and has started to create some videos. Lacking a name for the project, we jokingly came up with "TigerCam," which fits with everything else we do. In an attempt to find something more original, TigerBlog asked men's lacrosse player Greg Seaman to come up with a name when he took it to film his team's trip to Giants Stadium to play Syracuse. He thought for a second and said "TigerCam." So much for something different.

TigerCam has spent the last three weekends on the road, first with men's lacrosse and then with women's tennis and men's lightweight rowing. There's also a video account of the spring football game available.

The OAC has also created Princeton's own youtube channel to house the video.

There are some initial problems with TigerCam, some of which involves the quality of the audio. We're working on ways to improve the product. In the meantime, TigerCam is off to a good start. And keep checking back for more offerings.

* * *

A Princeton alum has pitched seven scoreless innings in the Major Leagues each of the last two days. TigerBlog isn't sure how often that's happened for any school anywhere.

It started Tuesday, when Ross Ohlendorf went seven for the Pittsburgh Pirates in a win over the Marlins to end their seven-game winning streak. Ohlendorf is 1-2, but he's pitched great twice and okay the third time. He went six-plus in his first start (vs. the Cardinals) and was charged with two earned runs, both of which scored after he came out.

Chris Young went seven scoreless against the Giants yesterday for a no-decision in a game that his San Diego Padres would lose 1-0 in 10 innings. Young can't really complain about not gettting a win, after he was rocked by the Phils Friday night in a game the Padres came back to win.

Young has already been an all-star and has established himself as one of the best in the National League when healthy. Ohlendorf, whose 3.00 ERA is actually better than Young's 3.42, was traded from the Yankees to the Pirates, which has enabled him to be a starter.

I Dreamed A Dream...

So you've probably seen Susan Boyle somewhere on the internet and her brilliant version of Fantine's haunting "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables.

On the day when Princeton's all-time winningest coach, Glenn Nelson, prepares for what could be the final match of his brilliant career — and will definitely be the final home match of his career — is it possible to dream the dream that this could be the most magical ending ever?

First of all, some parameters. This dream is that Princeton reaches its first EIVA championship match in 11 years. The one of winning that title — at the expense of reigning NCAA and all-but-1998 EIVA champion Penn State — might be as wild a dream as the one Dorothy had during a bad storm in Kansas.

But is getting there, from the sixth seed, such an impossibility? Can this team take Nelson on one more wild ride?

It starts tonight at 7 p.m. in Dillon Gym. Princeton has to host an extra postseason match because it didn't earn one of the top four seeds in the EIVA playoffs. It's a fair punishment for a team that just didn't get the job done at home throughout the middle of the season. This team — a senior-laden one — knows it.

So we start with Rutgers-Newark, the Hay Division champion after last Friday's win over Harvard (not too many other sports where Princeton misses a Harvard matchup because of Rutgers-Newark). The Scarlet Raiders are a well-coached, scrappy team, but Princeton beat them in four sets earlier this season and went on to lose three of its next four home matches; in other words, the team wasn't exactly playing its best ball.

A Princeton win would send the team to Saint Francis for the EIVA quarterfinal round. The Red Flash has been among that second tier of league teams for a while (Tier 1 is Penn State), but Princeton has matched up very well with the Flash this season. In two matches, Princeton has actually won more overall points than Saint Francis (262-253); both teams won a 3-2 decision on the road. Princeton hasn't won too many road matches, but the Tigers are coming off a big road win at George Mason last weekend and have already won at Saint Francis.

Would they be the favorite? No. Would they be a big underdog? No.

So let's say Princeton pulls off that one. Now the Tigers would get the important first EIVA semifinal match. What makes it important? Here's a hint... the second one involves a certain Blue and White team. The first semifinal would send Princeton against Juniata, which has its best team in years and deservedly earned the second seed. But the last time the Tigers played Juniata, they lost in five sets and were in two that they lost. The only other meeting was the EIVA opener for both teams.

How would either team react with a shot at the championship match on the line? With four seniors and two juniors on the roster, you'd have to at least give Princeton a shot.

Would they be the favorite? No. Would they be a big underdog? No.

Princeton, led by Glenn Nelson, defeated Penn State en route to the 1998 EIVA championship. It's the only time Happy Valley didn't house the league title in men's volleyball.

So could Nelson's final match be one more EIVA title match against Penn State. The road is long and filled with obstacles, but it's manageable. Three big-time efforts could land the Tigers in that magical position, in the championship match against the ultimate Goliath.

Would they be the favorite? No. Would they be a big underdog?

As Fantine sang, "I dreamed a dream in times gone by..."

What's Up, Doc?

Bugs Bunny got his big break when Elmer Fudd selected him for his vaudeville show over a bunch of other struggling out-of-work cartoon characters. At first, Bugs was the straight man, answering Elmer's riddles with I-don't-knows before Elmer delivered the punchline. Finally, one day Bugs turned the tables on Elmer, squirting him in the face with seltzer water, and the rest of course is history.

As this week marks the 71st anniversary of the first appearance by Bugs Bunny in a cartoon, TigerBloog offers this riddle:

"What has Princeton Athletics done 16 times that every other Ivy League school has combined to do four times?"

We'll get to the answer shortly. First, here's a hint: It has to do with winning Ivy League championships.

The Ivy title that the women's tennis team won this past weekend was the eighth by a Princeton team this academic year, along with men's and women's cross country, field hockey, men's and women's squash, women's soccer and men's swimming and diving.

It was also the 367th Ivy title in school history, dating to 1956. Princeton teams have won the most all-time, followed by 340 for Harvard and then a big drop to Cornell's 187. In this decade, Princeton teams have won 104, followed by Harvard with 65 and Cornell with 55.

The all-time record is 14 Ivy titles in one academic year, which Princeton has done twice (1999-2000, 2000-01) and Harvard has done once (2004-05). Princeton won its first four Ivy League titles in the 1956-57 year, and it's clear that one of the biggest reasons that Princeton has built its huge lead in Ivy titles is the success of its women's teams.

To answer the riddle, Princeton teams have won at least 10 Ivy League titles in an academic year on 16 separate occasions, while the rest of the league combined has done it four times (in the interest of full disclosure, Harvard has done it all four times).

To get to 10 this academic year, Princeton obviously needs two more. There are still 10 Ivy championships to be determined, though Princeton doesn't have a legitimate (or in some cases mathematical) shot at all 10. Still, teams like men's lightweight crew, women's golf, men's and women's outdoor track and field and baseball are in varying degrees of shape to win their championship. Men's lacrosse can still get a share, with some help from Brown this weekend against Cornell and wins over Dartmouth and Brown.

TigerBlog looks at the list of all-time Ivy League championships by school and realizes how lucky Princeton is to have these numbers. TB also realizes it's easy to take it for granted that Princeton will always have this kind of success, but the reality is that a great deal of hard work beginning with the coaching staff and going across the entire department goes into making it happen.

It never gets old watching teams win Ivy League championships. Actually, it's like watching Bugs Bunny. TigerBlog could watch "Racketeer Rabbit" every day.

The Boomtown Rats

Some pretty good songs have been written with the word "Monday" in the title. You had "Manic Monday," by the Bangles. Actually written by Prince, the song was the first hit for the Bangles. Somewhere around 1986 or so. It's very, very classic 1980s.

It's okay. You can admit you like the Carpenters. Nobody's going to hold it against you. "Rainy Days and Mondays." Or both, as we have here at TigerBlog HQ today.

Then there's "Monday, Monday," by the Mommas and the Poppas. Maybe a little before TigerBlog's time, though TB did like listening to Saturday Night Oldies out of Binghamton on the ride back from Cornell.

And how could TigerBlog leave out "Come Monday," by Jimmy Buffett? "Come Monday, it'll be all right ..."

The song "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats, which featured the lyrics "tell me why, I don't like Mondays," was actually about a school shooting in San Diego, something largely unheard of back then. In fact, there were radio stations who wouldn't play the song because of the subject matter (a subject in the news again as today is the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shootings).

Still, for anyone around TigerBlog's age, that song takes you back to high school in the late 1970s and quite ironically to a time of innocence.

Anyway, now that we've established that today is in fact Monday, here are some links and thoughts for you to start your work week:

* our guy Manish Mehta, formerly an intern here in the Office of Athletic Communications and now a great feature writer for the Star-Ledger, had this piece on retiring volleyball coach Glenn Nelson. Manish was the volleyball contact when he was here, and he caught up with some of the great men's players from that time.

* the NCAA has a certification process that the University and Department of Athletics recently completed, and the result was obviously full certification. From the official University announcement: "The purpose of the NCAA certification program is to help ensure the integrity of member institutions' athletics operations. Princeton's process involved a yearlong, campus-wide effort that began in fall 2007 and included the preparation of a self-study covering governance and commitment to rules compliance, academic integrity, equity, and student-athlete well-being."

* if you missed it, the women's tennis team won the Ivy League championship with wins over Cornell and Columbia this weekend. The Tigers earned the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament; the draw will be announced next Tuesday, April 28. For the record, that's eight Ivy League championships this year for Princeton teams, as women's tennis joined: women's soccer, field hockey, women's cross country, men's cross country, men's squash, women's squash and men's swimming and diving.

* the new men's lacrosse rankings are out for both the media poll and coaches' poll, and Princeton has dropped to fifth and fourth. The Tigers have Dartmouth and Brown at home to end the regular season and can still get a share of the Ivy title (if Brown beats Cornell this week and Princeton wins out), but there is no mathematical possibility that Princeton can get the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Still, the Tigers and their strong RPI, strength of schedule and three Top 10 wins, are in good shape for the postseason.

* the women's lacrosse team showed you something by bouncing back from a tough defeat against Penn to travel to Hanover, N.H., three days later and beat a Dartmouth team that took Penn to overtime by 10 goals (14-4). Like the men, the women are in good shape for a high NCAA tournament seed.

* the baseball team enters the final weekend of Ivy League games in basically a best-of-five situation against Cornell for the Gehrig Division title. The teams, who are currently tied for first in the division, play four times (two Friday here, two Sunday in Ithaca). If they split those four, then a one-game playoff would be held to determine who advances to the Ivy League Championship Series. The site of that playoff game? Well, good question, since a split would leave the teams with the exact same record in the division and against the other division. The other wrinkle about a split is that Columbia, two games back, would make it a three-way tie Princeton and Cornell split, and Columbia takes all four games in their series with Penn.

Who Needs Tickets?

TigerBlog's day started with an email from a former colleague. It read:

"A friend of mine went to the first game in the new Yankee Stadium. Beer - $11. Yankees lose 10-2. Priceless."

As an aside, remember how much beer used to be at Veterans' Stadium 26 summers ago?

Anyway, with apologies to Yankees' fans (and really, how can anyone root for the Yankees?), the email made TB laugh. And then it brought to mind what has been a long-standing issue for Princeton Athletics.

Who, or what, is our competition for fans?

Have you noticed how empty many sports venues are these days? The NCAA basketball tournament had available seats everywhere. The NBA? Major League Baseball? The prime seats, the ones most visible on TV, are always dotted by emptiness.

There are obvious reasons for this: a shaky economy, outrageous ticket prices, out-of-touch professional athletes, oversaturation of the product on television and many more.

All of this brings us back to Princeton. We spend hours and hours in marketing meetings trying to figure out what the best way to attract fans is. We wonder often about why people don't come. Is it because they know about it and are not interested? Don't know about it? Have misconceptions about prices of tickets, accessibility, cordiality, location?

Of course, we have no way of knowing. That's why Princeton Athletics has gone down so many different paths from a marketing standpoint. We've had slogans, messages, formats, plans, points of emphasis, everything else.

We also have no discernible way of determining whether or not our efforts have been successful. We draw fairly well in comparison to many University events, unbelievably well in some cases. We sort of operate on the idea that we should be attracting more people, but maybe that's not the case.

Anyway, the question of the day is who, or what, is our competition. Take football. We're certainly not going against the Jets, Giants or Eagles, or even Rutgers, for that matter. You can buy season tickets for Princeton football for what it costs to PARK at Giants Stadium for one game. You can bring a family of 10 to a Princeton game for less than the cost of a Rutgers ticket. You can buy season tickets from now until the Earth basically stops spinning on its axis for what it costs for some personal seat licenses (which Princeton emphatically does not have, though TigerBlog once received an email asking how much as PSL for football was).

Are we even selling football? Or are we selling a family experience? Are people coming more if the team is winning than if it's losing? This is the No. 1 belief that people have, but every single statistic over the last 25 years shows that there is absolutely no correlation between winning and attendance for Princeton football (though not for other sports).

Are we going against the movies? The aquarium? Birthday parties? Youth sports? Each one of those raises different issues. Is the time of game the most important determinant of whether or not fans will come? If you play a football game Saturday at 1 and all of Mercer County/Bucks County/Somerset County is playing Pop Warner football or youth soccer or fall baseball or fall lacrosse, then nobody can make it. But maybe they can three hours later? But then will the older alumni like it?

And, of course, you can do all the planning you want. When it rains (or worse, when the forecast is for rain but no rain comes) on game day, where does that leave you?

There have been games that TigerBlog has gone to where he has expected huge attendance but no one showed up. There have been games where TB thought he'd be the only one in the building, and there have been huge throngs. The 2004 NCAA women's soccer tournament games, with little marketing attached, drew overflow crowds to the old Lourie-Love Field. Princeton hockey is now a tough ticket. Lacrosse continues to draw outstanding crowds, even in awful weather.

The bottom line is that Princeton University is providing very high quality college athletics for either free (in the case of 33 sports) or for very, very, very reasonable prices, especially by comparison to other athletic choices.

To those who take advantage of what we're offering, we thank you.

For those who don't, what are you waiting for? Do you really want to spend $11 on a beer?