TigerBlog understands that not every movie made is trying to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In that vein, he's never understood the complete disdain so many people have for the movie "Groundhog Day."
TB saw it in the movies when it came out in 1993, and he's seen it about a thousand times since. It's a perfectly harmless, funny, at times charming, certainly inoffensive movie, and yet there are so many people who flat out hate it.
As an aside, TigerBlog was always confused as a kid by Groundhog Day, as six weeks after Feb. 2 takes you to March 16 (or March 15 in a leap year), which is still winter. He never quite understood the whole "six more weeks of winter" thing. Shouldn't it be more like 10 more weeks of winter if the point is that figuratively speaking spring will be late to arrive?
So Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning on Gobbler's Knob, with the result being a prediction of six more weeks of winter?
Hey, if the weather wants to be like it was on the day before Groundhog's Day, TigerBlog would be fine with maybe three more months of winter.
And TB was crushed to learn the whole thing is a sham, at least according to this story from Fox News:
Thursday's ceremony is largely that: Phil's prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group who dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance what the groundhog will predict.
Still, what could be better than Groundhog Day, a small-town tradition that has such a great little Americana feel to it. Something wholesome, something that hasn't been ruined by commercialism or lack of civility or any of the other ills of contemporary society.
As Phil Connors said: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.
Of course, if Groundhog Day worked the way that college basketball did, then the whole ceremony would be more than just the guys in tuxedos.
Instead, what would happen would be that the guys in tuxedos would grab Phil, listen to what he has to say and then make their announcement.
At that point, the entire ceremony would grind to a halt as three people wearing black and white striped shirts went to a central area and then analyzed a video monitor of the ceremony, trying to determine if there was in fact a shadow or not.
Eventually, after staring at the monitor, the three would then separate themselves from everyone else, probably by putting their arms around each other in some sort of weird group hug.
Then, after concurring in this dynamic for another 30 seconds or so, they would stand back and make their announcement, which regardless of what they say ultimately would have no effect on the weather anyway.
If replay in the NFL is torturous because of the way that it doesn't come close to addressing its original goal of overturning egregiously bad calls, then replay in college basketball if 50 times worse.
Why? Because unless it's a question of whether or not a shot beat the final buzzer, it's worthless. And all it does is 1) give the refs the limelight which they relish and 2) drag games to a halt.
If TB wasn't convinced before that he hates replay in college basketball (except to decide if a shot beat the buzzer), then the men's game at Penn Monday night confirmed it for him.
Twice in the first half, there were questions about the shot clock.
The first came after a Penn shot that didn't hit the rim rolled out of bounds, apparently just before the shot clock expired.
The second came in the second half, when the shot clock reset once after a Penn offensive rebound on another shot that didn't hit the rim.
Had the game been on television, then TB guarantees there would have been long delays as the officials "went to the monitor," destroying the flow of the game in the name of nothing that could possibly impact the game.
Because there was no TV, the refs then did what refs did for decades, and did so with great effectiveness.
Here's what they did:
* in the first instance, they put one second on the clock
* in the second, they decided that there probably should have been 29 seconds on the clock
And then the game went on.
Penn got no shot off the first time, and then it took Penn five seconds to get a shot off the second time.
That's it. No delays. No making the refs bigger than the game. No need for any of it.
Too bad it's not always like that.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Spring Fever
TigerBlog stood outside last night at about 9:30 or so and looked up at the starry night.
Back when he was in college and had to finish his natural science requirement, TB took a semester on astronomy, figuring that it would be rather easy, right?
Instead, it was one of the most difficult classes he had in his four years at Penn. And also one of the best.
As an aside, the exams in that class were the most unique TB ever took. They consisted of clusters of unrelated questions, and there would be seven clusters on the test, with three or four or five questions in each cluster. Students then had to pick any five clusters to answer, so the test also consisted of evaluating which clusters posed the biggest overall risks.
In other words, as the test was going on, you first had to figure out cluster-by-cluster which questions you could best answer and which ones you couldn't. If you were 100% sure of two of the five questions in one cluster but only reasonably sure on four of six in another, you had to decide if the risk was worth it.
Evil genius, that guy was.
Anyway, TB learned two amazing things in astronomy.
The first was that on Jupiter, the equator spins at a different rate than the poles. As the teacher explained: "On Earth, every part spins at the same rate ... well, except for Buffalo."
Not sure why he picked on Buffalo, but it was fairly humorous.
The other little nugget was one that still freaks TB out to this day. The stars in the sky are so far away from Earth and it's taken the light so long to reach Earth that it's likely that the star doesn't exist anymore.
Wow. That's wild. You're looking at stars that aren't there anymore and haven't been for millions of years.
TB is looking out his window at the football stadium. It's still there. The clouds above the stadium are still there.
But the stars? Gone.
As TB looked up at the stars last night, he wore a t-shirt with a light sweatshirt. And why wouldn't he? It was 62 degrees yesterday in Princeton, and right now it's 55 degrees, with a high of 61 expected.
Of course, last night was Jan. 31, the final day of the month.
It snowed in January, once, about three inches or so. Two days later, it was in the 50s, and almost all of the snow was gone.
Last year, there was snow covering the ground for the entire month of January. It actually snowed for the first time on Dec. 26, 2010, and then it wasn't until March that all the snow was gone.
This year has been radically different. It snowed, as you may recall, on the final Saturday of October, destroying the Heps cross country championships and a bunch of home events against Cornell.
That was followed by an extraordinarily warm November, December and January.
And now it's February, which means the start of practice for several spring sports in the Ivy League.
As TB walked into the building today, he saw women's lacrosse players on their way to practice. Their male counterparts were already going, while baseball and softball begin today as well.
Of course, the rest of Division I has been at it for awhile already, and in fact this Saturday is the first Division I men's lacrosse game - Detroit at Delaware.
Princeton opens the lacrosse seasons on Feb. 25, which is three weeks from Saturday. The women are at Villanova; the men are home with Hofstra.
In fact, the men's season begins with three home games in six days, with the Hofstra game to be followed by Princeton-Manhattan on Feb. 28 and Princeton-Johns Hopkins on March 2.
Is it a big disadvantage to have the rest of Division I start practicing so much earlier?
Probably on Feb. 25 it will be, but the goal is to playing the best in May, not February.
In fact, during a usual winter, why would a lacrosse team want to be practicing outside in January?
This hasn't been a typical winter though, not for the weather.
Hopefully that trend doesn't change.
After all, as of today, it's spring.
Back when he was in college and had to finish his natural science requirement, TB took a semester on astronomy, figuring that it would be rather easy, right?
Instead, it was one of the most difficult classes he had in his four years at Penn. And also one of the best.
As an aside, the exams in that class were the most unique TB ever took. They consisted of clusters of unrelated questions, and there would be seven clusters on the test, with three or four or five questions in each cluster. Students then had to pick any five clusters to answer, so the test also consisted of evaluating which clusters posed the biggest overall risks.
In other words, as the test was going on, you first had to figure out cluster-by-cluster which questions you could best answer and which ones you couldn't. If you were 100% sure of two of the five questions in one cluster but only reasonably sure on four of six in another, you had to decide if the risk was worth it.
Evil genius, that guy was.
Anyway, TB learned two amazing things in astronomy.
The first was that on Jupiter, the equator spins at a different rate than the poles. As the teacher explained: "On Earth, every part spins at the same rate ... well, except for Buffalo."
Not sure why he picked on Buffalo, but it was fairly humorous.
The other little nugget was one that still freaks TB out to this day. The stars in the sky are so far away from Earth and it's taken the light so long to reach Earth that it's likely that the star doesn't exist anymore.
Wow. That's wild. You're looking at stars that aren't there anymore and haven't been for millions of years.
TB is looking out his window at the football stadium. It's still there. The clouds above the stadium are still there.
But the stars? Gone.
As TB looked up at the stars last night, he wore a t-shirt with a light sweatshirt. And why wouldn't he? It was 62 degrees yesterday in Princeton, and right now it's 55 degrees, with a high of 61 expected.
Of course, last night was Jan. 31, the final day of the month.
It snowed in January, once, about three inches or so. Two days later, it was in the 50s, and almost all of the snow was gone.
Last year, there was snow covering the ground for the entire month of January. It actually snowed for the first time on Dec. 26, 2010, and then it wasn't until March that all the snow was gone.
This year has been radically different. It snowed, as you may recall, on the final Saturday of October, destroying the Heps cross country championships and a bunch of home events against Cornell.
That was followed by an extraordinarily warm November, December and January.
And now it's February, which means the start of practice for several spring sports in the Ivy League.
As TB walked into the building today, he saw women's lacrosse players on their way to practice. Their male counterparts were already going, while baseball and softball begin today as well.
Of course, the rest of Division I has been at it for awhile already, and in fact this Saturday is the first Division I men's lacrosse game - Detroit at Delaware.
Princeton opens the lacrosse seasons on Feb. 25, which is three weeks from Saturday. The women are at Villanova; the men are home with Hofstra.
In fact, the men's season begins with three home games in six days, with the Hofstra game to be followed by Princeton-Manhattan on Feb. 28 and Princeton-Johns Hopkins on March 2.
Is it a big disadvantage to have the rest of Division I start practicing so much earlier?
Probably on Feb. 25 it will be, but the goal is to playing the best in May, not February.
In fact, during a usual winter, why would a lacrosse team want to be practicing outside in January?
This hasn't been a typical winter though, not for the weather.
Hopefully that trend doesn't change.
After all, as of today, it's spring.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Mr. Compton Goes To Philadelphia
TigerBlog walked down the ramp to the Palestra floor about 45 minutes before the opening tip for last night's Princeton-Penn men's basketball game.
As he reached the bottom and started towards the far side, he made eye contact with a man wearing a blue baseball hat with a red Penn "P" on it. He nodded, and Brent Compton nodded back.
Who is Brent Compton?
Well, he's an Indiana State basketball season ticket holder with a sporting goods business right there on South 3rd Street in Terre Haute. And why was he in the Palestra, wearing a Penn hat no less?
Each year, Compton and the two buddies who were with him pick out a college basketball venue that they've never visited and plan a trip. This year's choice was the Palestra, for their first-ever Ivy League basketball game.
Compton saw TB's Princeton Athletics shirt and asked him what he did at Princeton. After TB explained, Compton started in with a barrage of questions.
How does financial aid work? Are there really no scholarships? Do the teams get to give out 50% aid to a certain number of kids, 25% to others? Do the better kids get more in aid? Is it really need based?
And admissions. And the competitive level of Ivy basketball.
Mostly, he talked about the Palestra, which was just starting to come to life for the night. Even before play began, Compton liked the building, the feel, the way that it gets loud even before it gets crowded.
Then it was TB's turn to ask the questions.
Did these guys have any connection to Penn or the Ivy League? The answer was no.
Where were they staying? What did they think so far?
How was Indiana State doing? The answer was that the Sycamores started well, hit a rough patch and now need to do well in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament to have a chance at the postseason.
And, of course, where did they get the Penn hats?
Turns out they went to the Penn shootaround earlier in the day and met the Quaker coaches, who gave them the hats.
Then it was off to the radio and the promise to catch up at the end of the game, to see what they thought of their first Ivy game.
About two hours later, TB reconnected with Compton.
In between, TB came up with these thoughts of his own:
* Princeton was really, really hurt by the exam layoff, more so than in any other year that TB can remember. Why? In most years, exams would end on Saturday, and the Division III game would be Monday night, followed by a return to league play on the following Friday/Saturday. This time, Princeton had to play a league game two days after exams ended, and not just any league game, the one at Penn. Remember, it's not just not having played a game for 16 days; it's also not having practiced with a full team for all of that time.
* TB thought Penn would be hurt by not having played in nine days, and he thought the first five to seven minutes or so would be sloppy and low-scoring. Instead, Penn came out completely on fire, and the game was really decided in those first few minutes.
* TB said on the radio that that wouldn't happen, and he was 100% wrong about that. Of course, he pointed that out several times, in the interest of accountability and all.
* Brendan Connolly had a big game for Princeton. Ian Hummer, who was the focal point of Penn's defensive game plan, didn't force the issue in the first half and instead let the offense go through him to others, most notably Connolly. In the second half, Hummer was completely dominant and unstoppable. The more TB sees Hummer play, the more impressed he is with him. He is skilled in every phase of the game, and he has a level of explosiveness and fury that take him to another level.
* Maybe Princeton got to see Zack Rosen at his absolute best or maybe that's how he plays all the time. Either way, Penn's point guard put on an amazing show, beyond just his 28 points. He was in total control of every major point of the game, and he did so with total poise. Anytime Penn needed a play - start to finish - Rosen made it.
* TB loves what Penn did with the concourses of the Palestra about 10 years or so ago, with their retrospectives on the history of the building. Every time TB is there, he takes a lap around and sees all the displays, especially the one on the Princeton-Penn rivalry.
* As a Penn alum, TB was embarrassed for his alma mater by the behavior of its students. From the t-shirts that they wore to the roll-outs to the chants, the students showed no class - and maybe worse, no creativity. Maybe TB is among a small minority who thinks that there's still a chance in contemporary American society for some civility, but it was woefully lacking in the Penn student section last night. The word TB used on the radio was "disgrace," and he stands by that.
* At the same time, TB had nothing but praise for the Penn coaches and players, who played the game hard and clean, were classy on the court and off it, and clearly deserved to win the game. The same was true for Princeton's coaches and players.
* No matter what happens, TigerBlog will never walk into the Palestra again and not think back to the night in February 1999 when Princeton fell behind 29-3, 33-9 at halftime, 40-13 with 15 minutes left - and won 50-49. In the postgame radio interview, TB asked Brian Earl - who along with Gabe Lewullis and Mason Rocca - was one of the architects of that amazing comeback what he remembered most. Earl, Princeton's top assistant coach, said that he mostly thinks back to the timeout when Princeton had finally taken the lead and how he looked around at all of the stunned faces in the crowd.
Anyway, with all of those assessments, it was back to talking to Brett, to see what he thought.
As TB could have predicted, he enjoyed the game and the building and was impressed with the competitive nature of the night. His view of Ivy League basketball - and of the Princeton-Penn rivalry - was high.
Then he and his friends shot a few baskets and took a few pictures.
When it was time to leave, TB asked what they were doing and then made a suggestion.
"Get in a cab," TB said. "And tell him to take you to Geno's."
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Fighting City Of Philadelphia
TigerBlog's theory is that if you ask anyone - well, 95% of people - who have seen all of the Rocky movies, or at least I, II, III and IV what their favorite scene is, they'll give one of two answers:
* the training scene in Rocky
* the scene from Round 14 where Rocky gets knocked down through the end of the fight, especially the part where the announcer says "Apollo can't believe it."
How could those two scenes not be 1-2, if for no other reason than the music? Plus, at the time, they were very original, and there isn't anyone who watched the movie back in 1976 who didn't see Rocky run up the steps of the art museum who didn't want to fight Apollo Creed right then and there.
Whoever came up with the idea of having Rocky first fail to be able to run up the steps in the original "Philadelphia morning" scene and then use that as a symbol of his physical and emotional growth hit upon something that was pure genius, something that gives TigerBlog chills every time he sees it, which by now must be north of 1,000 times.
And the fight scene? TB loves the part where Rocky knocks Creed down in the first round and the look of total bewilderment that he has. Still, it's Round 14 into 15 that is the best part, when Rocky is down, Mickey is telling him to stay down and Apollo can't believe anyone could actually get up.
And yet Rocky needed to get up. It was at that moment that he realized that if he didn't, he'd be "just another bum from the neighborhood."
Beyond those two scenes, though, TB is relatively sure that if he asked 100 people what their next favorite scene is he'd get 50 different and wildly varied answers.
So that's what TB did last week. And he wasn't surprised that there was little consensus.
For instance, one of the people that TB works with said his next favorite scene is the one in Rocky II where, after waking up from her coma, Adrian tells Rocky that she just wants one thing from him.
TigerBlog Jr., who has watched every second of all six Rocky movies and who rarely goes a day without throwing out at least one line from the franchise, prefers the scene in Rocky IV where Drago first starts to bleed.
Still another person TB asked said that the best scene is the one in Rocky III where Apollo and Clubber Lang almost get into it before the second fight starts. Or when Paulie throws the turkey out the window on Thanksgiving, as part of the whole first date.
Or maybe it's just any scene that Rocky is in.
For TigerBlog, his favorite "other" scene is also in the original Rocky. It's the one where Mickey comes to Rocky's apartment to talk him into letting him be his manager, only to get the bitter wrath that has built up in Rocky through the years. Then, just when it looks like Mickey is being sent away, Rocky realizes that Mickey was right all along, that he "had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you became a leg-breaker for a cheap, second-rate loan shark."
And so Rocky swallows his pride and runs down the street chasing after Mickey. And again, in a moment of pure genius, the scene is shot from a distance, so their words cannot be heard. All that is known is that Rocky puts his arm around Mickey, says something to him and then they shake hands. It's as good as any moment TB has ever seen in a movie.
Anyway, the subject of Rocky movies is never that far away here in the OAC, where some Rocky-related conversation/quote/reference is on average uttered more than once per day.
TB won't be able to avoid thinking about Rocky later today as he drives along the Vine Street Expressway past the side view of the art museum across the Schuykill River, on his way to the Palestra and Princeton-Penn men's basketball.
For most of the last 30 years, Princeton at Penn has been TigerBlog's favorite annual sporting event. He's seen the rivalry first as a Penn student, then as a "neutral" sportswriter and now for nearly 20 years as a Princeton Athletics employee.
TB spent much of that time as the men's basketball contact, during a time when Pete Carril, Bill Carmody and John Thompson went head-to-head with Fran Dunphy, knowing full well that one or the other would win the league and go the NCAA tournament.
For those with no memory, let's keep in mind that Ivy League basketball did not start with Cornell's team of a few years ago or with the current Harvard team that is ranked in the Top 25. Or, for that matter, let's also keep in mind that it was Princeton who represented the league in the NCAA tournament a year ago.
So, for those who forget or never knew, here are your all-time Ivy men's basketball titles since the official formation of the league:
Princeton - 26
Penn - 25
Cornell - 4
Dartmouth - 3
Yale - 3
Harvard - 1
Brown - 1
Columbia - 1
Between 1963 and 2007, it was either Princeton or Penn in the NCAA tournament for the Ivy League every year except for three. That's a sustained record of competitive dominance that is unrivaled.
For tonight's game, Princeton is 1-1 in the league while Penn is 2-0. Harvard is the lone unbeaten at 4-0, including a very impressive win at Yale Friday night, leaving the Bulldogs tied with the Tigers with one loss.
Princeton hasn't played since Jan. 14, while Penn has only played once since then, with an 84-80 win over St. Joe's on Jan. 21, nine days ago.
It's a huge game for both.
Plus, there will always be something special about Princeton and Penn at the Palestra.
Maybe TB is a bit more lacrosse-centric these days, but he hasn't forgotten all of the great Princeton-Penn moments he's seen, after "we" won or lost, even though "we" hasn't always meant the same time.
And he definitely hasn't forgotten Ivy League basketball history.
Hey, that was his major at Penn, back when the Quakers were "we," something that changed years ago.
* the training scene in Rocky
* the scene from Round 14 where Rocky gets knocked down through the end of the fight, especially the part where the announcer says "Apollo can't believe it."
How could those two scenes not be 1-2, if for no other reason than the music? Plus, at the time, they were very original, and there isn't anyone who watched the movie back in 1976 who didn't see Rocky run up the steps of the art museum who didn't want to fight Apollo Creed right then and there.
Whoever came up with the idea of having Rocky first fail to be able to run up the steps in the original "Philadelphia morning" scene and then use that as a symbol of his physical and emotional growth hit upon something that was pure genius, something that gives TigerBlog chills every time he sees it, which by now must be north of 1,000 times.
And the fight scene? TB loves the part where Rocky knocks Creed down in the first round and the look of total bewilderment that he has. Still, it's Round 14 into 15 that is the best part, when Rocky is down, Mickey is telling him to stay down and Apollo can't believe anyone could actually get up.
And yet Rocky needed to get up. It was at that moment that he realized that if he didn't, he'd be "just another bum from the neighborhood."
Beyond those two scenes, though, TB is relatively sure that if he asked 100 people what their next favorite scene is he'd get 50 different and wildly varied answers.
So that's what TB did last week. And he wasn't surprised that there was little consensus.
For instance, one of the people that TB works with said his next favorite scene is the one in Rocky II where, after waking up from her coma, Adrian tells Rocky that she just wants one thing from him.
TigerBlog Jr., who has watched every second of all six Rocky movies and who rarely goes a day without throwing out at least one line from the franchise, prefers the scene in Rocky IV where Drago first starts to bleed.
Still another person TB asked said that the best scene is the one in Rocky III where Apollo and Clubber Lang almost get into it before the second fight starts. Or when Paulie throws the turkey out the window on Thanksgiving, as part of the whole first date.
Or maybe it's just any scene that Rocky is in.
For TigerBlog, his favorite "other" scene is also in the original Rocky. It's the one where Mickey comes to Rocky's apartment to talk him into letting him be his manager, only to get the bitter wrath that has built up in Rocky through the years. Then, just when it looks like Mickey is being sent away, Rocky realizes that Mickey was right all along, that he "had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you became a leg-breaker for a cheap, second-rate loan shark."
And so Rocky swallows his pride and runs down the street chasing after Mickey. And again, in a moment of pure genius, the scene is shot from a distance, so their words cannot be heard. All that is known is that Rocky puts his arm around Mickey, says something to him and then they shake hands. It's as good as any moment TB has ever seen in a movie.
Anyway, the subject of Rocky movies is never that far away here in the OAC, where some Rocky-related conversation/quote/reference is on average uttered more than once per day.
TB won't be able to avoid thinking about Rocky later today as he drives along the Vine Street Expressway past the side view of the art museum across the Schuykill River, on his way to the Palestra and Princeton-Penn men's basketball.
For most of the last 30 years, Princeton at Penn has been TigerBlog's favorite annual sporting event. He's seen the rivalry first as a Penn student, then as a "neutral" sportswriter and now for nearly 20 years as a Princeton Athletics employee.
TB spent much of that time as the men's basketball contact, during a time when Pete Carril, Bill Carmody and John Thompson went head-to-head with Fran Dunphy, knowing full well that one or the other would win the league and go the NCAA tournament.
For those with no memory, let's keep in mind that Ivy League basketball did not start with Cornell's team of a few years ago or with the current Harvard team that is ranked in the Top 25. Or, for that matter, let's also keep in mind that it was Princeton who represented the league in the NCAA tournament a year ago.
So, for those who forget or never knew, here are your all-time Ivy men's basketball titles since the official formation of the league:
Princeton - 26
Penn - 25
Cornell - 4
Dartmouth - 3
Yale - 3
Harvard - 1
Brown - 1
Columbia - 1
Between 1963 and 2007, it was either Princeton or Penn in the NCAA tournament for the Ivy League every year except for three. That's a sustained record of competitive dominance that is unrivaled.
For tonight's game, Princeton is 1-1 in the league while Penn is 2-0. Harvard is the lone unbeaten at 4-0, including a very impressive win at Yale Friday night, leaving the Bulldogs tied with the Tigers with one loss.
Princeton hasn't played since Jan. 14, while Penn has only played once since then, with an 84-80 win over St. Joe's on Jan. 21, nine days ago.
It's a huge game for both.
Plus, there will always be something special about Princeton and Penn at the Palestra.
Maybe TB is a bit more lacrosse-centric these days, but he hasn't forgotten all of the great Princeton-Penn moments he's seen, after "we" won or lost, even though "we" hasn't always meant the same time.
And he definitely hasn't forgotten Ivy League basketball history.
Hey, that was his major at Penn, back when the Quakers were "we," something that changed years ago.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Three For All
TigerBlog gets a billion emails a day. Okay, not exactly a billion. Maybe it's just a few million.
Most of them are deleted immediately, since they're obviously worthless. They actually make TB wonder how his email address ended up on some of these distribution lists, as in "who sold them TB's email address?" The government has to be involved, right?
TB often thinks back to communications he had earlier in his life, in the pre-email days, and wonders how he ever put up with it.
For instance, back when TB first started working here, he used to have to actually mail photos back-and-forth with other Ivy League schools, especially for football game programs.
TB still has nightmares about having to piece together head shots, captains shot, four actions shots, head shot of the University president and athletic director and then send them off to Dartmouth, lest the late, great (and highly intimidating) Kathy Slattery not have them in time for her deadline.
TB remembers one time when Slattery called to remind him that she hadn't received that package, and TB went into Ralph Kramden mode, because he knew he had completely forgotten to do it.
These days, of course, there are no such things as actual photos, at least not in the athletic communications realm. Everything is digital and emailable.
Of course, the flip side of that is that the phone doesn't ring as much and as a result, interpersonal communication has suffered radically. As much as Slattery and TB would butt heads, there was still something nice about hearing her voice on the other end of the phone, even it was to scold TB.
These days, email have taken all that away. TB's phone rarely rings, and he can't remember the last time he had a conversation like the ones he used to have with Slats.
Most emails, as TB said, get deleted with out ever having been opened. Of the rest, a few are kept for a long time, and TB has emails archived from as far back as Sept. 9, 2003, an email from former publications director entitled "back in the day" and beginning with "You know you worked in the OAC in 2001-2002 if ..."
The message then has a bunch of bullet points, which, if you did work here then, makes you crack up like few other things can and if you didn't work here, makes you say "what's funny about that," such as:
* You get there early to make sure you get Tuna
* You're sure the record book is updated
* You've actually talked about squash at the water cooler
* You love Luis
Every now and then, TB gets an email that's a little out of the ordinary, such as the one the other day from a newspaper looking to put a story out that includes the No. 1 three-point shot in the history of each Division I school's men's basketball program.
Princeton has made as much out of the three-point rule (which turns 25 this year) as any team. The Tigers have made at least one three in every game since the rule's enactment, and Pete Carril recognized early the value of taking three points for a shot that his team had been getting two for for years anyway.
The Tigers have had some great three-point shooters, guys like current assistant coach Brian Earl, Sean Jackson, Bob Scrabis, Gabe Lewullis, C.J. Chapman, Mike Bechtold, Chris Marquardt, Matt Lapin and through today to Douglas Davis.
Even big guys like Steve Goodrich, Judson Wallace, Chris Young and others were reliable from the outside, a fact that was not lost on the media in Honolulu when Princeton played in the 1998 Rainbow Classic. Bill Carmody was asked about it, and his response, with TigerBlog next to him:
"You have to be able to hit the three-pointer here. Everyone in the program can. Our SID can."
So for all of the threes that Princeton has made, what was the biggest? And who made it?
TB began to think of a few of them, big shots at big times. Then he considered that it had to have huge historical significance, and then it was obvious that there were two of them.
And they were both by the same guy. In a span of a week. In 1996.
So it should be pretty obvious that TB is talking about Sydney Johnson.
The first was in the playoff game against Penn at Lehigh, when Johnson hit a three from the corner with a minute to go to snap a 54-54 tie and put the Tigers on top for good.
The second came in the NCAA game against UCLA, when Princeton fell behind 41-34 after a 7-0 UCLA run.
Johnson hit a long three-pointer that made it 41-37, and it was that shot as much as anything that set the tone for the rest of what happened. Johnson's shot was from well beyond the three-point line, and it came just after Charles O'Bannon missed a layup.
Instead of being up by nine, UCLA suddenly found itself up by only four.
So which shot was bigger?
TB will go with the one in the playoff.
As much as people remember the win over UCLA, imagine how different so many things would have been had Princeton not beaten Penn.
And if Johnson's shot didn't go in and Penn got the rebound? Who knows.
So there you have it. TB's choice for the top three-pointer in Princeton history.
Most of them are deleted immediately, since they're obviously worthless. They actually make TB wonder how his email address ended up on some of these distribution lists, as in "who sold them TB's email address?" The government has to be involved, right?
TB often thinks back to communications he had earlier in his life, in the pre-email days, and wonders how he ever put up with it.
For instance, back when TB first started working here, he used to have to actually mail photos back-and-forth with other Ivy League schools, especially for football game programs.
TB still has nightmares about having to piece together head shots, captains shot, four actions shots, head shot of the University president and athletic director and then send them off to Dartmouth, lest the late, great (and highly intimidating) Kathy Slattery not have them in time for her deadline.
TB remembers one time when Slattery called to remind him that she hadn't received that package, and TB went into Ralph Kramden mode, because he knew he had completely forgotten to do it.
These days, of course, there are no such things as actual photos, at least not in the athletic communications realm. Everything is digital and emailable.
Of course, the flip side of that is that the phone doesn't ring as much and as a result, interpersonal communication has suffered radically. As much as Slattery and TB would butt heads, there was still something nice about hearing her voice on the other end of the phone, even it was to scold TB.
These days, email have taken all that away. TB's phone rarely rings, and he can't remember the last time he had a conversation like the ones he used to have with Slats.
Most emails, as TB said, get deleted with out ever having been opened. Of the rest, a few are kept for a long time, and TB has emails archived from as far back as Sept. 9, 2003, an email from former publications director entitled "back in the day" and beginning with "You know you worked in the OAC in 2001-2002 if ..."
The message then has a bunch of bullet points, which, if you did work here then, makes you crack up like few other things can and if you didn't work here, makes you say "what's funny about that," such as:
* You get there early to make sure you get Tuna
* You're sure the record book is updated
* You've actually talked about squash at the water cooler
* You love Luis
Every now and then, TB gets an email that's a little out of the ordinary, such as the one the other day from a newspaper looking to put a story out that includes the No. 1 three-point shot in the history of each Division I school's men's basketball program.
Princeton has made as much out of the three-point rule (which turns 25 this year) as any team. The Tigers have made at least one three in every game since the rule's enactment, and Pete Carril recognized early the value of taking three points for a shot that his team had been getting two for for years anyway.
The Tigers have had some great three-point shooters, guys like current assistant coach Brian Earl, Sean Jackson, Bob Scrabis, Gabe Lewullis, C.J. Chapman, Mike Bechtold, Chris Marquardt, Matt Lapin and through today to Douglas Davis.
Even big guys like Steve Goodrich, Judson Wallace, Chris Young and others were reliable from the outside, a fact that was not lost on the media in Honolulu when Princeton played in the 1998 Rainbow Classic. Bill Carmody was asked about it, and his response, with TigerBlog next to him:
"You have to be able to hit the three-pointer here. Everyone in the program can. Our SID can."
So for all of the threes that Princeton has made, what was the biggest? And who made it?
TB began to think of a few of them, big shots at big times. Then he considered that it had to have huge historical significance, and then it was obvious that there were two of them.
And they were both by the same guy. In a span of a week. In 1996.
So it should be pretty obvious that TB is talking about Sydney Johnson.
The first was in the playoff game against Penn at Lehigh, when Johnson hit a three from the corner with a minute to go to snap a 54-54 tie and put the Tigers on top for good.
The second came in the NCAA game against UCLA, when Princeton fell behind 41-34 after a 7-0 UCLA run.
Johnson hit a long three-pointer that made it 41-37, and it was that shot as much as anything that set the tone for the rest of what happened. Johnson's shot was from well beyond the three-point line, and it came just after Charles O'Bannon missed a layup.
Instead of being up by nine, UCLA suddenly found itself up by only four.
So which shot was bigger?
TB will go with the one in the playoff.
As much as people remember the win over UCLA, imagine how different so many things would have been had Princeton not beaten Penn.
And if Johnson's shot didn't go in and Penn got the rebound? Who knows.
So there you have it. TB's choice for the top three-pointer in Princeton history.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Say What?
TigerBlog hates when he listens to interviews where the person asking the questions is clearly reading off a script and therefore isn’t able to adjust to the way the conversation is going.
This happens all the time. The person being interviewed takes the question to a different tangent, one that suggests a rather obvious follow-up. And what does the interviewer do? Asks the next pre-determined question, which has nothing to do with where the conversation was going.
TigerBlog has been interviewing people for nearly 30 years now, and he feels like he’s pretty good at it. At the least, he’s decent.
When TB was covering high school sports, interviews consisted of exchanges such as:
“How did you think your team did?”
“I’m really proud of how hard the kids played.”
Somewhere along the line, TB graduated to doing interviews during games on the radio, first while working on the student station at Penn, which was actually pretty good experience.
During most of his time doing Princeton games on the radio, TigerBlog was responsible for doing the halftime interviews, which was fine with him. He’d just look around for a guest and usually just have a conversation with the person, with no preparation in advance.
Sometimes the person he was talking to would be finishing up a particular answer while TB scrambled for another question, but he always came up with someone.
As an aside, the only person who ever turned down TB’s interview request was the late journalist Robert Novak, who sat courtside for a Princeton-Maryland game.
Anyway, most people are rarely either interviewers or interviewed, but it’s something TigerBlog sort of takes for granted. He is rarely the interviewed and almost always the interviewer, to the point of maybe 99.9% the latter and 0.1% the former.
One of the times that TB was interviewed was a few weeks ago, when a reporter from the Harvard Crimson called and wanted to talk about whether or no Princeton’s Department of Athletics had any policies to either limit or monitor the social networking done by its athletes.
TB’s answer was simple: “No.”
When asked why that was the case, TB’s answer sparked this exchange:
TB: “How old are you?”
Kid from Crimson: “18.”
TB: “If someone tried to tell you what to do, what would you do?”
Kid from Crimson: “The opposite.”
TigerBlog thought back to that when he saw on the news earlier this week a story about how Villanova University’s Department of Athletics had hired an outside company to keep tabs on the Twitter and Facebook posts of Wildcat athletes.
This is a complex issue at this point in time, when Twitter especially has become the primary way that people communicate their opinions, as opposed to when it used be done through interviews.
Because of how easy it is to set up a Twitter account and then say basically anything a person wants (in 140 characters or less, of course), the potential for saying the wrong thing is omnipresent.
Just look at the case of high school football player Yuri Wright, who lost out on several scholarship offers and was expelled from New Jersey’s Don Bosco Prep for racially and sexually explicit Tweets (though he did make a commitment to attend Colorado).
Or the case of Lehigh wide receiver Ryan Spadola, who was suspended for the NCAA quarterfinals (which Lehigh lost to eventual-champion North Dakota State) not even for what he wrote on Twitter but for what he forwarded.
So what is an athletic department to do?
Well, the best advice TB can give is to educate the athletes on what can happen and then hope they listen. To mandate rules or to censor? It’s not going to go over well.
Of course, the advice of "be smart" encompasses all kinds of things.
There are the obvious issues about staying away from the profane and the inappropriate. There are NCAA compliance issues. There are team issues. There are competitive advantage issues.
Ultimately, the main reason not to have a firm policy about any of this stuff is that it won't really matter in the long run anyway. Either the athletes are going to take the advice or they're not.
TigerBlog can't remember any issues that have come up to date at Princeton on this subject, or at least anything that caused a problem that even came close to rivaling the cases of Wright and Spadola.
Clearly, the potential is there for a similar situation. All it would take is a lapse in judgement by an 18- to 22-year old to start the ball rolling.
Is it going to happen one day?
Maybe.
Would imposing huge restrictions on the athletes stop it?
Not a chance.
This happens all the time. The person being interviewed takes the question to a different tangent, one that suggests a rather obvious follow-up. And what does the interviewer do? Asks the next pre-determined question, which has nothing to do with where the conversation was going.
TigerBlog has been interviewing people for nearly 30 years now, and he feels like he’s pretty good at it. At the least, he’s decent.
When TB was covering high school sports, interviews consisted of exchanges such as:
“How did you think your team did?”
“I’m really proud of how hard the kids played.”
Somewhere along the line, TB graduated to doing interviews during games on the radio, first while working on the student station at Penn, which was actually pretty good experience.
During most of his time doing Princeton games on the radio, TigerBlog was responsible for doing the halftime interviews, which was fine with him. He’d just look around for a guest and usually just have a conversation with the person, with no preparation in advance.
Sometimes the person he was talking to would be finishing up a particular answer while TB scrambled for another question, but he always came up with someone.
As an aside, the only person who ever turned down TB’s interview request was the late journalist Robert Novak, who sat courtside for a Princeton-Maryland game.
Anyway, most people are rarely either interviewers or interviewed, but it’s something TigerBlog sort of takes for granted. He is rarely the interviewed and almost always the interviewer, to the point of maybe 99.9% the latter and 0.1% the former.
One of the times that TB was interviewed was a few weeks ago, when a reporter from the Harvard Crimson called and wanted to talk about whether or no Princeton’s Department of Athletics had any policies to either limit or monitor the social networking done by its athletes.
TB’s answer was simple: “No.”
When asked why that was the case, TB’s answer sparked this exchange:
TB: “How old are you?”
Kid from Crimson: “18.”
TB: “If someone tried to tell you what to do, what would you do?”
Kid from Crimson: “The opposite.”
TigerBlog thought back to that when he saw on the news earlier this week a story about how Villanova University’s Department of Athletics had hired an outside company to keep tabs on the Twitter and Facebook posts of Wildcat athletes.
This is a complex issue at this point in time, when Twitter especially has become the primary way that people communicate their opinions, as opposed to when it used be done through interviews.
Because of how easy it is to set up a Twitter account and then say basically anything a person wants (in 140 characters or less, of course), the potential for saying the wrong thing is omnipresent.
Just look at the case of high school football player Yuri Wright, who lost out on several scholarship offers and was expelled from New Jersey’s Don Bosco Prep for racially and sexually explicit Tweets (though he did make a commitment to attend Colorado).
Or the case of Lehigh wide receiver Ryan Spadola, who was suspended for the NCAA quarterfinals (which Lehigh lost to eventual-champion North Dakota State) not even for what he wrote on Twitter but for what he forwarded.
So what is an athletic department to do?
Well, the best advice TB can give is to educate the athletes on what can happen and then hope they listen. To mandate rules or to censor? It’s not going to go over well.
Of course, the advice of "be smart" encompasses all kinds of things.
There are the obvious issues about staying away from the profane and the inappropriate. There are NCAA compliance issues. There are team issues. There are competitive advantage issues.
Ultimately, the main reason not to have a firm policy about any of this stuff is that it won't really matter in the long run anyway. Either the athletes are going to take the advice or they're not.
TigerBlog can't remember any issues that have come up to date at Princeton on this subject, or at least anything that caused a problem that even came close to rivaling the cases of Wright and Spadola.
Clearly, the potential is there for a similar situation. All it would take is a lapse in judgement by an 18- to 22-year old to start the ball rolling.
Is it going to happen one day?
Maybe.
Would imposing huge restrictions on the athletes stop it?
Not a chance.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Everyone's Friend
Herbert Springer was about as far from being a Princeton man as anyone.
A New York guy from start to finish, Herbert - TigerBlog's Uncle Herbie - fought in Europe and the Pacific in World War II, drove a cab in New York City and finally opened a drug store of sorts (cosmetics, candy, greeting cards, that kind of stuff) on the corner of Flatlands and Flatbush in Brooklyn.
Yesterday, as TigerBlog was driving his cousin Toby's best friend Esther from Brooklyn out to Long Island - on the occasion of Toby's funeral - Esther (who flew in from Colorado) asked what TB remembered about his uncle, who died just short of his 52nd birthday.
"Everything," TB said.
In fact, TigerBlog has never forgotten a detail about his uncle, a man who was a complete character in every way. He can still see his face and hear his voice, and most of all he can see the captain's hat he always wore.
What did TB remember, Esther asked.
TB remembers how his uncle would eat his eggs sunny-side up and runny (Esther suggests that he ate them three at a time), always in his boxers. How when TB would be there, his uncle would cut his bagel and put butter on one side and lox on the other.
He loved the beach, which always meant a summer in a bungalow in the Rockaways, where he'd put on his hat and play pinochle with his friends.
To be around Herbie Springer was to laugh, to carry on, to have a good time. He had friends, sure, but he was also the kind to make friends with everyone he encountered - strangers on the street, people who wandered into his store, friends of his nephew.
One day, when TB was about six or seven, he was in his uncle's store, where his uncle let him make change in the cash register for customers (and take candy off the shelves whenever he wanted). As his uncle stood behind him, TB gave the change to a man, though it turned out to be too much change.
His uncle watched, obviously aware that TB had given back too much money. The man with the money laughed and pointed it out and then returned the extra.
TB thought his uncle would be mad at him. Instead, he looked at TB and said: "if that ever happens to you, you give back the money, because it's not yours. You never take anything that's not yours."
Toby was the younger of Herbie and Edie's two children, and TB's aunt and cousin Gale were there yesterday as Toby was laid to rest next to her father. Upon arriving at the cemetery, TB saw his uncle's grave for the first time in years, and there, across the top, above where it said "Herbert Springer," were the words "Everyone's Friend."
Toby was 56 years old when she suffered a massive heart attack Saturday morning and then passed away a day later. In TB's family, death appears to come in the 50s, 80s or 90s, but never in the 60s or 70s. And it appears to be fairly evenly split, for reasons that escape TB.
Except for some time in San Diego, Toby lived her life in Brooklyn, spending her last years living with her mother in the same apartment on Ocean Avenue where Herbie had eaten all those sunny-side up eggs all those years ago. She survived two major car accidents, including one when she was six years old, which left her one kidney short for the rest of her life.
At her funeral, she was remembered by those closest to her - especially her long-time boyfriend Sam - for her love for her friends and family, for all of the cards that she would send for any and all occasions, for the way she could scribble so much onto the back of one little postcard.
They talked about her big heart and how, like her father, she too was "Everyone's Friend."
When TB thought of his cousin, he thought of her incredible ability to talk to people, any people, always with her thick Brooklyn accent. TB always said that she had a heart as big as her mouth - and he meant that with great affection.
TB's favorite story about his cousin is the one that BrotherBlog told about how when Toby came to visit him when he lived in an apartment building once, she woke up around 5 in the morning and went to the lobby, where she read the magazines out of everyone's mailboxes.
Another is the time that former equipment manager Hank Towns came into TB's office to talk about the 30 minutes he'd just spent on the phone with TB's "relation."
If you know Hank, you know that he's not the kind of person who wanted to be distracted from his task because someone wanted to make small talk on the phone.
At the same time, you also know that Hank's bark is way worse than his bite.
It took TB about two seconds to figure out which "relation" Hank was talking about. It had to be Toby, who 1) would get TB's phone number wrong, 2) get Hank on the phone and 3) wouldn't let him get off the phone.
Hank was more humored than annoyed by it, the way that Toby wouldn't let him off the phone, the way she talked about herself and grilled him on his life.
TB was out all day yesterday at the funeral.
He didn't miss much at Princeton, apparently, as first semester exams roll along.
Stories posted on goprincetontigers.com yesterday were limited, with a story about how men's basketball player Will Barrett is withdrawing from school because of his injury and a nice-looking information central page for the upcoming EIWA wrestling championships.
On a normal Tuesday, TB would have been wearing something that said "Princeton" on it, in orange and black, with a swoosh on it.
Instead, he was wearing a shirt and tie, at a funeral for someone else who died too young.
It was doubly sad for TB, especially when he stood in front of his uncle's grave, hearing FatherBlog point out that he's been there - buried with his captain's hat - for 34 years now.
TB thought about his uncle, and as he did, he couldn't help but wonder what he'd be like had he lived, what kind of impact he would have had on TB, how much TB would have liked to have spent time with him as an adult, not just as a child.
And then Toby's casket was placed next to the grave, and TB thought about all the times his talked to his cousin and said that he had to go, that'd he catch up with her later, another time.
Unfortunately, that opportunity is gone now, forever. Sadly.
And now she's next to her father. "Everyone's Friend," father and daughter.
Both cut down way too soon.
Aleha Hashalom, Toby.
A New York guy from start to finish, Herbert - TigerBlog's Uncle Herbie - fought in Europe and the Pacific in World War II, drove a cab in New York City and finally opened a drug store of sorts (cosmetics, candy, greeting cards, that kind of stuff) on the corner of Flatlands and Flatbush in Brooklyn.
Yesterday, as TigerBlog was driving his cousin Toby's best friend Esther from Brooklyn out to Long Island - on the occasion of Toby's funeral - Esther (who flew in from Colorado) asked what TB remembered about his uncle, who died just short of his 52nd birthday.
"Everything," TB said.
In fact, TigerBlog has never forgotten a detail about his uncle, a man who was a complete character in every way. He can still see his face and hear his voice, and most of all he can see the captain's hat he always wore.
What did TB remember, Esther asked.
TB remembers how his uncle would eat his eggs sunny-side up and runny (Esther suggests that he ate them three at a time), always in his boxers. How when TB would be there, his uncle would cut his bagel and put butter on one side and lox on the other.
He loved the beach, which always meant a summer in a bungalow in the Rockaways, where he'd put on his hat and play pinochle with his friends.
To be around Herbie Springer was to laugh, to carry on, to have a good time. He had friends, sure, but he was also the kind to make friends with everyone he encountered - strangers on the street, people who wandered into his store, friends of his nephew.
One day, when TB was about six or seven, he was in his uncle's store, where his uncle let him make change in the cash register for customers (and take candy off the shelves whenever he wanted). As his uncle stood behind him, TB gave the change to a man, though it turned out to be too much change.
His uncle watched, obviously aware that TB had given back too much money. The man with the money laughed and pointed it out and then returned the extra.
TB thought his uncle would be mad at him. Instead, he looked at TB and said: "if that ever happens to you, you give back the money, because it's not yours. You never take anything that's not yours."
Toby was the younger of Herbie and Edie's two children, and TB's aunt and cousin Gale were there yesterday as Toby was laid to rest next to her father. Upon arriving at the cemetery, TB saw his uncle's grave for the first time in years, and there, across the top, above where it said "Herbert Springer," were the words "Everyone's Friend."
Toby was 56 years old when she suffered a massive heart attack Saturday morning and then passed away a day later. In TB's family, death appears to come in the 50s, 80s or 90s, but never in the 60s or 70s. And it appears to be fairly evenly split, for reasons that escape TB.
Except for some time in San Diego, Toby lived her life in Brooklyn, spending her last years living with her mother in the same apartment on Ocean Avenue where Herbie had eaten all those sunny-side up eggs all those years ago. She survived two major car accidents, including one when she was six years old, which left her one kidney short for the rest of her life.
At her funeral, she was remembered by those closest to her - especially her long-time boyfriend Sam - for her love for her friends and family, for all of the cards that she would send for any and all occasions, for the way she could scribble so much onto the back of one little postcard.
They talked about her big heart and how, like her father, she too was "Everyone's Friend."
When TB thought of his cousin, he thought of her incredible ability to talk to people, any people, always with her thick Brooklyn accent. TB always said that she had a heart as big as her mouth - and he meant that with great affection.
TB's favorite story about his cousin is the one that BrotherBlog told about how when Toby came to visit him when he lived in an apartment building once, she woke up around 5 in the morning and went to the lobby, where she read the magazines out of everyone's mailboxes.
Another is the time that former equipment manager Hank Towns came into TB's office to talk about the 30 minutes he'd just spent on the phone with TB's "relation."
If you know Hank, you know that he's not the kind of person who wanted to be distracted from his task because someone wanted to make small talk on the phone.
At the same time, you also know that Hank's bark is way worse than his bite.
It took TB about two seconds to figure out which "relation" Hank was talking about. It had to be Toby, who 1) would get TB's phone number wrong, 2) get Hank on the phone and 3) wouldn't let him get off the phone.
Hank was more humored than annoyed by it, the way that Toby wouldn't let him off the phone, the way she talked about herself and grilled him on his life.
TB was out all day yesterday at the funeral.
He didn't miss much at Princeton, apparently, as first semester exams roll along.
Stories posted on goprincetontigers.com yesterday were limited, with a story about how men's basketball player Will Barrett is withdrawing from school because of his injury and a nice-looking information central page for the upcoming EIWA wrestling championships.
On a normal Tuesday, TB would have been wearing something that said "Princeton" on it, in orange and black, with a swoosh on it.
Instead, he was wearing a shirt and tie, at a funeral for someone else who died too young.
It was doubly sad for TB, especially when he stood in front of his uncle's grave, hearing FatherBlog point out that he's been there - buried with his captain's hat - for 34 years now.
TB thought about his uncle, and as he did, he couldn't help but wonder what he'd be like had he lived, what kind of impact he would have had on TB, how much TB would have liked to have spent time with him as an adult, not just as a child.
And then Toby's casket was placed next to the grave, and TB thought about all the times his talked to his cousin and said that he had to go, that'd he catch up with her later, another time.
Unfortunately, that opportunity is gone now, forever. Sadly.
And now she's next to her father. "Everyone's Friend," father and daughter.
Both cut down way too soon.
Aleha Hashalom, Toby.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
If A Is Greater Than B ...
TigerBlog was a big geometry fan when he was in high school.
His teacher was a woman named Mrs. Mancuso, who was fairly straight-forward about it all, though hey, how exciting can geometry be?
TB remembers one test where he solved (proved?) the theorem, even though there was a typo in it and it was said to be unable to be done correctly. As a result, the rest of the class was given the question correctly, and TB and the other kid who solved it (proved it?) got extra credit.
Mostly, geometry appealed to TigerBlog for the same reason that physics did, because it sort of made sense just by looking at it.
Chemistry was the worst for TB, because it was all small reactions that had little rhyme or reason to it. Seriously, two moles of this and three moles of that make four moles of something else?
Who could keep that straight?
Biology wasn't TB's favorite either, since it was sort of messy. He did have a friend who had to dissect cats in advanced biology, and she and her partner named their cat "Pieces," which was funny, if not in questionable taste.
Meanwhile, back at math, TB always did well, regardless of the subject. Algebra. Geometry. Calculus.
As an aside, he can help Little Miss TigerBlog with her math more than he can TigerBlog Jr. with his, which means that TB is now operating on a middle school level.
Anyway, one of TB's favorite parts of geometry was the whole transitive property and all that.
You know if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C.
It wasn't up there with the joy of one of those "solve for x" equations where there are all kinds of things going in numerators and denominators and then finally it ends up with something like x/5=25 or something simple like that and it was obvious that everything had been done correctly.
Still, there was something about having the absolute knowledge that if A was greater than B and B was greater than C, then there was nothing C could do about it, no matter how hard C tried.
Of course, TB has heard a million times that the transitive property does not extend to sports.
Therefore, it's not true that if Team A beat Team B and Team B beat Team C that Team A is definitely going to beat Team C.
That's a pity, because consider that the following four statements are all true:
In men's basketball this season ...
* Florida State beat Duke at Duke
* Florida State beat North Carolina by 33
* Florida State lost at home to Princeton
* Florida State lost on a neutral court to Harvard
In other words, Florida State is 2-0 against the two behemoths of the ACC and 0-2 against the Ivy League.
Alas, the transitive property doesn't apply to sports, as we know. Otherwise, Princeton would be better than North Carolina and Duke.
Of course, you could start one of those long chains with so-and-so beat so-and-so, as in:
Duke lost to Florida State who lost to Princeton who lost to Morehead State who lost to South Dakota who lost to South Dakota State who lost to North Dakota who lost to Bradley whose athletic director is Mike Cross, who used to work here at Princeton.
Ah, but that's just for fun. And why wouldn't it be?
Nothing's that big a deal around here right now, not with first semester exams ongoing.
Princeton's next men's basketball game is Monday, when the Tigers head to the Palestra to take on the Penn Quakers. Princeton is 1-1 in the Ivy League; Penn is 2-0.
By then, either Yale or Harvard will no longer be among the unbeatens, as the teams meet Friday in New Haven in a game that is already sold out.
Princeton will go from a long drought of no games (and longer with no Division I home games) to an all-out sprint in the league, as it always does.
Upon returning to the court, Princeton will in fact play 12 games in 36 days, as the Ivy League championship sorts itself out. The Tigers follow their trip to Penn with another to Yale and Brown, meaning that the first five league games will be on the road.
Princeton finally returns to Jadwin Gym on Feb. 10/11 against Dartmouth and Harvard. By then, it will have been 72 days - a shocking number - since Princeton played a home game against a Division I team.
Harvard is ranked in the Top 25 in one poll and is on the cusp in the other. Still, this doesn't look like a one-sided league race. Maybe a great deal will be learned Friday night in New Haven.
On the women's side, there are two unbeaten teams, Princeton at 3-0 and Harvard at 1-0.
For any of the schools who already has a loss, there is the need to sweep Princeton during the season, or get help from another school. For Harvard, there is the need not to lose a game to anyone else.
In other words, Princeton, the preseason favorite, is playing with some margin for error.
Meanwhile, nobody around here is playing anything, at least for another week, when there will be track and field and swimming and diving this weekend and then hockey in the beginning of next week.
So while the students study and take tests, TigerBlog has plenty of time to have fun with the transitive property.
Just like in the old days of Mrs. Mancuso's class.
His teacher was a woman named Mrs. Mancuso, who was fairly straight-forward about it all, though hey, how exciting can geometry be?
TB remembers one test where he solved (proved?) the theorem, even though there was a typo in it and it was said to be unable to be done correctly. As a result, the rest of the class was given the question correctly, and TB and the other kid who solved it (proved it?) got extra credit.
Mostly, geometry appealed to TigerBlog for the same reason that physics did, because it sort of made sense just by looking at it.
Chemistry was the worst for TB, because it was all small reactions that had little rhyme or reason to it. Seriously, two moles of this and three moles of that make four moles of something else?
Who could keep that straight?
Biology wasn't TB's favorite either, since it was sort of messy. He did have a friend who had to dissect cats in advanced biology, and she and her partner named their cat "Pieces," which was funny, if not in questionable taste.
Meanwhile, back at math, TB always did well, regardless of the subject. Algebra. Geometry. Calculus.
As an aside, he can help Little Miss TigerBlog with her math more than he can TigerBlog Jr. with his, which means that TB is now operating on a middle school level.
Anyway, one of TB's favorite parts of geometry was the whole transitive property and all that.
You know if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C.
It wasn't up there with the joy of one of those "solve for x" equations where there are all kinds of things going in numerators and denominators and then finally it ends up with something like x/5=25 or something simple like that and it was obvious that everything had been done correctly.
Still, there was something about having the absolute knowledge that if A was greater than B and B was greater than C, then there was nothing C could do about it, no matter how hard C tried.
Of course, TB has heard a million times that the transitive property does not extend to sports.
Therefore, it's not true that if Team A beat Team B and Team B beat Team C that Team A is definitely going to beat Team C.
That's a pity, because consider that the following four statements are all true:
In men's basketball this season ...
* Florida State beat Duke at Duke
* Florida State beat North Carolina by 33
* Florida State lost at home to Princeton
* Florida State lost on a neutral court to Harvard
In other words, Florida State is 2-0 against the two behemoths of the ACC and 0-2 against the Ivy League.
Alas, the transitive property doesn't apply to sports, as we know. Otherwise, Princeton would be better than North Carolina and Duke.
Of course, you could start one of those long chains with so-and-so beat so-and-so, as in:
Duke lost to Florida State who lost to Princeton who lost to Morehead State who lost to South Dakota who lost to South Dakota State who lost to North Dakota who lost to Bradley whose athletic director is Mike Cross, who used to work here at Princeton.
Ah, but that's just for fun. And why wouldn't it be?
Nothing's that big a deal around here right now, not with first semester exams ongoing.
Princeton's next men's basketball game is Monday, when the Tigers head to the Palestra to take on the Penn Quakers. Princeton is 1-1 in the Ivy League; Penn is 2-0.
By then, either Yale or Harvard will no longer be among the unbeatens, as the teams meet Friday in New Haven in a game that is already sold out.
Princeton will go from a long drought of no games (and longer with no Division I home games) to an all-out sprint in the league, as it always does.
Upon returning to the court, Princeton will in fact play 12 games in 36 days, as the Ivy League championship sorts itself out. The Tigers follow their trip to Penn with another to Yale and Brown, meaning that the first five league games will be on the road.
Princeton finally returns to Jadwin Gym on Feb. 10/11 against Dartmouth and Harvard. By then, it will have been 72 days - a shocking number - since Princeton played a home game against a Division I team.
Harvard is ranked in the Top 25 in one poll and is on the cusp in the other. Still, this doesn't look like a one-sided league race. Maybe a great deal will be learned Friday night in New Haven.
On the women's side, there are two unbeaten teams, Princeton at 3-0 and Harvard at 1-0.
For any of the schools who already has a loss, there is the need to sweep Princeton during the season, or get help from another school. For Harvard, there is the need not to lose a game to anyone else.
In other words, Princeton, the preseason favorite, is playing with some margin for error.
Meanwhile, nobody around here is playing anything, at least for another week, when there will be track and field and swimming and diving this weekend and then hockey in the beginning of next week.
So while the students study and take tests, TigerBlog has plenty of time to have fun with the transitive property.
Just like in the old days of Mrs. Mancuso's class.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Football Thoughts
TigerBlog pulled into the parking lot this morning to find assistant football coaches Bill McCord and Andrew Aurich leaving, on their way to the hospital to see running back Chuck Dibilio.
By all accounts, Dibilio is making progress and should be able to leave ICU for a private room, probably today.
In a world where attention span diminishes every day and the ability to get immediate answers is usually no further away than your phone, there is no simple or quick solution to the questions that everyone - Princeton fan or not - has about Dibilio.
Will he be able to return to school and be able to resume his work as if nothing happened?
Will he play football again?
Everyone is rooting for two yeses, though everyone would settle for yes to the first one.
This weekend was devoid of any Princeton athletic activity, as first-semester exam break is a week old.
Without any games to attend, TB found himself watching the ones on television - and thinking about some of the larger questions that sports in this culture raise.
It started with the news about Dibilio Friday.
Here was Princeton's top football player, a completely healthy, formidable 19-year-old, in the hospital with a stroke How does that happen? How does anyone even begin to get a handle on that?
TigerBlog watched the AFC and NFC championship games - except for a big stretch in the Giants-49ers game where he had to pick up TigerBlog Jr. at the train station and found that the roads were emptier at that moment than basically any other time he can remember - yesterday and couldn't help but wonder about the future of the sport.
The violence is getting so dangerous, and yet it seems so easy to fix. Require defenders to tackle with their arms, or make the rule that no part of the defender's body can contact the ball-carrier before the arms and hands.
In other words, no turning the body into a missile and leading with the shoulder or even worse, the head.
Maybe those hits look so much worse in super slow-motion, but it just seems like there's just too much force wiping these guys out. And it's needless, all designed not to achieve the end result of ending the play or breaking up the pass but to make a statement about how hard someone can hit or, even worse, just to get on the highlights or plays of the week.
The worse part, of course, is the example it sets for the high school or even youth players, the overwhelming majority of whom will never play on a level higher.
And yet for all its danger and excesses - and its attempt to use the instant replay rules to destroy the excitement of the game - there is nothing in American culture quite like football.
In the year 2011, nine of the top 10 highest-rated television broadcasts in this country were football games (the 10th was the Academy Awards).
What else would bring that many people out in weather as cold as it was in New England yesterday or as miserable as it was in San Francisco?
What else could attract that viewership?
What else could clear Interstate 95 on a Sunday evening?
The NFL Network series about Super Bowl champions entitled "America's Game" is pretty accurate. Baseball? America's Pastime? Maybe in a past time.
Today, it's all football, all the time.
The Giants are TigerBlog's favorite team, so he's naturally happy about the way the game turned out. Somewhat shockingly, a team that in the beginning of the year was being lambasted for its lack of aggressiveness in personnel moves compared to the Jets and Eagles is now in the Super Bowl.
As an aside, this most be galling to Rex Ryan.
An another aside, one of TB's all-time favorite Princeton athletes - Marc Ross - is the Giants director of college scouting.
As a further aside, with all the money spent on scouting and the draft and all, nobody figured out Victor Cruz was fast and had great hands?
For all of it, though, the one football-related issue that stuck with TB most this weekend was the death of Joe Paterno.
The legendary Penn State coach, who won more games than any other major college football coach ever, died after a short battle with lung cancer. He was 85.
Had Paterno died a year ago, or even a few months ago, his story would have been much different.
In many ways, Paterno was the major college version of much of what is sacred here at Princeton, a big-time embodiment of the phrase "Education Through Athletics."
For much of his career, Paterno was a philanthropist, educator, father-figure - a man of unimpeachable integrity and family values.
And then this fall happened, and all that was left to be questioned.
And, message to ESPN, nobody wanted to hear from Jerry Sandusky about what a great guy Joe Paterno was. It made TigerBlog's skin crawl - and TB is pretty sure that everyone else felt the same way.
Sandusky, of course, is an accused child molester, and though TB understands that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, it doesn't look like Sandusky is innocent here.
And nothing will ever convince TigerBlog that Joe Paterno didn't know - or at the very least, should have done more to find out - exactly what Sandusky was doing in his lockerroom, in his shower room.
TB has struggled through this whole story to figure out what Paterno's culpability is.
On the one hand, TB can't imagine a way that Paterno didn't know the exact details or enough of them that he should have put the safety of young boys well above anything else to do with his program.
On the other hand, if Paterno did know all that and didn't do anything to stop it because he valued the brand of Joe Paterno and Penn State football over the safety of little boys, then he's nothing short of evil.
And TB can't believe that Joe Paterno would know what was going on and sit on it that way. But at the same time, he had to have known, and he clearly didn't stop it.
When the news of Paterno's death came, those were TB's thoughts - that and the way he tried so hard to stay on as the football coach even after the scandal broke.
In a million years, TigerBlog would never have imagined that this would be the way the last four months of Joe Paterno's life would go. It is as shocking as any sports story TB can ever remember, except for O.J., and in some ways, this is worse. Actually, many ways.
TigerBlog Jr. played in the Keystone State Games last summer, and the tournament was held on fields outside Beaver Stadium. TB took a picture of TBJ with the Joe Paterno statue next to the stadium, and it was a pretty good one.
When the scandal broke, TB was too appalled to keep it, so he deleted it.
In years to come, when TB thinks back about Joe Paterno, part of him is going to remember all the good he did, all of the people he impacted for the better, the great influence he had one sport and society.
Then he'll think to the last four months of Paterno's life, and he won't be able to do that.
By all accounts, Dibilio is making progress and should be able to leave ICU for a private room, probably today.
In a world where attention span diminishes every day and the ability to get immediate answers is usually no further away than your phone, there is no simple or quick solution to the questions that everyone - Princeton fan or not - has about Dibilio.
Will he be able to return to school and be able to resume his work as if nothing happened?
Will he play football again?
Everyone is rooting for two yeses, though everyone would settle for yes to the first one.
This weekend was devoid of any Princeton athletic activity, as first-semester exam break is a week old.
Without any games to attend, TB found himself watching the ones on television - and thinking about some of the larger questions that sports in this culture raise.
It started with the news about Dibilio Friday.
Here was Princeton's top football player, a completely healthy, formidable 19-year-old, in the hospital with a stroke How does that happen? How does anyone even begin to get a handle on that?
TigerBlog watched the AFC and NFC championship games - except for a big stretch in the Giants-49ers game where he had to pick up TigerBlog Jr. at the train station and found that the roads were emptier at that moment than basically any other time he can remember - yesterday and couldn't help but wonder about the future of the sport.
The violence is getting so dangerous, and yet it seems so easy to fix. Require defenders to tackle with their arms, or make the rule that no part of the defender's body can contact the ball-carrier before the arms and hands.
In other words, no turning the body into a missile and leading with the shoulder or even worse, the head.
Maybe those hits look so much worse in super slow-motion, but it just seems like there's just too much force wiping these guys out. And it's needless, all designed not to achieve the end result of ending the play or breaking up the pass but to make a statement about how hard someone can hit or, even worse, just to get on the highlights or plays of the week.
The worse part, of course, is the example it sets for the high school or even youth players, the overwhelming majority of whom will never play on a level higher.
And yet for all its danger and excesses - and its attempt to use the instant replay rules to destroy the excitement of the game - there is nothing in American culture quite like football.
In the year 2011, nine of the top 10 highest-rated television broadcasts in this country were football games (the 10th was the Academy Awards).
What else would bring that many people out in weather as cold as it was in New England yesterday or as miserable as it was in San Francisco?
What else could attract that viewership?
What else could clear Interstate 95 on a Sunday evening?
The NFL Network series about Super Bowl champions entitled "America's Game" is pretty accurate. Baseball? America's Pastime? Maybe in a past time.
Today, it's all football, all the time.
The Giants are TigerBlog's favorite team, so he's naturally happy about the way the game turned out. Somewhat shockingly, a team that in the beginning of the year was being lambasted for its lack of aggressiveness in personnel moves compared to the Jets and Eagles is now in the Super Bowl.
As an aside, this most be galling to Rex Ryan.
An another aside, one of TB's all-time favorite Princeton athletes - Marc Ross - is the Giants director of college scouting.
As a further aside, with all the money spent on scouting and the draft and all, nobody figured out Victor Cruz was fast and had great hands?
For all of it, though, the one football-related issue that stuck with TB most this weekend was the death of Joe Paterno.
The legendary Penn State coach, who won more games than any other major college football coach ever, died after a short battle with lung cancer. He was 85.
Had Paterno died a year ago, or even a few months ago, his story would have been much different.
In many ways, Paterno was the major college version of much of what is sacred here at Princeton, a big-time embodiment of the phrase "Education Through Athletics."
For much of his career, Paterno was a philanthropist, educator, father-figure - a man of unimpeachable integrity and family values.
And then this fall happened, and all that was left to be questioned.
And, message to ESPN, nobody wanted to hear from Jerry Sandusky about what a great guy Joe Paterno was. It made TigerBlog's skin crawl - and TB is pretty sure that everyone else felt the same way.
Sandusky, of course, is an accused child molester, and though TB understands that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, it doesn't look like Sandusky is innocent here.
And nothing will ever convince TigerBlog that Joe Paterno didn't know - or at the very least, should have done more to find out - exactly what Sandusky was doing in his lockerroom, in his shower room.
TB has struggled through this whole story to figure out what Paterno's culpability is.
On the one hand, TB can't imagine a way that Paterno didn't know the exact details or enough of them that he should have put the safety of young boys well above anything else to do with his program.
On the other hand, if Paterno did know all that and didn't do anything to stop it because he valued the brand of Joe Paterno and Penn State football over the safety of little boys, then he's nothing short of evil.
And TB can't believe that Joe Paterno would know what was going on and sit on it that way. But at the same time, he had to have known, and he clearly didn't stop it.
When the news of Paterno's death came, those were TB's thoughts - that and the way he tried so hard to stay on as the football coach even after the scandal broke.
In a million years, TigerBlog would never have imagined that this would be the way the last four months of Joe Paterno's life would go. It is as shocking as any sports story TB can ever remember, except for O.J., and in some ways, this is worse. Actually, many ways.
TigerBlog Jr. played in the Keystone State Games last summer, and the tournament was held on fields outside Beaver Stadium. TB took a picture of TBJ with the Joe Paterno statue next to the stadium, and it was a pretty good one.
When the scandal broke, TB was too appalled to keep it, so he deleted it.
In years to come, when TB thinks back about Joe Paterno, part of him is going to remember all the good he did, all of the people he impacted for the better, the great influence he had one sport and society.
Then he'll think to the last four months of Paterno's life, and he won't be able to do that.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Get Well, Chuck
TigerBlog can't see without his glasses, so he wasn't 100% sure he was seeing the words of the early-morning text message correctly.
When he put his glasses on to confirm the words, he believed what he was seeing even less.
Chuck Dibilio, the 2011 Ivy League Rookie of the Year in football, had suffered a stroke? At the age of 19?
No way. No chance. TB had to be missing something.
All fall, TigerBlog was like every other Princeton fan, on the edge of his seat every time Dibilio touched the ball. And now he was being helicoptered from Princeton Medical Center to Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, for emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain?
Dibilio ran for 1,068 yards as a freshman, earning first-team All-Ivy honors to go with the Rookie of the Year award. A six-time Ivy Rookie of the Week, he was a threat on any play to do something big, and he routinely turned two yards into 10 or 10 into 30.
He ran for 135 yards at Harvard. He went to Franklin Field and put up 130 yards.
As Princeton heads down the rebuilding process, Dibilio was the cornerstone of the program.
And now he was in a hospital with a stroke?
No wonder the words were so unbelievable.
TB would guess that everybody who hears the news goes through the same quick progression that he did: 1) this can't be true, 2) how is his health, 3) what is his prognosis, 4) will he be able to play football again, 5) how could anyone be thinking about football now.
The first thought is how he's doing, which isn't completely known at this time, though his father suggests some early positive words. There is no question that anyone would wish him a full recovery, even if it meant the end of his football career.
TB thought of Tedy Bruschi, the New England Patriots linebacker who suffered a stroke and returned to play in the NFL. Now on ESPN, Bruschi appears to be the picture of great health and physical condition.
And he thought about Jordan Culbreath, another Princeton running back who battled back from a life-threatening disease and returned to the football field. Culbreath is as inspirational as any athlete TB has come across in his quarter-center around here.
TB is hardly a medical person. He has no idea about any of this stuff, so all he can do is what everyone else can do, which is to keep Chuck Dibilio and his family in his his thoughts right now.
TigerBlog doesn't know Dibilio more than from a few postgame interviews and some interaction in Jadwin. He seems like a nice kid, one who took his success and the expectations that grew along with it in stride.
Now he's in a hospital bed.
The unfairness level of that is off the charts.
TB just glanced up and looked out the window as he frequently does, where outside sits the football stadium. TB can see the last booth on the end of the press box, from where he does the public address for home games.
He envisions three more years of watching No. 23 with the ball, of saying things like "Princeton touchdown by Chuck Dibilio" many times over.
He hopes with all his heart that Dibilio hasn't been robbed of that opportunity as a football player.
More than that, though, he hopes that this is just a minor setback for him in his life, that when he looks back through the years and tells the story, it starts out with "I'm fine; I'm lucky they caught it in time."
That would be the perfect ending to this story, one that began with words that TB didn't want to believe, words he doubts anyone else wanted to when they first saw them as well.
When he put his glasses on to confirm the words, he believed what he was seeing even less.
Chuck Dibilio, the 2011 Ivy League Rookie of the Year in football, had suffered a stroke? At the age of 19?
No way. No chance. TB had to be missing something.
All fall, TigerBlog was like every other Princeton fan, on the edge of his seat every time Dibilio touched the ball. And now he was being helicoptered from Princeton Medical Center to Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, for emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain?
Dibilio ran for 1,068 yards as a freshman, earning first-team All-Ivy honors to go with the Rookie of the Year award. A six-time Ivy Rookie of the Week, he was a threat on any play to do something big, and he routinely turned two yards into 10 or 10 into 30.
He ran for 135 yards at Harvard. He went to Franklin Field and put up 130 yards.
As Princeton heads down the rebuilding process, Dibilio was the cornerstone of the program.
And now he was in a hospital with a stroke?
No wonder the words were so unbelievable.
TB would guess that everybody who hears the news goes through the same quick progression that he did: 1) this can't be true, 2) how is his health, 3) what is his prognosis, 4) will he be able to play football again, 5) how could anyone be thinking about football now.
The first thought is how he's doing, which isn't completely known at this time, though his father suggests some early positive words. There is no question that anyone would wish him a full recovery, even if it meant the end of his football career.
TB thought of Tedy Bruschi, the New England Patriots linebacker who suffered a stroke and returned to play in the NFL. Now on ESPN, Bruschi appears to be the picture of great health and physical condition.
And he thought about Jordan Culbreath, another Princeton running back who battled back from a life-threatening disease and returned to the football field. Culbreath is as inspirational as any athlete TB has come across in his quarter-center around here.
TB is hardly a medical person. He has no idea about any of this stuff, so all he can do is what everyone else can do, which is to keep Chuck Dibilio and his family in his his thoughts right now.
TigerBlog doesn't know Dibilio more than from a few postgame interviews and some interaction in Jadwin. He seems like a nice kid, one who took his success and the expectations that grew along with it in stride.
Now he's in a hospital bed.
The unfairness level of that is off the charts.
TB just glanced up and looked out the window as he frequently does, where outside sits the football stadium. TB can see the last booth on the end of the press box, from where he does the public address for home games.
He envisions three more years of watching No. 23 with the ball, of saying things like "Princeton touchdown by Chuck Dibilio" many times over.
He hopes with all his heart that Dibilio hasn't been robbed of that opportunity as a football player.
More than that, though, he hopes that this is just a minor setback for him in his life, that when he looks back through the years and tells the story, it starts out with "I'm fine; I'm lucky they caught it in time."
That would be the perfect ending to this story, one that began with words that TB didn't want to believe, words he doubts anyone else wanted to when they first saw them as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
