"Don't Listen To Him; He's Just The Trainer"

Okay, TigerBlog will state it publicly. He likes Lady Gaga.

Her music, that is. Not the whole Lady Gaga show.

TigerBlog has long suspected that Lady Gaga is toying with everyone around her with the overplayed excess that is her persona. And then he watched "60 Minutes" last night, where Anderson Cooper fawned all over her during a profile piece that was quite interesting.

In short, Lady Gaga - "call me Gaga," she told the star-struck Cooper at one point - basically was up front with the fact that she'd studied fame, and specifically why some performers sustain it and others don't. And her No. 1 conclusion is that the most important aspect is to get everyone focused on what you want them focused on and away from what you don't want them focused on.

Ultimately, she came across as, well, nice. And funny. And down-to-Earth. Of course, she was wearing 10-inch heels and a skin-colored body suit with makeup that was a tad flashy, but hey, that's the act.

And so with that public announcement about the fact that someone raised on Springsteen and Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny - not to mention The Beatles, the Stones, the Who - actually likes Lady Gaga, TigerBlog has nothing else to say today.

Instead, he turns the floor over to Princeton athletic trainer Russ Steves, who was recently in London for the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United:

Some people have all the luck. In this case, I was one of them. This is what ran through my head when I was sitting in Wembley Stadium last Saturday night watching the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Manchester United.

On top of that, my day started sitting in the lobby of one of London’s posh hotels sipping tea with members of the Manchester United team. They had just returned from a walk about to get out of the hotel for a bit and had espressos. I was the stuffy American who thought you’re supposed to be drinking tea when lounging around a hotel lobby in London. It was very nice to catch up with my buddies the equipment manager, the masseurs, Ryan Giggs, Sir Alex Ferguson and some of his assistant coaches. They were all very generous to explain the strategy behind winning the game later that day. Play fast, run like crazy, and when you win the ball from Barcelona, get it out from the middle of the field as quickly as you can. Barcelona closes you down very quickly after a turnover. If you lose it to them at that point, you are very vulnerable to a dangerous counterattack.

Well, now I was armed with the critical points of strategy for the game and wanted to leave them to get focused on the task ahead. I was just saying so long to them since they’ll be back in the USA this summer for their preseason tour. I’ll have plenty of time to revisit them again then.

So at this point you might be wondering, how does a guy who Bob Bradley ‘80 once instructed an opposing coach, “don’t listen to him; he’s just the trainer” get a seat at this great world event and hang out with one of the participants? Well, working as the athletic trainer for the Princeton men’s soccer team has provided some perks. For one, a former Princeton player and coach, Charlie Stillitano ’81, works as a promoter to bring professional soccer clubs from Europe over to tour the US. Since 2003 I’ve been able to help him with that. This means that I’ve been able to make some pretty cool connections in world soccer. Cool enough to get me a ticket to this big game and get past security at the Manchester United team hotel.

Now back to London. My game day then involves checking out the sites around Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Generally, just wandering around London waiting for when it’s time to head out to the game. Man, was it jam-packed with fans, mostly Barcelona fans. There were thousands of them, all with their blue and red shirts and singing Barcelona team songs, and having a grand old time. I was thinking, how were all these Barcelona fans going to get into the game? Surely, there were many more of them than the allotment of tickets. It turns out that most of them didn’t have tickets to the game. They were just hopping the best flight they could find so that they could be as close as possible to the stadium and support their team. That’s being a fan!

Finally, it’s time to take the London Underground out to the stadium. My friends and I hopped aboard the Bakerloo Line at Piccadilly Circus and rode the 12 stops out to Wembley. The ride took about 45 minutes but we were completely entertained by the back and forth on the train between the Manchester fans and Barcelona fans. Fortunately, there was no violence, but lots of singing and team chants. Not very much of this was understandable to me or repeatable on this PG-rated blog. I think there may have been just a touch of alcohol involved. Even so, we made it to our stop ready for the spectacle.

Wembley Stadium is magnificent. They’ve been playing soccer on this site since 1923. The original stadium was torn down in 2000 with this new arena reopened in 2007. It is the home of “football” in England, hosting FA Cups, European Cups, World Cups and Champions League finals. I was never in the old stadium, but this new one is fantastic.

It is different from most European stadiums in that it has concourses that allow you to walk around once inside the building. Most soccer stadiums in Europe have it so that your entrance gate is just for your section. There’s little or no chance to walk to a concession area or restroom. I think they do this to prevent the interaction of opposing fans. Wembley has much more of the American-style stadium feel. Nonetheless, I noticed that it was very much not like our stadiums in that there’s almost no parking. I saw about one-quarter of the space allotted for parking at Wembley and that was for buses. They make the majority of spectators arrive at the stadium by mass transit, predominantly the “Tube” (subway). I didn’t mind. It gave me the chance to bond with my new singing and chanting friends.

My friends and I arrived in plenty of time to walk around, take some pictures, and buy some memorabilia. I have to admit this didn’t work out too well for me. The vendors had run out of all the decent looking shirts with both teams’ logos on them (nice planning UEFA) and the official game program I bought got lost by my travel companion. Here’s a tip: never give your program to someone who chronically mislays things. In my defense, I learned about my friend’s malady after the fact. Nonetheless, it’s was now time to get to our seats.

Not a bad view, especially since this is the end that saw three of the four goals in the game (Rooney for Man. Utd., Messi, and David Villa for Barcelona). A photo was taken by a renowned photographer (at least in my own mind) just before kickoff as the teams were lined up at midfield. We’re down in the Barcelona fans end and you can see them holding up cards in the team’s colors. The far end shows the Man Utd fans holding up cards invoking the “Spirit of ‘68” when Man United defeated Benfica of Portugal in Wembley. Unfortunately, that charm didn’t work as Barcelona won by a resounding 3-1.

The game itself was very entertaining even though my friends from Manchester came out on the losing end. They tried to take it to Barcelona in the beginning of the game. After about 15 minutes though, Barcelona began to take possession of the ball and the game. Their ability to control the ball, move with deception and speed, along with having such creative ideas of how to get dangerous in attach make them too much to handle for very long. The first goal seemed inevitable, but I was heartened to see Manchester United fight back and tie the score at the half. Unfortunately, the second half began with Man United looking very tired and slow. After Barcelona scored twice in front of me, I was pretty sure that my evening was going to end in tears.

I have to admit that Barcelona is extremely good. They exemplify what people talk about as the “Beautiful Game”. They are so skillful, creative, and fast that you must give them a lot of credit for the way they attack. With that said, I think what makes them special now and an unbeatable force is how they defend. They use that same quickness and determination to give the opposition very little time or space to get offensive. It’s remarkable to watch such talented offensive players apply the same ability to defending. I can only hope they get old or unmotivated in a hurry.

I spent almost two days in London after Saturday’s match. This was just to satisfy my sightseeing part of the journey. Much of the talk on TV and in newspapers discussed whether this Barcelona team was the greatest club team of all time. I have trouble conceding that because of my fondness for my friends at Manchester United. But I don’t have any hesitation admitting how lucky I was to witness them demonstrate how good they are in person and to watch some really great soccer.

Tuggapees

Today is Field Day at Little Miss TigerBlog's school.

Perhaps you remember Field Day? A few relay races, some fun games - like the one where you carry the egg on the spoon - a few blue ribbons, maybe some tie-died shirts and a snack when it's over. Just a fun day to celebrate the coming end of the school year.

Does it get more wholesome than that?

Of course, then TigerBlog had to overhear this statement: "the first event is the tuggapees."

"Tuggapees?" TB asked.

"Tuggapees. The game where the two teams pull the rope and try to pull the other team across the line."

At that moment, TigerBlog was astonished. "Tuggapees" was actually "tug o' peace." You know, as opposed to "tug o' war."

TigerBlog could only imagine the meetings that took place over that little distinction.

"Can't have a game with the word 'war' in it. It sends the wrong message to the children."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Where will it stop? Some educator actually came up with "tug o' peace" as a way of what? Pretending that there is no conflict in the world? Pretending that competition is a bad thing? Shielding kids from the horror of - egads - having someone win and someone lose?

It's enough already.

There should be a law that requires that score be kept in every game played and that one team be called the "winner" and the other team called the "loser." Yeah, TB said it.

Loser. Loser. Loser.

Hey, if you don't want to be the loser, then work harder, get better and be the winner. Then maybe we'll get somewhere.

It's the message that TigerBlog has tried to get across to youth players that he's coached, not all of whom have gotten that message during the season. Still, when TB asks the kids on the team to raise their hand if they want to play in high school, every hand goes up. And when he asks to see the hands of those who want to play in college, again, all hands go up.

TB hopes that the light bulb will go on for some of these kids in the near future and that they'll realize their full potential.

TigerBlog is around college athletes all the time, and for them, the light bulb clearly went on at some point, probably early on, that hard work and dedication were going to get them where they wanted to be.

Princeton already has two national champions in this academic year, Todd Harrity in individual men's squash and the women's open rowing first varsity 8.

The Princeton men's lightweight rowers are going for their third straight Intercollegiate Rowing Association national championship. Unlike the NCAA women's event, the national champion here is crowned not by team points but the first varsity 8 winner.

The Princeton women's lightweights and men's lightweights row for the national championship tomorrow, while the heavyweights row today to try to get into the final.

Greg Hughes turned the lightweight program around and won the 2009 title before taking over the heavyweights, with whom he has continued his Midas touch, turning a team that finished 13th at the Eastern Sprints two years ago into one that has a legitimate shot at reaching the grand final at IRA's this year.

Marty Crotty, who took over for Hughes with the lightweights, won the national title last year and has a legitimate shot at winning again this year.

As for the women's lightweights, they already have had a stunning season. It began in California with a win over Wisconsin, the defending Eastern champion, and Stanford, the defending national champion, by huge margins, and it has continued all year as the undefeated record includes an Eastern Sprints win over Wisconsin.

The women's lightweight final figures to be between Princeton, Wisconsin and Stanford.

Starting in the middle of next week, Princeton will have 10 track and field athletes competing in the NCAA championships at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The best hope for a national championship there is probably Donn Cabral in the steeplechase, but Princeton should come away with a few All-Americas at least.

Ah, competition. Someone is going to win; someone is going to lose.

Isn't it great?

Play Ball, Finally

TigerBlog isn't sure if everyone heard the news yet, so he'll repeat it here for those who missed it: Jim Tressel is out as Ohio State's football coach.

What's that? Oh, you heard it?

Obviously you heard it. Everyone heard it. How could you not, what with ESPN's never-ending coverage of the story as it broke Monday morning?

TigerBlog was flipping through the channels before heading over to M&T Bank Stadium Monday for the NCAA men's lacrosse final, and on ESPN it was all Tressel, all the time. It was so completely over the top that TB didn't really understand how someone in a position of authority at ESPN didn't say "enough already, just put on one of the '30 for 30' documentaries."

The list of upcoming stories on ESPNEWS said "Memorial Day Memories" was two away, and TB thought that it was referring either 1) to something military related or 2) something lacrosse related, so he figured he'd watch it. Instead, the Tressel story just dragged on and on and on, with one commentator after another talking about the situation, which seemed to be 1) obvious and 2) inevitable.

Eventually, TB realized that he was never going to see the Memorial Day peice, so he switched the station to the NCIS marathon. TB is positive he would love the show NCIS, though he's never gotten into it. Instead, he's seen every episode of Criminal Minds.

As an aside, TB thinks a better show would be to film the writers from Criminal Minds as they talk about their storylines. "Hey," one would say, "why not have him be a cannibal in addition to just a serial killer."

After completing his first-ever episode of NCIS, TB eventually made it back to ESPN for more Tressel.

Eventually, though, TB did see something from the Worldwide Leader that he was interested in, the draw for the NCAA baseball tournament.

Way, way, way back on May 8, Princeton defeated Dartmouth 8-5 in the third game of the Ivy League championship series to clinch the league title and earn a spot in the NCAA tournament.

The gap between those two accomplishments was four weeks.

The NCAA draw was finally held Monday, and Princeton drew Texas in the opening round of a four-team regional that also includes Texas State and Kent State. The double-elimination event will produce one team that advances to next weekend's Super Regionals.

Texas, of course, is the clear favorite. The Longhorns have won nearly as many games (43) as Princeton has played (45), and there are few teams in college baseball that have the history that the Longhorns do.

In fact, no team has played in the NCAA tournament more than Texas, who will be making its 54th appearance. Princeton, for the record, will be there for the 11th time. Their all time NCAA records are 3-19 (Princeton) and 219-107 (Texas), and Texas has six NCAA titles on its resume.

Now it's time for this question: Which team has hit more home runs this year?

TB assumed Texas mashed the ball all over the place, but that's not quite true. In fact, Princeton has out-homered the Longhorns, who have hit just 13 in their 58 games, to 17 in 45 games for Princeton.

Texas makes up for it by having the No. 1 pitching staff in college baseball, with a 2.25 team ERA. Texas is also the No. 1 ranked fielding percentage team in the country and the third-ranked team in terms of sacrifice bunts.

On the one hand, playing against a team like that is difficult, because it puts pressure on every scoring opportunity Princeton gets and puts pressure on Princeton's pitchers to not give up more than a run or two.

On the other hand, it's probably not going to be 6-0 after the third inning, which means that the game will have a chance to develop and probably will be close throughout.

And, with the baseball tournament, there's always the opportunity to come back the next day should the first game be a loss.

And who knows, there is always the chance to make a run deep into the weekend.

For Princeton, that chance comes four weeks after the team last played. TB can't think of a sport where a four-week layoff at the peak of competition would be helpful, but it's worst in baseball.

Any momentum Princeton had after playing nearly 20 games in the four weeks prior to clinching the Ivy title is long gone. And intra-squad games and simulated games for pitchers only take you so far in staying sharp.

Still, at first pitch tomorrow night, none of it will matter.

The big story is that, after a 12-30 season last year, the Tigers are still playing.

Even after a four-week layoff.

Graduation Day

TigerBlog always liked Hank Aaron back when he used to watch him on TV as a kid. Aaron, of course, was a tough guy not to like.

He hit 755 home runs in his 23 Major League seasons, though he never hit more than 47 in any one season. He did surpass 30 home runs 15 times and 40 home runs eight times, and he is one of only four players with at least 3,000 hits and 500 home runs.

One of the other three in that group is Willie Mays (the other two are Eddie Murray and Rafael Palmiero), who was a much more dynamic player than Aaron during the same era. In fact, many consider Mays to be a better all-around player than Aaron, even though Aaron hit a little higher for his career (.305 compared to .302 for Mays) and drove in 400 more runs than Mays.

Part of the reason that Mays is considered to be a better player might be his flair, something that Aaron couldn't match. Or maybe it's because he made his name in New York and then later in San Francisco, whereas Aaron played in Milwaukee and Atlanta.

All Aaron did was consistently drive the ball and bring in runners year after year after year. He's not the greatest player of all-time, but he is in the top, oh, five, probably.

Aaron hit his 715th home run off of Al Dowling, a graduate, by the way, of Trenton High School. It was that home run that moved him past Babe Ruth into first on the all-time list, a chase that famously generated considerable racist ranting about the prospect of a black man's eclipsing the most famous record in American professional sports. Looking back, had it been known who would eventually break Aaron's record and how, there would have been universal desire to see Aaron hit another 50 home runs.

Yesterday, Hank Aaron was given an honorary degree at Princeton's graduation ceremony. From the University's release: As a player entering Major League Baseball soon after its integration in 1954, he confronted racism with quiet dignity, and as an executive he has fought discrimination in hiring practices.

The identity of the honorary degree recipients is a huge secret leading up to graduation. Aaron joins a list of people with athletic backgrounds to be so honored, including the likes of Arthur Ashe and Mia Hamm.

Graduation Day at Princeton always fascinates TigerBlog. Not to be a snob, but it's a unique honor to attend Princeton University - something TB never had a chance of pulling off.

Being a Princeton graduate is no guarantee of limitless post-graduate success, but it does open up all kinds of doors for those who hold such diplomas.

Here at Princeton, it's often said that the college experience should be the "best four years" for the students, and, from our perspective, the athletes.

TB hopes that that isn't the case, that life won't be all downhill from the age of 22 on for those wearing the caps and gowns outside Nassau Hall yesterday.

TB would rather word it that he hopes that the athletes of Princeton reach graduation having had a remarkable time during their four years here. He hopes that they look back at their time here as having provided them with a great foundation to build on in any area of their lives, good or bad. He hopes that they learned to deal with success - and failure - and that they are prepared to handle both in their "adult" lives.

If that sounds a bit too graduation-speechish, that's okay, because TB really believes it.

Maybe they came to Princeton because it afforded them the best opportunity to play Division I athletics, or maybe they came here instead of a scholarship school because of the more-rounded experience. It doesn't matter.

College athletes go through a different kind of four years than non-athletes, and it's not for everyone. The need to balance the workload of school with the workload of athletics is daunting, especially at a place like Princeton.

The 200 or so athletes who reach graduation each year would each tell their own story of how they handled it, how their time here was, how their team dynamic worked out, what their place in that dynamic was.

One of those graduates, Tim Palmer of the men's lacrosse team, stopped by the OAC earlier this morning on his way out, to return a flip cam that TB had given Palmer to do one of the TigerCam videos.

If you've never heard of Palmer, it's because he was a backup player for his entire career. He leaves Princeton having never scored a goal and having appeared in 10 total games.

But make no mistake, his time at Princeton was shaped directly by being part of the lacrosse program, just as much as it would have been had he been a first-team All-America. He practiced; he traveled; he worked out in the off-season. He made friends with his teammates; he came to deal with the fact that he wasn't going to be a starter.

Today, he talked about his future plans, moving on to Chicago to be a trader.

Before he left, he thanked TB for his work with the men's lacrosse team through the years. And then, as he was walking out the door, he said this:

"It was a great four years."

Hopefully it was for all the Princeton athletes, and all the Princeton grads, for that matter.

Congratulations to them all.

Thoughts From Lot F

Prior to the start of yesterday's Division I men's lacrosse championship game between Virginia and Maryland, TigerBlog wandered over from the official stats booth to the main press box at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

There, TB, Christian Swezey of the Washington Post and Eddie Timanus of USA Today made their predictions on the game.

TigerBlog called it Virginia 10-7. Timanus said 9-7 UVa. Swezey said 9-6 UVa. Actually, TB can't remember which one said it'd be 9-7 and which said 9-6.

Ultimately, the final score would in fact be Virginia 9, Maryland 7, meaning one of the other two was right and TB was pretty close.

As for the tournament itself, TB picked Virginia - the seventh seed - to win the championship when he first saw the draw.

It's easy to gloat when your picks come true, because nobody ever remembers the ones that don't. And, to be honest, TB has made predictions that have missed the mark way more often than the ones he's made that have worked out.

So why was he right this time?

TigerBlog wasn't looking at the seeds or records or early-season results. He was just looking at the level of talent, and he was pretty sure that Virginia had more of it than anyone else. It was that simple - and in the end, that's how it played out.

And, TB thought, the Cavs had something to prove once the Bratton twins were dismissed from the team, which gave them a little more fire than the other teams. A ridiculously deep and talented Virginia team with something to prove was too much for the rest of Division I.

When UVa needed a goal, it had more choices, more depth, than anyone else. It didn't need its top players to be playing well, or even playing, for that matter - the Most Outstanding Player, Colin Briggs, was suspended for the semifinal game for the nebulous "violation of team rules" and then scored five times in the final on a day when Steele Stanwick and Chris Bocklett, who had 76 goals and 43 assists between them on the year, combined for a single assist.

In truth, not having Briggs could have meant the end of UVa's season had Bill Tierney and his Denver Pioneers been able to knock off the Cavs in the semifinal, but again, Virginia just had too many great players. This led to another truth - not having Briggs play in the semifinal made him the freshest player on the field for the final on a weekend when temps on the turf surpassed 100 degrees.

So, armed with a correct prediction on the tournament champ and with nearly getting the score of the final spot on, what else can TigerBlog say about lacrosse?

The 2011 championship weekend marked the 17th time in the last 20 years that TB has been in the press box for the event. Of those 17 trips, TB has seen Princeton go 10 times, advance to the final eight times and win six times. For the other seven, TB has been the official scorer for the two Division I semifinals, the Division II and III championship games and the Division I final.

Since his first trip in 1992, TigerBlog has seen the event grow from something that drew a niche crowd to a college stadium for a game that was televised three weeks later condensed into a 60-minute block to one that was a bit disappointing because "only" 35,661 showed up in the baking heat yesterday.

It has become a made-for-TV weekend, with start times altered to fit ESPN's schedule. It casts a much wider net for fans, and it is a mega-production at an NFL stadium.

The sport is being tugged in two different directions.

On the one hand, there is the old guard of people TB has seen at almost all of the 17 Final Fours he's been to, the ones who represent traditional lacrosse powers or media outlets.

Then there is the new generation of lacrosse fans, who picked the game up on the internet and from television and who never saw a Final Four that wasn't in an NFL stadium. This group is the "growing the game" group, and they're the ones who are responsible for the explosion in youth and high school participation, in Final Four attendance, in television exposure, in everything that has brought the game away from its tradition base.

Of course, be careful what you wish for, right?

The biggest story of this year in men's lacrosse ultimately won't be UVa's championship. Nope, 2011 will be remembered as the year that Marquette and especially Michigan added Division I programs.

Does the fact that a BCS school added men's lacrosse signal a trend? Will the 2021 championship game match Michigan and Texas, after they defeated UCLA and Florida State in the semifinals?

Or will the traditional powers always be the cornerstone of the game?

TigerBlog did see two things this weekend in Baltimore that made him realize just how much different the game is from his first semifinal experience, back in Franklin Field in 1992, one of which brought a few tears to his eyes.

In the previous years that the championship was in Baltimore, TB got to park in Lot D, which is right next to the media entrance. This time, he was sent to Lot F, on the other side of the light rail, about a seven minute walk from the media entrance, which, instead of being a bad thing, was actually good, because it gave TB a greater chance to see the dynamic of the crowd pre-game and post-game.

On Saturday, as TB walked around the outside of the stadium, he saw a group of six kids with lacrosse sticks playing catch and keepaway and checking each others sticks as they got close to each other. It's a sight TB has seen a million times before - except all six of these kids were black.

As much as the game has grown, the highest levels of the game still has very few black players. Earlier this year, TigerBlog wrote a feature about Randy Evans, a Princeton alum in Jacksonville who has developed a program to bring lacrosse to the inner-city. The sight of six young black Baltimore kids middle school age or so throwing the ball around outside M&T Bank Stadium prior to the Final Four is a great sign for lacrosse.

And then there was the big kid who was touring the press box with his family and tour guide Quint Kessenich, the ESPN commentator.

TB recognized the kid as soon as he saw him and his face, scarred with the after-effects of a horrible brush with a fire in his house that left him burned over 85 percent of his body, all of this while his father was serving in Iraq.

The boy's name is Connor McKemey, and TB first heard of his situation through Tierney when he was still the Princeton coach. Tierney had built a relationship with the family after he heard about what had happened and had heard that he was a youth lacrosse player - in South Carolina, by the way, another sign of where the game has spread.

Since first hearing about McKemey, TigerBlog has read about him in various magazines, how he fought through surgery after surgery, how his spirit never wavered, how supportive his family and friends have been, how he's returned to play lacrosse in high school because he loves the game, loves to play - and because it's a game that can be played in South Carolina these days.

And now, standing in front of him in the press box, TB wasn't quite sure exactly what to say to the kid, this 6-3 or so kid with scars all over, with a huge smile across his face to be in the press box at the Final Four, with a family who kept thanking everyone for all they'd done.

"You're a pretty inspirational person," was about all that TB could mutter.

It was the highlight of the 2011 championships.

A Night Of Hugs

Everywhere TigerBlog looked last night at the Princeton Varsity Club senior athlete banquet, he saw hugs.

Athletes hugging athletes. Parents hugging their kids' friends and - egads - former teammates. Alums hugging classmates.

TB saw 80-year-old John McPhee hug a woman he affectionately calls "Dad." He saw Vern Bugg hug everyone.

It didn't matter how sticky the night was or how much everyone was sweating. It was a night for hugs.

TigerBlog has his strengths; doing the whole nostalgia thing isn't one of them. Still, there is obviously something special about Reunions at Princeton, and the PVC banquet, which takes place annually on the first night of Reunions, has elements of that all around it.

Basically, the night weaves together the story of the last four years of the athletic senior class, while offering to the soon-to-be-graduates a perspective from people who were in their shoes in the past.

If the banquet is a success, then the athletes leave the tent at the grad college with a strong feeling that they helped Princeton Athletics accomplish great things in their four years (such as 48 Ivy League championships, including a league-record 15 this past year), with a twinge of sadness that their time at Princeton is ending and with the knowledge that their affiliation with the University will endure, much like it does for the people there in the wild orange and black jackets.

Each year, the banquet follows a similar script.

There's a cocktail hour, followed by dinner and the awards program. There are two awards for "adults," the Class of 1967 Citizen-Athlete Award - given this year to Joe Baker, a football player who graduated in 1991 who is now an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and who was honored for his work with PlaySmart, an organization that brings athletic participation to children who otherwise might not have access to it - and the Marvin Bressler Award, given to a person at the University who has contribute to the experience of the athletes. That award this year went to McPhee.

There are also four awards for seniors, given for service, scholarship and for the top male and female athletes.

Then there are the special PVC awards, which may or may not be presented in any given year. There are also two senior speeches, given this year by field hockey player Alexandra Douwes and swimmer Patrick Biggs.

In all, 16 seniors were honored last night.

There were five male athletes who received the Roper Trophy: runner Mark Amirault, hockey player Taylor Fedun, men's basketball player Kareem Maddox, lightweight rower Robin Prendes and men's soccer player Josh Walburn.

There were five female athletes who received the von Kienbusch Award: runner Sarah Cummings, runner Ashley Higginson, basketball Addie Micir, swimmer Megan Waters and rower Lauren Wilkinson.

The night had some very poignant moments.

Jordan Culbreath was honored with a PVC Award of Valor for the way he fought back against Aplastic Anemia and was able to return to play football, this after Biggs talked about how inspirational Culbreath had been to everyone here.

Peter Quimby, the outgoing Deputy Dean of the College who is headed to become the Headmaster at the Governors School in Massachusetts, fought back tears as he spoke about his work at Princeton. TigerBlog hopes the athletes - many of whom probably had no way of knowing just how much Quimby had done for them through the years - were struck by how important Princeton Athletics was to him.

McPhee, who was also humorous, spoke about his dear friend Marvin, who passed away last year, and how Marvin had worked with his nephew Charles McPhee, who himself passed away from Lou Gehrig's Disease three weeks ago.

And then there was the Lorin Maurer Award. Lorin worked in athletic fundraising here at Princeton, and she was killed in the Continental Airlines plane crash outside of Buffalo two years ago. The award in her memory honors a member of the Department of Athletics who has her same spirit and zest for life.

After the presentation of the award, Lorin's father Scott spoke to the crowd about how he - from inner-city Reading, Pa. - would have been too intimidated to apply to for a job at a place like Princeton but how his daughter did so enthusiastically, and he thanked fellow Reading native Gary Walters for everything he'd done for Lorin.

This year's winner was Vernon Bugg.

Essentially, Vernon's job was to sit by the desk in the Jadwin lobby, check people in for recreational tennis and make sure nothing was amiss. Instead, Vernon injected himself into the lives of everyone who came by, calling all Princeton male athletes his sons and all Princeton female athletes his daughter. His favorite, favorite thing to do, though, was to tell everyone who walked in that they were loved, prefacing it with "have you been told today?"

Vernon usually speaks in deep, strong voice. Upon accepting the award, which was greeted with a standing ovation by the athletes and calls of "We love you Vern" from the audience, he spoke in a barely audible whisper, as he was clearly overcome with the emotion of the moment. It was almost like he was wondering what all the fuss was about, that all he had done was to be engaging to the people who walked past him every day.

At the end, of course, there was TB's video, complete with music from Angels and Airwaves, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and Pink.

When it was all over, TB got a big, sweaty hug from Vernon. Then, as TB was about to leave, he saw former hockey coach Guy Gadowsky, who left to start the program at Penn State.

TB asked Guy a bunch of questions about his new job, and it's clear that he is excited about the chance to build something from the ground up.

Then, he turned and pointed over his shoulder to the video screen, where moments earlier, action shots of athletes from 38 sports, 29 of which won at least one championship in the last four years and 31 of which competed in national championship competition in the last four years, had scrolled through.

Looking up at the blank screen, Gadowsky hesitated for a second and then said "I'm going to miss this."

TigerBlog knew immediately what he meant.

He's going to miss the Princeton experience, the chance to be at a place of such wondrous athletic diversity, a place with such a great love for the institution, a place where people come to be a part of something very special.

And, now that it was time for him to move on, this was his twinge of sadness, a realization that a special chapter in his life had ended.

It was the same for the athletes.

And that's how TB knew that Princeton Athletics had not failed them.

Banquet Time

Somebody won "American Idol" last night. Apparently it was the high school boy, rather than the high school girl.

TigerBlog doesn't know and honestly doesn't care. He's never watched an episode of "American Idol," or listened to an entire song, for that matter.

His only observation of the show is that he's pretty sure there's no way Steven Tyler or Jennifer Lopez or Paula Abdul would actually win the competition if they were a contestant rather than a judge - and Tyler is the lead singer of one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Besides, TB had no time for "American Idol," not when he was going to watch the final version of his video and then burn it to a DVD in advance of tonight's banquet.

Actually, the day didn't start out so well video-wise. TB was forced to restart his computer, and when the video came back up when I-movie reopened, all of the names that TB had entered on the pictures had disappeared.

Well, not all of them. There were a few that didn't. For one, women's hockey player Laura Martindale. And then there were the senior award winners, whose pictures are at the end of the video. Their names were still there, but the color of the font had gone from black to white.

So off TB went to re-enter the names.

As TB said yesterday, you can't really appreciate just how many athletes there are here who play such varying sports until you type all of their names on a video.

And hey, now TB can appreciate it twice as much.

As an aside, when TB gets to the banquet tonight, he'll see all the senior athletes with their name tags, and he'll do what he always does, mentally check them off the video. Every now and then, he'll panic that he sees a name tag that isn't in the video, but he's pretty sure he got everyone this year.

While TB was going back over the names, it dawned on him that Princeton Athletics' photographer Beverly Schaefer, who took almost all of the pictures, is one of the very, very, very few people who sees all 38 Princeton varsity teams in every academic year.

Tonight is the senior-athlete banquet, an event that TB always contrasts with freshman athlete orientation, held in September for the new class. The difference is remarkable, with a group of freshman who are trying to figure out how to find McCosh 50 and a group of seniors near graduation who have had their entire Princeton experience play out for them, for better (hopefully) or worse.

The banquet itself begins with an informal reception and goes into dinner and awards.

John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and teacher of a sophomore writing seminar here at Princeton, will be receiving the Marvin Bressler Award, given to a member of the campus community who has done the most for the school's athletes. This figures to be an emotional moment, as Bressler - who was McPhee's good friend for years - passed away last summer.

Joe Baker, an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a former Princeton wide receiver, will be honored with the Citizen-Athlete Award, for his work with the organization PlaySmart, which is attempting to bring athletic competition and physical fitness to underprivileged kids.

There are also awards for senior athletes, including the Roper Trophy to the top senior male sportsmen and von Kiensbusch Award to the top senior sportswomen.

And it ends with the video, all 17 minutes of it, and then the singing of "Old Nassau."

This is the 14th banquet. The 13th fell victim to massive thunderstorms that cut the evening short, forcing completion on Friday morning in Jadwin Gym.

As TB looks out the window, the sun is shining brightly.

Hopefully it'll continue to shine, as it were, during the entire banquet.

The Class of 2011 deserves it.

TB's Video, TB's Music

Robert Zimmerman was born 70 years ago yesterday in Deluth, the one in Minnesota. He grew up in Hibbing, also in Minnesota, in a Jewish family that had recently come to this country to escape the pogroms in Czarist Russia.

Eventually, he shortened his first name and took as his last name the first name of his favorite poet, and Bob Dylan started down the road to become as great a song-writer as has ever lived.

His anthems include "Blowin' In The Wind," "The Times They Are A-Changin" and "Like a Rolling Stone," as well as a catalog of others far too long to mention.

"Blowin' In The Wind" was the first Dylan song that TigerBlog ever learned, back in his Camp Toledo days. Back then, there'd be sing-a-longs at the camp, with a counselor who played the guitar whom TB can still see all these decades later, and "Blowin' In The Wind" was a staple of those evenings.

TB has vivid memories of himself, maybe 6 or 7 or 8 years old, singing "Blowin' In The Wind" with the rest of the camp, not really understanding the meaning of the song or its impact on contemporary American culture.

If you asked TB what his favorite Dylan song is, he'd unhesitatingly say "Forever Young."

"May God bless and keep you always. May your wishes all come true. May you always do for others, and let others do for you. May you build a ladder to the sky and climb on every run, and may you stay, forever young."

TB has always thought that Dylan started out with that part of the song and, after putting it to paper, stopped and thought to himself "hey, that's pretty good."

TigerBlog has used the song "Forever Young" in two senior athlete videos, the ones he does the Princeton Varsity Club Senior Awards Banquet each year. It is the only song TB has ever used more than once - though he did repeat the song "When I Look To The Sky" by Train that Greg Busch used one year.

The PVC banquet is tomorrow night, and the video is - TB likes to think - one of the highlights for the athletes.

It features an intro montage of live action footage, followed by a photo of each senior athlete, all set to music.

The video usually runs in the 17- or 18-minute range, and it runs at the end of the event.

TigerBlog's favorite part of the banquet is to hear the athletes all cheer for each other when the pictures come up on the screen, an acknowledgement - for three seconds each - of their contributions to Princeton Athletics during their time.

It always amazes TB when he puts the video together just how many athletes from so many different sports with such varying perspectives compete for Princeton.

The video itself predates the advent of I-movie on TB's laptop, and it used to be a nightmare to put together. At first, TB had to take it to a local video store and have it done for him, since the technology wasn't there. This involved actual photographs, rather than scans.

Eventually, the earliest versions of I-movie came out, and they were less-than-fun to use. If you don't believe TB, you can call Busch, now at Rider, and ask him how much fun he and TB had watching the pinwheel spin interminably as the program either froze again or simply took forever to move along as the file got bigger and bigger.

Today, creating video is simple, and the time to create the video is a fraction of what it used to be.

The big issues in putting it together are 1) making sure there are pictures of everyone, 2) making sure everyone's name is spelled right and 3) making sure that the person whose name appears on the picture is actually that person. TB has gone down that road a few times, with pictures of teammates incorrectly reversed.

And then there's the music.

It usually takes four or five songs to cover the entire project, and they need to be a good mix. TB looks for songs that have an inspirational message or speak to teamwork and loyalty. He can use love songs, if they suggest a bond between the athletes, their teammates and the University.

He's found great success with Bon Jovi, Train, Bruce and some others, perhaps because those are among his favorite groups.

As TB always says, it's his video, so it's his music.

And, now that every other part of the video is done, it's time to add in that music.

Right now, TB is unsure of what he's going to use.

Tomorrow night, at the end of the banquet, the video will be playing, and TB will have it all figured out by then.

Relegation

TigerBlog didn't know the results of any of the English Premier League games from this past weekend when he sat down to watch the EPL review show.

And that turned out to be a good thing, since the show's producers did something extraordinarily clever to show how the final weekend played out, something that TB had never seen before.

There were three games that would have huge impacts on the final standings - and the futures of five league franchises.

And the EPL review show chronicled those games at the same time, going from highlights of one to another to the third. And each time any of the three games changed score, a graphic flashed up showing what the final league standings would be if the score of all three stayed as it was.

It was fascinating, because the teams on the outside looking in changed with every goal. And the drama continued to build, all the way until the end, when it came crashing down for Blackpool (TigerBlog was rooting for the Tangerines) and Birmingham City and when there was elation for Wigan, Wolves and Blackburn.

Ian Darke, TigerBlog's favorite broadcaster, wrote a column for ESPN.com on the recently completed season, and it included this:

I don't know about you, but I'm still breathless from a frantic final day in the English Premier League that might have been scripted in Hollywood. As I passed relegated Blackpool manager Ian Holloway on the stairs out of Old Trafford after Sunday's game, it was hard to find the right words of consolation. For once, the effervescent "Ollie" seemed stunned into silence as I offered sincere but worthless sympathies.

I was reminded of the old gag from legendary manager Tommy Docherty: "When one door closes, another slams you in the face."
But the Premier League will be a poorer place without Blackpool's devil-may-care brand of attacking football. The Seasiders scored more goals (55) than any other relegated team in the history of the Premier League and seemed to produce more thrillers than Alfred Hitchcock and John le Carré combined.
We will miss them.

What made the last weekend of the EPL so unique was that all of the drama was on the bottom of the table, not near the top, where Manchester United had already clinched the title.

No, the scramble to avoid relegation was unreal to watch as it unfolded on the review show.

The bottom three EPL teams move down a division, while the top three in the Championship League move up. The difference between the top and second levels is probably like the difference between the Major Leagues and Triple-A, and there are all kinds of pounds at stake for these teams.

To see the reactions of the fans - and managers, especially Wigan's Roberto Martinez, who like Darke was great on TV during the last World Cup - as their teams either lost or survived was amazing. Honestly, TB isn't sure there are American fans who are as passionate about any professional sport the way EPL fans are.

Maybe college sports, but not pro sports.

Why would that be, TB wonders (assuming TB is correct)? Is it a cultural thing? Is it that because the country is so much smaller, everyone must have some connection to someone on the team? Is it a feeling that the players are actually representing the local area and not just mercenaries in it for the money?

If Jim Barlow, Princeton's soccer coach, had his way, the NCAA championship game would be held this weekend, along with the Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona.

Barlow long ago told TB that he thinks soccer in college should follow a European-type schedule, with one game a week in the fall and spring with a break in the winter and the NCAA championships around this time.

Of course, that isn't how it's done, and it's unlikely to change anytime soon, despite the brilliance of Barlow's idea.

Nope, this is the spring, and as Memorial Day weekend approaches, there are still seven Princeton teams left competing - all four crews, both track and field teams and baseball.

The national rowing championships are this weekend, with the women's open team in Sacramento, while the women's lightweights, men's lightweights and men's heavyweights are on the Cooper River in either Pennsauken, Cherry Hill or Camden, depending on where you see it listed.

The track and field regionals are in Indianapolis, and Princeton's athletes there will be looking to qualify for the NCAA championships in Des Moines in early June.

As an aside, the baseball team will some day play in the NCAA tournament as well.

Todd Harrity already continued Princeton's streak of having at least one team or individual national champion when he won the national men's squash title last winter. That streak, by the way, is now at 40 years.

Is there another national champion on the horizon for Princeton?

With the way that the boats have been going and with how close two runners - Donn Cabral and Ashley Higginson, both the steeplechase - came a year ago, it's certainly possible.

As the end of the 2010-11 year winds down, it would certainly be a perfect finish to what has already been a record-setting year for Princeton.

Rapturous

TigerBlog was driving over the Burlington Bristol Bridge Saturday evening when Little Miss TigerBlog asked what time it was.

Informed that it was a little after 6, LMTB replied: "Wasn't the world supposed to end at 6?"

TB had forgotten all about that, at least as the day wore on.

Earlier, he had been wondering what to wear for the end of the world, and he bounced back and forth between formal, business casual and ultimately what he chose to wear, his gray Princeton athletics t-shirt and khaki shorts, the ones he got for $7 at Target.

For his own money, TB looked rapturous.

TB is hardly a biblical scholar, though he was pretty sure that there would be a Sunday this week. And next week, for that matter.

This coming weekend will be the NCAA men's lacrosse Final Four. In case you missed this past weekend's quarterfinals, the No. 1 (Syracuse), No. 2 (Cornell), No. 3 (Johns Hopkins) and No. 4 (Notre Dame) seeds all lost.

TigerBlog's tournament predictions so far have been pretty good ones.

For instance, he has said all year that No. 1 Syracuse was vulnerable and not a prohibitive favorite. The Orange played a ton of close games - including a two-goal win over Princeton in a game that was tied late in the fourth - and TB had a feeling that it would catch up with the Orange eventually.

Plus, Maryland did everything it needed to do to win that game - controlling face-offs, making saves, playing from ahead. Even when the game got to the overtime, Maryland felt like it had the advantage, and that was the case, though SU did have a good transition opportunity before Grant Catalino's game-winner.

TB picked Virginia to win the tournament, largely because the Cavs have such overwhelming talent every year and because of the way they crushed Penn 11-2 in their first game without the Brattons. TB doesn't understand how the game against Cornell could be considered an upset, when UVa clearly has as good a group of players as any team in the country.

As for Duke-Notre Dame, TB never figured out for the entire championship game last year which team he was rooting for, and he was in the same position as he watched the quarterfinal yesterday. Eventually, he was probably pulling for Notre Dame, since Westy Hopkins, who had three of the five Irish goals, is a Lower Bucks Lacrosse alum.

And then there was the only game of the four quarterfinals that TB couldn't watch, Johns Hopkins-Denver. Thankfully, he did get updates from TigerBlog Jr.

The first one said 2-1 Denver. Then it got to 6-1. Then 8-7. And then, just when it seemed like the Hop was going to take it, the Pioneers exploded, running away to a 14-9 win.

For Bill Tierney, it's Final Four number 11, as he chases NCAA title No. 7, which would tie Roy Simmons Jr. for the most ever in Division I men's lacrosse.

It's only been two years for Tierney at Denver, and already his vision of what the sport could be in the West is starting to come true - in a much greater way than forecasts of a zombie apocalypse.

Denver's opening round playoff game was played in front of a packed house, and it was the first NCAA men's lacrosse tournament game played west of the Mississippi River. Already since Tierney went to Denver, Michigan and Marquette have announced the addition of varsity teams, as the sport continues to creep westward.

What Tierney has done in Denver already is extraordinary, and the Pioneers - with their high-flying offense that ranks second nationally - figure to be a force for the foreseeable future.

TigerBlog made another lacrosse prediction this year, this one back in the fall, and that was that Princeton was going to be a Final Four team this year as well.

Obviously, TB had no idea how many players were going to be injured for the Tigers this year. He figured Jack McBride would have a first-team All-America senior year of about 45 goals and 20 assists, not one goal and no assists. He figured that the first midfield group of Mike Chanenchuk and Tom Schreiber would force defenses to neglect the other attackmen, which would open Chris McBride up for 25-30 goals of his own.

Instead, Jack missed basically the whole year, while Chanenchuk didn't play a minute. Schreiber, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year who is everything he was advertised to be, and Chris McBride also missed games due to injury.

When TB looks back on the 2011 lacrosse season, hopefully he's looking back on Denver's first NCAA title.

At the same time, he's positive he'll look back on this season for Princeton knowing that his Final Four prediction would have come true had the team that started fall ball still been playing.

It's something that will nag TB for awhile, knowing just how good Princeton could have been this year.

Of course, it's not like it was the end of the world.