Back when he was a kid, the primary access to daily current events was either through the newspaper or the news on TV.
The preferred newscast in TB's house was the Channel 7 news from New York City, with anchors Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel. Grimsby was a grizzled, somewhat sarcastic announcer, one who ended every newscast with his signature sign-off: "Hoping your news is good news."
It's a rather simple saying, and yet it has a ton of optimism to it. Hoping your news is good news.
It applies to the world of college athletics, certainly. As the late, great, certainly quotable Al McGuire - he was the basketball coach who won an NCAA title at Marquette in 1977 and then went on to a long career in broadcasting - said when asked about the challenges of coaching in college: "just when you think you have everything under control, one of the cheerleaders ends up pregnant."
TigerBlog talks all the time about the perils involved in college athletics. Hey, you put that many strong-willed, competitive, adventurous young people together, and you just hope for the best when it comes time to make decisions.
Anytime TB reads a story about decisions gone bad among college teams, he never (okay, almost never) experiences schadenfreude, which, by the way, is a great word. Nope. He always (okay, usually, depending on the school) thinks "thankfully that wasn't here at Princeton."
Anyone in college athletic administration who thinks it can't happen on his/her campus is fooling him- or herself.
Princeton's athletic administration spends a ton of time stressing to coaches and directly to athletes the importance of making good decisions. It's like parenting. You can do it all you want. When it gets to be key decision time, all you can do is hope it sunk in.
Like Grimsby said, you can hope your news is good news. You also have to be proactive about doing everything you can to make it happen, and then you have to just hope for the best.
And you can be happy when you're on the right side of the news.
Princeton certainly was this week, in the form of hockey player Jack Berger.
It seems that Berger connected with a local six-year-old through one of Princeton's "Skate With the Tiger" events and made such an impression that the boy - Colin Doan - wanted to try playing hockey.
Eventually, his mother sent a video of the boy as he was telling people he wanted to be just like Jack Berger to Princeton men's hockey coach Bob Prier, who forwarded it to Berger. Eventually, Berger showed up at Colin's school as a guest reader, and it just so happened that Berger read to the class of kindergarteners one of TB's favorite authors: Dr. Seuss.
The episode was recounted in the Trentonian earlier this week, and it made for the kind of story that any school craves.
TB was first made aware of it by Daniel Day from the communications office. Dan tweeted it on the main university account and wanted to make sure TB saw it, while also commenting that he loved stories like that. And who wouldn't?
TigerBlog has never met Jack Berger. He's certainly heard a lot about him though.
He strikes TB as one of those too-good-to-be-true-where-do-these-people-come-from types that make working at Princeton pretty special. It's also something that TB never takes for granted.
Way back when when he was in the newspaper business, TB wrote that about Chris Mooney, then a Princeton basketball player and now the head coach at Richmond. It applied then, and it's applied to so many of the athletes TB has seen through the years here.
Berger is no exception.
The captain of the hockey team, Berger is on his way to medical school at some point, after he exhausts his opportunities to play professionally. As the story about Colin shows, he certainly has a big heart. He's a tremendous public speaker, and he has a natural leadership and presence to him.
He's exactly the kind of person you want out there in the public, like at a "Skate With the Tigers" night.
In Jadwin Gym there's often a great deal of talk about how Princeton's athletes are the best ambassadors for the program. Let them out in the community, and everyone responds. TB has seen it any number of times.
The Jack Berger/Colin Doan relationship is a perfect example, but it's hardly the only one.
They don't do it for the publicity. They do it because it's a great thing for college athletes to do, especially at a school like Princeton. They do it because they're role models and they understand that.
They do it because that's just how they are.
Certainly Jack Berger is. When he's involved, the good news appears to follow.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Raging Bull
If ever a movie figured to be in TigerBlog's wheelhouse, it was "Raging Bull."
Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci? A boxing movie? What could be better?
"Raging Bull" tells the story of Jake LaMotta, who rises from the streets of the Bronx to become the middleweight champion of the world. The movie, starring DeNiro as LaMotta, centers around his relationship with his brother Joey, played by Pesci, and his second wife Vicki, played by Cathy Moriarty.
The movie earned DeNiro his second Academy Award and the only one he's ever won in the Best Actor category (he won Best Supporting Actor for playing young Vito Corleone in "The Godfather Part II").
TigerBlog saw it when it came out in 1980. His thought then was "eh. It's okay."
His sentiment is hardly shared by the majority of the world. The American Film Institute ranks it among the top 100 movies of all time and the best sports movie of all-time, and it's universally considered a classic.
TB hadn't seen it in years when he DVRd it and then watched it again recently. He came thinking "eh, It's okay."
To TigerBlog, it's not in the same universe as another boxing movie, "Rocky," which came out four years earlier. If you've seen the Rocky movies over and over, you realize that it's a great series, one that lasted a few movies too long.
You also forget just how great a movie the original was. It's nearly perfect actually.
"Raging Bull" just doesn't do it for TigerBlog. He loves the back-and-forth banter between DeNiro and Pesci, especially early in the movie. He just doesn't have a great connection to the rest of it.
Oh, it has some great characters. It's a who's who from "Goodfellas," with a healthy mix of "The Sopranos" mixed in. Frank Vincent, who plays a key role in both, is in "Raging Bull" as Salvy Batts. He comes back in "Goodfellas" as Billy Batts and then in "The Sopranos" as Phil Leotardo; it doesn't end well in either for him.
And then there's Nicholas Colasanto, who plays the mob boss. TB had no memory of that. Actually, that's twice this week that Colasanto has shown up out of nowhere, first as the director of an episode of "Kojack" that TB stumbled on the other day.
Who is Nicholas Colasanto? He was Coach on "Cheers."
Anyway, TB gave up on "Raging Bull" after awhile, confident that his memory from 1980 was correct.
Instead, he found himself on the Rutgers' website, where he saw the videostream of the Scarlet Knights against St. John's in men's lacrosse. Princeton hosts Rutgers Saturday evening at 7, and TB couldn't finish the game program until after the end of the RU-St. John's game.
TigerBlog couldn't help but notice that the stream was free, which made it perfect, because TigerBlog doesn't have a subscription for Rutgers' site and wouldn't have purchased one As such, he wouldn't have been able to watch the game, which was pretty entertaining and which RU won 16-13.
The Ivy League Digital Network is a subscription model. It's a big issue these days, and it's going to get bigger as time goes on.
It wasn't that long ago that TB would never dreamed of being able to see as much lacrosse, either on TV or online, as he can now. The same is true for whatever one's favorite sport might be.
The Ivy League Digital Network is in Year 1 of existence. It's been a great step up for Ivy League videostreaming, with all eight schools on one platform and a ton of games in all kinds of sports available under one heading.
Mostly what the ILDN has done is show the commitment the league and its schools have to providing content to its fans, alums, athletes' families, recruits and anyone else interested.
But it's not free.
How come some of the richest universities in the world charge for their videostreaming? This is what TB hears the most about the ILDN, and it's a bit infuriating, since the implication is that the league is greedy and gouging money.
Actually, the opposite is true. The money from videostreaming is used to offset costs, not turn profit. Providing the service for free would add substantial costs, not just because of lost revenue but also because of increased fees to offset the loss of revenue to the hosting company.
And besides, the fees are not that substantial, especially when you consider how much content is being provided.
So TB sees both sides of the argument. He liked being able to watch Rutgers-St. John's. He would have understood if he couldn't because of a fee.
Besides, this is Year 1 for the ILDN. What will it be like in Year 10? What will TV be like then?
Everything evolves so quickly these days that who knows what devices will be available then to see games?
Looking back 10 years ago, Princeton had already begun to stream games online. TB remembers that the old C-Tec cable broadcasts of Princeton football and basketball were made available on goprincetontigers.com in the early days of the website.
He can't remember when Princeton first began to stream games on its own. Over time, it became more and more commonplace, though low-tech.
Now, as technology sprints forward, its gets better and better. This is especially true for the users, more than the streamer. With better and faster devices, it's easier and easier for the person watching to get a good connection, which leads to less of the spinning pinwheel and more of the live action.
TB realized long ago that the present in athletic communications is about video. Well, that and social media.
But video is huge. The streaming piece of it is gigantic.
It's been a great start for the ILDN. There are some big questions to be asked for next year - and the years beyond.
Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci? A boxing movie? What could be better?
"Raging Bull" tells the story of Jake LaMotta, who rises from the streets of the Bronx to become the middleweight champion of the world. The movie, starring DeNiro as LaMotta, centers around his relationship with his brother Joey, played by Pesci, and his second wife Vicki, played by Cathy Moriarty.
The movie earned DeNiro his second Academy Award and the only one he's ever won in the Best Actor category (he won Best Supporting Actor for playing young Vito Corleone in "The Godfather Part II").
TigerBlog saw it when it came out in 1980. His thought then was "eh. It's okay."
His sentiment is hardly shared by the majority of the world. The American Film Institute ranks it among the top 100 movies of all time and the best sports movie of all-time, and it's universally considered a classic.
TB hadn't seen it in years when he DVRd it and then watched it again recently. He came thinking "eh, It's okay."
To TigerBlog, it's not in the same universe as another boxing movie, "Rocky," which came out four years earlier. If you've seen the Rocky movies over and over, you realize that it's a great series, one that lasted a few movies too long.
You also forget just how great a movie the original was. It's nearly perfect actually.
"Raging Bull" just doesn't do it for TigerBlog. He loves the back-and-forth banter between DeNiro and Pesci, especially early in the movie. He just doesn't have a great connection to the rest of it.
Oh, it has some great characters. It's a who's who from "Goodfellas," with a healthy mix of "The Sopranos" mixed in. Frank Vincent, who plays a key role in both, is in "Raging Bull" as Salvy Batts. He comes back in "Goodfellas" as Billy Batts and then in "The Sopranos" as Phil Leotardo; it doesn't end well in either for him.
And then there's Nicholas Colasanto, who plays the mob boss. TB had no memory of that. Actually, that's twice this week that Colasanto has shown up out of nowhere, first as the director of an episode of "Kojack" that TB stumbled on the other day.
Who is Nicholas Colasanto? He was Coach on "Cheers."
Anyway, TB gave up on "Raging Bull" after awhile, confident that his memory from 1980 was correct.
Instead, he found himself on the Rutgers' website, where he saw the videostream of the Scarlet Knights against St. John's in men's lacrosse. Princeton hosts Rutgers Saturday evening at 7, and TB couldn't finish the game program until after the end of the RU-St. John's game.
TigerBlog couldn't help but notice that the stream was free, which made it perfect, because TigerBlog doesn't have a subscription for Rutgers' site and wouldn't have purchased one As such, he wouldn't have been able to watch the game, which was pretty entertaining and which RU won 16-13.
The Ivy League Digital Network is a subscription model. It's a big issue these days, and it's going to get bigger as time goes on.
It wasn't that long ago that TB would never dreamed of being able to see as much lacrosse, either on TV or online, as he can now. The same is true for whatever one's favorite sport might be.
The Ivy League Digital Network is in Year 1 of existence. It's been a great step up for Ivy League videostreaming, with all eight schools on one platform and a ton of games in all kinds of sports available under one heading.
Mostly what the ILDN has done is show the commitment the league and its schools have to providing content to its fans, alums, athletes' families, recruits and anyone else interested.
But it's not free.
How come some of the richest universities in the world charge for their videostreaming? This is what TB hears the most about the ILDN, and it's a bit infuriating, since the implication is that the league is greedy and gouging money.
Actually, the opposite is true. The money from videostreaming is used to offset costs, not turn profit. Providing the service for free would add substantial costs, not just because of lost revenue but also because of increased fees to offset the loss of revenue to the hosting company.
And besides, the fees are not that substantial, especially when you consider how much content is being provided.
So TB sees both sides of the argument. He liked being able to watch Rutgers-St. John's. He would have understood if he couldn't because of a fee.
Besides, this is Year 1 for the ILDN. What will it be like in Year 10? What will TV be like then?
Everything evolves so quickly these days that who knows what devices will be available then to see games?
Looking back 10 years ago, Princeton had already begun to stream games online. TB remembers that the old C-Tec cable broadcasts of Princeton football and basketball were made available on goprincetontigers.com in the early days of the website.
He can't remember when Princeton first began to stream games on its own. Over time, it became more and more commonplace, though low-tech.
Now, as technology sprints forward, its gets better and better. This is especially true for the users, more than the streamer. With better and faster devices, it's easier and easier for the person watching to get a good connection, which leads to less of the spinning pinwheel and more of the live action.
TB realized long ago that the present in athletic communications is about video. Well, that and social media.
But video is huge. The streaming piece of it is gigantic.
It's been a great start for the ILDN. There are some big questions to be asked for next year - and the years beyond.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Eight For Eight
Perhaps you don't recognize the name Kwasi Enin.
You probably heard about what he did, though.
Enin is a high school senior from Shirley, N.Y. He's the one who was accepted to all eight Ivy League colleges.
When TigerBlog first heard the story, he had three thoughts. First, how often does this happen? Second, how many high school seniors apply to all eight Ivy League college? Third, how did it become news?
If a student could get into Princeton, Harvard and Yale, well, presumably he or she could get into all of them, no?
Sure, the odds aren't great. The final admissions decisions can be about very small differences, so what pushes someone over the top in West College might not be exactly the same as in Cambridge or West Philadelphia.
Still, this has to have happened before, no?
TigerBlog applied to one Ivy League school. Penn. Obviously, he got in. Had he applied to all eight, he doubts seriously he would have gone 8 for 8. He doubts he would have gone .500 even.
With all the time that TB has spent on Ivy League campuses, he's often wondered what it would have been like to have attended a different school than Penn. Mostly he's wondered about what it would have been like to attend Princeton, how different his experience would have been, what his thesis topic might have been.
Meanwhile, back at Kwasi Enin, how did this become news? Did he and his school send something out about it?
Either this isn't something that happens a great deal, which is why it became news, or Enin and/or his school were proactive about getting it out there when perhaps others haven't been. Whichever one of those is the answer probably leads down the path to answering how often this happens.
The next part of the story is where Kwasi will end up. TB saw on the news that he was leaning towards New Haven, which is a fine choice. All eight are, obviously.
If it helps swing the decision one way or another, TB is willing to throw in free tickets to every Princeton athletic event for Kwasi during his entire four years if he comes here.
Of course, Princeton only charges admission for five sports, and all of those are free for students. So maybe TB would need to sweeten the deal.
To that end, he'll throw in a Princeton Athletics shirt. Oh, and if Kwasi wants, he can be a student-worker in the OAC.
So what will sway Kwasi, who is a violist and aspiring doctor? Where will he end up? Maybe it'll come down to whether or not he wants to be in the city (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, New Haven), the country (Ithaca, Hanover) or in an area that is the perfect balance of both (Princeton).
Despite their differences, the eight Ivy League schools are fairly close geographically, especially in the modern world of college athletic alignment. In that world, UConn and SMU can be in the same conference. Boston College, Notre Dame and Miami can all be in the same league.
Denver can be in three leagues in three years, actually more than that, if you count being a satellite member of two different lacrosse leagues. This Friday night in Big East lacrosse, you can see Denver at Villanova.
Denver isn't even in the eastern part of Colorado, let alone the United States. But in the modern world of college athletics, what does that matter?
The Ivy League continues to be the most stable athletic conference in the country. The same eight teams, unchanged, since 1956.
They are joined together by a series of rules and beliefs that make them just a bit different than the rest of Division I, but no less competitive.
TigerBlog often hears about the purity of sports in the Ivy League, and he always takes that to mean that those outside the league feel that many of the problems that inflict much of the high-profile world of football and men's basketball don't impact the Ivy League. Much of that is related to money.
Ivy League athletes, on the other hand, are not playing to become professional athletes. They play for the love of the game.
TB always finds that a bit patronizing. Yeah, Ivy athletes play for the love of the game. So do athletes in all conferneces.
And winning and losing isn't any less important in the Ivy League than it is in the SEC.
The purity in Ivy League athletics comes from the stability and the unwavering commitment to the core principles. That's where the real purity is.
The Kwasi Enin story is big news because of the Ivy League angle. Had he been accepted to MIT, Cal Tech, Williams, Amherst and the like, it wouldn't have registered at all.
It's the Ivy League angle.
And what is the Ivy League? An athletic conference.
So good luck, Kwasi. Personally, TigerBlog would recommend the school in New Jersey.
You probably heard about what he did, though.
Enin is a high school senior from Shirley, N.Y. He's the one who was accepted to all eight Ivy League colleges.
When TigerBlog first heard the story, he had three thoughts. First, how often does this happen? Second, how many high school seniors apply to all eight Ivy League college? Third, how did it become news?
If a student could get into Princeton, Harvard and Yale, well, presumably he or she could get into all of them, no?
Sure, the odds aren't great. The final admissions decisions can be about very small differences, so what pushes someone over the top in West College might not be exactly the same as in Cambridge or West Philadelphia.
Still, this has to have happened before, no?
TigerBlog applied to one Ivy League school. Penn. Obviously, he got in. Had he applied to all eight, he doubts seriously he would have gone 8 for 8. He doubts he would have gone .500 even.
With all the time that TB has spent on Ivy League campuses, he's often wondered what it would have been like to have attended a different school than Penn. Mostly he's wondered about what it would have been like to attend Princeton, how different his experience would have been, what his thesis topic might have been.
Meanwhile, back at Kwasi Enin, how did this become news? Did he and his school send something out about it?
Either this isn't something that happens a great deal, which is why it became news, or Enin and/or his school were proactive about getting it out there when perhaps others haven't been. Whichever one of those is the answer probably leads down the path to answering how often this happens.
The next part of the story is where Kwasi will end up. TB saw on the news that he was leaning towards New Haven, which is a fine choice. All eight are, obviously.
If it helps swing the decision one way or another, TB is willing to throw in free tickets to every Princeton athletic event for Kwasi during his entire four years if he comes here.
Of course, Princeton only charges admission for five sports, and all of those are free for students. So maybe TB would need to sweeten the deal.
To that end, he'll throw in a Princeton Athletics shirt. Oh, and if Kwasi wants, he can be a student-worker in the OAC.
So what will sway Kwasi, who is a violist and aspiring doctor? Where will he end up? Maybe it'll come down to whether or not he wants to be in the city (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, New Haven), the country (Ithaca, Hanover) or in an area that is the perfect balance of both (Princeton).
Despite their differences, the eight Ivy League schools are fairly close geographically, especially in the modern world of college athletic alignment. In that world, UConn and SMU can be in the same conference. Boston College, Notre Dame and Miami can all be in the same league.
Denver can be in three leagues in three years, actually more than that, if you count being a satellite member of two different lacrosse leagues. This Friday night in Big East lacrosse, you can see Denver at Villanova.
Denver isn't even in the eastern part of Colorado, let alone the United States. But in the modern world of college athletics, what does that matter?
The Ivy League continues to be the most stable athletic conference in the country. The same eight teams, unchanged, since 1956.
They are joined together by a series of rules and beliefs that make them just a bit different than the rest of Division I, but no less competitive.
TigerBlog often hears about the purity of sports in the Ivy League, and he always takes that to mean that those outside the league feel that many of the problems that inflict much of the high-profile world of football and men's basketball don't impact the Ivy League. Much of that is related to money.
Ivy League athletes, on the other hand, are not playing to become professional athletes. They play for the love of the game.
TB always finds that a bit patronizing. Yeah, Ivy athletes play for the love of the game. So do athletes in all conferneces.
And winning and losing isn't any less important in the Ivy League than it is in the SEC.
The purity in Ivy League athletics comes from the stability and the unwavering commitment to the core principles. That's where the real purity is.
The Kwasi Enin story is big news because of the Ivy League angle. Had he been accepted to MIT, Cal Tech, Williams, Amherst and the like, it wouldn't have registered at all.
It's the Ivy League angle.
And what is the Ivy League? An athletic conference.
So good luck, Kwasi. Personally, TigerBlog would recommend the school in New Jersey.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Splashdown
The mid-afternoon stillness at DeNunzio Pool was shattered by a blood-curdling scream, which was followed a second later by laughter.
Then the scream/laughter combo was repeated about two minutes later.
The occasion was the second-to-last day at Princeton for Diana Chamorro, who has spent the last two-plus years working in the Office of Athletic Communications. Diana is leaving to head back to her native California, leaving the field of college athletics.
When Diana came to Princeton, she had lived her whole life either Northern California or Seattle. TigerBlog didn't think she'd become an East Coast lifer back then, so he wasn't surprised when she told him she was heading west again.
During her time at Princeton, Diana was the OAC contact for women's basketball, field hockey, baseball, sprint football and men's and women's water polo. In her short time here, she was part of some big-time seasons, with NCAA appearances in women's basketball and water polo and of course the NCAA championship in field hockey.
And now she's going home.
First, though, she had some unfinished business. And that involved the 10-meter platform at DeNunzio.
Way back when, the OAC had a publications director, a position that didn't last very long. In fact, there were only two of them, from the time the position was established until it was eliminated in favor of a more traditional sports information position.
The first was named Mike Zulla. The second was John Cornell. On Zulla's last day, he vowed to jump off the 10-meter platform in DeNunzio, and he did. And so did a bunch of other people.
Yesterday, as her time at Princeton was winding down, Diana decided to do the same. And so off she went to DeNunzio around 2 in the afternoon, when the pool was basically empty.
The vacuum was on in the pool, so she there was a slight delay as 1) it was turned off and 2) there was a small debate over whether or not it would pose a threat to electrocution had it been left on.
With a small crowd of four - two of whom are trained lifeguards - watching, Diana and fellow OAC staff member Kristy McNeil ventured up to the top of the DeNunzio tower.
If you've seen 10-meter diving in the Olympics and thought it was graceful and artistic, then it's probable that you've never been to the top of a 10-meter platform. TigerBlog was there the day Zulla left.
It's petrifying.
For starters, it seems like the ceiling is about an inch overhead. For another, it's a long way down to the water.
Diana went to the edge. Talked herself into it. And jumped. Kristy then did the same.
Don't believe TB? You can see for yourself on youtube. In 2014, what self-respecting athletic communications person wouldn't have it taped and the video displayed.
There was a time when the OAC had major turnover, back when the full-time positions were actually internships that only lasted at most two years.
When TB first started at the OAC, there were three interns - Laura Stange, Emmy Zack and Chuck Sullivan. TB isn't sure what happened to the two women - Laura worked at Cornell and the ECAC but hasn't been at either for awhile; Emmy left Princeton for Oregon - but Chuck is now one of the administrators with the American Athletic Conference, after working at Harvard and then the Big East.
When TB was still at the newspaper, there were two interns, one of whom was Tim Bennett, who has been at Yale for a long, long time. The other was a woman named Kris Pleimann, who left Princeton and returned, TB thinks, to her native Colorado.
TB isn't sure if any of those three women are still in college athletics. Chuck and Tim - two of TB's all-time favorites - both are.
The spring at the OAC in the 1990s was a time to advertise the internship, whether it be for one position or two. And for the current interns to look for other jobs.
There were some great ones back then. Vinnie DiCarlo. David Rosenfeld. Jen Rynearson. Erin Melody. Manish Mehta. Melissa Lempke. Jen works at Providence now. TB can hear her distinctive laugh all the way from here.
David came back after working at Loyola to spend five more years at Princeton; in fact, Kristy replaced David when he left. He's an OAC Hall of Famer.
Manish? He's in athletics, just not administration. Nope, Manish covers the Jets and the NFL for the New York Daily News.
And of course the three great triumvirates, the Craig Sachson-Matt Cicciarelli-Jenn Garrett group and the Cassie Lawton-Tom Milajecki-Ben Solomon group.
Of the six of them, TB is positive that one still works in athletic communications. That would be Craig Sachson, who has been at the OAC the last 12 years after two at Cornell. The others? All but Solomon went from Princeton to another sports info position, but TB doesn't think any of them still are in the profession.
Is that everyone? TB has to be forgetting someone.
Ben Solomon had the best interview of any of them. He was a Princeton kid who was working in New York, and he said he wanted the job in the OAC so he wouldn't have to take the train to New York every day. That was good enough for TB.
Of course, it's ironic that one of the few who endured in athletic communications is Sachson, who didn't even know what it was when TB first reached out to him, back when Sachson was also a newspaper guy. TB read his stories and thought he was a good writer; who knew that, as Rick said to Louie at the end of "Casablanca," it would be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Jen Milner came here from Utah. Geoff Loose came here from, well, New Jersey.
Yariv Amir, currently the Assistant AD for marketing and a bunch of other stuff, was the last intern hired, at least as TB recalls. His position became full-time, as did the others. Zulla started as an intern but became the publications guy when that position was added.
A woman named Sophia Duck was hired. And Kim Milardo, who TB thinks predated Sophia. Kim married Owen Daly, a former Princeton men's lacrosse player.
Eventually Andrew Borders came on board, and Kristy replaced David. When Scott Jurgens left to become the marketing person at East Carolina (and now Montana State), Yariv moved to marketing, and that opened the door for Diana.
TB probably has forgotten someone. Oh yeah, there was that guy who worked for six hours, decided sports information wasn't for him, and left and never came back.
And Diana? She did a lot here at Princeton. She learned how to do video and then did a ton of it, especially for women's basketball. In an office where our charge is to help give the athletes a better experience, Diana certainly did that for her sports.
TB hopes she had a really good experience at Princeton.
He doubts she'll ever live east of the Mississippi - or even east of whatever it is that is on the California state line - again, but he's glad she decided to spend the time here that she did.
It's left her as part of an exclusive group, a group of really great people.
TB has been privileged to work with all of them.
Then the scream/laughter combo was repeated about two minutes later.
The occasion was the second-to-last day at Princeton for Diana Chamorro, who has spent the last two-plus years working in the Office of Athletic Communications. Diana is leaving to head back to her native California, leaving the field of college athletics.
When Diana came to Princeton, she had lived her whole life either Northern California or Seattle. TigerBlog didn't think she'd become an East Coast lifer back then, so he wasn't surprised when she told him she was heading west again.
During her time at Princeton, Diana was the OAC contact for women's basketball, field hockey, baseball, sprint football and men's and women's water polo. In her short time here, she was part of some big-time seasons, with NCAA appearances in women's basketball and water polo and of course the NCAA championship in field hockey.
And now she's going home.
First, though, she had some unfinished business. And that involved the 10-meter platform at DeNunzio.
Way back when, the OAC had a publications director, a position that didn't last very long. In fact, there were only two of them, from the time the position was established until it was eliminated in favor of a more traditional sports information position.
The first was named Mike Zulla. The second was John Cornell. On Zulla's last day, he vowed to jump off the 10-meter platform in DeNunzio, and he did. And so did a bunch of other people.
Yesterday, as her time at Princeton was winding down, Diana decided to do the same. And so off she went to DeNunzio around 2 in the afternoon, when the pool was basically empty.
The vacuum was on in the pool, so she there was a slight delay as 1) it was turned off and 2) there was a small debate over whether or not it would pose a threat to electrocution had it been left on.
With a small crowd of four - two of whom are trained lifeguards - watching, Diana and fellow OAC staff member Kristy McNeil ventured up to the top of the DeNunzio tower.
If you've seen 10-meter diving in the Olympics and thought it was graceful and artistic, then it's probable that you've never been to the top of a 10-meter platform. TigerBlog was there the day Zulla left.
It's petrifying.
For starters, it seems like the ceiling is about an inch overhead. For another, it's a long way down to the water.
Diana went to the edge. Talked herself into it. And jumped. Kristy then did the same.
Don't believe TB? You can see for yourself on youtube. In 2014, what self-respecting athletic communications person wouldn't have it taped and the video displayed.
There was a time when the OAC had major turnover, back when the full-time positions were actually internships that only lasted at most two years.
When TB first started at the OAC, there were three interns - Laura Stange, Emmy Zack and Chuck Sullivan. TB isn't sure what happened to the two women - Laura worked at Cornell and the ECAC but hasn't been at either for awhile; Emmy left Princeton for Oregon - but Chuck is now one of the administrators with the American Athletic Conference, after working at Harvard and then the Big East.
When TB was still at the newspaper, there were two interns, one of whom was Tim Bennett, who has been at Yale for a long, long time. The other was a woman named Kris Pleimann, who left Princeton and returned, TB thinks, to her native Colorado.
TB isn't sure if any of those three women are still in college athletics. Chuck and Tim - two of TB's all-time favorites - both are.
The spring at the OAC in the 1990s was a time to advertise the internship, whether it be for one position or two. And for the current interns to look for other jobs.
There were some great ones back then. Vinnie DiCarlo. David Rosenfeld. Jen Rynearson. Erin Melody. Manish Mehta. Melissa Lempke. Jen works at Providence now. TB can hear her distinctive laugh all the way from here.
David came back after working at Loyola to spend five more years at Princeton; in fact, Kristy replaced David when he left. He's an OAC Hall of Famer.
Manish? He's in athletics, just not administration. Nope, Manish covers the Jets and the NFL for the New York Daily News.
And of course the three great triumvirates, the Craig Sachson-Matt Cicciarelli-Jenn Garrett group and the Cassie Lawton-Tom Milajecki-Ben Solomon group.
Of the six of them, TB is positive that one still works in athletic communications. That would be Craig Sachson, who has been at the OAC the last 12 years after two at Cornell. The others? All but Solomon went from Princeton to another sports info position, but TB doesn't think any of them still are in the profession.
Is that everyone? TB has to be forgetting someone.
Ben Solomon had the best interview of any of them. He was a Princeton kid who was working in New York, and he said he wanted the job in the OAC so he wouldn't have to take the train to New York every day. That was good enough for TB.
Of course, it's ironic that one of the few who endured in athletic communications is Sachson, who didn't even know what it was when TB first reached out to him, back when Sachson was also a newspaper guy. TB read his stories and thought he was a good writer; who knew that, as Rick said to Louie at the end of "Casablanca," it would be "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Jen Milner came here from Utah. Geoff Loose came here from, well, New Jersey.
Yariv Amir, currently the Assistant AD for marketing and a bunch of other stuff, was the last intern hired, at least as TB recalls. His position became full-time, as did the others. Zulla started as an intern but became the publications guy when that position was added.
A woman named Sophia Duck was hired. And Kim Milardo, who TB thinks predated Sophia. Kim married Owen Daly, a former Princeton men's lacrosse player.
Eventually Andrew Borders came on board, and Kristy replaced David. When Scott Jurgens left to become the marketing person at East Carolina (and now Montana State), Yariv moved to marketing, and that opened the door for Diana.
TB probably has forgotten someone. Oh yeah, there was that guy who worked for six hours, decided sports information wasn't for him, and left and never came back.
And Diana? She did a lot here at Princeton. She learned how to do video and then did a ton of it, especially for women's basketball. In an office where our charge is to help give the athletes a better experience, Diana certainly did that for her sports.
TB hopes she had a really good experience at Princeton.
He doubts she'll ever live east of the Mississippi - or even east of whatever it is that is on the California state line - again, but he's glad she decided to spend the time here that she did.
It's left her as part of an exclusive group, a group of really great people.
TB has been privileged to work with all of them.
Monday, March 31, 2014
A Division I Divide
FatherBlog used to have a rule - no checking mail on the weekends.
This was back when checking the mail was a big deal, as opposed to now, when most important "mail" comes with an "e" in front of it.
Anyway, his basic thinking was that he didn't want to have to deal with anything during his weekend, so he'd wait until Monday to check the mail - and any problems that might come along with it. TigerBlog isn't sure FB still employs this philosophy, though he was pretty adamant about it for a long time.
TigerBlog, on the other hand, probably checked his email 1,000 times over the weekend. So did you, he's guessing.
TB can't help it. How could anyone? It comes at you on the computer, on the phone. It's everywhere.
And, in TB's case, it's work-related.
Still, it does point out that the world has changed a lot since FatherBlog's self-imposed 48-hour information blackout. Life just doesn't seem to black out information anymore.
So there TigerBlog was yesterday, on his laptop, while watching Kentucky-Michigan in the NCAA tournament. And as he checked his emails once again, he couldn't help but think that he was seeing the great divide that is intercollegiate athletics.
On the way hand, there was the flood of emails about postponements and cancellations and reschedules due to the relentless weekend rains, the ones that never stopped, turning the opening Ivy League weekend of baseball and softball scheduled for Saturday and yesterday at Princeton into, well, a washout.
On the other hand, there was Kentucky basketball and its unapologetic coach, turning another one-and-done group into a trip to the Final Four.
Here was a group of baseball and softball players who were hoping to get their games in. There was a group of basketball players playing on national television in front of a huge crowd in a football stadium and then ultimately heading off to a bigger football stadium and a bigger crowd with a bigger national television audience.
And all of them fall under the same heading - Division I athletes.
Princeton's baseball and softball players took a different path to become a Division I athlete than Kentucky's basketball players. That's for sure.
The baseball and softball players hoped to use their athletic ability to maximize their educational opportunity for college and succeeded by ending up at Princeton, the nation's top University. Along with the men's hockey players, the baseball players can point to a legitimate chance at playing professionally, but that's only for a handful of them, and the odds remain long.
They're not here as a stepping stone for the Major Leagues. They're here for the combination of education and athletics, both of which are extremely important to them. They've committed themselves to both their whole lives, and this is their reward - the chance to play their sport at a high level while getting a world-class undergraduate education.
And they get to play at a school that places a premium on their complete athletic experience. This is defined by the ability to compete for the league championship, to travel, to have proper support from athletic training, communications, faculty fellows, the equipment staff - to reach their fullest potential as individual athletes and as a team. Mostly, it's meant to be an extension of the educational mission of Princeton - Education Through Athletics - with its life lessons about teamwork, self-discipline, hard-work, time management, sacrificing the individual for the greater good of the team.
To do this, Princeton University acknowledges the importance of intercollegiate athletics and agrees to fund it accordingly. The idea that the baseball or softball teams generate revenue? It's non-existent. There's not even an admission charge to see either team play.
The five freshmen who start for Kentucky are there for one reason - the NBA didn't permit them to join the league straight out of high school. That's it. That's why they're in college.
It doesn't make them bad people. Or bad students. It doesn't make them good people or good students either. None of that is the issue. They're there to play basketball.
Their student-athlete experience is defined by first-class travel, hotels before home games, many million dollar facilities, locker rooms, weight rooms, etc.
And the money pours in. From ticket sales at 20,000-seat Rupp Arena. From NCAA tournament revenue, which is derived from what really matters, TV money.
And yet they're both groups of Division I athletes.
So what do you do about all of this, now that the first step towards unionizing college athletes cleared the hurdle last week in Chicago, when a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Northwestern football players can be considered employees of the school.
If the ruling stands, it opens up a huge can of worms that intercollegiate athletics will be forced to deal with, though this is probably years away with all the legalities that are coming up.
TigerBlog won't pretend to be an expert in labor law, and nor will be pretend to be an expert on the specifics of the Northwestern case.
What he does know is that there exists this great divide in college athletics, between big-time football and basketball and everything else. The problem is that big-time football and basketball involve a tiny percent of the Division I athletes but brings in all of the money, while the everything else in Division I athletics brings in no money.
It would be an oversimplification to say that the first group is there solely to try to get to the pros while the second group is legitimate student-athletes. Still, follow the money, as in, where the money comes from so do the majority of the off-field issues.
So what do you do? Unionize everyone? Are they all employees? If athletes are going to be paid, does everyone get the same? Does Johnny Manziel get the same as the nameless center who snaps him the ball? Do Kentucky's basketball players get the same as Princeton's baseball and softball players?
And what about athletic scholarships, which don't impact Ivy athletes, of course? If you're on employee, does the scholarship money become imputed income, and therefore subject to taxation?
These are questions TB has asked before.
They all became a bit more urgent this past week, with one ruling in Chicago. Who knows what impact it will ultimately have on college sports, but it could be hugely significant. How? Because it could force schools to make decisions that they don't want to, such as how much money can they possibly pay out to "employees" while also putting teams that generate no money at all on the field? And, of course, there's the whole gender equity piece.
The nature of college athletics may be shifting forever. TB has read many doomsday stories in the last few days, and while he doesn't think that the end is near, it's possible it could all look a lot different than it does now once it all gets sorted out.
The current system has a lot of flaws, but the best part is that broad-based participation is allowed to flourish.
TB would hate to see that no longer be the case.
This was back when checking the mail was a big deal, as opposed to now, when most important "mail" comes with an "e" in front of it.
Anyway, his basic thinking was that he didn't want to have to deal with anything during his weekend, so he'd wait until Monday to check the mail - and any problems that might come along with it. TigerBlog isn't sure FB still employs this philosophy, though he was pretty adamant about it for a long time.
TigerBlog, on the other hand, probably checked his email 1,000 times over the weekend. So did you, he's guessing.
TB can't help it. How could anyone? It comes at you on the computer, on the phone. It's everywhere.
And, in TB's case, it's work-related.
Still, it does point out that the world has changed a lot since FatherBlog's self-imposed 48-hour information blackout. Life just doesn't seem to black out information anymore.
So there TigerBlog was yesterday, on his laptop, while watching Kentucky-Michigan in the NCAA tournament. And as he checked his emails once again, he couldn't help but think that he was seeing the great divide that is intercollegiate athletics.
On the way hand, there was the flood of emails about postponements and cancellations and reschedules due to the relentless weekend rains, the ones that never stopped, turning the opening Ivy League weekend of baseball and softball scheduled for Saturday and yesterday at Princeton into, well, a washout.
On the other hand, there was Kentucky basketball and its unapologetic coach, turning another one-and-done group into a trip to the Final Four.
Here was a group of baseball and softball players who were hoping to get their games in. There was a group of basketball players playing on national television in front of a huge crowd in a football stadium and then ultimately heading off to a bigger football stadium and a bigger crowd with a bigger national television audience.
And all of them fall under the same heading - Division I athletes.
Princeton's baseball and softball players took a different path to become a Division I athlete than Kentucky's basketball players. That's for sure.
The baseball and softball players hoped to use their athletic ability to maximize their educational opportunity for college and succeeded by ending up at Princeton, the nation's top University. Along with the men's hockey players, the baseball players can point to a legitimate chance at playing professionally, but that's only for a handful of them, and the odds remain long.
They're not here as a stepping stone for the Major Leagues. They're here for the combination of education and athletics, both of which are extremely important to them. They've committed themselves to both their whole lives, and this is their reward - the chance to play their sport at a high level while getting a world-class undergraduate education.
And they get to play at a school that places a premium on their complete athletic experience. This is defined by the ability to compete for the league championship, to travel, to have proper support from athletic training, communications, faculty fellows, the equipment staff - to reach their fullest potential as individual athletes and as a team. Mostly, it's meant to be an extension of the educational mission of Princeton - Education Through Athletics - with its life lessons about teamwork, self-discipline, hard-work, time management, sacrificing the individual for the greater good of the team.
To do this, Princeton University acknowledges the importance of intercollegiate athletics and agrees to fund it accordingly. The idea that the baseball or softball teams generate revenue? It's non-existent. There's not even an admission charge to see either team play.
The five freshmen who start for Kentucky are there for one reason - the NBA didn't permit them to join the league straight out of high school. That's it. That's why they're in college.
It doesn't make them bad people. Or bad students. It doesn't make them good people or good students either. None of that is the issue. They're there to play basketball.
Their student-athlete experience is defined by first-class travel, hotels before home games, many million dollar facilities, locker rooms, weight rooms, etc.
And the money pours in. From ticket sales at 20,000-seat Rupp Arena. From NCAA tournament revenue, which is derived from what really matters, TV money.
And yet they're both groups of Division I athletes.
So what do you do about all of this, now that the first step towards unionizing college athletes cleared the hurdle last week in Chicago, when a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Northwestern football players can be considered employees of the school.
If the ruling stands, it opens up a huge can of worms that intercollegiate athletics will be forced to deal with, though this is probably years away with all the legalities that are coming up.
TigerBlog won't pretend to be an expert in labor law, and nor will be pretend to be an expert on the specifics of the Northwestern case.
What he does know is that there exists this great divide in college athletics, between big-time football and basketball and everything else. The problem is that big-time football and basketball involve a tiny percent of the Division I athletes but brings in all of the money, while the everything else in Division I athletics brings in no money.
It would be an oversimplification to say that the first group is there solely to try to get to the pros while the second group is legitimate student-athletes. Still, follow the money, as in, where the money comes from so do the majority of the off-field issues.
So what do you do? Unionize everyone? Are they all employees? If athletes are going to be paid, does everyone get the same? Does Johnny Manziel get the same as the nameless center who snaps him the ball? Do Kentucky's basketball players get the same as Princeton's baseball and softball players?
And what about athletic scholarships, which don't impact Ivy athletes, of course? If you're on employee, does the scholarship money become imputed income, and therefore subject to taxation?
These are questions TB has asked before.
They all became a bit more urgent this past week, with one ruling in Chicago. Who knows what impact it will ultimately have on college sports, but it could be hugely significant. How? Because it could force schools to make decisions that they don't want to, such as how much money can they possibly pay out to "employees" while also putting teams that generate no money at all on the field? And, of course, there's the whole gender equity piece.
The nature of college athletics may be shifting forever. TB has read many doomsday stories in the last few days, and while he doesn't think that the end is near, it's possible it could all look a lot different than it does now once it all gets sorted out.
The current system has a lot of flaws, but the best part is that broad-based participation is allowed to flourish.
TB would hate to see that no longer be the case.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Cheering For Kimmie
The occasion was the University's annual employee recognition luncheon, the one where staff members are recognized for service for 10, 15, 20, 25 years and so on. And the one where the most deserving are given the President's Achievement Award.
The language for the award reads like this: The award was established in 1997 to recognize members of the support and administrative staffs with five or more years of service whose dedication, excellent work and special efforts have contributed significantly to the success of their departments and the University.
And so there was Kim Mesazaros at lunchtime yesterday, a blur at such a great distance, from the balcony down to the main floor and then all the way across the cavernous interior of Jadwin, which had been set up with tables behind the main court on the track and then ultimately with a stage just in front of the far end.
A blur, holding a large framed certificate, one that presumably mentioned that she was one of the 2014 Princeton University President's Achievement Award winners.
TigerBlog joined a group of about 40 athletic department staff members who had come to cheer on Kim in her moment in the spotlight. When her name was announced, the entire group cheered, loudly enough that many of the people in the audience turned to see who was making all the noise, loudly enough that the person who was videotaping turned the camera to the nearly empty balcony and flashed the athletic department contingent on the screens.
If you're a Princeton Athletics fan, the name Kim Meszaros is probably not familiar. Nor are the reasons why she was being honored.
Kim Meszaros has been in the athletic department for 18 years, the last 14 of which have been spent as the assistant to the Director of Athletics. Hers is the chair closest to the office of Ford Family Director of Athletics Gary Walters, down in Room 1.
Before President Eisgruber presented the awards to the recipients, there was a short video tribute to each of them, courtesy of a co-worker. And so there came Gary on the big screen, talking about Kim, calling her the MVP of the athletic department.
Kim's job description and what she does for the department probably don't match up. She is the assistant to the AD, which means that she is involved in basically everything that happens. She is also the primary contact between the athletic department and human resources, which means she takes the lead in all searches, of which there are a lot every year.
Mostly, she's the babysitter for the athletic department, the one who makes sure everything is going smoothly, that everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, that nothing is falling through the cracks. In a world where everyone is focused on specific tasks and responsibilities, Kim is the one making sure all the pieces are fitting together.
She seems to know everything about everyone, like any good babysitter would. She knows what makes TB tick, and TB assumes she's figured everyone else out as well.
She does this was an ever-present smile and a laugh that doesn't quite make it all the way down the hall from her office to TigerBlog's but does come close. She is self-deprecating without overdoing it, funny, friendly, affable.
She is dedicated and loyal. She is a multitasker of the highest order, and she is as likely to send an important email at 2:30 am as 2:30 pm.
She is the one that everyone goes to with every problem, and she is the one who solves them all. She's also the one who plans the parties, remembers the birthdays and does all the little things that make the department more than just a collection of people.
For those reasons and so many others, there she was yesterday, finally get her due as a recipient of such a big award. The president spoke of her glowingly, and why wouldn't he?
And there was the large contingent from the athletic department, cheering her on. It's a very spread-out group, with offices in Jadwin, Dillon, the rink, the boathouse. And they came from all of those places to cheer on Kim.
That's what athletic department people do. It's the nature of the business.
They cheer. For their teams. For the athletes. For the uniform, for the colors of orange and black.
For each other. Usually that means the ones who are the most visible publicly, the ones whose names are most familiar to those who follow the Tigers.
On this day, they were there to cheer for one of their own.
Kim Meszaros was in the spotlight yesterday. Like so many others who are more comfortable cheering than being cheered for, she was probably a bit uncomfortable. And also appreciative.
Kim spent last week in France with the women's soccer team. She came back to be honored by the University president with a huge award.
It's been a pretty good week for her.
She deserves it.
Congratulations, Kim Meszaros. The athletic department is in good hands with its babysitter.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
First Pitches
TigerBlog is pretty sure that the Major League Baseball season started already.
The Los Angeles Dodgers played two games that counted against the Arizona Diamondbacks in, of all places, Australia.
It wasn't that long ago that Opening Day in Major League Baseball was played in a far more exotic location than Australia, and that place was Cincinnati. Each year, tradition held that the first regular-season baseball game would be played in Cincinnati, though in recent years that went by the wayside in favor of more of a made-for-TV primetime Sunday night event.
TigerBlog tried to figure out how many years in a row the first baseball game of each season was played in Cincinnati, so he went to, of course, Wikipedia. Before he ever got around to figuring out the whole thing about the Reds, he was struck by a picture of Princeton alum Woodrow Wilson as he threw out the first pitch on Opening Day 1916.
In fact, according to the site that knows all, there have been 12 Presidents who have thrown out the first pitch on Opening Day. The first was William Howard Taft - a Yale man - in 1910, something that TigerBlog already knew.
Something that TB didn't know was that Harry Truman threw out first pitches lefthanded and righthanded in 1950. Now that's bi-partisan spirit.
TB always liked Opening Day. Each stadium would be packed, and there would be a promise of a new year for each team. For one day at least, everyone was even. The reality of the long season sets in for Game 2, which has a fraction of the attendance of Game 1 and which begins a very, very long grind.
Tom McCarthy, the former Princeton football and basketball play-by-play man, is now the TV voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. Before his current assignment he spent a few years as the radio voice for the New York Mets.
It's great, glamorous work, but it's also grueling. And that's for an announcer. How about for the players?
The physical aspect of playing football or hockey or even basketball is much greater than baseball, until you factor in the grind of 162 games. Every night, night after night, city after city, from now through October, especially in the heat of the summer.
It can't be easy.
Scott Bradley did it for years and years, as a Major League Baseball player from 1984-92. Since 1998 he has been the Princeton baseball coach, and he has led the Tigers to 10 Gehrig Division championships and six Ivy titles and NCAA appearances.
Unlike Major League Baseball, Ivy League baseball is more of a sprint. The same, by the way, applies to softball.
Ivy baseball and softball teams go through the same formula each year. The season starts not in Cincinnati but instead with a trip or trips to areas with favorable late February/early March weather, always against opponents with a big head start to their seasons.
The results are fairly predictable. If you look at the current Ivy League baseball and softball standings, you'll notice no team in either sport is over .500 right now.
Still, there is a lot going for Ivy baseball and softball.
For starters, Princeton's baseball and softball teams made early-season trips to both Florida and California to play. For another, there are an endless number of opponents out there, so there's always someone new to play.
And then there's the league season itself. Five weekends, doubleheaders back-to-back, either Friday/Saturday or Saturday/Sunday.
It builds to the Ivy League Championship Series for both sports, which matches the winners of the two divisions for the league title and NCAA bid.
TigerBlog is on the record as being vehemently anti-basketball tournament but very pro-lacrosse tournament. He's also a big fan of the ILCS.
Would something like this work in basketball? Probably not, since in baseball and softball each team plays 20 games, four against the other three in the same division and two against the teams in the other division. Still, a basketball championship game between the top two teams? Sure. TB would be okay with that.
The run to the Ivy League Championship Series begins this weekend. Of course, the schools have to compete with another issue each "spring" around here - rain, which is in the forecast. That's another great thing about lacrosse. It gets played in the rain.
Princeton is scheduled to open at home against Harvard and Dartmouth in both sports, with softball tomorrow and Saturday and baseball Saturday and Sunday. It will be the home opener for the baseball team and the first games on Class of 1895 Field for the softball team, who did play two games on Finney/Campbell Fields earlier this month.
The goal for both is to playing on a beautiful May weekend, with the ultimate hope of getting to the NCAA tournament.
First pitches for both are at home this weekend. Weather permitting, of course.
The Los Angeles Dodgers played two games that counted against the Arizona Diamondbacks in, of all places, Australia.
It wasn't that long ago that Opening Day in Major League Baseball was played in a far more exotic location than Australia, and that place was Cincinnati. Each year, tradition held that the first regular-season baseball game would be played in Cincinnati, though in recent years that went by the wayside in favor of more of a made-for-TV primetime Sunday night event.
TigerBlog tried to figure out how many years in a row the first baseball game of each season was played in Cincinnati, so he went to, of course, Wikipedia. Before he ever got around to figuring out the whole thing about the Reds, he was struck by a picture of Princeton alum Woodrow Wilson as he threw out the first pitch on Opening Day 1916.
In fact, according to the site that knows all, there have been 12 Presidents who have thrown out the first pitch on Opening Day. The first was William Howard Taft - a Yale man - in 1910, something that TigerBlog already knew.
Something that TB didn't know was that Harry Truman threw out first pitches lefthanded and righthanded in 1950. Now that's bi-partisan spirit.
TB always liked Opening Day. Each stadium would be packed, and there would be a promise of a new year for each team. For one day at least, everyone was even. The reality of the long season sets in for Game 2, which has a fraction of the attendance of Game 1 and which begins a very, very long grind.
Tom McCarthy, the former Princeton football and basketball play-by-play man, is now the TV voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. Before his current assignment he spent a few years as the radio voice for the New York Mets.
It's great, glamorous work, but it's also grueling. And that's for an announcer. How about for the players?
The physical aspect of playing football or hockey or even basketball is much greater than baseball, until you factor in the grind of 162 games. Every night, night after night, city after city, from now through October, especially in the heat of the summer.
It can't be easy.
Scott Bradley did it for years and years, as a Major League Baseball player from 1984-92. Since 1998 he has been the Princeton baseball coach, and he has led the Tigers to 10 Gehrig Division championships and six Ivy titles and NCAA appearances.
Unlike Major League Baseball, Ivy League baseball is more of a sprint. The same, by the way, applies to softball.
Ivy baseball and softball teams go through the same formula each year. The season starts not in Cincinnati but instead with a trip or trips to areas with favorable late February/early March weather, always against opponents with a big head start to their seasons.
The results are fairly predictable. If you look at the current Ivy League baseball and softball standings, you'll notice no team in either sport is over .500 right now.
Still, there is a lot going for Ivy baseball and softball.
For starters, Princeton's baseball and softball teams made early-season trips to both Florida and California to play. For another, there are an endless number of opponents out there, so there's always someone new to play.
And then there's the league season itself. Five weekends, doubleheaders back-to-back, either Friday/Saturday or Saturday/Sunday.
It builds to the Ivy League Championship Series for both sports, which matches the winners of the two divisions for the league title and NCAA bid.
TigerBlog is on the record as being vehemently anti-basketball tournament but very pro-lacrosse tournament. He's also a big fan of the ILCS.
Would something like this work in basketball? Probably not, since in baseball and softball each team plays 20 games, four against the other three in the same division and two against the teams in the other division. Still, a basketball championship game between the top two teams? Sure. TB would be okay with that.
The run to the Ivy League Championship Series begins this weekend. Of course, the schools have to compete with another issue each "spring" around here - rain, which is in the forecast. That's another great thing about lacrosse. It gets played in the rain.
Princeton is scheduled to open at home against Harvard and Dartmouth in both sports, with softball tomorrow and Saturday and baseball Saturday and Sunday. It will be the home opener for the baseball team and the first games on Class of 1895 Field for the softball team, who did play two games on Finney/Campbell Fields earlier this month.
The goal for both is to playing on a beautiful May weekend, with the ultimate hope of getting to the NCAA tournament.
First pitches for both are at home this weekend. Weather permitting, of course.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The Best Of The Best
Each year, a commercial that simply tortures TigerBlog comes along during the NCAA basketball tournament.
This year's winner is the Burger King commercial with Chris Webber.
The commercial would be a lot better if Webber had been sitting down, rather than standing up. Though the annoying other guy in the commercial needs to be obscured by Webber to set up the premise, that part could have been worked out, TB supposes.
Instead, here is what the Burger King people came up with. A guy goes into a sports bar carrying a bag with two Burger King sandwiches in it. As he tries to see over the crowd to catch a game on TV, he sees someone in front of him with a Chris Webber Michigan jersey on. Thinking that it's just another guy in a Chris Webber jersey, he gives him the air quotation marks. When Webber turns around, annoying other guy realizes it's the real Chris Webber and starts to scream. Somehow, out of all this, Webber asks him for one of his Burger King sandwiches.
Okay, two things. First, it's one thing if the person in front of you is short and wearing a basketball jersey. Here, though, the guy in front of you is 6-10. Does it dawn on you that it might actually be Chris Webber?
Then, once he sees who it is, he starts to scream in fear. What is he afraid of? What does he think Chris Webber is going to do, beat him up?
Anyway, TB saw that commercial a thousand times this weekend, and he hated it every time.
The end of Princeton's basketball season came Monday night, very late, in Fresno, where the Tigers lost to Fresno State 72-56 in the quarterfinals of the CBI to finish up at 21-9. Broken down a little bit further, Princeton was 8-6 in the Ivy League and 13-3 outside of it.
Extra credit is given to those who know that the semifinals in the CBI will have Illinois State at Siena and Old Dominion at Fresno State.
Harvard's run in the NCAA basketball tournament ended Saturday, when the Crimson put up a good fight against Michigan State before falling. The Penn women lost in the NCAAs, and Princeton and Harvard lost in the WNIT.
There are still two Ivy League teams who are playing, and in fact they will be playing each other tonight, when Yale travels to Columbia for the quarterfinal round of the CIT.
Harvard was making its third straight NCAA tournament appearance, which marks the sixth time in the last 25 years that an Ivy League team has made at least three straight trips to the NCAAs.
In order, there was: Princeton from 1989-92 (actually, that's the only one that's been more than three straight), Penn from 1993-95, Princeton from 1996-98, Penn from 2005-07, Cornell from 2008-10 and now Harvard from 2012-present.
It makes TB wonder which of those runs was the best.
He started out by eliminating Princeton's 1989-92 and Penn's 2005-07 teams, because, with apologies, he thinks the other ones from those schools were better. Once he did so, that left four three-year stretches.
So which one is the best?
Well, his first question is how much validation does a team get for NCAA wins? He's not sure what the answer is.
Penn won one game between 1993-95. Princeton's 1996-98 teams and Harvard's 2012-14 teams won two games each. Cornell's 2008-10 teams also won two games, though the Big Red did it in the same tournament. As a result, Cornell did something that the other three didn't by reaching the Sweet 16.
So how big a deal is all that? Does it push Cornell over the top?
Princeton in 1998 and Harvard this year both lost to Michigan State. In Princeton's case, that Michigan State team featured four players who would go on to be starters for the Spartans when they won the NCAA title two years later, and three went on to play in the NBA - Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell.
For that matter, Princeton lost in 1996 to Mississippi State in the second round, and that MSU ended up in Final Four.
This year's NCAA tournament hasn't played out, but Michigan State seems to be a very underrated four seed again, just like in 1998, when Princeton was the five. Maybe the Spartans will lose to No. 1 Virginia in the next round, or maybe they'll roll to the Final Four.
What does any of this mean? Not all that much, TB thinks. Instead, he'll go with the eye test.
Ironically, TB would put the Cornell team fourth of this group, even if it's the one that reached the Sweet 16. No offense, but someone has to be fourth, as great as these teams all were.
He would put the current Harvard team third. He'd put Princeton's 1996-98 team second. And he'd put Penn from 1993-95 first.
Forget NCAA tournament wins for a second. Looking at Ivy League records, here's how those four teams stack up:
1. Penn 42-0 (three perfect seasons)
2. Princeton 40-2 (two perfect seasons)
3. Cornell 38-4 (one perfect season)
4. Harvard 36-6 (no perfect seasons)
The Penn teams from 1993-95 had three players who would reach the NBA - Jerome Allen, Matt Maloney and Ira Bowman. That's extraordinary for an Ivy school.
And watching them play, TB never thought they had a chance to lose. Ever. And they didn't. They were untouchable, a team with absolutely no weakness anywhere and with explosiveness everywhere.
TB has always thought it a shame that the 1993-95 Penn team never got a chance to play the 1998 Princeton team, which reached the national Top 10. As loyal as he is to his employer over his alma mater, he has to admit that he thinks those Penn teams were a shade better.
Those Penn teams won one NCAA game (against probably the weakest opponent any of the Ivy teams had to play, Nebraska in 1993), while the other three all won two. If how far a team went in the NCAA tournament is the defining mark, then Cornell has to go to No. 1, with its Sweet 16 run.
TB isn't looking at the NCAA tournament as main determination of who was the best. You can if you want, and TB respects that.
Either way, those four teams were great, dominant Ivy League teams.
In whatever order you put them.
This year's winner is the Burger King commercial with Chris Webber.
The commercial would be a lot better if Webber had been sitting down, rather than standing up. Though the annoying other guy in the commercial needs to be obscured by Webber to set up the premise, that part could have been worked out, TB supposes.
Instead, here is what the Burger King people came up with. A guy goes into a sports bar carrying a bag with two Burger King sandwiches in it. As he tries to see over the crowd to catch a game on TV, he sees someone in front of him with a Chris Webber Michigan jersey on. Thinking that it's just another guy in a Chris Webber jersey, he gives him the air quotation marks. When Webber turns around, annoying other guy realizes it's the real Chris Webber and starts to scream. Somehow, out of all this, Webber asks him for one of his Burger King sandwiches.
Okay, two things. First, it's one thing if the person in front of you is short and wearing a basketball jersey. Here, though, the guy in front of you is 6-10. Does it dawn on you that it might actually be Chris Webber?
Then, once he sees who it is, he starts to scream in fear. What is he afraid of? What does he think Chris Webber is going to do, beat him up?
Anyway, TB saw that commercial a thousand times this weekend, and he hated it every time.
The end of Princeton's basketball season came Monday night, very late, in Fresno, where the Tigers lost to Fresno State 72-56 in the quarterfinals of the CBI to finish up at 21-9. Broken down a little bit further, Princeton was 8-6 in the Ivy League and 13-3 outside of it.
Extra credit is given to those who know that the semifinals in the CBI will have Illinois State at Siena and Old Dominion at Fresno State.
Harvard's run in the NCAA basketball tournament ended Saturday, when the Crimson put up a good fight against Michigan State before falling. The Penn women lost in the NCAAs, and Princeton and Harvard lost in the WNIT.
There are still two Ivy League teams who are playing, and in fact they will be playing each other tonight, when Yale travels to Columbia for the quarterfinal round of the CIT.
Harvard was making its third straight NCAA tournament appearance, which marks the sixth time in the last 25 years that an Ivy League team has made at least three straight trips to the NCAAs.
In order, there was: Princeton from 1989-92 (actually, that's the only one that's been more than three straight), Penn from 1993-95, Princeton from 1996-98, Penn from 2005-07, Cornell from 2008-10 and now Harvard from 2012-present.
It makes TB wonder which of those runs was the best.
He started out by eliminating Princeton's 1989-92 and Penn's 2005-07 teams, because, with apologies, he thinks the other ones from those schools were better. Once he did so, that left four three-year stretches.
So which one is the best?
Well, his first question is how much validation does a team get for NCAA wins? He's not sure what the answer is.
Penn won one game between 1993-95. Princeton's 1996-98 teams and Harvard's 2012-14 teams won two games each. Cornell's 2008-10 teams also won two games, though the Big Red did it in the same tournament. As a result, Cornell did something that the other three didn't by reaching the Sweet 16.
So how big a deal is all that? Does it push Cornell over the top?
Princeton in 1998 and Harvard this year both lost to Michigan State. In Princeton's case, that Michigan State team featured four players who would go on to be starters for the Spartans when they won the NCAA title two years later, and three went on to play in the NBA - Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell.
For that matter, Princeton lost in 1996 to Mississippi State in the second round, and that MSU ended up in Final Four.
This year's NCAA tournament hasn't played out, but Michigan State seems to be a very underrated four seed again, just like in 1998, when Princeton was the five. Maybe the Spartans will lose to No. 1 Virginia in the next round, or maybe they'll roll to the Final Four.
What does any of this mean? Not all that much, TB thinks. Instead, he'll go with the eye test.
Ironically, TB would put the Cornell team fourth of this group, even if it's the one that reached the Sweet 16. No offense, but someone has to be fourth, as great as these teams all were.
He would put the current Harvard team third. He'd put Princeton's 1996-98 team second. And he'd put Penn from 1993-95 first.
Forget NCAA tournament wins for a second. Looking at Ivy League records, here's how those four teams stack up:
1. Penn 42-0 (three perfect seasons)
2. Princeton 40-2 (two perfect seasons)
3. Cornell 38-4 (one perfect season)
4. Harvard 36-6 (no perfect seasons)
The Penn teams from 1993-95 had three players who would reach the NBA - Jerome Allen, Matt Maloney and Ira Bowman. That's extraordinary for an Ivy school.
And watching them play, TB never thought they had a chance to lose. Ever. And they didn't. They were untouchable, a team with absolutely no weakness anywhere and with explosiveness everywhere.
TB has always thought it a shame that the 1993-95 Penn team never got a chance to play the 1998 Princeton team, which reached the national Top 10. As loyal as he is to his employer over his alma mater, he has to admit that he thinks those Penn teams were a shade better.
Those Penn teams won one NCAA game (against probably the weakest opponent any of the Ivy teams had to play, Nebraska in 1993), while the other three all won two. If how far a team went in the NCAA tournament is the defining mark, then Cornell has to go to No. 1, with its Sweet 16 run.
TB isn't looking at the NCAA tournament as main determination of who was the best. You can if you want, and TB respects that.
Either way, those four teams were great, dominant Ivy League teams.
In whatever order you put them.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
10 For 10
As untouchable Princeton records go, TigerBlog figured that one that had endured since 1951 might be up there.
Oh sure, nobody is ever going to match what Bill Bradley did here. Or at least probably won't. Bradley scored 58 points in one game. He scored 2,503 points in his career. Nobody has come close to touching those since.
Ian Hummer is second all-time in scoring in men's basketball at Princeton with 1,625 points, which means the next closest scorer to Bradley only got 65% of the way to where Bradley is. That's pretty wild. No other player at Princeton has scored more than 39 points in a game, which is only 67% of the way to Bradley's record.
Still, there are other records across other sports that have stood for longer, which makes them seem just as hard to reach. TB isn't sure what the oldest record at Princeton is.
He thought it might be something from swimming and diving, but it turns out that the only school record that predates 2006 is a diving record by William Heinz in 1975.
In track and field, the oldest record is Augie Wolf's discus record from 1982, unless you count archived records, which presumably are in events that aren't contested anymore. In that case, J.R. Pappas' 9.6 100-yard dash in 1927 is pretty old, even though it was tied by four other runners, in 1942, 1948, 1955 and 1970.
There are all kinds of old football records. The longest interception return in school history, for instance, was by Talbot Pendleton back in 1911 against Rutgers. How old is that record? Hobey Baker played in that game.
The longest field goal in school history dates 29 years before Talbot's big return, when James Haxall kicked one (or drop-kicked one, more accurately) 65 yards against Yale.
By comparison, 1951 isn't all that long ago. Still, the 1951 men's lacrosse season predates Bradley's Princeton career by more than a decade, and in fact in the spring of 1951, Dick Kazmaier had not yet started the senior season that would 1) earn him the Heisman Trophy and 2) give him records that can still be found.
Back on April 11, 1951, William Griffith scored 10 goals in a game. That's a lot of goals.
Since then, Princeton has had Hall of Fame offensive players who have played here, and none of them scored 10. In fact, only four times between Griffith in 1951 and last Saturday did a Princeton player score as many as eight goals in a game: Alva Weaver against Rutgers in 1953, Wick Sollers against FDU-Madison in 1976, Jesse Hubbard vs. Hobart in 1996 and B.J. Prager also against Hobart in 2001. Those eight goals were only 80% of the way to the record.
Until last Saturday, that is, when Jake Froccaro scored 10 against Yale.
It only took 839 games and 63 years from when Griffith scored his 10 against Rutgers for his record to be equaled.
TigerBlog has always thought that single-game records should be easier to break, since it just takes one really hot day to do it. Griffith, though, put up a number that nobody came all that close to for so long that TB began to think this one was also untouchable.
For that matter, he's always been amazed that Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak record has lasted since 1941, since it only takes 57 games to break.
TigerBlog has seen some great days by Princeton scorers, most recently the seven-goal game that Mike MacDonald had against Cornell last year in the Ivy League semifinals. He long ago figured out that 10 was the school record, and he long ago began to think that nobody would ever get that many again.
And then Froccaro did it Saturday. And did it, to a certain extent, in a way that seemed somewhat effortless, like something he could do every game.
As Froccaro's day unfolded and he scored more and more, TB began to expect him to get to 10, rather than feel shocked by the extraordinary game that Froccaro was having.
And it was extraordinary.
Consider that Froccaro is one of the best midfielders in the Ivy League and was the league Rookie of the Year last year. He is one of the top scoring middies, for that matter, in Division I.
Prior to Saturday, his career high was three goals, something he'd done four times. And something that is pretty reasonable for a middie. And then against Yale, he beat that in both the first half, scoring six, and in the second half, with four more.
His 10-goal game was the fifth since the Ivy League was formed in 1956, the 15th in Division I since official records began to be kept in 1971 and the first in Division I since 2008, when Stony Brook's Jordan McBride did it.
Froccaro scored in every possible way, with rockets from the outside, ankle-breaking moves to free himself up, finishes off great feeds from MacDonald and Tom Schreiber on the crease, a perfectly placed change up to the far side of the net.
TB's favorite was Froccaro's eighth, with two Yale defenders on him, unable to do a thing to stop him.
Froccaro took "only" 18 shots to get his 10 goals, which means that while he was a volume business, he was operating efficiently at the same time.
It was an incredibly impressive performance, though unfortunately one that came in a loss, 16-15, as Yale scored with 38 seconds to go to win it. Afterwards, Froccaro was more upset at the loss than pleased with his record-tying day.
Froccaro had a 16-point week, after having three goals and three assists in the win over Villanova last Tuesday night. Next up is another road Ivy game, at Brown. What will Froccaro do for an encore?
TB is pretty sure he won't get 10 more. TB is pretty sure that nobody will. Maybe he will see it again. Maybe it won't happen for 63 more years, which would mean during the 2077 season, which TB assumes he will miss.
He saw Froccaro's 10 last Saturday though. It was an extraordinary day for the sophomore, who was on from the start. TB asked him afterwards if he sensed that something was different before the game started, and Froccaro said no.
But it was different. That's for sure. Different, and history-making, by Jake Froccaro.
Oh sure, nobody is ever going to match what Bill Bradley did here. Or at least probably won't. Bradley scored 58 points in one game. He scored 2,503 points in his career. Nobody has come close to touching those since.
Ian Hummer is second all-time in scoring in men's basketball at Princeton with 1,625 points, which means the next closest scorer to Bradley only got 65% of the way to where Bradley is. That's pretty wild. No other player at Princeton has scored more than 39 points in a game, which is only 67% of the way to Bradley's record.
Still, there are other records across other sports that have stood for longer, which makes them seem just as hard to reach. TB isn't sure what the oldest record at Princeton is.
He thought it might be something from swimming and diving, but it turns out that the only school record that predates 2006 is a diving record by William Heinz in 1975.
In track and field, the oldest record is Augie Wolf's discus record from 1982, unless you count archived records, which presumably are in events that aren't contested anymore. In that case, J.R. Pappas' 9.6 100-yard dash in 1927 is pretty old, even though it was tied by four other runners, in 1942, 1948, 1955 and 1970.
There are all kinds of old football records. The longest interception return in school history, for instance, was by Talbot Pendleton back in 1911 against Rutgers. How old is that record? Hobey Baker played in that game.
The longest field goal in school history dates 29 years before Talbot's big return, when James Haxall kicked one (or drop-kicked one, more accurately) 65 yards against Yale.
By comparison, 1951 isn't all that long ago. Still, the 1951 men's lacrosse season predates Bradley's Princeton career by more than a decade, and in fact in the spring of 1951, Dick Kazmaier had not yet started the senior season that would 1) earn him the Heisman Trophy and 2) give him records that can still be found.
Back on April 11, 1951, William Griffith scored 10 goals in a game. That's a lot of goals.
Since then, Princeton has had Hall of Fame offensive players who have played here, and none of them scored 10. In fact, only four times between Griffith in 1951 and last Saturday did a Princeton player score as many as eight goals in a game: Alva Weaver against Rutgers in 1953, Wick Sollers against FDU-Madison in 1976, Jesse Hubbard vs. Hobart in 1996 and B.J. Prager also against Hobart in 2001. Those eight goals were only 80% of the way to the record.
Until last Saturday, that is, when Jake Froccaro scored 10 against Yale.
It only took 839 games and 63 years from when Griffith scored his 10 against Rutgers for his record to be equaled.
TigerBlog has always thought that single-game records should be easier to break, since it just takes one really hot day to do it. Griffith, though, put up a number that nobody came all that close to for so long that TB began to think this one was also untouchable.
For that matter, he's always been amazed that Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak record has lasted since 1941, since it only takes 57 games to break.
TigerBlog has seen some great days by Princeton scorers, most recently the seven-goal game that Mike MacDonald had against Cornell last year in the Ivy League semifinals. He long ago figured out that 10 was the school record, and he long ago began to think that nobody would ever get that many again.
And then Froccaro did it Saturday. And did it, to a certain extent, in a way that seemed somewhat effortless, like something he could do every game.
As Froccaro's day unfolded and he scored more and more, TB began to expect him to get to 10, rather than feel shocked by the extraordinary game that Froccaro was having.
And it was extraordinary.
Consider that Froccaro is one of the best midfielders in the Ivy League and was the league Rookie of the Year last year. He is one of the top scoring middies, for that matter, in Division I.
Prior to Saturday, his career high was three goals, something he'd done four times. And something that is pretty reasonable for a middie. And then against Yale, he beat that in both the first half, scoring six, and in the second half, with four more.
His 10-goal game was the fifth since the Ivy League was formed in 1956, the 15th in Division I since official records began to be kept in 1971 and the first in Division I since 2008, when Stony Brook's Jordan McBride did it.
Froccaro scored in every possible way, with rockets from the outside, ankle-breaking moves to free himself up, finishes off great feeds from MacDonald and Tom Schreiber on the crease, a perfectly placed change up to the far side of the net.
TB's favorite was Froccaro's eighth, with two Yale defenders on him, unable to do a thing to stop him.
Froccaro took "only" 18 shots to get his 10 goals, which means that while he was a volume business, he was operating efficiently at the same time.
It was an incredibly impressive performance, though unfortunately one that came in a loss, 16-15, as Yale scored with 38 seconds to go to win it. Afterwards, Froccaro was more upset at the loss than pleased with his record-tying day.
Froccaro had a 16-point week, after having three goals and three assists in the win over Villanova last Tuesday night. Next up is another road Ivy game, at Brown. What will Froccaro do for an encore?
TB is pretty sure he won't get 10 more. TB is pretty sure that nobody will. Maybe he will see it again. Maybe it won't happen for 63 more years, which would mean during the 2077 season, which TB assumes he will miss.
He saw Froccaro's 10 last Saturday though. It was an extraordinary day for the sophomore, who was on from the start. TB asked him afterwards if he sensed that something was different before the game started, and Froccaro said no.
But it was different. That's for sure. Different, and history-making, by Jake Froccaro.
Monday, March 24, 2014
A Weekend's Worth Of Hoops
The Wichita State-Kentucky game reached the two-minute mark, and as it did, TigerBlog thought to himself this: minimum 15 minutes and at least three trips to the monitor.
As it turned out, he was one minute and one monitor trip over.
When Iowa State-North Carolina got to the two-minute mark, TB had the same thought - 15 more minutes, three more stoppages for the monitor. This time, the last two minutes breezed along in a lightning-quick 11 minutes, and again only had to have two monitor moments.
Of course, the refs took the monitor spotlight to a whole new level in the Iowa State-UNC game, which actually ended during a replay review. No game should ever end like that, by the way. And Roy Williams, the UNC coach, did handle the situation with great class.
The NCAA tournament showed all of the things that made it great in its first weekend, with its upsets, a Cinderella or two, wall-to-wall coverage for four straight days and most importantly some simply amazing games.
And it also showed the two biggest problems with college basketball games: 1) the overuse of replay and 2) the nightmarish end-game situations that drag on and on, turning two minutes into 11 or 15.
Okay, TB gets that it's important to get the timing right and figure out who knocked the ball out and all of that, especially at the end of games. But stopping the Wichita State-Kentucky game dead in its tracks in the first half to spend nearly three minutes deciding if the shot clock should have 28 or 30 seconds on it during one possession? It's laughably ridiculous.
Most of these reviews simply destroy the tempo of the game, adding additional timeouts to a sport that needs way fewer, not more.
How about this for a rule: if the refs go to the monitor, the players must stay on the court and cannot speak to their coaches? And how about a replay ref who can check things quickly, rather than having the on-court officials huddle around the monitor and then put their arms around each other while they talk about it.
Again, TB doesn't think the refs are ego-maniacs, but he also firmly believes that ego does fuel how many trips the refs make to the monitor. It's human nature. It makes them the center of attention.
Oh, and is anyone a worse basketball prognosticator than TigerBlog? His pick of Kansas to win it all - fueled by his belief that Andrew Wiggins would carry his team - didn't come true. And he had Kansas over Creighton in the final. Yikes. That's awful. In the last two years now, his four championship game picks have won a combined three games.
The two best games of the tournament so far have been Mercer's win over Duke, largely because of the fact that it was Duke's losing to the Atlantic Sun champ, and Wichita State-Kentucky, which was one of the best games the tournament has had in recent years.
Mercer couldn't follow its first-round win up with a trip to the Sweet 16 like Florida-Gulf Coast, out of the same league, did a year ago. Still, this was a great story. Mercer started five seniors, all of whom had to stew for a whole year after the whole Dunk City thing exploded last year, even after Mercer had won the regular season championship.
And then it was Duke who lost, who was actually almost run off the court by Mercer over the final five minutes or so. The Bears had two great plays during the game-sealing run - the one-handed pass off the dribble for the basket and and-one and then the length of the court inbounds pass.
And so Duke was done. TigerBlog got a lot of texts when it ended; none of them expressed genuine sorrow at what happened.
Then there was Kentucky's 78-76 win over Wichita State. This was an epic, two teams with a lot to prove who were both on top of their games.
Wichita State came in at 35-0 and No. 1 seed, and all that meant was a Sunday meeting with a Kentucky team that was the preseason No. 1 and a team that some thought might roll undefeated.
Instead, the Wildcats were an eight seed after an inconsistent year, and yet they were still dripping with talent. And it was all on display yesterday.
When it ended, Wichita State was 35-1 and couldn't match last year's trip to the Final Four. Still, with more people watching the Shockers yesterday than did all year combined - TB's supposes this - it was hard not to be impressed. It was just one of those moments where the finality of it all is so clear - Kentucky advances; Wichita State gets no second chance.
Princeton's women's basketball team gets no second chance in the WNIT either, as the Tigers fell 75-74 at Seton Hall Sunday.
Michelle Miller had a great performance, putting up 34 points, the fourth-best total in school history. She also shot an amazing 8 for 9 from three-point range.
The game was a close, back-and-forth one, and Princeton went up 74-72 with 28 seconds left, only to have Seton Hall get a three-point play with 10 seconds left for the winning points.
The loss ends Princeton's season at 21-9, and it didn't come in the tournament that the Tigers would have preferred. Still, after four straight NCAA trips, a win in the WNIT in round one over VCU and a great game at Seton Hall wasn't a bad way for the year to end, especially with almost everyone back for next year.
The men are still playing, as they are in California to play at Fresno State in the second round of the CBI. For the men, it's been a postseason on the road, first to New Orleans to take on Tulane and now in Fresno.
This one could be a good one too. Princeton has won nine of its last 11; Fresno has won 10 of its last 13.
At this time of year, each game is potentially the end of the season, whoever you are, whatever your record. There are no second chances in college basketball.
What there are are too many timeouts, and way too many replays.
As it turned out, he was one minute and one monitor trip over.
When Iowa State-North Carolina got to the two-minute mark, TB had the same thought - 15 more minutes, three more stoppages for the monitor. This time, the last two minutes breezed along in a lightning-quick 11 minutes, and again only had to have two monitor moments.
Of course, the refs took the monitor spotlight to a whole new level in the Iowa State-UNC game, which actually ended during a replay review. No game should ever end like that, by the way. And Roy Williams, the UNC coach, did handle the situation with great class.
The NCAA tournament showed all of the things that made it great in its first weekend, with its upsets, a Cinderella or two, wall-to-wall coverage for four straight days and most importantly some simply amazing games.
And it also showed the two biggest problems with college basketball games: 1) the overuse of replay and 2) the nightmarish end-game situations that drag on and on, turning two minutes into 11 or 15.
Okay, TB gets that it's important to get the timing right and figure out who knocked the ball out and all of that, especially at the end of games. But stopping the Wichita State-Kentucky game dead in its tracks in the first half to spend nearly three minutes deciding if the shot clock should have 28 or 30 seconds on it during one possession? It's laughably ridiculous.
Most of these reviews simply destroy the tempo of the game, adding additional timeouts to a sport that needs way fewer, not more.
How about this for a rule: if the refs go to the monitor, the players must stay on the court and cannot speak to their coaches? And how about a replay ref who can check things quickly, rather than having the on-court officials huddle around the monitor and then put their arms around each other while they talk about it.
Again, TB doesn't think the refs are ego-maniacs, but he also firmly believes that ego does fuel how many trips the refs make to the monitor. It's human nature. It makes them the center of attention.
Oh, and is anyone a worse basketball prognosticator than TigerBlog? His pick of Kansas to win it all - fueled by his belief that Andrew Wiggins would carry his team - didn't come true. And he had Kansas over Creighton in the final. Yikes. That's awful. In the last two years now, his four championship game picks have won a combined three games.
The two best games of the tournament so far have been Mercer's win over Duke, largely because of the fact that it was Duke's losing to the Atlantic Sun champ, and Wichita State-Kentucky, which was one of the best games the tournament has had in recent years.
Mercer couldn't follow its first-round win up with a trip to the Sweet 16 like Florida-Gulf Coast, out of the same league, did a year ago. Still, this was a great story. Mercer started five seniors, all of whom had to stew for a whole year after the whole Dunk City thing exploded last year, even after Mercer had won the regular season championship.
And then it was Duke who lost, who was actually almost run off the court by Mercer over the final five minutes or so. The Bears had two great plays during the game-sealing run - the one-handed pass off the dribble for the basket and and-one and then the length of the court inbounds pass.
And so Duke was done. TigerBlog got a lot of texts when it ended; none of them expressed genuine sorrow at what happened.
Then there was Kentucky's 78-76 win over Wichita State. This was an epic, two teams with a lot to prove who were both on top of their games.
Wichita State came in at 35-0 and No. 1 seed, and all that meant was a Sunday meeting with a Kentucky team that was the preseason No. 1 and a team that some thought might roll undefeated.
Instead, the Wildcats were an eight seed after an inconsistent year, and yet they were still dripping with talent. And it was all on display yesterday.
When it ended, Wichita State was 35-1 and couldn't match last year's trip to the Final Four. Still, with more people watching the Shockers yesterday than did all year combined - TB's supposes this - it was hard not to be impressed. It was just one of those moments where the finality of it all is so clear - Kentucky advances; Wichita State gets no second chance.
Princeton's women's basketball team gets no second chance in the WNIT either, as the Tigers fell 75-74 at Seton Hall Sunday.
Michelle Miller had a great performance, putting up 34 points, the fourth-best total in school history. She also shot an amazing 8 for 9 from three-point range.
The game was a close, back-and-forth one, and Princeton went up 74-72 with 28 seconds left, only to have Seton Hall get a three-point play with 10 seconds left for the winning points.
The loss ends Princeton's season at 21-9, and it didn't come in the tournament that the Tigers would have preferred. Still, after four straight NCAA trips, a win in the WNIT in round one over VCU and a great game at Seton Hall wasn't a bad way for the year to end, especially with almost everyone back for next year.
The men are still playing, as they are in California to play at Fresno State in the second round of the CBI. For the men, it's been a postseason on the road, first to New Orleans to take on Tulane and now in Fresno.
This one could be a good one too. Princeton has won nine of its last 11; Fresno has won 10 of its last 13.
At this time of year, each game is potentially the end of the season, whoever you are, whatever your record. There are no second chances in college basketball.
What there are are too many timeouts, and way too many replays.
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