The Graduates

For reasons that he couldn't possibly explain to you, TigerBlog refused to go to sleep the other night until the Florida-Oklahoma softball game ended.

This was Monday night, and it was Game 1 of the Women's College World Series. If you didn't see what happened, the game went 17 innings before Oklahoma won 7-5, with a three-run home run in the top of the 17th before Florida could only get one back in the bottom of the 17th. Back in the 12th, Oklahoma got two to go up 4-2, but Florida came right back to tie it again.

Oh, and for reasons he also couldn't possibly explain, he was rooting for Florida.

TigerBlog wasn't even watching the game on TV. He was following it on Twitter and through the live stats, and the game ran well after midnight. Still, he refused to fall asleep until he knew who won.

As he watched the live stats refresh, he thought he heard it begin to rain. It was definitely raining when he woke up, and as he listened to it fall, one of his first thoughts was this: How will this affect graduation?

Then he got an email from Dan Day, the University's Vice President for Communications. If you were to build the perfect VP for Communications for a university, you'd build Dan Day. Anyway, the email said that the ceremony would be held outside, as opposed to in Jadwin Gym, which would be the indoor site. TigerBlog is pretty sure that no graduation since he's been around has had to be moved indoors.

As it turned out, the rain held off - mostly - for the 270th Commencement in Princeton history. TigerBlog saw most of it, at least on the big screen behind Nassau Hall.

It was cool but not chilly and damp but not too bad for the ceremony. Even when it rained, it only spit a little, never turning into anything steady.

TigerBlog is a big fan of graduation. He's a big fan of tradition and history and celebration and pomp (and apparently, circumstance), and graduation is all of that rolled together.

His own college graduation was held in a building that no longer exists, the Philadelphia Civic Center. It was a nice day and a nice event, but TigerBlog never felt the institutional connection that permeates everything that's happened on the Princeton campus the last week.

BrotherBlog? He loved graduation so much that he did it three times - undergrad, master's and law school. Maybe he just did it to milk graduation gifts out of people? He did have a great pre-graduation party before his law school commencement at U-Dub, where TigerBlog had Thai food for the first time.

As TigerBlog has said, though, nobody does these milestone events like Princeton does. TigerBlog likes the term he just used - "institutional connection." Everything that's happened in the last few days has been a reinforcement of that connection, and a celebration of it. To someone who has spent more than seven times as many years on this campus than on Penn's, he can tell you that this is something very different and very special.

The speech yesterday by valedictorian Jin Yun Chow was about the "unsung heroes" of Princeton, the people who keep the University running and help the students have a better experience in any number of small ways. TB assumed he was included in that group.

The entire ceremony was formal and structured, and TigerBlog really liked it. The awarding of the honorary degrees even included a major surprise - Kareem Abdul Jabbar received one.

For TigerBlog, the best part of graduation every year, though, is to see the recessional of the graduates themselves, how they go through FitzRandolph Gate for the first time and then wind their way back out of the area in front of Nassau Hall.

TigerBlog watched the ceremony while sitting on a cement bench. As University president Chris Eisgruber gave his final remarks - concluding with an emphatic "Onward" - the area around TB began to swell with family members, professors - and coaches. They were there to say goodbye to their seniors, and congratulate them on becoming alums.

As the grads started to make their way by, TigerBlog saw a lot of familiar faces. They'd worn the uniform specific to their team for four years, but now they were all in identical caps and gowns.

He saw Ashleigh Johnson. Then he saw water polo coach Luis Nicolao, who probably was taking graduation 2017 harder than anyone else, since it meant that the best player he'll ever coach was receiving a diploma.

He saw the women's basketball grads. The field hockey grads. The softball grads. The football grads. Team after team walked by. Men's basketball. That was a lot of points that was holding diplomas.

At one point, TB was standing next to Jim Barlow when the men's soccer grads came by.

There were hugs for the coach, but not the kind of hugs that you'd see at any other time, not after a game, not after a goal, not after coming back to school for an alumni event after being away for 10 years.

No, this was the kind of emotion reserved for this moment, with a proud coach and the players who were thanking him for all he did to get them to this day.

TigerBlog waited to see the 11 members of the men's lacrosse team. Eventually they made their way by, and in the world of athletic communications in 2017, TB wanted to get a picture for Twitter and Instagram.

He watched them as they gathered together. He'd seen them play for four years. He'd traveled with them, to their games and even to Europe. He'd seen the paths they'd gone down as players and teammates, how some played pretty much every game and others hadn't played nearly as much, how some had played for four years with barely a scratch while others had to deal with injuries that kept them off the field for long stretches.

Now they were together, 11 guys, all with diplomas. It's about the journey, of course, but it's also about the finish, getting there with your teammates.

As TB got them to get together for the picture, he thought about all of that - and wondered when the next time these 11 would all be in the same place at the same time again.

They were here now, though. The entire Class of 2017 was.

Together again, one last time, together in the moment, celebrating one more win as Princetonians.

Congrats Chessie, And The Class of 2017

So is this a good record for a coach: 1,042-137?

What if 20 NCAA championships (and nine more runner-up finishes) go along with that record? That's good, right?

That would be the career record for Sharon Pfluger, the head coach of field hockey and women's lacrosse at the College of New Jersey. Pfluger is one of two female coaches featured in the NCAA's Hall of Champions Legends of the Game at its Indianapolis headquarters. The other? Pat Summit.

Pfluger, whose most recent TCNJ team fell in the NCAA Division III women's lacrosse final to Gettysburg 6-5, reminds TigerBlog of Bill Tierney, another Hall-of-Fame coach whose own resume has seven NCAA lacrosse titles on it, six at Princeton and one at Denver.

Pfluger and Tierney both see each season as its own opportunity and challenge, no matter how many previous successes they've had. They don't live on their past accomplishments. Neither has lost any fire through the years. Both let their players play and are the kinds of coaches players love to play for. They are organized and completely in control, but they are not authoritarians. Their on-field intensity contrasts with their soft-spoken way off the field.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, TigerBlog met Tierney and Pfluger within a few months of each other, back in the 1989-90 range. They were winning then, and they haven't stopped since.

When TigerBlog saw Chessie Jackson had gotten the head women's basketball coaching job at TCNJ, his advice to her was to figure out what Sharon has been doing all these years and do that. It's good advice.

Jackson will be leaving Princeton, where she has been on Courtney Banghart's staff the last two years. Interestingly, the picture on the TCNJ website in the story announcing Jackson's hiring shows her at a Princeton game from two years ago, and she is pictured with Meg Griffith, another former assistant to Banghart who also became a head coach, a year ago at Columbia.

Jackson has all the attributes to be a successful head coach. She is smart (a Williams grad), and she is competitive. She knows what it takes to be successful on the Division I and Division III levels.

She learned from Banghart and Milena Flores at Princeton, which is a pretty good internship. She'll also be a really strong addition to the overall athletic department culture.

She will definitely be the kind of coach that players will want to play for. TigerBlog is a big fan of hers, and he wishes her the best in her first head coaching job.

Congratulations are the order of the day. And happy anniversary.

The anniversary wishes go out to, among others, Princeton University itself.

Today marks the 270th time that Princeton has had a Commencement ceremony; does that mean that this was the 269th Reunions? Must have been a fairly short P-Rade back then.

Actually, TigerBlog was wondering when Reunions started, so he checked out the Princeton Companion. Apparently, they started shortly after the Civil War before becoming a more recognizable event - along with the P-Rade - in the 1890s.

Meanwhile, though, it is the 270th Commencement Day today. TigerBlog remembers the celebrations around the University's 250th anniversary, and he'll stop by for the 300th in another 30 years.

When you're here every day, you don't really consider how far back the University actually dates. When you think in terms of 270 Commencements, it leaves you awed at the number of people who have come through here in that time, and what they've done when they've left here.

It's impressive. And it's not something too many other schools can come close to matching.

As for the congratulations, TB sends out his congrats to everyone who is earning a diploma at Princeton today. It's the culmination of four years of really hard work - and presumably a weekend of a lot of fun.

Just as Chessie is heading down a new road after "studying" at Princeton, so too is everyone who is getting a diploma today.

Princeton is not an easy school, obviously. It challenges its students from Day 1 all the way through to today, graduation. It hasn't been too long since the grads in caps and gowns today were finishing their senior thesis, and then experiencing the thrill of handing it in.

There are roughly 200 Princeton athletes who are graduating today too. Actually, they're technically former Princeton athletes.

They've made their way through to the finish line while balancing the demands of being a high-level Division I athlete with the Princeton academic requirements. This adds another dimension to the accomplishment.

All of the values that Princeton Athletics stands for really manifest themselves in the years ahead for the graduates. All of the lessons they learned. All of the things that athletics has taught them. All of the ways they've had to push themselves to achieve their successes, and all of the times they've had to pick themselves up when it didn't go their way. All the times they've had to sacrifice their own individual wants for the good of the team. All of the times they wanted to take the easy way out but then pushed ahead anyway.

These are all going to stay with them forever. A co-curricular education.

All of that is for the future though. Today is about the moment.

It's Graduation Day. Congratulations to the graduates, especially the athletes.

You're entitled to feel pretty good about yourself right now. You've accomplished something very, very special.

A Ride Around Reunions

So TigerBlog figured he'd try to get a jump on Friday's banquet recap entry by writing some of it advance, during the day.

As it turned out, it was a bad idea, since he didn't use a word of it when he finally sat down to write post-banquet. Well, maybe not a terrible idea, since he figured he would use some of it this week.

His premise was where the women's athletic class of 2017 ranked all-time among Princeton's top female athletes. This is part of what he wrote:

If you want to say Caroline Lind is the greatest female athlete in Princeton history, you can definitely make the case. If you want to say it's Rachael Becker, you can make that case too.

Hey, he used it.

By the way, TigerBlog finds himself writing things that he doesn't use more and more these days. Maybe it's because he's more willing to trade off deleting a few hundred words that don't say exactly what he wants to say than he was before. Why is that?

Anyway, the point is that TigerBlog would put Rachael Becker up there with any female athlete who has ever played at Princeton. She won seven Ivy League championships between field hockey and lacrosse, and she remains the only Princeton lacrosse player, male or female, ever to win the Tewaaraton Trophy as the nation's top player.

Becker was a three-time first-team All-America in lacrosse, and she was the cornerstone of Princeton's 2002 and 2003 NCAA championship teams.

She won the Tewaaraton despite playing defense, something that no other men's or women's player has ever done.

TigerBlog thought of the irony of that as he saw Becker play defense Saturday afternoon on Sherrerd Field. Was this a game? No, she was chasing down her four children - and no, none of them had any more success in getting past her than her opponents did back when she was a player.

The occasion was a Reunions reception for men's and women's lacrosse and field hockey. There were familiar faces everywhere in the large crowd, for all three sports.

TigerBlog wrote this Friday (after the banquet, not before):
It breezes by, four years at Princeton. They go from names on a recruit release to the Grad College a few days before graduation in the blink of an eye.

And that's true for the undergrads.

The alums? That's a whole different story.

TigerBlog has heard coaches and athletes talk about Princeton in terms of the four years the athlete are there and then the 40 (and more) years that follow. If those four years to compete move quickly, they only start the clock on a lifetime of being a Princeton alum.

With all due respect to every other college on the planet, including TigerBlog's own alma mater, there can't be another school that engages its alumni the way Princeton does. And there can't be another alumni group that celebrates like Princeton.

If you take the whole Reunions event for granted because you're a Princetonian, then don't. It's something really special, and something really unique about the school.

TigerBlog wanted to stop by the lacrosse/field hockey reception. He didn't want to mess around with the parking, so he brought his bicycle, parked by the empty Grad College, and rode over to Class of 1952 Stadium.

Along the way, he saw all of the pageantry of Reunions, with the crowds, the jackets, the families and little kids, the orange and black everywhere.

For a Penn guy, it's pretty impressive.

TigerBlog didn't have a wristband, so he missed out on most of the festivities, mostly the Duran Duran concert Saturday night. He would have loved to have been there for that.

He did pedal from the lacrosse/field hockey reception to see one of his favorite events, the P-Rade.

The 25th reunion class was the Class of 1992, which was near the front of the line. TigerBlog was there to see the men's lacrosse alums, who marched with the NCAA championship trophy they'd won 25 years earlier.

About the same time that the lacrosse reception was beginning, the Class of 1967 was taking its annual class picture. At the same time, the class awarded an honorary varsity letter to Sam Isaly.

If you've been to a Princeton basketball game at Jadwin in the last few decades, you've probably seen Sam Isaly. He's there in a wheelchair, the result of a broken neck he suffered back when was a high school senior, back in 1962.

Sam went to the Western Reserve Academy prep school in Hudson, Ohio, where he played football and wrestling. He needed a year of recovery from his injury before he could attend Princeton, and he graduated in 1967, going from there to the London School of Economics to a long and highly career in the medical investing field.

And there he was, getting his letter presented to him by Gary Walters, also of the Class of 1967. Gary raves about Sam Isaly, about how he succeeded at Princeton, about his attitude, about how he never once felt sorry for himself.

And now, 50 years later, he was rewarded with the letter he surely would have won all those years ago.

It was just another special Reunions moment.

So was something else, something small, that happened back at the lacrosse event.

With all of the former players TB saw in a short time, one of his favorite moments was when he got to say hi to Trent Magruder, who had been a Daily Princetonian writer before he graduated in 2008. His very-identical twin Evan had been a back-up goalie for the lacrosse team. TigerBlog liked both of them very much when they were undergrads.

TigerBlog doesn't think he's seen either of them since shortly after graduation, on the team's trip to Spain and Ireland. There they were, though.

Evan is a law school grad. Trent? He is a surgical resident at Johns Hopkins. And there, a few feet away, was Justin Tortolani, who graduated as the all-time leading scorer for the men's lacrosse team with 120 goals, a figure that has been bettered just four times since.

Justin, in addition to being a former All-America, is a surgeon in Baltimore as well. TigerBlog introduced Trent to Justin, resident to surgeon. Justin told Trent to stay in touch.

That's how Princeton works, people.

Once you're one of them, you're one of them forever.

Finite Moments

Spencer Weisz laughed and Spencer Weisz got teary, and that's really what the night was about in a nutshell.

The occasion was the Gary Walters ’67 Princeton Varsity Club Banquet, the 20th such banquet, held last night at the Grad College. TigerBlog has said before that the average temperature for these banquets has been 70, since it's either 90 or 50. Last night, it really was 70, and it's hard to imagine a more perfect night for a banquet.

Early on in the banquet, Spencer Weisz - the 2017 Ivy League men's basketball Player of the Year - appeared on the video screens. The idea was to find a Princeton senior athlete and have him or her compete against other senior athletes in different sports, and Weisz was the athlete chosen to be the centerpiece of the video.

He was the perfect choice. For starters, he's a really good all-around athlete, and the person in the video needed to be a good all-around athlete.

For another, he has the right personality for it. He is naturally funny, without forcing it, and he comes across well on camera. Actually, he'd make a really good broadcaster.

So there on the screens, with his fellow seniors watching, was Weisz. He fenced with Peter Pak. He dove with Lisa Li. He played golf with Alex Dombrowski. He played volleyball with Brittany Ptak and Cara Mattaliano. He faced-off against Zach Currier. Tried to hit a softball against Claire Klausner. Played soccer with Haley Chow and Tyler Lussi.

Oh, and he threw the hammer with Julia Ratcliffe.

It made for a really good final product, the abbreviated version of which was shown at the banquet and the longer version of which will be available on the webpage shortly. The audience seemed to like it. They certainly laughed enough.

Then, about an hour later, there was Weisz on the stage. He'd just won the Roper Trophy as the outstanding senior male athlete, and now he was speaking.

This time, he was getting emotional. He didn't exactly break down, but he came close. It was from the heart. There can be no way to doubt that.

And it was great.

He talked about coming to Princeton with doubts. He talked about the honor of wearing "Princeton" across his chest. He talked about how his coach, Mitch Henderson, pushed him to get the very best of him. He talked about his teammates and the other coaches and how much they meant to him. He talked about his parents and all of their support, saying he could literally count on one hand the number of games of his that they'd missed.

It was a great speech, especially given that it was being done in an impromptu fashion.

In many ways, he was speaking for every senior there. Yes, he was one of the big award winners, so he got the microphone. But all of the senior athletes there had a similar story to tell.

It breezes by, four years at Princeton. They go from names on a recruit release to the Grad College a few days before graduation in the blink of an eye.

They have their own experiences along the way, but they all came here with uncertainty, they all became part of a team, they all had a coach who pushed them, and now they all sat there balancing the emotions of the moment - the joy of graduating from a place like Princeton, coupled with the finality of knowing that a glorious chapter of their lives had ended.

What had Sam Gravitte called them earlier? Finite moments.

Gravitte, the ultra-talented men's lacrosse player/actor/singer, gave the keynote address for the athletes, and his speech spoke of those competing emotions of the moment. He spoke of looking out at his 40 teammates - brothers, he said - in the audience when he was on stage in the musical "Once" and how much it meant to him.

He also, though, talked about walking out onto the stage with his fellow cast members after the last performance, and talked about walking off Sherrerd Field after his last-ever practice. Those are finite moments, he said.

The connection to Princeton doesn't end this week, of course. As a reminder, there were the two alumni speakers, Frank Sowinksi (men's basketball) and Lori Dickerson Fouche (softball). And University president Chris Eisgruber, who gave a rousing congratulations to the athletes before he introduced Dickerson Fouche.

Weisz was one of six finalists for the Roper Trophy. There were 10 finalists for the von Kienbusch Award for the outstanding senior female athlete.

It was as good a lineup of 10 senior female athletes as Princeton has ever produced. TigerBlog has mentioned this before. This group included Olympians, national champions, All-Americas, leading scorers, Players of the Year, on and on.

The winner, though, was Ashleigh Johnson of the women's water polo team, the one at Princeton and the U.S. one that won a gold medal last summer at the Olympics. The idea that the other nine weren't the winner shows you just how incredible the field was, and the fact that the winner was fairly obvious shows you how incredible Johnson is.

Like Weisz, she spoke about her coach, Luis Nicolao, and how he convinced her that she had the ability to be an Olympian when she didn't believe it. She talked about her teammates and how much they had supported her, despite how hard she pushed them. She talked about her mother and the support she'd gotten from her.

It was another emotional moment, in a night of emotion that was the start of a few days of emotions.

There is something about real emotion. It can't be faked. It can't be hidden. It can't be ignored.

And there it was last night, on display.

Laughter. And a tear or two.

And the knowledge that they'd given their all as Princeton athletes, they'd built relationships that they'll have forever - and that now it was pretty much time to go their separate ways.

Finite moments.

Infinite memories.

The 25th Reunion Tent

TigerBlog did three things back on April 14.

One was his taxes. Wait. Actually, that might not be true. Oh, not because he wasn't procrastinating. That's how he's always been. He doesn't think of it as "procrastinating." He thinks of it as "deadline driven."

And the deadline to files taxes wasn't April 15th this year.

Actually, he might not have done his taxes until that Monday, since they weren't actually due until April 18 this year, which was a Tuesday. TigerBlog wonders why that was.  

He gets that the 15th was a Saturday. And who wants to file taxes on a Sunday. Surely everyone had something better to do that day.

What was wrong with Monday the 17th, though?

Anyway, let TB start over.

He's sure he did two things on April 14.

First, he drove to Dartmouth for the Princeton men's lacrosse game the next day. And, he also wrote this in his blog:
Here is TigerBlog's mid-April lacrosse prediction: Maryland will win the NCAA championship in both men's and women's lacrosse. 

Then, six weeks later, his prediction actually played out.

In the interest of full disclosure, it wasn't his only prediction. He also said this just before the men's tournament started:
For the final, he'll go with Maryland-Ohio State. For the winner, he'll go with Ohio State. No. Maryland. No. Ohio State. Hmmm. 

So he was sort of right. It was Maryland-Ohio State in the final. He's pretty good at this.

Or is he? Let's just say he should have simply left it there.

This past Friday, he hedged a bit, when he gave these reasons:
1) Trevor Baptiste and 2) Bill Tierney. Maybe it's the fact that he spent 22 years with Tierney at Princeton, but TigerBlog will go with Denver. Especially if Baptiste wins face-offs the way he has been. 

As it turned out, Baptiste didn't win face-offs the way he had been, Maryland squeaked by Denver, Ohio State snuck past Towson and then Maryland was fairly dominant in the final, one day after the Maryland women also won the championship.

It was only the third time that a team has won both lacrosse championships. Actually, it was the second-straight year, after North Carolina did so in 2016. The only other time? It was 1994, when Princeton did so.

Shortly after the game ended Monday, TigerBlog tweeted this:

Congrats @TerpsMLax @MarylandWLax. Welcome to the exclusive club Princeton started in 1994 and let North Carolina in last year.

— Princeton Lacrosse (@TigerLacrosse) May 29, 2017

For TigerBlog, this was NCAA championship No. 22 and his 22nd in the last 25 years. He was there with Princeton in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004. He's been there every year since as part of the official stat crew.

This past weekend was the longest one of them all, since the Division I semifinals and final were mixed in with the usual five games - Division I semifinals and final and Division II and Division III finals on the men's side. That was eight games in four days - including the Sunday marathon of the Division I women's final and the Division II and III men's games.

Yeah. It was great.

Each year at halftime of the Division I final, the NCAA honors the team that won the championship 25 years earlier. Each year TigerBlog would watch it and think of how many years it would be until it was Princeton who was out there.

The year would be 2017, the 25th anniversary of the first of Princeton's six championships.

TigerBlog has been around some great teams at Princeton, with some special moments. The most special to him has always been the 1992 men's lacrosse team.

Why? TB wrote about this once before, back in 2012. You can read it HERE.

Or he can give you the highlights.

TigerBlog had no idea what lacrosse was all about before he started covering Princeton lacrosse in 1990. Back then, Bill Tierney was the young coach of the team that was trying to make the leap to national prominence, and TB was on the sideline for all of it.

In 1991, the team lost a heartbreaking 14-13 triple-overtime game to Towson in the quarterfinals. The next year, the Tigers broke through, winning that first NCAA championship.

Tierney was the first lacrosse coach TigerBlog ever met. The players on the team - David Morrow, Justin Tortolani, Scott Bacigalupo, Mike Mariano, Kevin Lowe, Taylor Simmers, Scott Reinhardt, Andy Moe, Greg Waller, Ed Calkins and others - were the first players he ever saw play and got to know.

Before that, lacrosse was something they played in Baltimore and Syracuse and on Long Island, a game that was completely foreign to TigerBlog. Since then, lacrosse has come to be something pretty important for TigerBlog, and he has gotten to know all kinds of people in the sport who have become among his best friends.

And, of course, both of his children started playing at an early age.

His experiences with lacrosse have been among the most special in his life in so many ways, and they all trace their way back to that group of people.

It was chilly and cloudy back on Memorial Day 1992. There was rain in the area. Princeton would defeat Syracuse 10-9 in two OTs.

The weather was the same this past Monday, when TigerBlog walked around from one side of Gillette Stadium to the other, to where the 1992 Princeton Tigers had gathered prior to their appearance on the field at halftime. TB knew he was in the right place when he saw a tent that said "Princeton Lacrosse" on it.

The 25th Reunion Tent, as it were.

And there they were. The familiar faces. The ones who had meant so much to him when he was first starting out in the sport.

Had it really been 25 years? 

The first person that TB saw when he got to the tent was Calkins, a middie who is now the president of the Friends' of Princeton Lacrosse. Then there was Bacigalupo, as great a goalie as who ever played. And Morrow, as great a defenseman as who ever payed.

And Moe, who scored that game-winning goal. Greg Waller was there. TigerBlog congratulated him on keeping the career and season ground balls records from Zach Currier, who came within one of tying Waller's 1991 season total of 131.

There were others, too, including the team managers.

TigerBlog had to go before the tent got too crowded, since he needed to get back inside the stadium. By halftime, almost all of the team was there, together again out on the field.

(photo by Laura Devine)

Nobody TigerBlog has ever met does reunions (big "R" and small "r") like Princetonians. This was another example of it.

The bond that these people formed together is unbreakable. They came to Princeton to play lacrosse for a coach who exuded confidence when perhaps none was warranted, and then they accomplished the extraordinary, joining a team coming off a 2-13 season and four years later winning an NCAA championship together.

When they came to Princeton, TigerBlog never gave lacrosse much of a thought and in fact had seen one college game in his life, back when he was at Penn.

When they left, TigerBlog was hooked on the sport - and grateful to the guys who had hooked him on it.

Twenty-five years later, he still is.

The Elegance Of Frank Deford

As you may have noticed, TigerBlog likes to write.

He has visions of his retirement world, one that includes, among other necessities, a dog (probably a bulldog like Trevor Tierney's), a beach house, a porch that looks out over the water and a laptop on which he can write, about anything and everything, for a large audience or an audience of one.

Golf? Nah. Walking on the beach. Walking the dog. Writing. That's a retirement.

The art of writing - sportswriting in particular - has fascinated TigerBlog since he was a kid and FatherBlog would bring home the New York Post and the New York Daily News every night. 

Long before TigerBlog ever wrote his first story - nearly 35 years ago, about a high school football game between Pennington Prep and the Academy of the New Church - his views on writing were shaped by reading others.

TigerBlog never really envisioned writing the sort of blog that he has come to do every day. He was taught early on that the news is the news; your covering the news is not news. That was the mantra of Harvey Yavener, with whom TB worked way back when in the newspaper business.

Back then, the idea of writing about himself - even if the third person - would never have dawned on him. Writing about his own experiences day after day? That would have been absurd.

It was a different world back then. Sportswriters wrote stories about coaches and athletes. The emphasis was on the ability to put words together. Analyzing games was what the beat writers did. Analyzing the people was what the feature writers did.

And the best writers could be found in one place - Sports Illustrated.

TigerBlog used to get the magazine out his mailbox every Thursday and read it cover to cover. The stories were so well crafted, week after week. And one name was more associated with that level of sportswriting than any other.

Frank Deford.

The legendary sportswriter passed away Monday, at the age of 78. In addition to his decades of work at Sports Illustrated, Deford also did essays on NPR and spent what was a fulfilling, if unsuccessful, tenure with the short-lived "The National," a daily sports newspaper that started in 1990 and lasted 18 months.

Deford also wrote books, both sports books and novels. Until he read the obit, TigerBlog had no idea that Deford had written "Everybody's All-American." He also was awarded the National Humanities Medal by former President Obama.

TigerBlog met Deford one time, back in 1996, when he spoke at a symposium on athletics in Dillon Gym as part of the University's 250th anniversary celebration. Joining Deford on the panel was Bob Costas; the moderator was Marvin Bressler, the late sociology professor and the inspiration for the Academic Athletic Fellows program.

Looking for some sense of who Deford was as a person, TigerBlog spoke with former Ford Family Director of Athletics Gary Walters, who was close to the writer. He was a wonderful man, Gary said. And he was a great friend of Princeton and Princeton athletics.

Deford, for those who don't know, was a member of the Princeton Class of 1962. He came to Princeton from the Gilman School in Baltimore, where he had been a basketball player. At Princeton, Deford - who stood 6-4 - began his writing career with the Daily Princetonian.

As Gary spoke about his old friend, TigerBlog was struck by the way he used the word "elegant" to describe him four separate times. He was talking about his attire, his penchant for dressing up with matching purple ties and handkerchiefs.

And he was talking about his writing.

TigerBlog spent some of yesterday rereading stories that Deford had written during his long career at Sports Illustrated. They are all stories that TigerBlog has read before, and they're all amazingly well done.

They're also from a different era. It was an era of elegance in writing, one that has been torn away by the combination of impatience in society and ego and money in of those who used to be called sportswriters.

Today, it's more standard to express yourself in 140 characters or even just in a picture with a captain. Both of those have seen words shortened or eliminated, because why write out, for example, "for what's worth" when you can write "FWIW."

Where's the elegance in that?

And sportswriters, as it were? The money isn't in elegant writing. It's in what they call "hot takes."

The formula now is 1) find a forum someplace, 2) rant and rave about something as crudely as possible, 3) hope to get on TV, 4) make money.

Again, where's the elegance in that?

The best features TigerBlog has ever written have been about Princeton lacrosse players and coaches and have come from knowing his subjects for years and years. How, TB has long wondered, did the Sports Illustrated writers come up with those features each week on people that they presumably never met and spent little time with prior to writing?

TigerBlog likes to write longer feature stories. The story he wrote about Zach Currier earlier this spring was more than 3,500 words, or 3.5 times the length of an average blog.

Who has the patience to read that when Twitter is so much easier?

If you think 3,500 words are a lot, how about Deford's pieces? They take awhile to read, but they are incredible works of art.

If you are a Princeton fan, you probably read this Sports Illustrated story on the 1965 men's basketball team's run to the Final Four once you heard of Deford's passing.

It's called "A Whole Team Touched By Stardust," and it brings to life one of the greatest moments in Princeton Athletics history. It also has this sentence: Playmaker Gary Walters, 5 feet 10, is a poised first-year man who can beat a press.

TigerBlog found a link to the best stories Deford ever wrote for the magazine. Pick anyone you like. They're all spectacular.

HERE'S the link.

TigerBlog remembered reading some of them. One he didn't remember is one that captured his attention yesterday.

It's called "The Boxer and the Blonde." Read it HERE.

Remember how TigerBlog's Currier feature was 3,500 words? This one is 12,000.

It's the story of boxer Billy Conn, his first fight against heavyweight champ Joe Louis and the summer of 1941. It's told 24 years after the fact. 

It's incredible. It's to sportswriting what "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is to literature. It's unbelievable storytelling - and the very best writing TB has ever read.

Late yesterday afternoon Gary stopped by TigerBlog's office. TB could tell how saddened he was at the passing of Frank Deford. He'd had him up to his house on Cape Cod and had spent countless times with him.

At one point, Gary asked if TB had gotten the pictures that he had sent, including the one he included here. Yes, TB said. Gary paused, not speaking for a few seconds. Then he shook his head and said softly "those were great times."

Gary was mourning the loss of his friend, Frank Deford, a great American sportswriter, as great as they have ever come.

He was, to use his friend's word, a man of elegance.

Even as the world around him lost its patience, and the ability to put words together became valued less, that elegance still lives on in the pieces he leaves behind.

That elegance, the elegance of Frank Deford, will last forever.

It Was A Long Ride Home

TigerBlog wanted to start off the week by sharing his thoughts from the weekend's NCAA men's and women's lacrosse championships.

He was in Foxboro all weekend, at Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots.

As TB mentioned when he was writing about the Fireside Inn near Dartmouth recently, some hotels offer rooms with beautiful views and others offer views of parking lots. Some offer both.

The view from TigerBlog's room looked right across the parking lot at the giant facility. It was quite a beautiful sight, especially at night with the stadium lights still on.

Towson, who would lose to Ohio State in a tough semifinal. Prior to that, Towson had been staying in the same hotel as TigerBlog, on the same floor, as a matter of fact. Towson would walk from the hotel to the stadium, which made for some pretty good social media posts.

TB saw eight games in four days: the Division I women's semifinals Friday, the Division I men's semifinals Saturday, the Division I women's final and the Division II and III men's finals Sunday at finally the Division I men's final yesterday.

He was part of the stat crew for all eight games.

You're jealous, right? Whatever you did couldn't possibly be any better than that.

The problem with putting together a post-tournament review is that TB couldn't do it until, well, post-tournament. And post-tournament wasn't going to come until late afternoon yesterday, in New England.

That left TigerBlog staring at a long, long ride back, one that figured to feature some serious holiday weekend traffic. He knew he wasn't getting back until past 11 at the earliest, and the last thing he was going to want to do was sit down and start writing.

So, you'll have to wait a day to hear all about it.

Ah, but that left him needing a subject that he could get through before he had to drive back, or before he had to work the last game. TB, though, is never at a loss for words, especially written ones.

He'll give you a little lacrosse.

The Major League Lacrosse draft was held Sunday. Zach Currier was the sixth overall pick, going to the Denver Outlaws, who traded three draft choices and a player to move up to get him.

TigerBlog was really happy to see Gavin McBride was also drafted, going in the fifth round, also to Denver. And he'd like to mention Brian Masi, who went in the ninth round to Atlanta and in doing so became the first Sacred Heart Pioneer ever to be drafted by Major League Lacrosse.

The end of Memorial Day weekend means that there are only two athletic events left for the 2016-17 academic year.

The IRA national rowing championships will be held this weekend in Sacramento, where the men's lightweights, men's heavyweights and women's lightweights will all be competing.

The other remaining event will be the NCAA track and field championships in Eugene, Oregon, which will be June 7-10. Princeton will be sending four athletes after this past weekend's regional qualifier in Kentucky: women's hammer thrower Julia Ratcliffe, women's pole vaulter Allison Harris, men's pole vaulter August Kiles and men's 1,500 meter runner William Paulson.

It would have been five, as it appeared that men's hammer thrower Adam Kelly originally qualified by finishing 12th, which was the last spot to advance. Unfortunately, two other throwers protested foul calls on throws and won their protests, which bumped Kelly to 14th.

Other than the rowing and track and field national championships, the rest of the academic year has come and gone.

Don't think for a minute that this will be a cushy week at Princeton though. Far from it.

This is one of the busiest times of year, with the Gary Walters ’67 Princeton Varsity Club Banquet Thursday night and then Reunions after that, followed by Class Day and Commencement.

Back when TigerBlog was in the newspaper business, every academic year began with the preseason luncheon at what was then Trenton State College and is now the College of New Jersey. TB has mentioned this before, but the president of the college began each luncheon by saying the same thing: "I predict that every Trenton State team will go undefeated this year."

Of course he was joking. But it was his line, every year TB was at the luncheon.

Each year, TigerBlog had the same feeling - he couldn't believe he was at another luncheon at TSC, that an entire year had come and gone.

He has the same feeling at the lacrosse championships and the banquet every time. Has another year really zoomed by?

Each year is special and different in its own way, each with its own highs and lows. Each one has its own banquet storylines. Each one makes TB wonder what the next year's storylines will be.

In the meantime, he'll have more on the banquet as the week goes along. And probably more on the lacrosse tomorrow.

He just couldn't do it today.

That was a long ride home.

What's The Capital Of Nebraska?

TigerBlog isn't sure when they taught state capitals.

He just knows that whoever taught him, it stuck. What is it about state capitals that make them so easy to remember?

Nebraska? Lincoln. It is Lincoln, right? It is.

Actually, it's possible it didn't stick as much as TigerBlog thought. He just took a quick quiz and he got two wrong. But not Nebraska. He was right about that one.

When he was in middle school or whenever he first started to learn this stuff, he struggled with North and South Dakota. He remembered Pierre and Bismark, just not which went with which. Bismark, by the way, is the North Dakota one.

So which two did he mess up?

Tennessee. He thought it was Knoxville, not Nashville.

And Kentucky. He thought it was Lexington, but it's Frankfurt. So that's 48 out of 50, or a 96 on the test.

As for Lexington, well, it's part of this week's edition of Friday notes.

* It's not the capital, but it's still important

While Lexington might be 26 miles away from the state capital in Frankfurt, it's the capital of Princeton track and field this weekend. There are 22 Princeton track and field athletes competing at the NCAA regional, beginning yesterday and continuing through tomorrow. The goal is to advance to the NCAA championships in two weeks in Eugene, Ore.

If you're looking for all kinds of information on the event this weekend, you can find it HERE.

There will be 14 men and eight women who compete.

Princeton has already had athletes who have qualified for Oregon.

Julia Ratcliffe, who figures to make a serious run at a second NCAA title (she also has been a runner-up), won the hammer throw at the regional. In the men's hammer, Adam Kelly earned a second-straight spot in the NCAA championships.

Allison Harris advanced in the pole vault for her first outdoor to the NCAA championships. She finished 10th this past winter at the indoor championships. 

* Double play

Princeton's men's tennis duo of Alex Day and Luke Gamble played yesterday at the NCAA doubles championships at the University of Georgia. That's in Athens, which is not the state capital. Atlanta is.

Day and Gamble became the first Princeton doubles team to reach the NCAA men's tennis tournament since 2001. The two had three wins over top 10 doubles teams prior to the NCAA event.

* Rowing championships

The IRA national championships are next weekend. So why mention them now? Because they're in Sacramento, which as everyone knows is the capital of California.

The NCAA women's championships will be this weekend, much closer, on Mercer Lake at Mercer County Park, which isn't quite in the state capital but is close. Trenton, by the way, is home of the only state capital building that is visible from another state.

Way more information about the women's championships than TigerBlog could ever give you can be found HERE.

The first varsity eight is undefeated this season, including an Ivy League championship. The Tigers are the fourth seed for the NCAA event.

The event begins today and runs through Sunday. If you're in the area, it's definitely worth attending, especially if you've never been to a major rowing regatta.

* Winning pitcher

TigerBlog got a text from Scott Jurgens, the former marketing director at Princeton, asking if he was looking for something to write about. Jurgens is now at Rice, which is in Houston, which, like a lot of other places in Texas, is not the capital. Austin is.

Jurgens is a big fan of the Toronto Blue Jays. Actually, TB has no idea why that is. He'll have to ask Jurgens one of these days. He doesn't have to ask how Barnaby, Scott's dog, is doing, because Scott keeps the world updated on Twitter.

Anyway, Scott texted TB the other day to say that Toronto's Danny Barnes, a Princeton alum, got his first Major League win Tuesday night, when he came on in relief and retired all five Milwaukee Brewers he faced.

Another Princeton alum, Mike Ford, is in Triple A now at Scranton-Wilkes Barre, one step below the Yankees. After hitting two home runs in 113 at-bats at Double-A Trenton, he hit four in his first 36 at-bats at Triple-A.

* Honoring Abby

Abby Finkelston was named the winner of the 2017 YRL Unsung Hero Award presented by the One Love Foundation.

The award is given annually to a male and a female Division I lacrosse player who demonstrate dedication, integrity, humility, hard work, community service, leadership, kindness and sportsmanship - all qualities Yeardley Love exemplified throughout her life.

Finkelston, a junior, missed the entire season due to injuries - but clearly she continues to make an impact on Princeton women's lacrosse. From the story: After sustaining severe injuries in a car accident in high school, Abby rebounded to become a starting attacker both her freshman and sophomore years. This year she had another setback with hip injuries that took her off the playing field. Through all of this, Abby has been a positive leader for her team. She even used her injury to help others in similar circumstances by founding the Wounded Tigers Network, a resource and support for injured student-athletes at Princeton. In addition to being an exemplary student-athlete, Abby has also been a longtime member of Best Buddies and is actively involved in its Princeton chapter.

In keeping with the theme of the day, Finkelston is from Leonardtown, Md., which is 70 miles away from Annapolis, the state capital.

* Updated predictions

The NCAA lacrosse championships are not being held in Boston, the state capital of Massachusetts. They are in Foxboro, which is about 30 miles away.

Unlike previous years, the men's and women's championships will be in the same building.

As a result, it'll be rather busy, with eight games in four days. It begins tonight with the women's Division I semifinals, continues tomorrow with the Division I men's semifinals, Sunday with the Division I women's final, the Division II men's final and the Division III men's final and concludes Monday with the Division I men's final.

For TigerBlog, this will be his 22nd Final Four in 25 years and his 13th straight as the official scorer. Speaking of 25 years, TigerBlog is looking forward to halftime Monday, when the 1992 Princeton men's team will be honored on the 25th anniversary of its NCAA title.

As for TB's thoughts on who will win, he said in mid-season that he thought Maryland would win both the men's and the women's championships. He'll stay with Maryland on the women's side.

As for the men, every time TB sees Ohio State play he's more impressed. He picked the Buckeyes to get to the final, and he'll stay with that, even though Towson, Ohio State's semifinal opponent, is definitely for real.

Towson, by the way, is the Final Four for the first time since 2001, when those Tigers lost to the Princeton Tigers 12-11 in the semifinal. It was Sean Hartofilis with the game-winner, if TB is remembering correctly.

The other side has Maryland, the team that TigerBlog thought in mid-season and pre-tournament would be playing Ohio State on Memorial Day, against Denver.

TigerBlog will go with two thoughts here: 1) Trevor Baptiste and 2) Bill Tierney. Maybe it's the fact that he spent 22 years with Tierney at Princeton, but TigerBlog will go with Denver. Especially if Baptiste wins face-offs the way he has been.

How Is Zach Currier Not First-Team All-America?

The first time TigerBlog wrote this, he buried the lead.

He's going to take a second shot at it. This time, he's made a slight change and started with the lead, which is simply this: How in the world is Zach Currier not a first-team All-America?

There. That's better.

The USILA men's lacrosse All-America teams were announced yesterday, and Currier was a second-team selection. This comes after Currier put up a season that, in TigerBlog's opinion, is unmatchable by a midfielder.

In case you forgot, Currier had 24 goals, 34 assists and 58 points. There were four first-team All-America middies, and none of them - and no other Division I midfielder, for that matter - had more points than Currier.

For a little context by the way, Tom Schreiber, with whom Currier played in 2014 when Schreiber was a senior, is one of the two best passing middies TigerBlog has ever seen (Duke's Myles Jones, now in the MLL, is the other). Even Schreiber never had more than 32 assists in a season at Princeton, or two fewer than Currier had this year.

And Currier isn't even known as a scoring midfielder.

Add to his scoring totals these other stats. He led Princeton in caused turnovers (as a shortstick offensive midfielder; has anyone else ever done that?) and won 56.4 percent of his 202 face-offs. Has anyone who ever had a 58-point season done that?

Lastly, he picked up 130 ground balls. That's a ton. The four first-team All-America middies combined have 36 ground balls. That's not each. That's total between them.

As TB also said, Currier is a player whose numbers don't define him who nevertheless has numbers that are stunning. What really makes Currier special, though, is his ability to impact every aspect of a game, from start to finish, making himself a total pain in the butt for the opponent, without ever leaving the field. 

TigerBlog wrote a few weeks ago that he thought that Currier was the best player in Division I lacrosse this year, and he stands by that. This was before the five Tewaaraton Trophy finalists were announced, when Currier was one of the 25 nominees. TigerBlog didn't expect Currier to be among the five, understanding that not reaching the NCAA tournament was going to hurt his chances.

Still, when it came to All-America, there are two players who should have been complete no-brainers: Currier, and Denver face-off specialist Trevor Baptiste. Everyone else was subject to debate. Not those two.

There will always be snubs for All-America teams. You know, players who had exceptional seasons but didn't get the recognition.

When TB first looked at the list yesterday, he was hoping to see a few names that weren't there and probably should have been. Greg Wozniak, a former high school teammate of TigerBlog Jr. and an All-Patriot League defenseman from Boston University. It would have been nice to see his name.

Then there was Ryan O'Donoghue, a defenseman from Sacred Heart who was the Northeast Conference Defensive Player of the Year. TigerBlog hasn't seen too many poles who can take the ball away while still staying in position quite like O'Donoghue, who was second in Division I in caused turnovers. It would have been nice to see him too, but he wasn't there.

What happened with Currier is different. So different that TigerBlog has no idea how it possibly happened.

Then again, he also doesn't understand the whole Gavin McBride thing.

Princeton had two All-Americas.

Michael Sowers was a third-team selection on attack. The freshman set a Princeton record with 82 points this season, and he ranks second in Division I in points per game, behind only Connor Fields of Albany, a first-team selection.

Would TigerBlog like to have seen Sowers higher? Yes. Does he understand why Sowers was only third-team. Yes.

Then there's McBride, who is second in Division I in goals scored behind Fields (55-54) and first in Division I in goals per game. McBride's 54 goals also set the Princeton record for goals in a season.

His reward was nothing. Not first-team. Or second. Or third. Or honorable mention. In all, there were 32 attackmen honored, and McBride wasn't one of them.

In many ways, that's harder to believe than the fact that Currier wasn't first team.

Honestly, TigerBlog would love to hear the behind-the-scenes of how this happened, so he could understand it. 

The whole situation led TigerBlog to ask himself a question: Is it his place to be critical of the selections, or merely to report them?

He works in college athletic communications. Is it okay for him to critique things? 

When he first started doing this, it would never have dawned on him that his role would be to do anything other than simply put out facts. When he used to do media notes way back before there was a webpage, he wouldn't even use any kind of modifiers to describe accomplishments. There would be no "Smith has only thrown two interceptions in 150 passes."

Nope. Just facts. Let the media decide what to do with them.

Looking back on that, it seems like a fairly quaint notion. And a time long gone.

TigerBlog asks his Office of Athletic Communications colleagues all the time what they would do if they were starting from scratch. What is it that people are looking for when they want to see something about Princeton Athletics?

It's a balancing act.

In 2017, a large segment of the people who are looking for information are looking for what can be described as "commentary." It doesn't have to be ugly commentary. It doesn't have to be edgy. But it doesn't have to be plain facts either.

On the other hand, the OAC is an arm of the Department of Athletics and the University and as such has a responsibility for professionalism and proper conduct, especially in content that is so public.

TB thinks the OAC has done a good job of getting away from just who, what, when and where without getting unprofessionally into why. He wouldn't tolerate stories or social media posts that are, for examples, critical of the officials or the other team's coaches or anything like.

There's a line out there that can't be crossed. It used to be the line was right on the barrier between facts and opinions, but hey, TigerBlog has nearly a decade of sharing his opinions with you every day right here.

So again, his question is this: Can he be critical of the All-America selections, or does he need to simply report them?

Anyway, there were 16 first-team All-Americas and 15 of them played in the NCAA tournament. That's a big deal. Princeton nearly doubled its win total, going from five wins to nine wins, and the Tigers had a 50 percent increase in scoring, going from 10 goals a game to just a shade under 15.

But the Tigers did not play in the NCAA tournament. That is true.

Is that why Currier wasn't first-team? If so, then it's ridiculous.

Is it TigerBlog's place to be critical? He's not sure.

Maybe he should just leave you with what he tweeted yesterday:
"Been around Princeton lax for 28 years, six NCAA/17 Ivy titles and 31 1st-team AA. Never saw anyone have a better year than Currier in '17."

Yeah. He'll just leave it with that.

2017 - The Greatest Class Of Top Women Athletes Ever

There is the kind of rain that falls softly and gently as you lie in bed listening to it or sit on a covered porch watching it.

Then there's the kind of rain that just pelts you when you're standing outside, leaving you soaked and miserable.

The first is beautiful. The second is annoying.

TigerBlog had to deal with the second kind during the Ivy League men's lacrosse tournament a few weeks ago in New Haven, when the rain fell pretty much all day, in pretty substantial amounts. Fortunately, TigerBlog had his trusty "Education Through Athletics" umbrella.

Unfortunately, the rain stopped when the game ended - and TB left it in the press box at Reese Stadium. He'd had it for, what, five or six years, and just like that it was gone.

It was a great umbrella too. It was big and sturdy, and in all that time the wind never got the better of it. And just like that, it was a gone - a Princeton umbrella in a Connecticut press box, a Tiger lost among the Bulldogs.

Speaking of bulldogs, TigerBlog saw a story that Yale's newest Handsome Dan is a different kind of Bulldog than his 17 predecessors. From the New Haven Register story:

The dog, also known as Walter, is not a member of the traditional bulldog breed at all. He’s an Olde English Bulldogge, a recently developed version of the lovable, friendly dog that has won the hearts of Elis since Yale introduced the first college mascot in 1889, according to Chris Getman, who was the handler for four Handsome Dans over 33 years.

Anyway, to the rescue came Kim Meszaros, who was able to dig up another umbrella for TigerBlog. This one doesn't say "Education Through Athletics" but instead has the big striped P. Either way, it's the same umbrella, only brand new.

So thanks, Kimmie. TigerBlog is grateful.

TigerBlog thought he would need the new umbrella yesterday, when he found himself at Springdale Golf Club. It was the seventh hole. Or maybe the 12th. He's not sure actually. He does know it never rained, which is good.

Was he playing? No, TigerBlog hasn't played golf in about 15 years or so. No, he was part of the  crew for a series of videos that featured Spencer Weisz of the men's basketball team.

TB will have more on that another time.

For now, TB would rather focus on the announcements of the top senior male and female athletes at Princeton. Weisz was one of six finalists for the Roper Trophy, along with his teammate Steven Cook, lacrosse player Zach Currier, fencer Alex House, football player Dorian Williams and hockey goalie Colton Phinney.

There are 10 finalists for the von Kienbusch Award, given to the outstanding senior female athlete. Ten? Is that a lot?

Yes, it is. Then again, it's fine with TigerBlog, since the Class of 2017 is the greatest class of top female athletes that Princeton has ever seen. And Princeton has seen some great ones.

The 10 finalists are, alphabetically: field hockey player Cat Caro, lacrosse goalie Ellie DeGarmo, fencer Kat Holmes, lacrosse player Olivia Hompe, water polo player Ashleigh Johnson, hockey player Kelsey Koelzer, soccer player Tyler Lussi, volleyball player Cara Mattaliano, fencer Anna Van Brummen and hammer thrower Julia Ratcliffe.

So what do these 10 bring to the table?

There are two Olympians, including a gold-medal winner. There are two individual national NCAA champions. There are eight first-team All-Americas and one second-team All-America. There are seven Ivy Players of the Year, including five who did it more than once.

They are NCAA leaders, school-record holders, league champs, NCAA championship participants. The list of their accomplishments is extraordinary.

TigerBlog and his Office of Athletic Communications colleagues knew this group would be getting to the finish line at the same time when it was clear that Johnson, Holmes and Ratcliffe would all be returning to Princeton this academic year after taking off to train for the Olympics.

These 10 are among the best players Princeton has ever seen in their sport. For TigerBlog's money, probably half are the absolute best who ever have played their sport here.

It's been an extraordinary four (actually four-plus, with the three who took a year off for the Olympics) years with this group.

TigerBlog has said this many times before, but it's not just the quality of the female athletes. It's the way that the average male Princeton fan has embraced them.

TB hears it all the time. Each time, he thinks back to when he first started, when nearly every male fan referred to female athletes as "girls" without ever remotely considering referring to male athletes as "boys." It's not a Title IX thing. It's not an equity thing. It's not a sexist thing.

It's a respect thing.

It's an understanding of just how great these athletes are. The 10 women who are finalists for the award are amazing athletes.

When you're amazing, people notice. And that's what has happened here.

And there you have it. The 10 finalists for the von Kienbusch Award for 2017 - the greatest class of top female athletes Princeton has ever known.