To TigerBlog's right was a tent from an Ivy League school other than Princeton. It had a nice assortment of cookies, a tray of sandwiches and a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
As an aside, TB doesn't like peanut butter but he does like Peanut Butter Cups, and he's never understood why.
To TB's right was the Princeton tent. Its spread included grilled salmon with a dark sauce that TB didn't quite recognize. There were croissants, some of which had a nice smoked salmon on them. There were wrap sandwiches, bagels - and plenty of desserts, including homemade brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
It was that kind of day at Van Cortlandt Park Friday, a day that was all Princeton.
The Ivy League Heptagonal cross country championships were a big-time Princeton party, at which the Tigers swept the five categories: women's individual champion, women's team champion, men's individual champion, men's team champion and food.
The forecast was supposed to be for sunny skies and temperatures near 60, but it was raining briefly in the half hour or so before the first race. Still, most the day was nearly perfect weather-wise, especially for cross country.
The tents were set up along the straightaway to the finish line, which was in front of the concrete stands and pavilion. There is seemingly never-ending construction going on at the park, so the course changes a bit every year.
For the most part, the runners are out of sight, heading into the woods after the start and making two passes in front of the spectators for the women and three passes for the men.
In the women's race, the field was completely packed as it came by the first time. The drama then builds as time gets close to when the runners come out of the woods, by which time the finish starts to take shape.
Princeton's Alex Banfich ran away for a 20-second win, but it was Columbia in second and third and then Princeton's Ashley Higginson in fourth, making the team score 5-5. Any suspense ended when Princeton runners came home 8-9-11, giving Princeton its fifth straight team championship.
Then it was time for the men's race.
Like the women, the men had their start on the far side of the big open field. Then it was twice in front of the fans before the end.
Princeton came across the line 1-5-6-8, and it was over when Max Kaulbach came in behind three Dartmouth runners in 13th to seal it. Like the women, Princeton's men totaled 33 points.
It was a great day for anyone from Princeton, but it really belonged to Donn Cabral. The day started with worry on the part of the Princeton group because Cabral had a bad cold, which was making it hard for him to breathe.
Would it slow him down? Nope.
Somewhere along the way, Cabral shifted into a different gear from the field, and the result was awesome. He ran the final 100 meters so fast that all TB could think was "wow."
In fact, Cabral would run the second-fastest five-mile Heps ever. The 2010 runner up was the 2009 champion, Harvard's Daniel Chenoweth, who ran the seventh-best Heps time ever - and was still more than 10 seconds behind Cabral.
TB has now attended Heps for maybe seven or eight straight years, and it continues to be a great event to watch. To see the runners as the approach the finish, with some trying to hang on while others are in a full sprint to improve a place or two, is fascinating.
To see the runners after the cross the line is to see athletes who have given every ounce they have.
It ends with an awards ceremony, which honors the top 14 finishers (who also earn All-Ivy) and then the team champions.
This year, the biggest awards went to Princetonians.
Trophies, medals, champions - and salmon. Who could have asked for more on the final Friday of October, at one of TigerBlog's favorite events of any year?
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Congrats Batch
TigerBlog Jr. first played lacrosse in the second grade. When TigerBlog went to register TBJ, he was asked if he knew anything about lacrosse; when told that he had been working with Princeton's team for years, he was put in charge of the K-2 program.
TB took the 60 or so boys and divided them into four teams - Princeton, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and Virginia. The program would meet every Sunday for one hour, with two teams in 30 minutes of drills while the other two teams played a game for 30 minutes (half-field, one goal in the crease, the other at midfield), after which the teams would switch, and the first two would play a game while the other two did drills.
At the end of the year, the K-2 group was feeling pretty good about itself, so it challenged the third graders to a game. When TB arrived at the field, it dawned on him that his teams hadn't used goalies yet, and so it needed one for the game.
At that point, he asked the K-2ers if anyone wanted to be the goalie, and only one hand went up - TBJ's. Since then, TBJ has never played another position in lacrosse, except for some very rare moments in a few blowouts.
Before TBJ volunteered to be the goalie, TB used to watch lacrosse and wonder who in the world would agree to play the position. After all, you stand in the goal while people rocket a hard rubber ball at you, and your task is to get in the way of the ball.
Now that he's watched TBJ do it for awhile, TB has an even greater respect for those who play in goal. By the end of the summer season, TBJ's legs are essentially one continuous bruise.
And yet he doesn't flinch or turn away, which is exactly what TB would do if even a Nerf ball was to be shot at him. TB has an amazing amount of respect and admiration for all goalies.
Some, of course, more than others. And right at the top of the list is Scott Bacigalupo.
This weekend, Bacigalupo will be inducted into the USILA Hall of Fame, becoming the third Princetonian from the Bill Tierney era and 14th of all-time to be so honored. Bacigalupo will join his coach (Tierney, who will introduce Bacigalupo) and Kevin Lowe, who like Bacigalupo graduated in 1994, as the first members of the Princeton lacrosse program from the team's six NCAA championships to reach the Hall of Fame.
Of course, there will be others who follow. Absolute total locks are Jesse Hubbard, David Morrow, Jon Hess and Ryan Boyle. There are several others who could make it as well, including Trevor Tierney, Chris Massey and Matt Striebel, as well as former Associate Head Coach David Metzbower (it would be a sin if Metz doesn't get in).
But this weekend belongs to Bacigalupo.
He came to Princeton in 1990-91 as the cornerstone of Princeton's ascent under Tierney to the elite of college men's lacrosse. After seeing Princeton fall in triple overtime to Towson in the 1991 quarterfinals his freshman year, Bacigalupo led Princeton to the 1992 championship, the 1993 semifinals and then the 1994 championship.
He would be the Most Outstanding Player of both championships, which both came in overtime. The 1992 title may have been considered a fluke had Bacigalupo and Lowe not led Princeton to a second one two years later.
He was a three-time first-team All-America and three-time first-team All-Ivy selection. His senior year he was voted second-team All-Ivy by the league coaches - and then was named Division I Player of the Year.
The current issue of Lacrosse Magazine, in advance of Bacigalupo's induction, is its goalie issue. The cover is a montage of pictures of some of the top goalies of all time, and it asks the question Best Goalie Ever?
The magazine has all kinds of great stuff about goalies, including a feedback section from its website that has all kinds of comments about what it takes to play the position, most of which include comments like "must be nuts."
There is a long story about Bacigalupo, with the headline "Best Of The Batch?" It also has a sidebar in which Bacigalupo mentions Metzbower.
There is also a poll where fans were asked to vote for the best goalie ever. Bacigalupo was first with 27% of the vote, followed by Sal LoCascio (UMass) second, Brian Dougherty (Maryland) third and then Trevor Tierney fourth.
As an aside, TB is pretty sure that current Princeton goalie Tyler Fiorito, currently a junior, will be in the conversation when his career ends.
Bill Tierney, quoted about Bacigalupo, talks about what a great goalie he was. He also talks about how big it was for the Princeton program to get a player like Bacigalupo and what his decision to attend Princeton meant for the big picture of Tiger lacrosse and the sport itself.
As for TB, he saw almost every game Bacigalupo played at Princeton, and he remains amazed 20 years later by how dominant he was, what a difference he made and how much he scared the other teams.
Is he the best goalie of all-time?
What he did was more than just keep the ball out of the goal. An entire lacrosse dynasty was built with him as its foundation.
Congrats to Batch on being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
There an be no arguing that he deserves to be there as much as anyone.
TB took the 60 or so boys and divided them into four teams - Princeton, Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and Virginia. The program would meet every Sunday for one hour, with two teams in 30 minutes of drills while the other two teams played a game for 30 minutes (half-field, one goal in the crease, the other at midfield), after which the teams would switch, and the first two would play a game while the other two did drills.
At the end of the year, the K-2 group was feeling pretty good about itself, so it challenged the third graders to a game. When TB arrived at the field, it dawned on him that his teams hadn't used goalies yet, and so it needed one for the game.
At that point, he asked the K-2ers if anyone wanted to be the goalie, and only one hand went up - TBJ's. Since then, TBJ has never played another position in lacrosse, except for some very rare moments in a few blowouts.
Before TBJ volunteered to be the goalie, TB used to watch lacrosse and wonder who in the world would agree to play the position. After all, you stand in the goal while people rocket a hard rubber ball at you, and your task is to get in the way of the ball.
Now that he's watched TBJ do it for awhile, TB has an even greater respect for those who play in goal. By the end of the summer season, TBJ's legs are essentially one continuous bruise.
And yet he doesn't flinch or turn away, which is exactly what TB would do if even a Nerf ball was to be shot at him. TB has an amazing amount of respect and admiration for all goalies.
Some, of course, more than others. And right at the top of the list is Scott Bacigalupo.
This weekend, Bacigalupo will be inducted into the USILA Hall of Fame, becoming the third Princetonian from the Bill Tierney era and 14th of all-time to be so honored. Bacigalupo will join his coach (Tierney, who will introduce Bacigalupo) and Kevin Lowe, who like Bacigalupo graduated in 1994, as the first members of the Princeton lacrosse program from the team's six NCAA championships to reach the Hall of Fame.
Of course, there will be others who follow. Absolute total locks are Jesse Hubbard, David Morrow, Jon Hess and Ryan Boyle. There are several others who could make it as well, including Trevor Tierney, Chris Massey and Matt Striebel, as well as former Associate Head Coach David Metzbower (it would be a sin if Metz doesn't get in).
But this weekend belongs to Bacigalupo.
He came to Princeton in 1990-91 as the cornerstone of Princeton's ascent under Tierney to the elite of college men's lacrosse. After seeing Princeton fall in triple overtime to Towson in the 1991 quarterfinals his freshman year, Bacigalupo led Princeton to the 1992 championship, the 1993 semifinals and then the 1994 championship.
He would be the Most Outstanding Player of both championships, which both came in overtime. The 1992 title may have been considered a fluke had Bacigalupo and Lowe not led Princeton to a second one two years later.
He was a three-time first-team All-America and three-time first-team All-Ivy selection. His senior year he was voted second-team All-Ivy by the league coaches - and then was named Division I Player of the Year.
The current issue of Lacrosse Magazine, in advance of Bacigalupo's induction, is its goalie issue. The cover is a montage of pictures of some of the top goalies of all time, and it asks the question Best Goalie Ever?
The magazine has all kinds of great stuff about goalies, including a feedback section from its website that has all kinds of comments about what it takes to play the position, most of which include comments like "must be nuts."
There is a long story about Bacigalupo, with the headline "Best Of The Batch?" It also has a sidebar in which Bacigalupo mentions Metzbower.
There is also a poll where fans were asked to vote for the best goalie ever. Bacigalupo was first with 27% of the vote, followed by Sal LoCascio (UMass) second, Brian Dougherty (Maryland) third and then Trevor Tierney fourth.
As an aside, TB is pretty sure that current Princeton goalie Tyler Fiorito, currently a junior, will be in the conversation when his career ends.
Bill Tierney, quoted about Bacigalupo, talks about what a great goalie he was. He also talks about how big it was for the Princeton program to get a player like Bacigalupo and what his decision to attend Princeton meant for the big picture of Tiger lacrosse and the sport itself.
As for TB, he saw almost every game Bacigalupo played at Princeton, and he remains amazed 20 years later by how dominant he was, what a difference he made and how much he scared the other teams.
Is he the best goalie of all-time?
What he did was more than just keep the ball out of the goal. An entire lacrosse dynasty was built with him as its foundation.
Congrats to Batch on being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
There an be no arguing that he deserves to be there as much as anyone.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
On The Run
There are two guys who come into Jadwin Gym most workdays wearing suits and carrying gym bags. They emerge a few minutes later in running attire, and off they go, only to return awhile later to shower and put the suits back on.
One of them is tall; the other is short. TB is pretty sure they're lawyers. He's seen them for years, more than a decade, several times a week. He has no idea what their names are; his relationship with them consists of "hello," followed by some basic pleasantry about what a great day it is for running and/or what's coming next in Princeton Athletics.
TigerBlog has never been a fan of running. He's been a fan of exercising, though he's liked to get that exercise in the framework of playing a sport, rather than simply running.
Through the years, TB was a big fan of the Jadwin Gym lunchtime basketball game, something that a few years ago gave way to playing squash. If you've never played squash, go do so, because you'll get hooked on it immediately.
Even if there was no game, TB would rather ride the exercise bike than simply go out and run. The times that TB has gone running, he's spent the entire time thinking to himself "TigerBlog hates this."
As an aside, the best song TigerBlog has ever heard just might be, ironically enough, "Born To Run."
Still, TB does appreciate what it takes to be a long-distance runner, the dedication to keep going when it's so easy to stop.
And when TB looks at the athletic calendar each year, one of his absolute favorite can't-miss dates is the Ivy League Heptagonal cross-country championships, held in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx the last Friday of October.
And hey, tomorrow is the last Friday in October.
If you're anywhere near New York City, it's worth heading up to the park to check this event out, especially if you've never seen it before.
Basically, it's eight schools with two teams each who set up in a row of tents that are loaded up with sandwiches, bagels, cookies, cookies, brownies and cookies. Last year, TB sampled cookies from all eight schools and gave the edge, as always, to Brown.
Each tent is swarming with parents, recent alums, friends, relatives and anyone else, all of whom have come out to support that particular team.
The women's race goes off first, followed by the men. Construction in the park has forced the course to change several times, but the runners are not visible most of the time that the race is going on, but that only adds to the drama.
Eventually, the runners come back into view and close to the finish, which is right in front of the tents. They come across the line in a rapid formation of different uniforms, which makes it nearly impossible to the untrained eye to figure out exactly which team is where.
Last year, on the women's side, it was easy - even for TB's untrained eye. Princeton's women came in 1-2-3-4-5, which of course is a record that can be tied but never broken. It was an amazing site, with Princeton's Liz Costello so far ahead of the field and a trail of all orange and black behind her.
The men's race a year ago was much harder to figure, and with good reason. Columbia edged Princeton by a single point - one placing either way would have changed the outcome - and the drama was amazing as the judges counted and recounted before making a formal announcement.
TB has seen Heps winners who have crossed the finish line and look not the least bit winded, and he's seen many others who have struggled across the line in tears, who have collapsed just after finishing.
This year's races?
Well, Princeton is still the favorite on the women's side, but not as prohibitively as last year. In fact, Cornell, Columbia and Harvard are expected to challenge.
As for the men, Columbia returns four of its top five. Princeton is ranked 18th nationally and has run very well this year, and all of the top six finishers from last year's individual race are back, including Harvard's Dan Chenoweth, the 2009 winner.
In other words, it should be another great event at Van Cortlandt Park.
The women's race begins at 11, followed by the men at 11:45. The weather should be perfect. The races should be tremendous.
And so should the cookies.
One of them is tall; the other is short. TB is pretty sure they're lawyers. He's seen them for years, more than a decade, several times a week. He has no idea what their names are; his relationship with them consists of "hello," followed by some basic pleasantry about what a great day it is for running and/or what's coming next in Princeton Athletics.
TigerBlog has never been a fan of running. He's been a fan of exercising, though he's liked to get that exercise in the framework of playing a sport, rather than simply running.
Through the years, TB was a big fan of the Jadwin Gym lunchtime basketball game, something that a few years ago gave way to playing squash. If you've never played squash, go do so, because you'll get hooked on it immediately.
Even if there was no game, TB would rather ride the exercise bike than simply go out and run. The times that TB has gone running, he's spent the entire time thinking to himself "TigerBlog hates this."
As an aside, the best song TigerBlog has ever heard just might be, ironically enough, "Born To Run."
Still, TB does appreciate what it takes to be a long-distance runner, the dedication to keep going when it's so easy to stop.
And when TB looks at the athletic calendar each year, one of his absolute favorite can't-miss dates is the Ivy League Heptagonal cross-country championships, held in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx the last Friday of October.
And hey, tomorrow is the last Friday in October.
If you're anywhere near New York City, it's worth heading up to the park to check this event out, especially if you've never seen it before.
Basically, it's eight schools with two teams each who set up in a row of tents that are loaded up with sandwiches, bagels, cookies, cookies, brownies and cookies. Last year, TB sampled cookies from all eight schools and gave the edge, as always, to Brown.
Each tent is swarming with parents, recent alums, friends, relatives and anyone else, all of whom have come out to support that particular team.
The women's race goes off first, followed by the men. Construction in the park has forced the course to change several times, but the runners are not visible most of the time that the race is going on, but that only adds to the drama.
Eventually, the runners come back into view and close to the finish, which is right in front of the tents. They come across the line in a rapid formation of different uniforms, which makes it nearly impossible to the untrained eye to figure out exactly which team is where.
Last year, on the women's side, it was easy - even for TB's untrained eye. Princeton's women came in 1-2-3-4-5, which of course is a record that can be tied but never broken. It was an amazing site, with Princeton's Liz Costello so far ahead of the field and a trail of all orange and black behind her.
The men's race a year ago was much harder to figure, and with good reason. Columbia edged Princeton by a single point - one placing either way would have changed the outcome - and the drama was amazing as the judges counted and recounted before making a formal announcement.
TB has seen Heps winners who have crossed the finish line and look not the least bit winded, and he's seen many others who have struggled across the line in tears, who have collapsed just after finishing.
This year's races?
Well, Princeton is still the favorite on the women's side, but not as prohibitively as last year. In fact, Cornell, Columbia and Harvard are expected to challenge.
As for the men, Columbia returns four of its top five. Princeton is ranked 18th nationally and has run very well this year, and all of the top six finishers from last year's individual race are back, including Harvard's Dan Chenoweth, the 2009 winner.
In other words, it should be another great event at Van Cortlandt Park.
The women's race begins at 11, followed by the men at 11:45. The weather should be perfect. The races should be tremendous.
And so should the cookies.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Whammy
TigerBlog could fill a week's worth of entries with funny things that he heard Pete Carril said, on the record and off, rated G all the way through NC-17.
Despite the fact that Bill Carmody was only the head coach here for four years, he hardly was lacking in his own funny comments, which also ran the same ratings gamut.
Carmody, especially, was also very superstitious. And he was a big believer in a concept he called "The Whammy."
Basically, it's the same thing as a jinx. If you write, for instance, that Brian Earl has been in double figures in five straight games, you're ensuring that he won't get there in the next one.
TB heard Carmody say the word "whammy" so much that he incorporated it into the game notes, as in this 1998 entry: "The whammy - Princeton is 10-0 in the Ivy League and has won every game by double figures." Princeton, of course, went on to go 14-0 in the league that year and won 13 of those 14 by double figures.
Anyway, TigerBlog could hear Carmody's cautionary tone when he went to Penn's website yesterday and found the lead story with a headline that said: "Fall Frenzy For Penn's Athletic Teams."
The basic point of the story is that Penn is having a good fall. Heading into this weekend, Penn has five teams in first place in their league: football (tied with Brown), sprint football, men's soccer (tied with Princeton), women's soccer (tied with Columbia) and women's volleyball (tied with Princeton).
TigerBlog, in fact, was going to write a similar story last week but instead thought of Carmody. And Gary Walters, who also believes in the whammy, though not quite by that name. Instead, the Princeton Athletic Director believes in managing expectations.
You will notice that most of those Penn teams are tied for the lead, including two with Princeton. The football team at Penn is tied with Brown, whom it hosts this weekend. Men's soccer still has to play the other three top teams in the league, two of whom (Brown and Princeton) are ranked in the Top 25. The women's soccer team is tied for first, but it is really a four-team race with Penn, Columbia, Harvard and Princeton.
On the other hand, the story was a good, positive one for the Quakers, and with big home games this weekend around Homecoming in West Philadelphia, such a story can generate some pretty good excitement.
So the question then becomes, how should athletic communications offices handle such situations?
Is it okay to point out how well your teams are doing, or is that only putting extra pressure on them, setting them up to fail and giving the opponents additional motivation?
Is it okay to state the facts about where teams are in the standings, or is it better to be low-key until championships are actually won?
It's something TB has wrestled with a lot here.
As the Penn story was being written, Princeton has seven fall teams very much in the championship mix. Still, TB was hesitant to write about last week and still is, for that matter, because none of those teams has won a championship yet.
And even if, say, two or three do, if you write a story that says seven teams have a great shot at winning their league, then it appears that overall you've come up short in the end.
Back in the pre-internet days, TigerBlog was pretty sure that no Princeton athletes read the Trenton Times or any other local paper every day and therefore really didn't know much about what was being said about them.
Today, where each of Princeton's 38 sports and each of every other school's however many teams have their own page on the school's website, TB is pretty sure that every Princeton athlete and every opposing athlete reads everything.
TB also has said that he doesn't think that anything he or anyone else writes can actually influence the outcome of a game (if it could, then sports info people should be paid more), there is something to the fact that athletes and coaches take it personally if they read something that slights their team.
In general, TB likes to err on the side of caution, largely to avoid having a game end only to hear a player on the other team say something like "I read on Princeton's webpage how great they were and wanted to knock them down a little."
So good luck to Penn in its quest for championships this fall. If nothing else, there are some great races in Ivy League sports that are just heading to stretch run.
And hey, wondering whether or not to really pump up your teams during their own runs towards championships?
It's not a bad problem to have.
Despite the fact that Bill Carmody was only the head coach here for four years, he hardly was lacking in his own funny comments, which also ran the same ratings gamut.
Carmody, especially, was also very superstitious. And he was a big believer in a concept he called "The Whammy."
Basically, it's the same thing as a jinx. If you write, for instance, that Brian Earl has been in double figures in five straight games, you're ensuring that he won't get there in the next one.
TB heard Carmody say the word "whammy" so much that he incorporated it into the game notes, as in this 1998 entry: "The whammy - Princeton is 10-0 in the Ivy League and has won every game by double figures." Princeton, of course, went on to go 14-0 in the league that year and won 13 of those 14 by double figures.
Anyway, TigerBlog could hear Carmody's cautionary tone when he went to Penn's website yesterday and found the lead story with a headline that said: "Fall Frenzy For Penn's Athletic Teams."
The basic point of the story is that Penn is having a good fall. Heading into this weekend, Penn has five teams in first place in their league: football (tied with Brown), sprint football, men's soccer (tied with Princeton), women's soccer (tied with Columbia) and women's volleyball (tied with Princeton).
TigerBlog, in fact, was going to write a similar story last week but instead thought of Carmody. And Gary Walters, who also believes in the whammy, though not quite by that name. Instead, the Princeton Athletic Director believes in managing expectations.
You will notice that most of those Penn teams are tied for the lead, including two with Princeton. The football team at Penn is tied with Brown, whom it hosts this weekend. Men's soccer still has to play the other three top teams in the league, two of whom (Brown and Princeton) are ranked in the Top 25. The women's soccer team is tied for first, but it is really a four-team race with Penn, Columbia, Harvard and Princeton.
On the other hand, the story was a good, positive one for the Quakers, and with big home games this weekend around Homecoming in West Philadelphia, such a story can generate some pretty good excitement.
So the question then becomes, how should athletic communications offices handle such situations?
Is it okay to point out how well your teams are doing, or is that only putting extra pressure on them, setting them up to fail and giving the opponents additional motivation?
Is it okay to state the facts about where teams are in the standings, or is it better to be low-key until championships are actually won?
It's something TB has wrestled with a lot here.
As the Penn story was being written, Princeton has seven fall teams very much in the championship mix. Still, TB was hesitant to write about last week and still is, for that matter, because none of those teams has won a championship yet.
And even if, say, two or three do, if you write a story that says seven teams have a great shot at winning their league, then it appears that overall you've come up short in the end.
Back in the pre-internet days, TigerBlog was pretty sure that no Princeton athletes read the Trenton Times or any other local paper every day and therefore really didn't know much about what was being said about them.
Today, where each of Princeton's 38 sports and each of every other school's however many teams have their own page on the school's website, TB is pretty sure that every Princeton athlete and every opposing athlete reads everything.
TB also has said that he doesn't think that anything he or anyone else writes can actually influence the outcome of a game (if it could, then sports info people should be paid more), there is something to the fact that athletes and coaches take it personally if they read something that slights their team.
In general, TB likes to err on the side of caution, largely to avoid having a game end only to hear a player on the other team say something like "I read on Princeton's webpage how great they were and wanted to knock them down a little."
So good luck to Penn in its quest for championships this fall. If nothing else, there are some great races in Ivy League sports that are just heading to stretch run.
And hey, wondering whether or not to really pump up your teams during their own runs towards championships?
It's not a bad problem to have.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Howdy, Partner
One of TigerBlog's favorite websites, not surprisingly, is goprincetontigers.com.
As TB is writing, the seven stories that rotate through the main part of the front page includes one about the women's golf team. In a solid bit of scheduling, it appears that the Tigers are headed to Hawaii for fall break.
There are also stories about men's soccer, two about women's tennis, one about rowing from the Head of the Charles and one about field hockey.
And the seventh?
It's about Princeton and its renewal of its contract with Nelligan Sports Marketing.
At first glance, it appears to be a standard-issue story: Princeton and NSM have continued their partnership, and there is some basic information about both groups and the to-be-expected quotes from Director of Athletics Gary Walters and the Nelligan leadership.
Make no mistake, though. Princeton Athletics' partnership with Nelligan is huge. It's also somewhat unique - and it raises all kinds of issues about the current state of college athletics.
Nelligan is a giant in the field of collegiate sports marketing, especially in this area. From the story:
In addition to Princeton University, NSM represents some of the elite college properties in the country, including the Colonial Athletic Association and its 12 member institutions, the Horizon League, Pac-10 Conference, Patriot League, Brown University, Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, Cleveland State University, Colorado State University, Eastern Michigan University, Fairfield University, Florida Atlantic University, Indiana State University, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, University of Louisville, Marquette University, Middle Tennessee State University, Missouri State University, Monmouth University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Providence College, Rutgers University, University of Texas at San Antonio, West Virginia University, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Champs Sports Bowl, the Capital One Bowl and the Penn Relays.
What makes Princeton's situation unique - at least from most of the outlets Nelligan works with - is that the University's goal isn't to squeeze every last dollar out of its athletic corporate partnership. In fact, it's quite the opposite - Princeton is very resistant to over-commercialization of its product.
In today's sports world, almost anything goes as far as sponsorship. All you have to do is listen to a Yankees game on the radio (mercifully, you won't be able to do that for the World Series) to see what TB means. Everything - everything - it seems is sponsored, from the broadcast booth to the 15th out of the game to the pitching changes.
And none of this is unique. Pretty much everything in the world of sports works that way now.
Even the games themselves are affected by rules specific to sponsorship. Why else would paying customers have to sit through nine media timeouts at college basketball games (written into the NCAA rules, by the way) or, even way worse, the dreaded score-TV timeout-kickoff-TV timeout-play again for NFL games. If you've been to an NFL game in person, you see how it drags the whole game to a halt.
When Princeton plays a football game with TV timeouts, it never takes fewer than three hours. Without TV timeouts? In the last three weeks, Princeton played three home football games with no TV timeouts. Game times? Princeton-Colgate was played in 2:37. Princeton-Brown was 2:43. Princeton-Harvard was 2:48.
And the most amazing thing about all of this to TB is how the sporting public simply accepts this. TB isn't 100% sure when the idea of having media timeouts began, but there can be no doubt that the flow of games is better without them.
Media timeouts don't even take into account the bombarding of the senses that can go on at venues, with signs, announcements, sponsored promotions and the like.
Princeton is not immune to this reality of modern-day collegiate sports. Still, TB is sure that Princeton is at the low end of what it will tolerate and what it won't.
As a result, Princeton will sometimes have to say "no" to requests for sponsored elements that would bring in additional revenue. In that regard, Nelligan is a great partner.
It's been clear from the five years that Princeton and NSM have partnered that NSM has bought into this reality and actually embraced it for its uniqueness. The result has been win-win, as Princeton has been able to maintain a semblance of order while Nelligan has been able to be satisfied with the arrangement to the point of eagerly renewing.
At the same time, Nelligan has also brought Princeton forward in terms of corporate sponsorship and what the University is comfortable with in that area. This is also important, because it has helped Princeton develop strong relationships with local corporations and organizations in a business and community sense, without having to cede control of its athletic venues.
There will always be a segment of the Princeton fan base that views any commercialization as a bad thing, and TB understands that.
Still, Princeton Athletics is fortunate to have a partner like Nelligan Sports Marketing. The relationship has developed over the last five years to its current state, which is very positive for both sides, a rarity in business.
Of all the news on goprincetontigers.com in the last few days, the story about the renewal of this relationship might have been an afterthought to most who glanced at it.
To Princeton Athletics, it's huge.
As TB is writing, the seven stories that rotate through the main part of the front page includes one about the women's golf team. In a solid bit of scheduling, it appears that the Tigers are headed to Hawaii for fall break.
There are also stories about men's soccer, two about women's tennis, one about rowing from the Head of the Charles and one about field hockey.
And the seventh?
It's about Princeton and its renewal of its contract with Nelligan Sports Marketing.
At first glance, it appears to be a standard-issue story: Princeton and NSM have continued their partnership, and there is some basic information about both groups and the to-be-expected quotes from Director of Athletics Gary Walters and the Nelligan leadership.
Make no mistake, though. Princeton Athletics' partnership with Nelligan is huge. It's also somewhat unique - and it raises all kinds of issues about the current state of college athletics.
Nelligan is a giant in the field of collegiate sports marketing, especially in this area. From the story:
In addition to Princeton University, NSM represents some of the elite college properties in the country, including the Colonial Athletic Association and its 12 member institutions, the Horizon League, Pac-10 Conference, Patriot League, Brown University, Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, Cleveland State University, Colorado State University, Eastern Michigan University, Fairfield University, Florida Atlantic University, Indiana State University, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, University of Louisville, Marquette University, Middle Tennessee State University, Missouri State University, Monmouth University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Providence College, Rutgers University, University of Texas at San Antonio, West Virginia University, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the Champs Sports Bowl, the Capital One Bowl and the Penn Relays.
What makes Princeton's situation unique - at least from most of the outlets Nelligan works with - is that the University's goal isn't to squeeze every last dollar out of its athletic corporate partnership. In fact, it's quite the opposite - Princeton is very resistant to over-commercialization of its product.
In today's sports world, almost anything goes as far as sponsorship. All you have to do is listen to a Yankees game on the radio (mercifully, you won't be able to do that for the World Series) to see what TB means. Everything - everything - it seems is sponsored, from the broadcast booth to the 15th out of the game to the pitching changes.
And none of this is unique. Pretty much everything in the world of sports works that way now.
Even the games themselves are affected by rules specific to sponsorship. Why else would paying customers have to sit through nine media timeouts at college basketball games (written into the NCAA rules, by the way) or, even way worse, the dreaded score-TV timeout-kickoff-TV timeout-play again for NFL games. If you've been to an NFL game in person, you see how it drags the whole game to a halt.
When Princeton plays a football game with TV timeouts, it never takes fewer than three hours. Without TV timeouts? In the last three weeks, Princeton played three home football games with no TV timeouts. Game times? Princeton-Colgate was played in 2:37. Princeton-Brown was 2:43. Princeton-Harvard was 2:48.
And the most amazing thing about all of this to TB is how the sporting public simply accepts this. TB isn't 100% sure when the idea of having media timeouts began, but there can be no doubt that the flow of games is better without them.
Media timeouts don't even take into account the bombarding of the senses that can go on at venues, with signs, announcements, sponsored promotions and the like.
Princeton is not immune to this reality of modern-day collegiate sports. Still, TB is sure that Princeton is at the low end of what it will tolerate and what it won't.
As a result, Princeton will sometimes have to say "no" to requests for sponsored elements that would bring in additional revenue. In that regard, Nelligan is a great partner.
It's been clear from the five years that Princeton and NSM have partnered that NSM has bought into this reality and actually embraced it for its uniqueness. The result has been win-win, as Princeton has been able to maintain a semblance of order while Nelligan has been able to be satisfied with the arrangement to the point of eagerly renewing.
At the same time, Nelligan has also brought Princeton forward in terms of corporate sponsorship and what the University is comfortable with in that area. This is also important, because it has helped Princeton develop strong relationships with local corporations and organizations in a business and community sense, without having to cede control of its athletic venues.
There will always be a segment of the Princeton fan base that views any commercialization as a bad thing, and TB understands that.
Still, Princeton Athletics is fortunate to have a partner like Nelligan Sports Marketing. The relationship has developed over the last five years to its current state, which is very positive for both sides, a rarity in business.
Of all the news on goprincetontigers.com in the last few days, the story about the renewal of this relationship might have been an afterthought to most who glanced at it.
To Princeton Athletics, it's huge.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, With A Cherry On Top
When Peter Farrell ducks his head into the OAC, it's usually followed by some funny story. It's been 17 years of this now, and the women's track and field/cross country coach hasn't run out of them yet.
So this is how it went this morning:
"Are you a baseball fan? When I was 11 and played CYO baseball, my father told me two things: Never make the last out of the season, and never strike out looking."
The Phils' Ryan Howard did both Saturday night, though in fairness to Howard, it looked like the 3-2 pitch was a bit low. Still, as Mr. Farrell said, don't strike out looking, especially to end the season.
Howard took the called third strike with two on and his team down 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth of Game 6. The result was that the Giants will play the Rangers in the World Series, a thought that has to be thrilling for Fox, which has paid a lot of money to show the event. Hey, it may turn out to be a great World Series. Will it draw big ratings? Unlikely.
So maybe Howard didn't have a great weekend. You know who did? Jim Barlow.
As a matter of fact, you can't ask for more out of a game than Barlow got against Harvard yesterday. For Barlow and Princeton men's soccer, it was a great Sunday - with a cherry on top.
It wasn't just that Princeton defeated Harvard 2-1, coming from behind after allowing a goal off a free kick in the first half to win on second-half goals from Josh Walburn and Matt Sanner three minutes apart - though the win was huge for the Tigers.
No, this was more than just getting a win. It was getting a win over a huge rival, which gave Princeton back-to-back wins over Harvard for the first time since 1999-2000.
And, it was getting that win on national television. Okay, the audience was smaller than the one that saw Howard strike out (though it might rival the one the World Series will draw), but still, those who were watching had to come away impressed with Princeton and the facility.
Certainly the announcers were, including color man Taylor Twellman, formerly of the U.S. national team.
TigerBlog was going to go to the game, but he decided instead to watch in on ESPNU to get the full effect of how the game played on television. It was a great decision.
For starters, it wasn't something that you ordinarily can do, so why not see Princeton from that perspective.
As the game unfolded, it turned into almost an advertisement for the program and facility.
Princeton worked with ESPNU to ensure that the cameras were on the far side of the field shooting into the stands, rather than on the press box side shooting into the benches with a background of the turf practice field, which doesn't capture the true feel of the stadium.
ESPNU obliged and then set its announcers up in the end zone, giving them a different view of the play. ESPNU also set a camera up high behind the end zone, so the TV audience was given the wide angle view as well. For the announcers, it worked out pretty well, as all three goals were scored into the goal directly in front of them.
TB isn't sure where you were yesterday, but if you were in the Central Jersey area, you couldn't beat the weather, which reached the low 70s with low humidity and brilliant sunshine.
The day led to awesome looks at the campus and Nassau Street through numerous cut-aways by ESPNU. And the on-air guys? They couldn't say enough great things about the campus, the stadium, the coaching, the players.
There were a ton of references to the fact that the U.S. national team trained there before the World Cup, and there was a halftime feature with video of the Americans at Roberts Stadium.
And, of course, in the end, it was a win, Princeton's ninth in a row.
The result is that Princeton and Penn are now 4-0-0 in the league, followed by Brown at 2-1-1 and Harvard at 1-1-2. Both Brown and Harvard have suffered their only league loss (and in Brown's case, only loss period) to Princeton.
Princeton and Penn meet on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in two weeks, after Princeton is at Cornell and Penn is home against Brown. Penn also has to play Harvard, while Princeton's final league game is against Yale.
Men's soccer is a sport where it's hard to run the table in the Ivy League, and the season is one week past the halfway point. The stretch run could be a great one for Princeton, or the depth and strength of Ivy soccer could catch up to the Tigers.
Not to jinx anyone, but Princeton, with a rising RPI, is in great shape for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament if it doesn't win the league's automatic bid. Last year, four Ivy teams played in the NCAAs, and Princeton, Penn and Brown seem to be in line at least this year. Should Princeton go to the NCAA tournament, it would be the eighth time that the Tigers did so - but the first time in program history that they would be there in consecutive years.
Whatever happens, that's for the next few weeks. For today, with nearly a full week until the game at Cornell, Jim Barlow can smile a big smile at what his team did yesterday.
It was a perfect game to watch on TV. Through the eyes of the head coach, it had to be even better than that.
So this is how it went this morning:
"Are you a baseball fan? When I was 11 and played CYO baseball, my father told me two things: Never make the last out of the season, and never strike out looking."
The Phils' Ryan Howard did both Saturday night, though in fairness to Howard, it looked like the 3-2 pitch was a bit low. Still, as Mr. Farrell said, don't strike out looking, especially to end the season.
Howard took the called third strike with two on and his team down 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth of Game 6. The result was that the Giants will play the Rangers in the World Series, a thought that has to be thrilling for Fox, which has paid a lot of money to show the event. Hey, it may turn out to be a great World Series. Will it draw big ratings? Unlikely.
So maybe Howard didn't have a great weekend. You know who did? Jim Barlow.
As a matter of fact, you can't ask for more out of a game than Barlow got against Harvard yesterday. For Barlow and Princeton men's soccer, it was a great Sunday - with a cherry on top.
It wasn't just that Princeton defeated Harvard 2-1, coming from behind after allowing a goal off a free kick in the first half to win on second-half goals from Josh Walburn and Matt Sanner three minutes apart - though the win was huge for the Tigers.
No, this was more than just getting a win. It was getting a win over a huge rival, which gave Princeton back-to-back wins over Harvard for the first time since 1999-2000.
And, it was getting that win on national television. Okay, the audience was smaller than the one that saw Howard strike out (though it might rival the one the World Series will draw), but still, those who were watching had to come away impressed with Princeton and the facility.
Certainly the announcers were, including color man Taylor Twellman, formerly of the U.S. national team.
TigerBlog was going to go to the game, but he decided instead to watch in on ESPNU to get the full effect of how the game played on television. It was a great decision.
For starters, it wasn't something that you ordinarily can do, so why not see Princeton from that perspective.
As the game unfolded, it turned into almost an advertisement for the program and facility.
Princeton worked with ESPNU to ensure that the cameras were on the far side of the field shooting into the stands, rather than on the press box side shooting into the benches with a background of the turf practice field, which doesn't capture the true feel of the stadium.
ESPNU obliged and then set its announcers up in the end zone, giving them a different view of the play. ESPNU also set a camera up high behind the end zone, so the TV audience was given the wide angle view as well. For the announcers, it worked out pretty well, as all three goals were scored into the goal directly in front of them.
TB isn't sure where you were yesterday, but if you were in the Central Jersey area, you couldn't beat the weather, which reached the low 70s with low humidity and brilliant sunshine.
The day led to awesome looks at the campus and Nassau Street through numerous cut-aways by ESPNU. And the on-air guys? They couldn't say enough great things about the campus, the stadium, the coaching, the players.
There were a ton of references to the fact that the U.S. national team trained there before the World Cup, and there was a halftime feature with video of the Americans at Roberts Stadium.
And, of course, in the end, it was a win, Princeton's ninth in a row.
The result is that Princeton and Penn are now 4-0-0 in the league, followed by Brown at 2-1-1 and Harvard at 1-1-2. Both Brown and Harvard have suffered their only league loss (and in Brown's case, only loss period) to Princeton.
Princeton and Penn meet on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in two weeks, after Princeton is at Cornell and Penn is home against Brown. Penn also has to play Harvard, while Princeton's final league game is against Yale.
Men's soccer is a sport where it's hard to run the table in the Ivy League, and the season is one week past the halfway point. The stretch run could be a great one for Princeton, or the depth and strength of Ivy soccer could catch up to the Tigers.
Not to jinx anyone, but Princeton, with a rising RPI, is in great shape for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament if it doesn't win the league's automatic bid. Last year, four Ivy teams played in the NCAAs, and Princeton, Penn and Brown seem to be in line at least this year. Should Princeton go to the NCAA tournament, it would be the eighth time that the Tigers did so - but the first time in program history that they would be there in consecutive years.
Whatever happens, that's for the next few weeks. For today, with nearly a full week until the game at Cornell, Jim Barlow can smile a big smile at what his team did yesterday.
It was a perfect game to watch on TV. Through the eyes of the head coach, it had to be even better than that.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Rooting For The Tigers - And Texas
TigerBlog listened to enough sports talk radio last week to get the basic point of Yankees' fans, who were aghast at the idea of having to pitch A.J. Burnett in the American League Championship Series.
How could the Yankees be stuck with such a terrible option, they all wondered? And how best to hide him? Should he be sacrificed against Cliff Lee in Game 3, even if it meant messing up the rest of the rotation for the series, or should he pitch Game 4, even if that meant that Texas would have a huge edge in Game 3 with Lee and Game 4 against Burnett.
The idea that Burnett might actually win never came up. The only issue was that Burnett was unworthy of starting a game for the Yankees.
And what did TigerBlog end up screaming at the radio? Five years, $82.5 million.
This is Year 2 of that deal for Burnett, whose 2010 salary is $16,500,000. Tommy Hunter, who started for Texas in Game 4 against Burnett, has a 2010 salary of $409,500.
It's stuff like that that fuels the anti-Yankee sentiment of people like TB. It's not just that the Yankees can throw money at big-name players that other teams can't dream of doing; it's that it doesn't matter if they're wrong about those players. They just eat that contract and move on to the next.
By the way, where do you think Lee is going to be pitching next season?
As one caller said when calling WFAN, how hard is it to be the Yankees' GM, who has limitless resources and hasn't had to worry about second, short, third, catcher and closer for years now?
Bill Simmons, on ESPN.com Page 2, once said that rooting for the Yankees "is like rooting for the house in black jack."
TB does know several Yankees fans, including one who happens to be the head football coach at Princeton.
Bob Surace grew up in South Jersey, in the heart of Phillies/Eagles' country. His father, though, was a long, long time Yankees fan.
How much of a fan? Well, he named one of his children "Mickey Charles Surace," after "Mickey Charles Mantle."
Tragically, Mickey Charles Surace died at the age of seven months, something that TB never knew about Bob Surace.
Still, the Yankee gene was passed from his father, and Surace was rolling his eyes after Game 4, when the Rangers built their 3-1 lead in the series. Things got a little better for the Yankees Wednesday when they made it 3-2, with Game 6 tonight and Game 7 (hopefully not necessary) tomorrow.
Surace will be busy with his own game this weekend, as he goes through his first Princeton-Harvard game as a head coach. He did go 2-1 against the Crimson as a player, with wins his junior and senior years.
The football game is one of four between Princeton and Harvard this weekend on campus. It's a busy weekend for Princeton athletics, with a schedule like this (the only home event with an admission charge is football):
* the men's hockey team hosts Morrisville State, a Division III team, in its final exhibition game tomorrow at 4 at Baker Rink. The regular season begins next weekend with a four-team tournament in New Haven featuring Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale; all four will play two games that will count towards their records but won't count towards their league records.
* the women's hockey team plays its first real games this weekend, at Northeastern tonight and at Providence tomorrow
* the women's tennis team competes at the ITA regionals at Dartmouth
* the rowing teams compete at the Head of the Charles in Boston. If you're in the area and want to see a sporting spectacular, check out the pageantry of that event.
* the men's water polo team inches closer to the Southern Championships and the Eastern Championships when it takes on Iona at 11 and George Washington at 5 at DeNunzio Pool tomorrow
* sprint football is at Navy tonight. It's asking a lot to expect the Tigers to beat Navy, something that hasn't happened in 12 years. TigerBlog does know someone who feels that Princeton's best chance at a sprint football win is against one of the established teams, rather than the newcomers, because the established teams could be looking past Princeton.
* the women's volleyball team is 5-0 in the league as it heads to Columbia and Cornell. The Tigers are the only undefeated team at this point, but Penn has won four straight since its opening loss to Princeton. This race seems likely to go the end, when Princeton and Penn have their rematch.
* the field hockey team is playing the toughest non-league schedule in the country, something that should have the Tigers pretty well toughened up by the NCAA tournament. As for the Ivy League, Yale is 3-1 and tied for second - but the Bulldogs have been outscored 10-7 in the league. Why? Three wins by a combined four goals, plus a 7-0 loss to Princeton. Cornell is also 3-1, with its loss to Yale; the Tigers are at Cornell next weekend, after they host Harvard tomorrow (noon) and then play at Penn State Sunday. Princeton finishes the regular season with Penn.
* the football team will be playing its first full game without injured quarterback Tommy Wornham, who broke his collarbone last week against Brown. Princeton used three quarterbacks against the Bears after Wornham was hurt; a full week of practice at the position will be a huge plus. Princeton and Harvard meet for the 104th time in the 12th-most played rivalry in the FCS, though Harvard has played Yale, Dartmouth and Brown more than its played Princeton, and Princeton has played Yale more than its played Harvard.
* Princeton and Harvard meet at 5 in women's soccer tomorrow on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. Princeton is in second place entering the weekend, one point behind Columbia, who hosts Dartmouth. Harvard is 5-6-1 overall and 2-2 in the league, but no women's soccer game against the Crimson is ever easy.
* the men's soccer game will be played Sunday at 5 and can be seen on ESPNU. Princeton is one of three Ivy League schools ranked in the NSCAA Top 25 this week, along with Penn and Brown. The Ivy standings right now have Princeton and Penn at 3-0-0, followed by Harvard at 1-0-2.
How could the Yankees be stuck with such a terrible option, they all wondered? And how best to hide him? Should he be sacrificed against Cliff Lee in Game 3, even if it meant messing up the rest of the rotation for the series, or should he pitch Game 4, even if that meant that Texas would have a huge edge in Game 3 with Lee and Game 4 against Burnett.
The idea that Burnett might actually win never came up. The only issue was that Burnett was unworthy of starting a game for the Yankees.
And what did TigerBlog end up screaming at the radio? Five years, $82.5 million.
This is Year 2 of that deal for Burnett, whose 2010 salary is $16,500,000. Tommy Hunter, who started for Texas in Game 4 against Burnett, has a 2010 salary of $409,500.
It's stuff like that that fuels the anti-Yankee sentiment of people like TB. It's not just that the Yankees can throw money at big-name players that other teams can't dream of doing; it's that it doesn't matter if they're wrong about those players. They just eat that contract and move on to the next.
By the way, where do you think Lee is going to be pitching next season?
As one caller said when calling WFAN, how hard is it to be the Yankees' GM, who has limitless resources and hasn't had to worry about second, short, third, catcher and closer for years now?
Bill Simmons, on ESPN.com Page 2, once said that rooting for the Yankees "is like rooting for the house in black jack."
TB does know several Yankees fans, including one who happens to be the head football coach at Princeton.
Bob Surace grew up in South Jersey, in the heart of Phillies/Eagles' country. His father, though, was a long, long time Yankees fan.
How much of a fan? Well, he named one of his children "Mickey Charles Surace," after "Mickey Charles Mantle."
Tragically, Mickey Charles Surace died at the age of seven months, something that TB never knew about Bob Surace.
Still, the Yankee gene was passed from his father, and Surace was rolling his eyes after Game 4, when the Rangers built their 3-1 lead in the series. Things got a little better for the Yankees Wednesday when they made it 3-2, with Game 6 tonight and Game 7 (hopefully not necessary) tomorrow.
Surace will be busy with his own game this weekend, as he goes through his first Princeton-Harvard game as a head coach. He did go 2-1 against the Crimson as a player, with wins his junior and senior years.
The football game is one of four between Princeton and Harvard this weekend on campus. It's a busy weekend for Princeton athletics, with a schedule like this (the only home event with an admission charge is football):
* the men's hockey team hosts Morrisville State, a Division III team, in its final exhibition game tomorrow at 4 at Baker Rink. The regular season begins next weekend with a four-team tournament in New Haven featuring Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown and Yale; all four will play two games that will count towards their records but won't count towards their league records.
* the women's hockey team plays its first real games this weekend, at Northeastern tonight and at Providence tomorrow
* the women's tennis team competes at the ITA regionals at Dartmouth
* the rowing teams compete at the Head of the Charles in Boston. If you're in the area and want to see a sporting spectacular, check out the pageantry of that event.
* the men's water polo team inches closer to the Southern Championships and the Eastern Championships when it takes on Iona at 11 and George Washington at 5 at DeNunzio Pool tomorrow
* sprint football is at Navy tonight. It's asking a lot to expect the Tigers to beat Navy, something that hasn't happened in 12 years. TigerBlog does know someone who feels that Princeton's best chance at a sprint football win is against one of the established teams, rather than the newcomers, because the established teams could be looking past Princeton.
* the women's volleyball team is 5-0 in the league as it heads to Columbia and Cornell. The Tigers are the only undefeated team at this point, but Penn has won four straight since its opening loss to Princeton. This race seems likely to go the end, when Princeton and Penn have their rematch.
* the field hockey team is playing the toughest non-league schedule in the country, something that should have the Tigers pretty well toughened up by the NCAA tournament. As for the Ivy League, Yale is 3-1 and tied for second - but the Bulldogs have been outscored 10-7 in the league. Why? Three wins by a combined four goals, plus a 7-0 loss to Princeton. Cornell is also 3-1, with its loss to Yale; the Tigers are at Cornell next weekend, after they host Harvard tomorrow (noon) and then play at Penn State Sunday. Princeton finishes the regular season with Penn.
* the football team will be playing its first full game without injured quarterback Tommy Wornham, who broke his collarbone last week against Brown. Princeton used three quarterbacks against the Bears after Wornham was hurt; a full week of practice at the position will be a huge plus. Princeton and Harvard meet for the 104th time in the 12th-most played rivalry in the FCS, though Harvard has played Yale, Dartmouth and Brown more than its played Princeton, and Princeton has played Yale more than its played Harvard.
* Princeton and Harvard meet at 5 in women's soccer tomorrow on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. Princeton is in second place entering the weekend, one point behind Columbia, who hosts Dartmouth. Harvard is 5-6-1 overall and 2-2 in the league, but no women's soccer game against the Crimson is ever easy.
* the men's soccer game will be played Sunday at 5 and can be seen on ESPNU. Princeton is one of three Ivy League schools ranked in the NSCAA Top 25 this week, along with Penn and Brown. The Ivy standings right now have Princeton and Penn at 3-0-0, followed by Harvard at 1-0-2.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Gently Down The Stream
TigerBlog used to live with a guy named Jim Chesko, who at various times was the color commentator for Princeton basketball and the PA announcer at Princeton football.
Chesko was a human DVR back in those days, as he would set his multiple VCRs to record multiple television shows, edit out the commercials and then watch them. It was revolutionary stuff at the time, back when he had a library's worth of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" and "The Gary Shandling Show" and others.
Chesko and TB lived in a row house in South Trenton, on Chestnut Avenue near DeKlyn Avenue. It was a nice, quiet place, with a little grassy yard in the back.
It was also a short walk from there to a vacant area on the Trenton waterfront that, shortly before TB left, started to be populated by cranes and construction vehicles. It was on that spot that Mercer County Waterfront Park - the home of the Double-A Trenton Thunder - was built.
TB was completely certain that the entire idea was headed for disaster. When Tom McCarthy left the Trenton Times to go work for the Thunder, TB told him that it was a mistake, since the team couldn't possibly succeed in Trenton.
Build a stadium there? Expect people to come into Trenton at night? Whose idea was this? The alternate idea at the time was to build the stadium in West Windsor's Mercer County Park, but the Mercer County executive at the time (as TB remembers it) was the driving force behind the Trenton site.
TB was not alone in thinking that this would never work; his Trenton Times colleagues at the time Harvey Yavener and Mark Eckel were also certain.
So what happened? Well, nearly 20 years and millions and millions of fans later, the franchise has turned into a model for both minor league baseball and small, local business. TigerBlog has never been more wrong.
Of course, he was just as certain a few years ago that Princeton athletics had no sustainable way of bringing live and archived video to the fans who are interested in watching it.
Now, a few years later, TB would say that this is the single biggest challenge that Princeton has in athletic communications.
The basic history is that a long time ago, Princeton figured out that it could get the TV feed for football and men's basketball from the old cable company (it was called C-Tec back then) onto its webpage, back when it was princeton.edu/athletics and not goprincetontigers.com.
After years of not having any sustained video effort, the current video model began to evolve in something known as TigerZone off of goprincetontigers.com. Today, all of this is housed on goprincetontigers.tv.
The tv site has live and archived game video, as well as original content that is created through athletic communications and marketing. Those original pieces (interviews, features, bios, facility tours) have been extraordinarily well-received, and TB isn't talking about those when he talks about the problems with video, only with the live and archived.
To videostream a game, all you need is a camera, a laptop and an internet connection (preferably an ethernet connection rather than wireless). All you do is plug the camera into the laptop and away you go.
It also became apparent early on that you could stream multiple sports at the same time.
At first, all of this seemed like a great thing. Parents and friends and such could now watch the games whereas before there would possibly be livestats or audio. And now it was video, right there to see.
And then the list of obvious problems began to materialize:
* web providers viewed streaming as a revenue source, so it became necessary to charge a subscription fee. Once a fee is charged, no matter how small, the level of expectation of the viewer goes way up.
* the feed that is usually being shown is from the coaches' camera, which is usually being handled by an injured player or team manager. The entire feed consists of one camera that never changes position, with no replays or multiple camera looks.
* for the majority of games that are streamed, there is no audio, and it's often difficult for the viewer to know what point the game is at, what the score is, etc.
* there is nobody at Princeton who is a designated video person. This means that either an assistant coach or a member of the marketing staff or both have to coordinate having the laptop in the right place, making sure the computer is connected and anything else that is involved in getting a videostream going.
* multiply this by the number of sports that want to stream their events.
* all subscription information is done through neulion, not through Princeton.
* and the biggest problem is that there is no way of troubleshooting during a game if something does go wrong, because the resources here don't permit us to have a video coordinator. Instead, if the marketing staff has set up the game with the assistant coach, then they're both busy once the game starts - or often times, the marketing staff doesn't remain at the game.
When Princeton has a game on Verizon Fios TV, it's able to take that feed and stream it directly. This results in multiple cameras, announcers, graphics and such and makes the presentation immeasurably better.
Unfortunately, Verizon Fios TV only does a handful of games.
The result of all of this is that demand for video far exceeds our ability to supply a high quality product at this point.
Goprincetontigers.com has a feedback section, and the overwhelming number of them refer to video efforts. Most of those are about subscription issues, but many are technical as well.
People are used to watching sports on television. When videostreaming first started, the attitude was something of "hey, this is great; it's way better than nothing."
That attitude is no longer true. Now, there is a much higher level of expectation for the quality and reliability.
Here at Princeton, there are no plans to add additional staff. The challenge - our biggest, actually - is to figure out how to meet the demand.
Chesko was a human DVR back in those days, as he would set his multiple VCRs to record multiple television shows, edit out the commercials and then watch them. It was revolutionary stuff at the time, back when he had a library's worth of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" and "The Gary Shandling Show" and others.
Chesko and TB lived in a row house in South Trenton, on Chestnut Avenue near DeKlyn Avenue. It was a nice, quiet place, with a little grassy yard in the back.
It was also a short walk from there to a vacant area on the Trenton waterfront that, shortly before TB left, started to be populated by cranes and construction vehicles. It was on that spot that Mercer County Waterfront Park - the home of the Double-A Trenton Thunder - was built.
TB was completely certain that the entire idea was headed for disaster. When Tom McCarthy left the Trenton Times to go work for the Thunder, TB told him that it was a mistake, since the team couldn't possibly succeed in Trenton.
Build a stadium there? Expect people to come into Trenton at night? Whose idea was this? The alternate idea at the time was to build the stadium in West Windsor's Mercer County Park, but the Mercer County executive at the time (as TB remembers it) was the driving force behind the Trenton site.
TB was not alone in thinking that this would never work; his Trenton Times colleagues at the time Harvey Yavener and Mark Eckel were also certain.
So what happened? Well, nearly 20 years and millions and millions of fans later, the franchise has turned into a model for both minor league baseball and small, local business. TigerBlog has never been more wrong.
Of course, he was just as certain a few years ago that Princeton athletics had no sustainable way of bringing live and archived video to the fans who are interested in watching it.
Now, a few years later, TB would say that this is the single biggest challenge that Princeton has in athletic communications.
The basic history is that a long time ago, Princeton figured out that it could get the TV feed for football and men's basketball from the old cable company (it was called C-Tec back then) onto its webpage, back when it was princeton.edu/athletics and not goprincetontigers.com.
After years of not having any sustained video effort, the current video model began to evolve in something known as TigerZone off of goprincetontigers.com. Today, all of this is housed on goprincetontigers.tv.
The tv site has live and archived game video, as well as original content that is created through athletic communications and marketing. Those original pieces (interviews, features, bios, facility tours) have been extraordinarily well-received, and TB isn't talking about those when he talks about the problems with video, only with the live and archived.
To videostream a game, all you need is a camera, a laptop and an internet connection (preferably an ethernet connection rather than wireless). All you do is plug the camera into the laptop and away you go.
It also became apparent early on that you could stream multiple sports at the same time.
At first, all of this seemed like a great thing. Parents and friends and such could now watch the games whereas before there would possibly be livestats or audio. And now it was video, right there to see.
And then the list of obvious problems began to materialize:
* web providers viewed streaming as a revenue source, so it became necessary to charge a subscription fee. Once a fee is charged, no matter how small, the level of expectation of the viewer goes way up.
* the feed that is usually being shown is from the coaches' camera, which is usually being handled by an injured player or team manager. The entire feed consists of one camera that never changes position, with no replays or multiple camera looks.
* for the majority of games that are streamed, there is no audio, and it's often difficult for the viewer to know what point the game is at, what the score is, etc.
* there is nobody at Princeton who is a designated video person. This means that either an assistant coach or a member of the marketing staff or both have to coordinate having the laptop in the right place, making sure the computer is connected and anything else that is involved in getting a videostream going.
* multiply this by the number of sports that want to stream their events.
* all subscription information is done through neulion, not through Princeton.
* and the biggest problem is that there is no way of troubleshooting during a game if something does go wrong, because the resources here don't permit us to have a video coordinator. Instead, if the marketing staff has set up the game with the assistant coach, then they're both busy once the game starts - or often times, the marketing staff doesn't remain at the game.
When Princeton has a game on Verizon Fios TV, it's able to take that feed and stream it directly. This results in multiple cameras, announcers, graphics and such and makes the presentation immeasurably better.
Unfortunately, Verizon Fios TV only does a handful of games.
The result of all of this is that demand for video far exceeds our ability to supply a high quality product at this point.
Goprincetontigers.com has a feedback section, and the overwhelming number of them refer to video efforts. Most of those are about subscription issues, but many are technical as well.
People are used to watching sports on television. When videostreaming first started, the attitude was something of "hey, this is great; it's way better than nothing."
That attitude is no longer true. Now, there is a much higher level of expectation for the quality and reliability.
Here at Princeton, there are no plans to add additional staff. The challenge - our biggest, actually - is to figure out how to meet the demand.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Games Gone Wrong
TigerBlog saw a story this morning about how the NFL had been selling photos on its website of a hit that James Harrison of the Steelers put on Mohamed Massaquoi of the Browns last Sunday, a hit that drew no penalty flag but did contribute to a $75,000 fine against Harrison.
And there, TigerBlog said immediately, is the whole problem with football right now.
The issue of big defensive-player-as-missile hits would go away right now if the NFL decided it really wanted it to. Unfortunately, there's little evidence to suggest that's the case.
Instead, the opposite continues to be true. The NFL loves the violence because it sells, from TV ratings to video games to pictures on its own website.
It you watch professional football today compared with 20 or so years ago and longer, you'll see among other things the fact that nobody is trying to tackle anymore by putting his shoulder into the ball carriers chest and wrapping him up. Today, your average defensive player doesn't use his arms at all and instead tries to hit the ball carrier as hard as possible (the first player TB remembers doing this was San Francisco's Ronnie Lott). This often results in leading with the helmet.
And then this is what happens:
1) the TV commentators jump all over it as being spectacular, talking in glowing terms about the hit itself while showing numerous replays
2) the hit ends up on SportsCenter and every other highlight show
3) college players see this and figure that's how you have to play to get to the NFL or to get on TV
4) high school and youth kids emulate this
And all of this is so unnecessary, because the NFL could make it stop in one second by 1) strictly enforcing the existing helmet-to-helmet rules and the rule about defenseless wide receivers and 2) by suspending those who make these hits.
This past weekend seemed to be particularly violent in the NFL, especially with the two hits by Harrison and the stunning collision between Atlanta's Dunta Robinson and Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson.
And it seemed like the NFL was about to start taking it seriously - and maybe the NFL still is - with the stories about coming suspensions for such hits. But then TB saw the story about the Harrison picture, and that brought him back to the reality that there is money to be made from those kinds of hits.
Call TigerBlog cynical, but he doesn't accept the NFL's explanation that it made a "mistake" in having the Harrison picture for sale.
An hour north of where TB is writing this, Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand is in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the neck down after making a tackle on a kickoff against Army last Saturday. Hopefully LeGrand will make the same sort of progress that Kevin Everett and Adam Tagliaferro were able to make after they were in the same place that LeGrand is now and be able to walk again.
TigerBlog has been impressed by the way Rutgers has handled the LeGrand injury, a situation that is horrible all the way around.
TB today got an email from Mike Cross, who is nearing the one-year mark of his tenure as Director of Athletics at Bradley after spending 10 years working here at Princeton. Included in the email was a reference to a Bradley baseball player, Phil Kaiser, who died Sunday night from an undetected heart ailment.
When you get into the college athletics business, you know that you're going to be working with people who are young and in the peak of health and physical prowess. At its best moments, working in college athletics puts you around people who are devoted to fitness and teamwork, people who awe you with their pure athleticism.
For the majority of college athletes, there is also a true balance between student and athlete, between a healthy mind and a healthy body.
TB has seen it here at Princeton for decades, and still after all this time he is awed by the people he sees here. In many ways, they seem indestructible.
And yet, every now and then, there are worst-case scenarios that have to be dealt with. Sadly, TB has seen it first-hand here, as Princeton athletics has not been immune to tragedy, with athletes, young alums and young colleagues.
It hasn't been easy any of those times. In the end, TB has mostly been left to think about the randomness of it, the sadness of it, the unfairness of it.
You work in college athletics to have an impact on the lives of these young people. If you're lucky, you also get to be there when they have the big wins, the championship experiences, the glory days that nobody will ever forget.
That's why Mike Cross went to Bradley, to help the athletes there have those kinds of moments. And less than a year later, he finds himself in the middle of a tragedy nobody could have anticipated.
And suddenly, he has to deal with it, taking the emotional lead for his department and University.
There's no way to properly prepare yourself for it, and it's an awful experience to have to go through.
It's even worse when it's preventable. The NFL has played with fire for years with the violence in its sport, and worse - it's allowed that violence to trickle down to the kids who play the game.
TB wishes the best to Eric LeGrand and his family and to Phil Kaiser and his family, as well as all of their friends.
He also gives the people at Rutgers and Bradley his best for having to handle these situations and huge credit for how they have.
We're all in this for the fun and games, but unfortunately, that's not always what life is about.
And there, TigerBlog said immediately, is the whole problem with football right now.
The issue of big defensive-player-as-missile hits would go away right now if the NFL decided it really wanted it to. Unfortunately, there's little evidence to suggest that's the case.
Instead, the opposite continues to be true. The NFL loves the violence because it sells, from TV ratings to video games to pictures on its own website.
It you watch professional football today compared with 20 or so years ago and longer, you'll see among other things the fact that nobody is trying to tackle anymore by putting his shoulder into the ball carriers chest and wrapping him up. Today, your average defensive player doesn't use his arms at all and instead tries to hit the ball carrier as hard as possible (the first player TB remembers doing this was San Francisco's Ronnie Lott). This often results in leading with the helmet.
And then this is what happens:
1) the TV commentators jump all over it as being spectacular, talking in glowing terms about the hit itself while showing numerous replays
2) the hit ends up on SportsCenter and every other highlight show
3) college players see this and figure that's how you have to play to get to the NFL or to get on TV
4) high school and youth kids emulate this
And all of this is so unnecessary, because the NFL could make it stop in one second by 1) strictly enforcing the existing helmet-to-helmet rules and the rule about defenseless wide receivers and 2) by suspending those who make these hits.
This past weekend seemed to be particularly violent in the NFL, especially with the two hits by Harrison and the stunning collision between Atlanta's Dunta Robinson and Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson.
And it seemed like the NFL was about to start taking it seriously - and maybe the NFL still is - with the stories about coming suspensions for such hits. But then TB saw the story about the Harrison picture, and that brought him back to the reality that there is money to be made from those kinds of hits.
Call TigerBlog cynical, but he doesn't accept the NFL's explanation that it made a "mistake" in having the Harrison picture for sale.
An hour north of where TB is writing this, Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand is in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the neck down after making a tackle on a kickoff against Army last Saturday. Hopefully LeGrand will make the same sort of progress that Kevin Everett and Adam Tagliaferro were able to make after they were in the same place that LeGrand is now and be able to walk again.
TigerBlog has been impressed by the way Rutgers has handled the LeGrand injury, a situation that is horrible all the way around.
TB today got an email from Mike Cross, who is nearing the one-year mark of his tenure as Director of Athletics at Bradley after spending 10 years working here at Princeton. Included in the email was a reference to a Bradley baseball player, Phil Kaiser, who died Sunday night from an undetected heart ailment.
When you get into the college athletics business, you know that you're going to be working with people who are young and in the peak of health and physical prowess. At its best moments, working in college athletics puts you around people who are devoted to fitness and teamwork, people who awe you with their pure athleticism.
For the majority of college athletes, there is also a true balance between student and athlete, between a healthy mind and a healthy body.
TB has seen it here at Princeton for decades, and still after all this time he is awed by the people he sees here. In many ways, they seem indestructible.
And yet, every now and then, there are worst-case scenarios that have to be dealt with. Sadly, TB has seen it first-hand here, as Princeton athletics has not been immune to tragedy, with athletes, young alums and young colleagues.
It hasn't been easy any of those times. In the end, TB has mostly been left to think about the randomness of it, the sadness of it, the unfairness of it.
You work in college athletics to have an impact on the lives of these young people. If you're lucky, you also get to be there when they have the big wins, the championship experiences, the glory days that nobody will ever forget.
That's why Mike Cross went to Bradley, to help the athletes there have those kinds of moments. And less than a year later, he finds himself in the middle of a tragedy nobody could have anticipated.
And suddenly, he has to deal with it, taking the emotional lead for his department and University.
There's no way to properly prepare yourself for it, and it's an awful experience to have to go through.
It's even worse when it's preventable. The NFL has played with fire for years with the violence in its sport, and worse - it's allowed that violence to trickle down to the kids who play the game.
TB wishes the best to Eric LeGrand and his family and to Phil Kaiser and his family, as well as all of their friends.
He also gives the people at Rutgers and Bradley his best for having to handle these situations and huge credit for how they have.
We're all in this for the fun and games, but unfortunately, that's not always what life is about.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Worldwide Leader At Roberts Stadium
When TigerBlog was a kid, PBS used to have a weekly college hockey game on each Saturday. TB was fascinated by the broadcasts, which he sometimes watched on the tiny black-and-white TV that was in the room he shared with BrotherBlog.
For whatever reason, TB remembers that it always seemed like New Hampshire was one of the teams playing.
Back then, college sports on television were almost completely limited to football and men's basketball. And those sports were pretty limited in their distribution, with very few games on each weekend.
TB grew up halfway between Philadelphia and New York City (though he went to New York 100 times for every time he went to Philadelphia), and he was able to get the TV stations from both cities. Not on his cable system, of course, because there was no such thing as cable TV yet, at least until he was in high school.
Getting the channels of both meant actually walking over to the TV and changing the channel knob, to either channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 or 11 from New York or 3, 6, 10, 17, 29 or 48 from Philadelphia. There were also public TV options - 12 and 13 were the New York and Philly PBS channels, and 23 and 52 were New Jersey's.
TB remembers watching the Mets, Knicks, Rangers and Nets (from the ABA) on Channel 9 and the Yankees on Channel 11. Home games for basketball and hockey were never televised.
Of course, there were also Big Five doubleheaders from the Palestra on Channel 48.
Back then, the highlight shows were the best part of watching sports, especially football. "This Week In Pro Football," with Tom Brookshier and Pat Summerall and its distinctive music, was a must-see every week.
As for college football, TB remembers a Game of the Week show that would focus on the top two or three games and would run Sundays at noon, before the NFL games started.
As for live games, there were a few, but not many.
Fast forward to today, and obviously it's all different. There were about 25 college football games on TB's cable system this past Saturday, and that doesn't include the additional games that are on Thursdays, Fridays and even Wednesdays.
When college basketball season starts, it'll be even more saturated, with about a million games on every night. More, of course, does not necessary equate to better; at some point, it all starts to look alike.
Princeton has a contract with ESPN to show a minimum of seven home events per year. It's a very nice situation for us to be in, especially since it gives us a chance to showcase a variety of teams.
TigerBlog starts each year working with ESPN on the schedule of events. This year, we were unable to make a football game work, after having one on for four straight years.
The ESPN people have long ago made it clear that their two favorite sports from Princeton are men's hockey and men's lacrosse, which fit in nicely with the big picture of their programming.
Still, they have been open to some other things, like, for instance, the first event of this year that was televised, men's water polo vs. Santa Barbara.
The next event will be this Sunday at 5, when the men's soccer game against Harvard will be shown (on ESPNU).
Early on, TB tried to sell ESPN on the idea of 1) televising a game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium and 2) putting the cameras on the field turf side to shoot into the stands, so as to show off the facility. This year, he was successful on both counts.
The game itself is a huge one for the Ivy League men's soccer race.
Princeton and Penn are currently 3-0-0 each, while Harvard is in third at 1-0-2 after a scoreless tie with Brown last weekend. In Ivy League soccer, three points are awarded for a win and one for a tie, so technically Princeton and Penn have nine points, Harvard has five and Brown has four.
The Tigers will enter the TV game on a seven-game winning streak and with exactly three goals scored in each of the seven games. To put that in perspective, Princeton has scored 21 goals in its last seven games; it scored 21 for the entire 2008 season and 20 for the entire 2007 season, both of which were 17 games.
Penn still has games against Princeton, Brown and Harvard. Brown is still the highest ranked Ivy school.
It's unlikely Princeton or Penn will run the table. It's also likely that three or even four Ivy schools will get NCAA tournament bids, as Ivy men's soccer is among the most competitive of all league sports.
ESPNU chose the game in part to be a good partner with Princeton, but the result is a fairly strong matchup.
TB never could have envisioned back when he was a kid that an all-sports network would grow to what it has become and that sports like college soccer and water polo would be able to be seen on regular TV.
Still, that's where the world has gone, and it's been great for Princeton.
So watch your 25 college football games on Saturday. Then tune in for a big college soccer game, Sunday at 5.
For whatever reason, TB remembers that it always seemed like New Hampshire was one of the teams playing.
Back then, college sports on television were almost completely limited to football and men's basketball. And those sports were pretty limited in their distribution, with very few games on each weekend.
TB grew up halfway between Philadelphia and New York City (though he went to New York 100 times for every time he went to Philadelphia), and he was able to get the TV stations from both cities. Not on his cable system, of course, because there was no such thing as cable TV yet, at least until he was in high school.
Getting the channels of both meant actually walking over to the TV and changing the channel knob, to either channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 or 11 from New York or 3, 6, 10, 17, 29 or 48 from Philadelphia. There were also public TV options - 12 and 13 were the New York and Philly PBS channels, and 23 and 52 were New Jersey's.
TB remembers watching the Mets, Knicks, Rangers and Nets (from the ABA) on Channel 9 and the Yankees on Channel 11. Home games for basketball and hockey were never televised.
Of course, there were also Big Five doubleheaders from the Palestra on Channel 48.
Back then, the highlight shows were the best part of watching sports, especially football. "This Week In Pro Football," with Tom Brookshier and Pat Summerall and its distinctive music, was a must-see every week.
As for college football, TB remembers a Game of the Week show that would focus on the top two or three games and would run Sundays at noon, before the NFL games started.
As for live games, there were a few, but not many.
Fast forward to today, and obviously it's all different. There were about 25 college football games on TB's cable system this past Saturday, and that doesn't include the additional games that are on Thursdays, Fridays and even Wednesdays.
When college basketball season starts, it'll be even more saturated, with about a million games on every night. More, of course, does not necessary equate to better; at some point, it all starts to look alike.
Princeton has a contract with ESPN to show a minimum of seven home events per year. It's a very nice situation for us to be in, especially since it gives us a chance to showcase a variety of teams.
TigerBlog starts each year working with ESPN on the schedule of events. This year, we were unable to make a football game work, after having one on for four straight years.
The ESPN people have long ago made it clear that their two favorite sports from Princeton are men's hockey and men's lacrosse, which fit in nicely with the big picture of their programming.
Still, they have been open to some other things, like, for instance, the first event of this year that was televised, men's water polo vs. Santa Barbara.
The next event will be this Sunday at 5, when the men's soccer game against Harvard will be shown (on ESPNU).
Early on, TB tried to sell ESPN on the idea of 1) televising a game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium and 2) putting the cameras on the field turf side to shoot into the stands, so as to show off the facility. This year, he was successful on both counts.
The game itself is a huge one for the Ivy League men's soccer race.
Princeton and Penn are currently 3-0-0 each, while Harvard is in third at 1-0-2 after a scoreless tie with Brown last weekend. In Ivy League soccer, three points are awarded for a win and one for a tie, so technically Princeton and Penn have nine points, Harvard has five and Brown has four.
The Tigers will enter the TV game on a seven-game winning streak and with exactly three goals scored in each of the seven games. To put that in perspective, Princeton has scored 21 goals in its last seven games; it scored 21 for the entire 2008 season and 20 for the entire 2007 season, both of which were 17 games.
Penn still has games against Princeton, Brown and Harvard. Brown is still the highest ranked Ivy school.
It's unlikely Princeton or Penn will run the table. It's also likely that three or even four Ivy schools will get NCAA tournament bids, as Ivy men's soccer is among the most competitive of all league sports.
ESPNU chose the game in part to be a good partner with Princeton, but the result is a fairly strong matchup.
TB never could have envisioned back when he was a kid that an all-sports network would grow to what it has become and that sports like college soccer and water polo would be able to be seen on regular TV.
Still, that's where the world has gone, and it's been great for Princeton.
So watch your 25 college football games on Saturday. Then tune in for a big college soccer game, Sunday at 5.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
