You remember Ernie, right?
TigerBlog has mentioned him a bunch of times. He's the amiable head of athletic communications at Johns Hopkins, and he and TB go way back.
It's always good to see Ernie, either at a Princeton-Hopkins game or at an NCAA game, like this past Saturday night, when TB was in Baltimore for the 88th meeting between the Tigers and Blue Jays.
It was a busy night at Hopkins. And a windy one.
If you've ever been to Hopkins, you know that the lacrosse/football stadium is called Homewood Field, and it's one of only two places in college lacrosse that has more NCAA men's lacrosse championship banners than Sherrerd Field here at Princeton.
If you're on the press box side of Homewood, then to your right is the baseball field. It's a FieldTurf field, and a really nice one. This past Saturday, there was a doubleheader on it, which meant a very long, very frozen day for the Blue Jays baseball team.
Homewood hosted a lacrosse doubleheader, as the women's team defeated Furman 19-0 before Princeton's 16-9 loss to the Hopkins men.
And behind Homewood was the building that also is home to the basketball arena. The men's lacrosse game began at 6. At 8 was an NCAA second-round men's basketball game between Johns Hopkins and MIT.
What did Ernie have to say about that game?
"First one to 1600 wins."
If you need TB to explain the joke, then chances are you didn't get 1600.
MIT would end up winning the game, which was a pretty good one. TigerBlog wrote his lacrosse story from press row there, so he got to see about 15 minutes of the game.
Like most Division III facilities, the gym at Hopkins is relatively small, which means it gets relatively loud when it's filled, like it was for the NCAA game. It was the first Division III basketball game TB has seen in a long time, and it took him back to when he covered Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey) games for five years.
Back then, there'd be Princeton on Friday and Saturday nights, with TSC (or TCNJ) games and Rider games mixed in during the week. There were also days when he'd be at one of the other two Saturday afternoon and Princeton at night.
Anyway, Princeton's lacrosse locker room was down a stairwell, where it always is. MIT's was next to Princeton, with a shared common area at the bottom of the stairs.
TB was standing in that common area as the Princeton players started to leave and head up the stairs after showering. This was also halftime of the basketball game, so the MIT players were coming down the stairs and passing the Princeton players as they did.
Princeton and MIT. At Johns Hopkins.
That's a lot of smart athletes in a small space.
Yes, the lure of playing in games like the Big East men's basketball championship game at Madison Square Garden is huge. The problem is that too many people think of college athletics simply as that, or big-time college football - and with both come all the excesses that cause all the very familiar problems.
Most of the people playing college sports are doing so because they love the sport they play and are honored and lucky to be able to continue to play it. Some, like the athletes TB saw Saturday night from all three schools, are doing so while at some of the most difficult academic schools in the world.
And they love to play just as much as any athlete who is wearing an Oklahoma football uniform. And it's just as important to them.
If you want to see some more smart guys, you can come to Sherrerd Field tonight at 6. It'll be Princeton against NJIT in men's lacrosse.
If you don't know much about NJIT, it's an elite engineering school. It's also one trying to make its way in the world of lacrosse.
The team is in its fourth year. This will be the third meeting with Princeton, who has won the first two by a combined 43-12.
Up next for Princeton will be Rutgers here Saturday at 1, followed by Penn in the Ivy opener a week from Saturday at 4. The season has just started, but it will zoom by.
Speaking of zooming, Michael Sowers has zoomed to the brink of 100 career points. He enters tonight's game with 97 of them, with 46 goals and 51 assists, in 18 career games.
Should he get three points within the next three games, he will become the fastest Princeton player to reach the 100 point mark. Currently the record is 22 games, set by Wick Sollers and David Tickner, who both did it in the same game, back in 1976.
Anyway, it's Princeton and NJIT tonight at 6.
It's another matchup of smart guys.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Monday, March 5, 2018
Windy And Wild
As extraordinary weekends go, it's hard to beat this past one, and not just because the winds around here threatened to blow Mercer County into Monmouth County and Monmouth County into the Atlantic Ocean.
The storm that came through here wasn't remarkable because of the amount of snow (not a lot) or rain (annoying but dealable, if that is a word, which it isn't) but for the wind, which was incredible and long-lasting.
If you've ever driven down I-95 from Princeton to Baltimore, you know of the Millard Tydings Bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna River and connects Cecil County and Harford County in Maryland. The winds were so bad Friday that the bridge was closed, which turned the trip for the men's lacrosse bus from Princeton to Johns Hopkins from its usual two-plus hours into a nightmarish 6:30.
And that was nothing compared to what happened to Georgetown's men's lacrosse team, who apparently was on its bus for nearly 24 hours in an attempt to get to Hofstra, only to not get anywhere near Hempstead and have to turn around.
Millard Tydings, by the way, was a longtime U.S. Senator from Maryland whose granddaughter Eleanor played lacrosse at Princeton.
Anyway, that's not the extraordinary stuff that TigerBlog meant earlier.
He's talking about Princeton basketball.
Princeton's women's team went into the weekend needing one win (or Penn loss) to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title and the top seed in the upcoming Ivy League tournament. With a combination of two Princeton wins or Penn losses, the Tigers would get the outright Ivy title.
The drama about getting a share of the championship and the top seed vanished relatively quickly, as Princeton built a 16-point lead at the end of the first quarter Friday night against Brown. The Tigers were never really threatened from there, en route to a 79-44 win.
In the end, it was a night for history at Jadwin Gym, and not just because Princeton won another Ivy title. If you're keeping scoring, that's six under Courtney Banghart.
The real history came from Leslie Robinson, who finished with 10 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, giving her a triple double. A rare triple double. Probably an unprecedented triple double.
A triple double, by the way, is when a player has double figures in three statistical categories in the same game. TigerBlog has researched the men's side, and no men's player has ever had one - though assists weren't kept as a stat until after Bill Bradley played.
As for the women, there's nothing to suggest that this wasn't the first triple double in Princeton history. In fact, it is believed to be the second in Ivy history along with one by Carla Kelly of Cornell back in 1988. If further investigating reveals otherwise, then TB will issue a correction here.
Triple double aside, Robinson's passing has been extraordinary this season. She is part of a lineup that is deep and balanced as it heads into the Ivy tournament.
Not that it'll be an easy trip to the Palestra this coming weekend. First up, Saturday at 6, will be Yale, a team that has already beaten Princeton by double digits this year. The winner of that game gets either Harvard, the other team to have defeated Princeton in the league, or Penn, the host team and defending Ivy tournament champ.
While Robinson was putting up her historic numbers, the men's team was going through something extraordinary as well.
When the weekend started, the men needed five outcomes to get them into the Ivy tournament - wins at Brown and Yale, a Cornell loss to Harvard and Columbia losses to Dartmouth and Harvard.
TigerBlog kept checking his phone for updates as he watched the women's game and then the men's hockey ECAC opening round game. The men's hockey team, by the way, would outscore Brown 15-3 in the two-game sweep.
It became clear quickly that Princeton was going to beat Brown. It seemed to be clear that Columbia was going to lose to Dartmouth, since the Big Green were up by about 15 or so every time TB looked. It also was clear that Harvard-Cornell would be close.
The next thing TB knew, Dartmouth had beaten Columbia by two. Close, yes, but it was what Princeton needed.
With the win over Brown completed and the Columbia loss, Princeton now needed Harvard to beat Cornell. This put Princeton fans everywhere in the really, really weird position of rooting for Harvard to knock off Brian Earl, the former Princeton great who is now the head coach at Cornell.
Harvard would eventually do so, even if it took two overtimes. The entire time, every Princeton fan had to be thinking like TB: "Sorry Brian. Sorry Brian. Sorry Brian."
And so that brought about Saturday night. Now Princeton needed a Yale win and a Columbia loss to Harvard, something that seemed pretty likely, given that the Crimson were playing for the top seed and a share of the championship. That game was never a total blowout, but Harvard was in control start to finish.
By that time, Cornell had finished off Dartmouth, and that meant the Ivy tournament was down to this: Harvard the top seed, Penn (the co-champ) the second seed, Yale the third seed and then either Princeton (with a win at Yale) or Cornell (with a Yale win over Princeton) as the fourth seed.
The men's lacrosse game at Johns Hopkins was wrapping up at the same time, and so TB was trying to follow hoops on his phone. He saw Princeton was behind pretty much the whole way, but when he checked it one last time, he saw that the Tigers had forced OT. The wild weekend continued.
In the end, Yale made the backbreaking three to snap a tie in that OT, and Princeton would eventually fall just short. The Tigers' absence sends Brian Earl and his Big Red to Philadelphia instead.
For Princeton, it's a disappointing end to a season that had some great moments, one year after the Tigers went 16-0 to win the regular season and first tournament. Those kinds of seasons don't happen every day, as it were.
For Brian Earl, it's a remarkable coaching achievement in Year 2 in Ithaca. No, his team didn't win the league or even reach .500 in the league, but getting the Big Red into the tournament warrants Ivy Coach of the Year honors in TB's eyes.
And now Princeton fans are free to root for him guilt-free next weekend.
TigerBlog certainly will be.
The storm that came through here wasn't remarkable because of the amount of snow (not a lot) or rain (annoying but dealable, if that is a word, which it isn't) but for the wind, which was incredible and long-lasting.
If you've ever driven down I-95 from Princeton to Baltimore, you know of the Millard Tydings Bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna River and connects Cecil County and Harford County in Maryland. The winds were so bad Friday that the bridge was closed, which turned the trip for the men's lacrosse bus from Princeton to Johns Hopkins from its usual two-plus hours into a nightmarish 6:30.
And that was nothing compared to what happened to Georgetown's men's lacrosse team, who apparently was on its bus for nearly 24 hours in an attempt to get to Hofstra, only to not get anywhere near Hempstead and have to turn around.
Millard Tydings, by the way, was a longtime U.S. Senator from Maryland whose granddaughter Eleanor played lacrosse at Princeton.
Anyway, that's not the extraordinary stuff that TigerBlog meant earlier.
He's talking about Princeton basketball.
Princeton's women's team went into the weekend needing one win (or Penn loss) to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title and the top seed in the upcoming Ivy League tournament. With a combination of two Princeton wins or Penn losses, the Tigers would get the outright Ivy title.
The drama about getting a share of the championship and the top seed vanished relatively quickly, as Princeton built a 16-point lead at the end of the first quarter Friday night against Brown. The Tigers were never really threatened from there, en route to a 79-44 win.
In the end, it was a night for history at Jadwin Gym, and not just because Princeton won another Ivy title. If you're keeping scoring, that's six under Courtney Banghart.
The real history came from Leslie Robinson, who finished with 10 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, giving her a triple double. A rare triple double. Probably an unprecedented triple double.
A triple double, by the way, is when a player has double figures in three statistical categories in the same game. TigerBlog has researched the men's side, and no men's player has ever had one - though assists weren't kept as a stat until after Bill Bradley played.
As for the women, there's nothing to suggest that this wasn't the first triple double in Princeton history. In fact, it is believed to be the second in Ivy history along with one by Carla Kelly of Cornell back in 1988. If further investigating reveals otherwise, then TB will issue a correction here.
Triple double aside, Robinson's passing has been extraordinary this season. She is part of a lineup that is deep and balanced as it heads into the Ivy tournament.
Not that it'll be an easy trip to the Palestra this coming weekend. First up, Saturday at 6, will be Yale, a team that has already beaten Princeton by double digits this year. The winner of that game gets either Harvard, the other team to have defeated Princeton in the league, or Penn, the host team and defending Ivy tournament champ.
While Robinson was putting up her historic numbers, the men's team was going through something extraordinary as well.
When the weekend started, the men needed five outcomes to get them into the Ivy tournament - wins at Brown and Yale, a Cornell loss to Harvard and Columbia losses to Dartmouth and Harvard.
TigerBlog kept checking his phone for updates as he watched the women's game and then the men's hockey ECAC opening round game. The men's hockey team, by the way, would outscore Brown 15-3 in the two-game sweep.
It became clear quickly that Princeton was going to beat Brown. It seemed to be clear that Columbia was going to lose to Dartmouth, since the Big Green were up by about 15 or so every time TB looked. It also was clear that Harvard-Cornell would be close.
The next thing TB knew, Dartmouth had beaten Columbia by two. Close, yes, but it was what Princeton needed.
With the win over Brown completed and the Columbia loss, Princeton now needed Harvard to beat Cornell. This put Princeton fans everywhere in the really, really weird position of rooting for Harvard to knock off Brian Earl, the former Princeton great who is now the head coach at Cornell.
Harvard would eventually do so, even if it took two overtimes. The entire time, every Princeton fan had to be thinking like TB: "Sorry Brian. Sorry Brian. Sorry Brian."
And so that brought about Saturday night. Now Princeton needed a Yale win and a Columbia loss to Harvard, something that seemed pretty likely, given that the Crimson were playing for the top seed and a share of the championship. That game was never a total blowout, but Harvard was in control start to finish.
By that time, Cornell had finished off Dartmouth, and that meant the Ivy tournament was down to this: Harvard the top seed, Penn (the co-champ) the second seed, Yale the third seed and then either Princeton (with a win at Yale) or Cornell (with a Yale win over Princeton) as the fourth seed.
The men's lacrosse game at Johns Hopkins was wrapping up at the same time, and so TB was trying to follow hoops on his phone. He saw Princeton was behind pretty much the whole way, but when he checked it one last time, he saw that the Tigers had forced OT. The wild weekend continued.
In the end, Yale made the backbreaking three to snap a tie in that OT, and Princeton would eventually fall just short. The Tigers' absence sends Brian Earl and his Big Red to Philadelphia instead.
For Princeton, it's a disappointing end to a season that had some great moments, one year after the Tigers went 16-0 to win the regular season and first tournament. Those kinds of seasons don't happen every day, as it were.
For Brian Earl, it's a remarkable coaching achievement in Year 2 in Ithaca. No, his team didn't win the league or even reach .500 in the league, but getting the Big Red into the tournament warrants Ivy Coach of the Year honors in TB's eyes.
And now Princeton fans are free to root for him guilt-free next weekend.
TigerBlog certainly will be.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Best Wishes
TigerBlog saw the unhappy news yesterday that Jim Kelly's cancer had returned.
Kelly is the former quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. He was honored at the NCAA convention in January in Indianapolis, and TigerBlog presented former men's lacrosse player David Morrow with the Silver Anniversary Award at the same event.
Kelly had an incredible attitude about his first two bouts with cancer, and about his young son's fatal illness and the campaign he and his wife undertook to raise money to fight that disease and other rare diseases.
TigerBlog was very impressed with Kelly. He was friendly and approachable. Humble. Positive.
And now he's back into the same fight he's already won twice. When he first saw the news yesterday, TigerBlog was immediately saddened by it, having met Kelly very recently. Then he figured that if anyone can stare cancer down a third time, it's Jim Kelly.
TB had always liked Kelly as a player. He rooted for him in three Super Bowls. Now that he's talked to him, he can tell you that he's someone you definitely want to pull for here. Hopefully the next news about him will be good news.
TigerBlog wanted to start with his good wishes for Jim Kelly before heading into the weekend in Princeton Athletics. And this weekend is about as busy as it ever gets.
Just to give a bit of a rundown, you have:
* the last weekend of the Ivy basketball regular season
* a home series in the ECAC playoffs
* the individual national championships in squash
* NCAA bids to be determined in wrestling
* the 88th meeting between Princeton and Johns Hopkins in men's lacrosse
* the Ivy League opener in women's lacrosse
* opening weekend for baseball and softball
* lots of home tennis
* home volleyball, including a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 1998 NCAA Final Four team
* women's water polo in California
The complete schedule is HERE.
If TigerBlog is seeing it right, then there are 36 events this weekend, between the 14 teams he listed. Many, actually most, of those events are major ones.
The EIWA wrestling championships will be held at Hofstra. Princeton finished second last year at the EIWA meet, and the Tigers sent a program-record seven wrestlers to the NCAA tournament from there.
Princeton has won three individual EIWA titles in the last 31 years. The third one came a year ago, when Matthew Kolodzik won as a freshman.
If you want a lot of information about Princeton for the EIWA meet, click HERE. TigerBlog's colleague Craig Sachson put that together; he knows way more about all of this than TB does.
The ECAC hockey playoffs begin at Hobey Baker Rink tonight, as Princeton hosts Brown in Game 1 of the best-of-three. Face-off tonight, tomorrow and if necessary Sunday will be at 7.
If it goes the distance, it has to be pretty grueling to play three hockey games in three days, especially with overtimes mixed in. On the other hand, it didn't seem to bother anyone last year, when Princeton beat Colgate in three games, two of which went overtime.
Princeton is 2-11 all-time in ECAC opening round series, with a win over Brown in 1997 and then last year's. As TB said earlier in the week, Princeton is 1-1 this year against Brown, with a 7-2 win and a 3-0 loss.
In the squash national championships, the biggest Princeton storyline will be how freshman Youssef Ibrahim does.
In the lacrosse world, the women are at Brown for the Ivy League opener. Princeton actually does not return home until March 24, when the Tigers will take on Dartmouth.
By then, five of the first six games will have been away from home. After that, six of the last nine will be at home, including four straight, against Maryland, Yale, Cornell and Penn.
The men will be in Baltimore to take on Johns Hopkins. Princeton and Hopkins have met every year since 1936, except for 1944.
The teams have split the last 18 meetings, including last year's 18-7 win in Princeton, which happened to be the largest margin of victory Princeton has ever had against the Blue Jays.
The 88th meeting will be tomorrow in Baltimore, with face-off at 6. The game is on ESPN3, with the replay on ESPNU at 10 am Sunday.
If you clicked on the schedule link above, you saw the rest of what it is going on this weekend.
And as a reminder where the basketball races stand, Princeton plays Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow, with the women home and the men away.
The men need to win twice, have Columbia lose twice and have Cornell lose to Harvard to get into the Ivy League tournament.
The women need a win in either of the two games to clinch the Ivy title and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, which will be held next Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia.
Kelly is the former quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. He was honored at the NCAA convention in January in Indianapolis, and TigerBlog presented former men's lacrosse player David Morrow with the Silver Anniversary Award at the same event.
Kelly had an incredible attitude about his first two bouts with cancer, and about his young son's fatal illness and the campaign he and his wife undertook to raise money to fight that disease and other rare diseases.
TigerBlog was very impressed with Kelly. He was friendly and approachable. Humble. Positive.
And now he's back into the same fight he's already won twice. When he first saw the news yesterday, TigerBlog was immediately saddened by it, having met Kelly very recently. Then he figured that if anyone can stare cancer down a third time, it's Jim Kelly.
TB had always liked Kelly as a player. He rooted for him in three Super Bowls. Now that he's talked to him, he can tell you that he's someone you definitely want to pull for here. Hopefully the next news about him will be good news.
TigerBlog wanted to start with his good wishes for Jim Kelly before heading into the weekend in Princeton Athletics. And this weekend is about as busy as it ever gets.
Just to give a bit of a rundown, you have:
* the last weekend of the Ivy basketball regular season
* a home series in the ECAC playoffs
* the individual national championships in squash
* NCAA bids to be determined in wrestling
* the 88th meeting between Princeton and Johns Hopkins in men's lacrosse
* the Ivy League opener in women's lacrosse
* opening weekend for baseball and softball
* lots of home tennis
* home volleyball, including a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the 1998 NCAA Final Four team
* women's water polo in California
The complete schedule is HERE.
If TigerBlog is seeing it right, then there are 36 events this weekend, between the 14 teams he listed. Many, actually most, of those events are major ones.
The EIWA wrestling championships will be held at Hofstra. Princeton finished second last year at the EIWA meet, and the Tigers sent a program-record seven wrestlers to the NCAA tournament from there.
Princeton has won three individual EIWA titles in the last 31 years. The third one came a year ago, when Matthew Kolodzik won as a freshman.
If you want a lot of information about Princeton for the EIWA meet, click HERE. TigerBlog's colleague Craig Sachson put that together; he knows way more about all of this than TB does.
The ECAC hockey playoffs begin at Hobey Baker Rink tonight, as Princeton hosts Brown in Game 1 of the best-of-three. Face-off tonight, tomorrow and if necessary Sunday will be at 7.
If it goes the distance, it has to be pretty grueling to play three hockey games in three days, especially with overtimes mixed in. On the other hand, it didn't seem to bother anyone last year, when Princeton beat Colgate in three games, two of which went overtime.
Princeton is 2-11 all-time in ECAC opening round series, with a win over Brown in 1997 and then last year's. As TB said earlier in the week, Princeton is 1-1 this year against Brown, with a 7-2 win and a 3-0 loss.
In the squash national championships, the biggest Princeton storyline will be how freshman Youssef Ibrahim does.
In the lacrosse world, the women are at Brown for the Ivy League opener. Princeton actually does not return home until March 24, when the Tigers will take on Dartmouth.
By then, five of the first six games will have been away from home. After that, six of the last nine will be at home, including four straight, against Maryland, Yale, Cornell and Penn.
The men will be in Baltimore to take on Johns Hopkins. Princeton and Hopkins have met every year since 1936, except for 1944.
The teams have split the last 18 meetings, including last year's 18-7 win in Princeton, which happened to be the largest margin of victory Princeton has ever had against the Blue Jays.
The 88th meeting will be tomorrow in Baltimore, with face-off at 6. The game is on ESPN3, with the replay on ESPNU at 10 am Sunday.
If you clicked on the schedule link above, you saw the rest of what it is going on this weekend.
And as a reminder where the basketball races stand, Princeton plays Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow, with the women home and the men away.
The men need to win twice, have Columbia lose twice and have Cornell lose to Harvard to get into the Ivy League tournament.
The women need a win in either of the two games to clinch the Ivy title and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, which will be held next Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
First Pitches
TigerBlog went to the eye doctor yesterday morning.
He's been going to the same eye doctor for 25 years, by the way, ever since he first figured out he needed glasses. He's worn them ever since.
His vision is actually terrible without his glasses. He wears them pretty much the entire time he's awake.
He's never worn contact lenses. Those are definitely not his thing. He just would never be okay touching his own eyeballs.
And of course, that leads to the conversation that he had with FatherBlog yesterday, just after he left the doctor. It went something like this:
FB: What's new?
TB: Leaving the eye doctor.
FB: Are you okay?
TB: Need new glasses.
FB: You have to get glasses?
TB: New ones.
FB: You wear glasses?
TB: Only for about 25 years.
FB: You mean contacts?
TB: No. Glasses.
FB: Do you only wear them at night or something? I wouldn't have seen you in them.
TB: This is a joke, right?
TigerBlog still isn't 100 percent sure if his father was messing with him, though he doesn't think he was. It's possible that he genuinely cannot remember that 100 percent of the time that he's seen him in the last 25 years, he's been wearing eyeglasses.
Here's another thing about the eye doctor: the drops sting. And they dilate the pupils, which means that any light is blinding. Yesterday? It was the brightest, sunniest day you'll ever see. Only go to the eye doctor on cloudy days.
There are clouds today. There's also a Nor'easter on the way, one that will bring cold, wind and rain to this area and snow to areas a bit north and west of here. It's March, after all. It's supposed to come in like a lion.
February went out like a lamb. That's for sure. If recent trends hold, then January is cold, February is warm, March is brutal, April is what early March was supposed to be, May will be what late March or early April is supposed to be and then everyone will wake up one day in early June to 90 degrees, where it will stay for a few months.
If you want a sure thing for the weather, of course, there's always the Phoenix area. That's where the Princeton softball team will be this weekend, as the Tigers open the season with five games in Arizona.
If you want the entire rundown, it's this:
Princeton plays UNLV at 11:30 a.m. local time/1:30 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow, followed by a game against Grand Canyon at 4:30 p.m. local time. The schedule Saturday has the Tigers against South Dakota at 11:30 a.m. local, followed by another game against Grand Canyon at 4:30 p.m. local, before wrapping up the weekend against Valparaiso at 9 a.m. local time Sunday.
That's a great way to start a season. Interestingly, Grand Canyon has already played 17 games. UNLV has already played 14.
Princeton has won the last two Ivy League championships in softball and is the preseason favorite at least to win this year's.
The baseball team also opens the season this weekend, in Wilmington, N.C. The forecast might be Arizonian for Wilmington, but it still should be good, with clear skies (the first requirement) and temps around 60.
UNC Wilmington, by the way, has played eight games already.
The Princeton baseball team won the Ivy title two years ago and played in the NCAA regional in Lafayette, Louisiana. TigerBlog was there. He loved it.
This year will be different than years past in Ivy League baseball and softball.
For more than 10 years, the Ivy League had two divisions in both, and the winners would play each other in the league championship series. The regular season saw each team play four games against the teams in its division and then two against the other four not in its division.
Starting this year, there will be seven weekends with three games - doubleheaders Saturday and a single game Sunday - against each other league team. At the end of the year, each team will have played 21 games, three against each of the other seven teams.
At that point, the top two will play each other in the two league championship events.
TB is pretty sure that the baseball and softball teams will not both be home against the same opponents and on the road against the same opponents on the same weekends.
Also different is that none of the series are split to balance home and away, like it was in the past when Princeton and Cornell would play a doubleheader here and another one in Ithaca, leaving both with 10 home league games and 10 away league games. Now, with this format, half the league will play 12 home league games and the other half will play nine.
Not that anyone asked, but TigerBlog loves the new format. There should be great races for the top two spots, but teams well below .500 don't figure to still be in the race late simply because one of the divisions is way better than the other, as often happened.
Either way, it's opening weekend for baseball and softball, and they're both likely to find good weather.
The first league weekend is March 24 and 25, and both Princeton teams will be home. Those will also be the home openers for both.
Hopefully the weather then will be in the "lamb" phase.
He's been going to the same eye doctor for 25 years, by the way, ever since he first figured out he needed glasses. He's worn them ever since.
His vision is actually terrible without his glasses. He wears them pretty much the entire time he's awake.
He's never worn contact lenses. Those are definitely not his thing. He just would never be okay touching his own eyeballs.
And of course, that leads to the conversation that he had with FatherBlog yesterday, just after he left the doctor. It went something like this:
FB: What's new?
TB: Leaving the eye doctor.
FB: Are you okay?
TB: Need new glasses.
FB: You have to get glasses?
TB: New ones.
FB: You wear glasses?
TB: Only for about 25 years.
FB: You mean contacts?
TB: No. Glasses.
FB: Do you only wear them at night or something? I wouldn't have seen you in them.
TB: This is a joke, right?
TigerBlog still isn't 100 percent sure if his father was messing with him, though he doesn't think he was. It's possible that he genuinely cannot remember that 100 percent of the time that he's seen him in the last 25 years, he's been wearing eyeglasses.
Here's another thing about the eye doctor: the drops sting. And they dilate the pupils, which means that any light is blinding. Yesterday? It was the brightest, sunniest day you'll ever see. Only go to the eye doctor on cloudy days.
There are clouds today. There's also a Nor'easter on the way, one that will bring cold, wind and rain to this area and snow to areas a bit north and west of here. It's March, after all. It's supposed to come in like a lion.
February went out like a lamb. That's for sure. If recent trends hold, then January is cold, February is warm, March is brutal, April is what early March was supposed to be, May will be what late March or early April is supposed to be and then everyone will wake up one day in early June to 90 degrees, where it will stay for a few months.
If you want a sure thing for the weather, of course, there's always the Phoenix area. That's where the Princeton softball team will be this weekend, as the Tigers open the season with five games in Arizona.
If you want the entire rundown, it's this:
Princeton plays UNLV at 11:30 a.m. local time/1:30 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow, followed by a game against Grand Canyon at 4:30 p.m. local time. The schedule Saturday has the Tigers against South Dakota at 11:30 a.m. local, followed by another game against Grand Canyon at 4:30 p.m. local, before wrapping up the weekend against Valparaiso at 9 a.m. local time Sunday.
That's a great way to start a season. Interestingly, Grand Canyon has already played 17 games. UNLV has already played 14.
Princeton has won the last two Ivy League championships in softball and is the preseason favorite at least to win this year's.
The baseball team also opens the season this weekend, in Wilmington, N.C. The forecast might be Arizonian for Wilmington, but it still should be good, with clear skies (the first requirement) and temps around 60.
UNC Wilmington, by the way, has played eight games already.
The Princeton baseball team won the Ivy title two years ago and played in the NCAA regional in Lafayette, Louisiana. TigerBlog was there. He loved it.
This year will be different than years past in Ivy League baseball and softball.
For more than 10 years, the Ivy League had two divisions in both, and the winners would play each other in the league championship series. The regular season saw each team play four games against the teams in its division and then two against the other four not in its division.
Starting this year, there will be seven weekends with three games - doubleheaders Saturday and a single game Sunday - against each other league team. At the end of the year, each team will have played 21 games, three against each of the other seven teams.
At that point, the top two will play each other in the two league championship events.
TB is pretty sure that the baseball and softball teams will not both be home against the same opponents and on the road against the same opponents on the same weekends.
Also different is that none of the series are split to balance home and away, like it was in the past when Princeton and Cornell would play a doubleheader here and another one in Ithaca, leaving both with 10 home league games and 10 away league games. Now, with this format, half the league will play 12 home league games and the other half will play nine.
Not that anyone asked, but TigerBlog loves the new format. There should be great races for the top two spots, but teams well below .500 don't figure to still be in the race late simply because one of the divisions is way better than the other, as often happened.
Either way, it's opening weekend for baseball and softball, and they're both likely to find good weather.
The first league weekend is March 24 and 25, and both Princeton teams will be home. Those will also be the home openers for both.
Hopefully the weather then will be in the "lamb" phase.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
The Brink Of Madness
The big news in college basketball this past week had nothing to do with anything that happened on the court.
Nope. It was the breaking news that the scandal of paying for players seems to have infested some of the highest profile programs and coaches.
Who knows how this is going to play out or what the impact is going to be on the careers and legacies of some of the biggest names the sports has ever known. If even half of what seems to have happened actually has, it's not going to be good for them.
TigerBlog has heard from a lot of people about the looming scandals, and they all seem to have the same initial response: They are reveling in the fact that these powerhouses are suddenly on shaky ground.
This isn't Princeton coaches or anything. This is just friends of his, college basketball fans, most Ivy League or mid-major fans.
After that, there is also other common ground in the responses he's gotten. Nobody that TB has talked to about it - and they're all sports fans - none of them are the least bit shocked by any of this.
If anything, there's a shrug that suggests an attitude that of "yeah, of course this was happening; what else you got?"
That, too, is a very sad commentary about the state of big-time college basketball.
As for TigerBlog, he's still on the Purdue bandwagon, and he's glad that the Boilermakers haven't been mentioned in any of the reports he's seen.
Anyway, all he can say about the rest of the mess is simply to stay tuned.
Closer to home, there was Episode 20 of "Hard Cuts" yesterday. It's one of TB's favorite, with a sense of a Jadwin Gym game night.
You can see it HERE.
This will be the final weekend of Ivy League basketball's regular season. Hard as it may seem to believe, today is the last day of February, which leads to March, leaving the college basketball on the verge of Madness.
Princeton's men's team is on the road, heading to Brown Friday night and Yale Saturday night.
The Tigers defeated Dartmouth last Saturday on Senior Night, keeping the door open for a spot in the Ivy League tournament. Here's what Princeton needs:
* two wins
* two Columbia losses (to Harvard and Dartmouth)
* a Cornell loss to Harvard
As TB has said all year, he won't give up hope until the math says there is no way in.
Beyond that, TB was happy to see that Amir Bell went over the 1,000-point mark for his career during his last game at Jadwin. Bell now has 1,002 career points.
Devin Cannady is currently 15th all-time at Princeton with 1,192 career points. Myles Stephens, like Cannady a junior, is closing in on 1,000 points, with 940 for his career.
The women are home this weekend as well, with a chance to win the Ivy League championship on the home court. Princeton is 10-2 in the league, one game up on Penn and two up on Yale and Harvard.
Regardless of what else happens, Princeton would win at least a share of the Ivy title AND the top seed in the Ivy tournament with one win it its last two games. Princeton would win the outright title with a pair of wins.
Penn can still be the top seed in the tournament and the outright Ivy champ, with two wins and two Princeton losses. Yale can grab the top seed in the tournament with two wins and two Princeton and Penn losses.
No matter what happens, the four teams in the Ivy tournament will be Princeton Penn, Harvard and Yale.
Beyond just playing for the Ivy League title, Saturday night will also be Senior Night, as well as National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
The Ivy tournament is next weekend.
There is a big incentive to be the top seed (or, for that matter, the fourth seed) on the women's side, since the game between No. 1 and No. 4 will be at 6 on Saturday the 10th. The No. 2 and No. 3 seeds play at 8:15.
Why is that big? It's because the final is the next day at 4. It might not seem like a lot, but those extra few hours will mean a lot on such a short turnaround.
The men's semifinals, by the way, are at 12:30 and 3, with the final Sunday the 11th at noon.
By that time, pretty much every other conference will have played its tournament. The selections for the men are the 11th; the women are the next night.
And then the NCAA tournaments will start.
They are mesmerizing events. They capture the sporting public the way few annual events can - even if TB's theory is that each successive round isn't as exciting as the one before it. The selections are great. The first rounds are great. It goes downhill from there.
Maybe that's because all of the big-time teams are usually the ones that are left by then. And in that respect, maybe this year will be different.
Will the news that broke last week change the way people look at March Madness?
Nope. It was the breaking news that the scandal of paying for players seems to have infested some of the highest profile programs and coaches.
Who knows how this is going to play out or what the impact is going to be on the careers and legacies of some of the biggest names the sports has ever known. If even half of what seems to have happened actually has, it's not going to be good for them.
TigerBlog has heard from a lot of people about the looming scandals, and they all seem to have the same initial response: They are reveling in the fact that these powerhouses are suddenly on shaky ground.
This isn't Princeton coaches or anything. This is just friends of his, college basketball fans, most Ivy League or mid-major fans.
After that, there is also other common ground in the responses he's gotten. Nobody that TB has talked to about it - and they're all sports fans - none of them are the least bit shocked by any of this.
If anything, there's a shrug that suggests an attitude that of "yeah, of course this was happening; what else you got?"
That, too, is a very sad commentary about the state of big-time college basketball.
As for TigerBlog, he's still on the Purdue bandwagon, and he's glad that the Boilermakers haven't been mentioned in any of the reports he's seen.
Anyway, all he can say about the rest of the mess is simply to stay tuned.
Closer to home, there was Episode 20 of "Hard Cuts" yesterday. It's one of TB's favorite, with a sense of a Jadwin Gym game night.
You can see it HERE.
This will be the final weekend of Ivy League basketball's regular season. Hard as it may seem to believe, today is the last day of February, which leads to March, leaving the college basketball on the verge of Madness.
Princeton's men's team is on the road, heading to Brown Friday night and Yale Saturday night.
The Tigers defeated Dartmouth last Saturday on Senior Night, keeping the door open for a spot in the Ivy League tournament. Here's what Princeton needs:
* two wins
* two Columbia losses (to Harvard and Dartmouth)
* a Cornell loss to Harvard
As TB has said all year, he won't give up hope until the math says there is no way in.
Beyond that, TB was happy to see that Amir Bell went over the 1,000-point mark for his career during his last game at Jadwin. Bell now has 1,002 career points.
Devin Cannady is currently 15th all-time at Princeton with 1,192 career points. Myles Stephens, like Cannady a junior, is closing in on 1,000 points, with 940 for his career.
The women are home this weekend as well, with a chance to win the Ivy League championship on the home court. Princeton is 10-2 in the league, one game up on Penn and two up on Yale and Harvard.
Regardless of what else happens, Princeton would win at least a share of the Ivy title AND the top seed in the Ivy tournament with one win it its last two games. Princeton would win the outright title with a pair of wins.
Penn can still be the top seed in the tournament and the outright Ivy champ, with two wins and two Princeton losses. Yale can grab the top seed in the tournament with two wins and two Princeton and Penn losses.
No matter what happens, the four teams in the Ivy tournament will be Princeton Penn, Harvard and Yale.
Beyond just playing for the Ivy League title, Saturday night will also be Senior Night, as well as National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
The Ivy tournament is next weekend.
There is a big incentive to be the top seed (or, for that matter, the fourth seed) on the women's side, since the game between No. 1 and No. 4 will be at 6 on Saturday the 10th. The No. 2 and No. 3 seeds play at 8:15.
Why is that big? It's because the final is the next day at 4. It might not seem like a lot, but those extra few hours will mean a lot on such a short turnaround.
The men's semifinals, by the way, are at 12:30 and 3, with the final Sunday the 11th at noon.
By that time, pretty much every other conference will have played its tournament. The selections for the men are the 11th; the women are the next night.
And then the NCAA tournaments will start.
They are mesmerizing events. They capture the sporting public the way few annual events can - even if TB's theory is that each successive round isn't as exciting as the one before it. The selections are great. The first rounds are great. It goes downhill from there.
Maybe that's because all of the big-time teams are usually the ones that are left by then. And in that respect, maybe this year will be different.
Will the news that broke last week change the way people look at March Madness?
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Seeing Doyle And Mike Again
TigerBlog walked into Klockner Stadium at the University of Virginia about two hours before the start of Saturday's men's lacrosse game.
He was with three Princeton players, who had with them the team video equipment. TigerBlog was carrying the radio stuff, as well as his laptop.
There were metal detectors outside the stadium, and TB and the three players were directed around them. It reminded TB of "Ocean's 11," when they walked through the casino without being questioned because they were wearing uniforms.
Anyway, TigerBlog and the players made their way to the elevator and then into the press box. It was empty, except for one security guard who was just getting there as well - and of course two old and dear friends of TigerBlog.
The door to the Klockner press box opens into the center of the booth. It's actually more of guest box, with the media set up outside on either side.
As TB turned to walk to the left, the first face he saw was that of Mike Colley. It wasn't until he walked back through the box and to the other side that he saw Doyle Smith.
They actually face each other, across the Klockner Stadium press box.
Who are Mike Colley and Doyle Smith? They were both the men's lacrosse contact at Virginia at various times, and they both passed away at early ages.
Doyle was the first person to write the rules of statkeeping for men's lacrosse, something that TigerBlog helped rewrite several years ago. Doyle was a Johns Hopkins grad, and he is one of two non-players in the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
He was already suffering from the effects of Parkinson's Disease when TigerBlog met him, back in the early 1990s. Princeton and Virginia renewed their rivalry around then, playing each year from 1992 through 2008 actually.
The teams met in the 1994 and 1996 NCAA championship games, and the Tigers won both in overtime. Doyle Smith was already a legendary figure in the sport by then, and he and TigerBlog were pretty good friends from the start. TB was very, very fond of Doyle; the best way TB can describe him is that he was gentle and a gentleman.
Eventually the disease took a terrible toll on Doyle's ability to speak and to move. He would pass away in 2004.
TigerBlog knew that his friend Doyle was in failing health at the time. He had no idea that Mike Colley was as well.
Colley was the next UVa men's lacrosse contact. He was a few months older than TigerBlog.
If Doyle was quiet and unassuming, even before the Parkinson's, Mike was a big, friendly, talkative guy with a bit of a drawl. He loved lacrosse, and he loved the University of Virginia.
About the worst thing TB could say about Mike Colley was that he was too lenient in awarding ground balls. He used to say that at UVa, they "gave away ground balls like they were Halloween candy."
Anyway, there was that stunning summer day in 2009, when TigerBlog received a text message that said that Colley, just 46 years old, had suffered a massive heart attack while on vacation. He had been dead before he ever fell to the ground.
As for the game, both teams looked good for the early season. Virginia won, 18-15, moving up to the No. 4 spot in the national rankings.
Princeton, despite the loss, has a lot of promising signs, especially for a team that is so young, and one that is working with its sixth defensive coordinator in six years.
Freshman longstick midfielder Andrew Song had an incredible game, with a goal, three ground balls, two caused turnovers and two face-off wins, to earn Ivy Rookie of the Week honors. Fellow freshman Chris Brown followed up his five-point debut with four more points. Phillip Robertson had three goals, including an amazing one-timer from Brown, and now has six goals on six shots this season and nine goals on 10 shots in his career. Junior Emmet Cordrey had three goals, matching his previous career total.
And of course there's Michael Sowers. He had a goal and four assists.
TigerBlog is excited about the start of lacrosse season. He's looking forward to seeing how this team develops.
He was looking forward to the trip to Virginia as well. He just didn't expect to see the two faces in the press box, or to see Myron Ripley, the longtime statkeeper for the Cavs.
TB and Myron go way back, to the days of Doyle and Mike Colley. Myron gave TB a big hug when he saw him, and TB again was taken back to the days with Myron and his two other friends.
Doyle and Mike would have loved to have been at the game this past Saturday.
At least their pictures are hanging in the press box. It was good for TB to see them and think back to the good times they shared.
TigerBlog's office has nothing on the walls. It has three pictures - one each of TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog and a long-ago one of MotherBlog.
There's a book case that has mostly binders of men's lacrosse seasons gone by. There's also a book - "A Prayer For Owen Meany."
And one plaque. It's the Doyle Smith Award, given by the USILA each year to honor someone who helps promote the sport of lacrosse.
TigerBlog won it in 2010. Mike Colley won it the year before, after his death. When TB accepted his award, he mentioned how much it meant to him to win an award named for his friend Doyle, after his friend Mike had won it a year earlier.
It was a bit emotional.
So, too, was seeing them Saturday.
Doyle Smith and Mike Colley. They were two great people, lost way too soon, but always to be remembered.
He was with three Princeton players, who had with them the team video equipment. TigerBlog was carrying the radio stuff, as well as his laptop.
There were metal detectors outside the stadium, and TB and the three players were directed around them. It reminded TB of "Ocean's 11," when they walked through the casino without being questioned because they were wearing uniforms.
Anyway, TigerBlog and the players made their way to the elevator and then into the press box. It was empty, except for one security guard who was just getting there as well - and of course two old and dear friends of TigerBlog.
The door to the Klockner press box opens into the center of the booth. It's actually more of guest box, with the media set up outside on either side.
As TB turned to walk to the left, the first face he saw was that of Mike Colley. It wasn't until he walked back through the box and to the other side that he saw Doyle Smith.
They actually face each other, across the Klockner Stadium press box.
Who are Mike Colley and Doyle Smith? They were both the men's lacrosse contact at Virginia at various times, and they both passed away at early ages.
Doyle was the first person to write the rules of statkeeping for men's lacrosse, something that TigerBlog helped rewrite several years ago. Doyle was a Johns Hopkins grad, and he is one of two non-players in the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
He was already suffering from the effects of Parkinson's Disease when TigerBlog met him, back in the early 1990s. Princeton and Virginia renewed their rivalry around then, playing each year from 1992 through 2008 actually.
The teams met in the 1994 and 1996 NCAA championship games, and the Tigers won both in overtime. Doyle Smith was already a legendary figure in the sport by then, and he and TigerBlog were pretty good friends from the start. TB was very, very fond of Doyle; the best way TB can describe him is that he was gentle and a gentleman.
Eventually the disease took a terrible toll on Doyle's ability to speak and to move. He would pass away in 2004.
TigerBlog knew that his friend Doyle was in failing health at the time. He had no idea that Mike Colley was as well.
Colley was the next UVa men's lacrosse contact. He was a few months older than TigerBlog.
If Doyle was quiet and unassuming, even before the Parkinson's, Mike was a big, friendly, talkative guy with a bit of a drawl. He loved lacrosse, and he loved the University of Virginia.
About the worst thing TB could say about Mike Colley was that he was too lenient in awarding ground balls. He used to say that at UVa, they "gave away ground balls like they were Halloween candy."
Anyway, there was that stunning summer day in 2009, when TigerBlog received a text message that said that Colley, just 46 years old, had suffered a massive heart attack while on vacation. He had been dead before he ever fell to the ground.
As for the game, both teams looked good for the early season. Virginia won, 18-15, moving up to the No. 4 spot in the national rankings.
Princeton, despite the loss, has a lot of promising signs, especially for a team that is so young, and one that is working with its sixth defensive coordinator in six years.
Freshman longstick midfielder Andrew Song had an incredible game, with a goal, three ground balls, two caused turnovers and two face-off wins, to earn Ivy Rookie of the Week honors. Fellow freshman Chris Brown followed up his five-point debut with four more points. Phillip Robertson had three goals, including an amazing one-timer from Brown, and now has six goals on six shots this season and nine goals on 10 shots in his career. Junior Emmet Cordrey had three goals, matching his previous career total.
And of course there's Michael Sowers. He had a goal and four assists.
TigerBlog is excited about the start of lacrosse season. He's looking forward to seeing how this team develops.
He was looking forward to the trip to Virginia as well. He just didn't expect to see the two faces in the press box, or to see Myron Ripley, the longtime statkeeper for the Cavs.
TB and Myron go way back, to the days of Doyle and Mike Colley. Myron gave TB a big hug when he saw him, and TB again was taken back to the days with Myron and his two other friends.
Doyle and Mike would have loved to have been at the game this past Saturday.
At least their pictures are hanging in the press box. It was good for TB to see them and think back to the good times they shared.
TigerBlog's office has nothing on the walls. It has three pictures - one each of TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog and a long-ago one of MotherBlog.
There's a book case that has mostly binders of men's lacrosse seasons gone by. There's also a book - "A Prayer For Owen Meany."
And one plaque. It's the Doyle Smith Award, given by the USILA each year to honor someone who helps promote the sport of lacrosse.
TigerBlog won it in 2010. Mike Colley won it the year before, after his death. When TB accepted his award, he mentioned how much it meant to him to win an award named for his friend Doyle, after his friend Mike had won it a year earlier.
It was a bit emotional.
So, too, was seeing them Saturday.
Doyle Smith and Mike Colley. They were two great people, lost way too soon, but always to be remembered.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Winning Heps, And Staying Home - Again
And with that, the Winter Olympics are over.
BrotherBlog watched a lot of it, he said yesterday. His favorite athlete?
Ester Ledecka. She's the Czech woman who won the Super-G gold and then added the parallel giant slalom. That's one gold in skiing and another in snowboarding, and that's fairly impressive.
Like his brother, TigerBlog also watched a lot of the Olympics. There were so many events he liked, and he wrote about them the last two weeks.
To review quickly:
Plus side - cross country ski relays, alpine skiing, team pursuit speed skating, parallel snowboarding, ice dancing
Down side - shootouts in elimination hockey games, any events that were judged (except the ice dancing), Olympic commercials, NBC's coverage
During the conversation yesterday, BrotherBlog said something that TB has also thought, and that is that now that these Games are over, these sports will mostly fade to the background for four more years. The athletes who gained all the notoriety will likewise not be seen or heard from much as the the sporting public goes back to focusing on the mainstream.
It's an interesting Olympic subplot. These two weeks are all you get for four years. Make the most of it. And the classic example of it is Michael Phelps. He dominates Olympic coverage and then vanishes for four more years.
Anyway, as TB said, he liked the Winter Olympics. He'll watch a lot of the next Summer Games, in 2020, in Tokyo.
So that's the Olympics. Closer to home?
The men's track and field team demolished the field to win the Ivy League Heptagonal championship, or, to use a bit of a pun, "ran away" from the field.
By how much?
Princeton won by 67 points over second-place Penn. That's the largest margin of victory in indoor Heps history.
Princeton had pretty much put away the championship by the time Day 1 was over, and it became a total blowout when the Tigers won the first four events yesterday.
If you want to see all the results, you can click HERE.
For Princeton, that's an indoor Heps title to follow the cross country title. That adds up to a shot at a "triple crown" of Ivy Heps championships, something that only Princeton has ever done - seven times on the men's side and twice o the women's.
It's the fourth consecutive indoor title for Princeton. More impressively, Princeton has finished first or second for 25 straight years.
Think about that. For a quarter-century, Princeton has finished first or second. There hasn't been "one of those days" that has seen the team fall any lower than that.
That's impressive.
Fred Samara runs an incredible program and has done so for 40 years. Ron Fogarty hasn't been at Princeton nearly as long, but TB will also use the word "incredible" to describe the rebuilding job he has done with Princeton men's hockey.
Fogarty has taken Princeton from four wins to five wins in his first two years and now 28 wins in the last two.
Also in the last two, Fogarty has had his team finish high enough in the ECAC standings to host a first round playoff series.
The Tigers played an epic best-of-three with Colgate a year ago, including a series-saving and game-tying goal with one second left in regulation and then overtime game-winner in Game 2 in what was one of the best games TigerBlog has ever seen.
Princeton entered the final weekend of the regular season at Clarkson and St. Lawrence in a five-team race for four home ice spots. After a tie with No. 20 Clarkson and then a 4-3 win over St. Lawrence on a goal in the final 90 seconds, Princeton picked up one of those four spots.
The three-point weekend left Princeton in seventh place in the final ECAC standings. It also left Princeton at 10-10-2 in the league, its first .500 league season since 2010-11.
Yes, Fogarty has done amazing things with Princeton hockey.
Next up is a home playoff series at Hobey Baker Rink this weekend against Brown. It'll be Friday and Saturday, then Sunday if necessary, with all games at 7.
If you're looking for the most misleading stat ever, Princeton averaged 3.5 goals per game against Brown in two meetings with the Bears this year. Why is that misleading?
Well, Princeton scored zero in its 3-0 loss to Brown in the first game this year and then scored seven in a 7-2 win in the second game. That first game was Nov. 18 in Princeton, by the way, and that just happened to be the same day that Princeton played its last football game of the season. The rematch was Feb. 9 at Brown.
Does any of that matter this weekend? Not in the least.
Regardless of what happens, it's a great accomplishment for Princeton to be staying home again.
Fred Samara wins another championship. Ron Fogarty earns another home series.
That's two coaches who know what they're doing right there.
BrotherBlog watched a lot of it, he said yesterday. His favorite athlete?
Ester Ledecka. She's the Czech woman who won the Super-G gold and then added the parallel giant slalom. That's one gold in skiing and another in snowboarding, and that's fairly impressive.
Like his brother, TigerBlog also watched a lot of the Olympics. There were so many events he liked, and he wrote about them the last two weeks.
To review quickly:
Plus side - cross country ski relays, alpine skiing, team pursuit speed skating, parallel snowboarding, ice dancing
Down side - shootouts in elimination hockey games, any events that were judged (except the ice dancing), Olympic commercials, NBC's coverage
During the conversation yesterday, BrotherBlog said something that TB has also thought, and that is that now that these Games are over, these sports will mostly fade to the background for four more years. The athletes who gained all the notoriety will likewise not be seen or heard from much as the the sporting public goes back to focusing on the mainstream.
It's an interesting Olympic subplot. These two weeks are all you get for four years. Make the most of it. And the classic example of it is Michael Phelps. He dominates Olympic coverage and then vanishes for four more years.
Anyway, as TB said, he liked the Winter Olympics. He'll watch a lot of the next Summer Games, in 2020, in Tokyo.
So that's the Olympics. Closer to home?
The men's track and field team demolished the field to win the Ivy League Heptagonal championship, or, to use a bit of a pun, "ran away" from the field.
By how much?
Princeton won by 67 points over second-place Penn. That's the largest margin of victory in indoor Heps history.
Princeton had pretty much put away the championship by the time Day 1 was over, and it became a total blowout when the Tigers won the first four events yesterday.
If you want to see all the results, you can click HERE.
For Princeton, that's an indoor Heps title to follow the cross country title. That adds up to a shot at a "triple crown" of Ivy Heps championships, something that only Princeton has ever done - seven times on the men's side and twice o the women's.
It's the fourth consecutive indoor title for Princeton. More impressively, Princeton has finished first or second for 25 straight years.
Think about that. For a quarter-century, Princeton has finished first or second. There hasn't been "one of those days" that has seen the team fall any lower than that.
That's impressive.
Fred Samara runs an incredible program and has done so for 40 years. Ron Fogarty hasn't been at Princeton nearly as long, but TB will also use the word "incredible" to describe the rebuilding job he has done with Princeton men's hockey.
Fogarty has taken Princeton from four wins to five wins in his first two years and now 28 wins in the last two.
Also in the last two, Fogarty has had his team finish high enough in the ECAC standings to host a first round playoff series.
The Tigers played an epic best-of-three with Colgate a year ago, including a series-saving and game-tying goal with one second left in regulation and then overtime game-winner in Game 2 in what was one of the best games TigerBlog has ever seen.
Princeton entered the final weekend of the regular season at Clarkson and St. Lawrence in a five-team race for four home ice spots. After a tie with No. 20 Clarkson and then a 4-3 win over St. Lawrence on a goal in the final 90 seconds, Princeton picked up one of those four spots.
The three-point weekend left Princeton in seventh place in the final ECAC standings. It also left Princeton at 10-10-2 in the league, its first .500 league season since 2010-11.
Yes, Fogarty has done amazing things with Princeton hockey.
Next up is a home playoff series at Hobey Baker Rink this weekend against Brown. It'll be Friday and Saturday, then Sunday if necessary, with all games at 7.
If you're looking for the most misleading stat ever, Princeton averaged 3.5 goals per game against Brown in two meetings with the Bears this year. Why is that misleading?
Well, Princeton scored zero in its 3-0 loss to Brown in the first game this year and then scored seven in a 7-2 win in the second game. That first game was Nov. 18 in Princeton, by the way, and that just happened to be the same day that Princeton played its last football game of the season. The rematch was Feb. 9 at Brown.
Does any of that matter this weekend? Not in the least.
Regardless of what happens, it's a great accomplishment for Princeton to be staying home again.
Fred Samara wins another championship. Ron Fogarty earns another home series.
That's two coaches who know what they're doing right there.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Wait, What Order Are These Games?
Just to get this straight, the women's team is home and the men's team is away against the same opponent, just not in basketball?
Yes. That's right. The women's lacrosse team is home against Virginia tomorrow at 1. The men's team will be at Virginia at the same time.
That's usually how basketball works in February, not lacrosse.
As for basketball, Courtney Banghart was sure her team was going to Dartmouth first this weekend. TigerBlog was just as sure that Harvard was coming to Jadwin Gym first this weekend. Turns out they were both right.
All of this came out during the current edition of "The Court Report," the podcast that TB has done each week with the Princeton women's basketball coach this season. TB mentioned that Harvard was the first game of the weekend, and then Courtney said that her team was going to Dartmouth first.
This was always TigerBlog's fear when he traveled with men's basketball, which he did from 1989-2004 or so. He was positive that one of those times, or maybe each time, that he'd have it backwards, and he'd show up at, say Ithaca, N.Y., in time to see Cornell play ... Penn.
It never happened, fortunately. There was the time that an old-time sportswriter from the Star-Ledger called him to find out where everyone was; TB was at Harvard and the writer had gone to Palmer Stadium.
There were no cell phones then, of course, so TB got a call at the Harvard Stadium press box. It's like getting a call at 2 am. You assume something is wrong, though it turned out just to be a sportswriter who couldn't read a schedule. On the plus side, it would have been worse if he'd been at Harvard and the game had been at Princeton.
Anyway, both Courtney and TigerBlog were correct this time.
It'll be the women's team at Dartmouth tonight and Harvard tomorrow night. It'll be the men home against Harvard tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow night.
Courtney was on the bus yesterday when she texted TB about something, and TB reminded her to make sure she was going to New Hampshire first.
It's not like she doesn't know the way. She's a Dartmouth grad, undergrad and graduate, and one of the best women's basketball players the school has ever had. She also coached there for three years before coming to Princeton 11 years ago.
This weekend isn't the time for anything sentimental, not at this time of year, not for either team. Princeton is playing for an Ivy League title; Dartmouth is playing to get into the Ivy League tournament, which is just two weeks away now.
Princeton is 9-1 in the league, one game ahead of Penn, who will be at Harvard and Dartmouth. From there it goes to a three-way tie for third, at 6-4, with Yale (the only team to beat Princeton), Dartmouth and Harvard. Princeton and Penn finish the regular season next week home games against Yale and Brown.
Brown and Cornell are both 2-8. TigerBlog didn't look all this up, but he's reasonably sure that Brown or Cornell could catch the three who are tied for third or the three who are tied for third can still catch Princeton and Penn, mathematically at least.
Practically, though, it appears that it's Princeton and Penn for the championship and top two seeds and then Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard in a race for the final two tournament slots.
On the men's side, Harvard is here tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow, a rarity where the men and women have different opponents. It's consecutive rarities - a weekend without any home basketball last weekend because there were doubleheaders on the road and then a weekend where the opponents don't match up.
Princeton has no time to worry about such matters though. The Tigers are still in the hunt for a spot in the Ivy League tournament, even with the current six-game losing streak.
Up first is the Crimson, who are tied with Penn for first at 9-1. Those teams match up tomorrow night in Philadelphia.
Princeton is currently in seventh, at 3-7 in the league, with four games to play. Obviously there's very, very little margin for error.
Yale is 5-5 entering this weekend. Columbia, Cornell and Brown are all 4-6. TB isn't sure about how the tiebreakers will all play out, but he does know that 6-8 made it last year and it might do so again.
Princeton is fortunate to have games left against the teams with whom it is competing.
With four games to go, Princeton can't really be looking at the big picture or the different permutations for the league tournament. Nope. The Tigers need to come out strong, and relaxed. As the mantra goes, "make shots."
See what happens this weekend and see where it leaves them. Then worry about next weekend.
As for lacrosse, it's Princeton's first regular season game against UVa on the men's side since 2008 (there was an NCAA tournament game in 2012), while the women play UVa every year. For the women, it's the home opener, and admission is free.
Both teams are 1-0 after the men opened with a 9-8 two OT win over Monmouth and the women opened with a 17-4 win at Temple.
Lacrosse season has started. Basketball season is winding down.
It's a weekend with big games in both.
Yes. That's right. The women's lacrosse team is home against Virginia tomorrow at 1. The men's team will be at Virginia at the same time.
That's usually how basketball works in February, not lacrosse.
As for basketball, Courtney Banghart was sure her team was going to Dartmouth first this weekend. TigerBlog was just as sure that Harvard was coming to Jadwin Gym first this weekend. Turns out they were both right.
All of this came out during the current edition of "The Court Report," the podcast that TB has done each week with the Princeton women's basketball coach this season. TB mentioned that Harvard was the first game of the weekend, and then Courtney said that her team was going to Dartmouth first.
This was always TigerBlog's fear when he traveled with men's basketball, which he did from 1989-2004 or so. He was positive that one of those times, or maybe each time, that he'd have it backwards, and he'd show up at, say Ithaca, N.Y., in time to see Cornell play ... Penn.
It never happened, fortunately. There was the time that an old-time sportswriter from the Star-Ledger called him to find out where everyone was; TB was at Harvard and the writer had gone to Palmer Stadium.
There were no cell phones then, of course, so TB got a call at the Harvard Stadium press box. It's like getting a call at 2 am. You assume something is wrong, though it turned out just to be a sportswriter who couldn't read a schedule. On the plus side, it would have been worse if he'd been at Harvard and the game had been at Princeton.
Anyway, both Courtney and TigerBlog were correct this time.
It'll be the women's team at Dartmouth tonight and Harvard tomorrow night. It'll be the men home against Harvard tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow night.
Courtney was on the bus yesterday when she texted TB about something, and TB reminded her to make sure she was going to New Hampshire first.
It's not like she doesn't know the way. She's a Dartmouth grad, undergrad and graduate, and one of the best women's basketball players the school has ever had. She also coached there for three years before coming to Princeton 11 years ago.
This weekend isn't the time for anything sentimental, not at this time of year, not for either team. Princeton is playing for an Ivy League title; Dartmouth is playing to get into the Ivy League tournament, which is just two weeks away now.
Princeton is 9-1 in the league, one game ahead of Penn, who will be at Harvard and Dartmouth. From there it goes to a three-way tie for third, at 6-4, with Yale (the only team to beat Princeton), Dartmouth and Harvard. Princeton and Penn finish the regular season next week home games against Yale and Brown.
Brown and Cornell are both 2-8. TigerBlog didn't look all this up, but he's reasonably sure that Brown or Cornell could catch the three who are tied for third or the three who are tied for third can still catch Princeton and Penn, mathematically at least.
Practically, though, it appears that it's Princeton and Penn for the championship and top two seeds and then Yale, Dartmouth and Harvard in a race for the final two tournament slots.
On the men's side, Harvard is here tonight and Dartmouth tomorrow, a rarity where the men and women have different opponents. It's consecutive rarities - a weekend without any home basketball last weekend because there were doubleheaders on the road and then a weekend where the opponents don't match up.
Princeton has no time to worry about such matters though. The Tigers are still in the hunt for a spot in the Ivy League tournament, even with the current six-game losing streak.
Up first is the Crimson, who are tied with Penn for first at 9-1. Those teams match up tomorrow night in Philadelphia.
Princeton is currently in seventh, at 3-7 in the league, with four games to play. Obviously there's very, very little margin for error.
Yale is 5-5 entering this weekend. Columbia, Cornell and Brown are all 4-6. TB isn't sure about how the tiebreakers will all play out, but he does know that 6-8 made it last year and it might do so again.
Princeton is fortunate to have games left against the teams with whom it is competing.
With four games to go, Princeton can't really be looking at the big picture or the different permutations for the league tournament. Nope. The Tigers need to come out strong, and relaxed. As the mantra goes, "make shots."
See what happens this weekend and see where it leaves them. Then worry about next weekend.
As for lacrosse, it's Princeton's first regular season game against UVa on the men's side since 2008 (there was an NCAA tournament game in 2012), while the women play UVa every year. For the women, it's the home opener, and admission is free.
Both teams are 1-0 after the men opened with a 9-8 two OT win over Monmouth and the women opened with a 17-4 win at Temple.
Lacrosse season has started. Basketball season is winding down.
It's a weekend with big games in both.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
This Is Princeton Golf
You want to see some videos that are really funny and really well done?
Well, check out what the men's golf team has been up to lately.
Here's one:
There's a series of them on the men's golf twitter feed. They're all really good. TigerBlog gives them high marks for creativity, initiative and execution.
The videos also take him back to the glory days of the "Who's the Tiger" videos.
They're leading up to the season opener, which takes place in Arizona starting Sunday. If you couldn't get to Arizona, by the way, there was always Central New Jersey the last few days, where the temperature has been in the 70s.
The men's golf team will be one of, by TigerBlog's count, 17 Princeton teams who will be competing this weekend. There will be everything from season openers to big early season matchups to late-season regular season games with championship impacts to league championship meets all the way to the national championship in men's squash.
As is the case this time of year, there's something for everyone. See for yourself HERE.
Speaking of teams that will be playing this weekend and videos, there is the men's hockey team. The Tigers honored their 1998 and 2008 ECAC championship, and the event was captured in THIS video.
The current men's hockey team has just this weekend left in the regular season and is one of five teams competing for four spots to host next weekend's ECAC first round playoff series. The Tigers are currently tied for seventh with Yale with 19 points, two out of fifth, one out of sixth and one ahead of Quinnipiac, who is ninth.
Princeton is at Clarkson (third place) tomorrow and St. Lawrence (12th place) Saturday. Every point in the standings is critical. Should it come to it, Princeton would have the tiebreaker over Quinnipiac.
If Princeton does finish in between fifth and eighth, then it will be home next weekend, March 2-4, in a best-of-three series. Last year's was incredible, with three thrilling games against Colgate that ended with the Tigers' advancing.
The women's season is one week ahead, which means that the playoffs are this weekend. Princeton will be at Cornell, tomorrow at 6, Saturday at 3 and then Sunday if necessary at 3.
As for as championships go, the will be at least three Ivy titles that will definitely be celebrated this weekend, two in indoor track and field and one in men's swimming and diving.
The Heps track and field championships will be held at Dartmouth Saturday and Sunday. The Ivy League men's swimming and diving championships will be DeNunzio Pool, running through Saturday.
There are other events. TigerBlog will have more on lacrosse and basketball tomorrow. For now he'll just say that the men's basketball team is home against Harvard tomorrow and Dartmouth Saturday and the two lacrosse teams both play Virginia, with the women at home and the men on the road.
Besides, he wanted to mention two more Winter Olympics things.
First of all, the U.S. men's hockey team was eliminated with a quarterfinal loss to the Czech Republic. The game was decided in a shootout after the teams were even at 2-2 through regulation and a five-minute overtime.
Here's TB's question - why in the world would that game go to a shootout? Why wouldn't they just play until someone scored a goal?
How long could that possibly have taken? Yes, every now and then there will be a game that goes on and on and on, but for the most part, someone will end it.
And lest you think TB is being a hypocrite, the American women shouldn't have won a gold medal in a shootout either.
TigerBlog hates shootouts as much as he hates PKs in major soccer elimination events. Actually he hates them more, because hockey goals are easier to come by than soccer goals for the most part.
On the other hand, his favorite event - the cross country skiing sprint relay - was epic yesterday, as the U.S. just slipped past the heavily favored Swedes and Norwegians to win the gold.
If you saw this, American Jessica Diggins made an all-out charge up the last hill and then down into the stadium and ultimately to the finish line, winning by 0.19 seconds.
It was certainly riveting. It was also so indicative of what the Winter Games so often are - events that nobody watches except for two weeks every four years that are decided by the smallest fractions of seconds.
That's TB's way of saying he's really enjoyed watching them.
As for events you can watch every year, there's the weekend in Princeton Athletics.
Well, check out what the men's golf team has been up to lately.
Here's one:
— Princeton Golf Team (@princetongolf) February 20, 2018Here's another:
— Princeton Golf Team (@princetongolf) February 19, 2018
There's a series of them on the men's golf twitter feed. They're all really good. TigerBlog gives them high marks for creativity, initiative and execution.
The videos also take him back to the glory days of the "Who's the Tiger" videos.
They're leading up to the season opener, which takes place in Arizona starting Sunday. If you couldn't get to Arizona, by the way, there was always Central New Jersey the last few days, where the temperature has been in the 70s.
The men's golf team will be one of, by TigerBlog's count, 17 Princeton teams who will be competing this weekend. There will be everything from season openers to big early season matchups to late-season regular season games with championship impacts to league championship meets all the way to the national championship in men's squash.
As is the case this time of year, there's something for everyone. See for yourself HERE.
Speaking of teams that will be playing this weekend and videos, there is the men's hockey team. The Tigers honored their 1998 and 2008 ECAC championship, and the event was captured in THIS video.
The current men's hockey team has just this weekend left in the regular season and is one of five teams competing for four spots to host next weekend's ECAC first round playoff series. The Tigers are currently tied for seventh with Yale with 19 points, two out of fifth, one out of sixth and one ahead of Quinnipiac, who is ninth.
Princeton is at Clarkson (third place) tomorrow and St. Lawrence (12th place) Saturday. Every point in the standings is critical. Should it come to it, Princeton would have the tiebreaker over Quinnipiac.
If Princeton does finish in between fifth and eighth, then it will be home next weekend, March 2-4, in a best-of-three series. Last year's was incredible, with three thrilling games against Colgate that ended with the Tigers' advancing.
The women's season is one week ahead, which means that the playoffs are this weekend. Princeton will be at Cornell, tomorrow at 6, Saturday at 3 and then Sunday if necessary at 3.
As for as championships go, the will be at least three Ivy titles that will definitely be celebrated this weekend, two in indoor track and field and one in men's swimming and diving.
The Heps track and field championships will be held at Dartmouth Saturday and Sunday. The Ivy League men's swimming and diving championships will be DeNunzio Pool, running through Saturday.
There are other events. TigerBlog will have more on lacrosse and basketball tomorrow. For now he'll just say that the men's basketball team is home against Harvard tomorrow and Dartmouth Saturday and the two lacrosse teams both play Virginia, with the women at home and the men on the road.
Besides, he wanted to mention two more Winter Olympics things.
First of all, the U.S. men's hockey team was eliminated with a quarterfinal loss to the Czech Republic. The game was decided in a shootout after the teams were even at 2-2 through regulation and a five-minute overtime.
Here's TB's question - why in the world would that game go to a shootout? Why wouldn't they just play until someone scored a goal?
How long could that possibly have taken? Yes, every now and then there will be a game that goes on and on and on, but for the most part, someone will end it.
And lest you think TB is being a hypocrite, the American women shouldn't have won a gold medal in a shootout either.
TigerBlog hates shootouts as much as he hates PKs in major soccer elimination events. Actually he hates them more, because hockey goals are easier to come by than soccer goals for the most part.
On the other hand, his favorite event - the cross country skiing sprint relay - was epic yesterday, as the U.S. just slipped past the heavily favored Swedes and Norwegians to win the gold.
If you saw this, American Jessica Diggins made an all-out charge up the last hill and then down into the stadium and ultimately to the finish line, winning by 0.19 seconds.
It was certainly riveting. It was also so indicative of what the Winter Games so often are - events that nobody watches except for two weeks every four years that are decided by the smallest fractions of seconds.
That's TB's way of saying he's really enjoyed watching them.
As for events you can watch every year, there's the weekend in Princeton Athletics.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Rooting For Brea, Again
Yesterday was "Tiger Tuesday" here at Princeton.
To TigerBlog, pretty much every Tuesday for the last quarter-century has been a Tiger Tuesday. Some Tuesdays are more Tigery than others, with games like Princeton-Penn basketball or some lacrosse games on the schedule.
Your average Tuesday is highlighted by the weekly event meeting. TigerBlog feels like Princeton could stream that meeting, since it's always good for a few laughs in the 30-45 minutes that it usually runs.
Yeah, it would get good viewership.
TigerBlog can't imagine how many event meetings he's been to on Tuesdays. He remembers the first one, though, for two reasons.
First, it was in a conference room on the Jadwin mezzanine that long ago was converted to offices. Second, the big issue was that nobody could find the women's soccer programs at Lourie-Love Field BUT that there also weren't enough of them. TigerBlog, still trying to fit in, let it go as long as he could before he had to point out the obvious: if nobody can find them, how do you know there aren't enough.
Out of that meeting, by the way, grew the wooden program holders that you still see today at Princeton games.
TB's all-time favorite event meeting moment, he's pretty sure, came from Hank Towns, the old equipment manager and one of the greatest people who has ever walked this planet. The issue that came up was that Pete Carril was keeping the players too late at practice, something that caused some concern about whether or not the players would be able to get to dinner on time.
Hank, as only Hank can, said this: "I don't care about their dinner. I care about my dinner. They can eat at McDonald's."
Two things on that - 1) that's word-for-word what Hank said and 2) TB laughed when he wrote that again.
TigerBlog has been going to Tuesday event meetings since before either of his kids was born. He's used to those Tiger Tuesdays.
The actual Tiger Tuesday was a day on which high school seniors who have been admitted to Princeton were invited to the campus to go to a class or two, eat lunch, take some tours, meet some of their future classmates. The Class of 2022 will include Miss TigerBlog, and she was in attendance yesterday.
Of course, she has spent more time on the campus than your average incoming freshman, though the first other student she met yesterday was from Princeton High School.
TigerBlog is excited enough about the opportunity his daughter now finds awaiting her. He's seen so many people who have been touched by the amazing chance to attend Princeton, and now it's just a few months away from her.
Having her on campus yesterday was pretty special. He can't imagine what it'll be like when she's there all the time - other than the part where she'll go out of her way never to see him and all.
It dawns on TigerBlog that the Class of 2022 will be 100 years behind the Class of 1922, which featured the two men for whom the old soccer field was named - Donold Lourie and George Love.
The old field - it was called Lourie-Love Field - was on the same spot where Roberts Stadium now stands. Lourie-Love featured exactly zero frills, not even a place to put the programs in the early 1990s.
It was the women's soccer team's dramatic run to the 2004 NCAA Final Four, one that packed Lourie-Love, especially in the quarterfinal win over Washington, that was behind the inspiration to build the new field, which is as nice a soccer venue as you will ever see.
One of the mainstays on that 2004 team was a defender from Canada named Brea Griffiths. TigerBlog remembers her as being funny, friendly and outgoing off the field and ferocious on the field. To get to the goal required getting past Brea, something that was intimidating and, usually, impossible.
She was a two-time All-Ivy selection and the rock of a defense on a team that was perfect in the Ivy League and won four NCAA games her senior year. She also was the perfect teammate, the kind of team-oriented leader without whom you can never really reach your fullest potential as a group.
TigerBlog hadn't heard from her in a long time when she checked in a few weeks ago. These days, she's Brea Kroeker.
As it turns out, Brea has been battling very serious health issues the last four years, and honestly TB didn't really understand what exactly was wrong with her, just that it's clear that she has been in pretty rough shape.
It can be generally termed as "severe chronic illness." Basically what she needs now is more diagnostic testing. It's completely turned her life upside down.
It's been brutal, actually. It took a long time to even figure out what was wrong with her. At least now she knows, and she's trying to do something about it.
If you want more information, HERE IS THE PAGE where you can see more information and how to help.
The incredible thing about Brea is that her spirit is great. She was laughing about it to TigerBlog, and her determination comes through with every word she says. She continues to raise her three children in the face of all this.
It's a tough fight. She's a tough person, and always has been. It's like she was saying "hey, no big deal. I'll take this on too."
Her determination is obvious. Her sense of humor is still there.
She's fighting a very tough battle here, and she is doing so in extraordinary fashion. TB wants her to win now more than he ever wanted her to as a player at Princeton.
To TigerBlog, pretty much every Tuesday for the last quarter-century has been a Tiger Tuesday. Some Tuesdays are more Tigery than others, with games like Princeton-Penn basketball or some lacrosse games on the schedule.
Your average Tuesday is highlighted by the weekly event meeting. TigerBlog feels like Princeton could stream that meeting, since it's always good for a few laughs in the 30-45 minutes that it usually runs.
Yeah, it would get good viewership.
TigerBlog can't imagine how many event meetings he's been to on Tuesdays. He remembers the first one, though, for two reasons.
First, it was in a conference room on the Jadwin mezzanine that long ago was converted to offices. Second, the big issue was that nobody could find the women's soccer programs at Lourie-Love Field BUT that there also weren't enough of them. TigerBlog, still trying to fit in, let it go as long as he could before he had to point out the obvious: if nobody can find them, how do you know there aren't enough.
Out of that meeting, by the way, grew the wooden program holders that you still see today at Princeton games.
TB's all-time favorite event meeting moment, he's pretty sure, came from Hank Towns, the old equipment manager and one of the greatest people who has ever walked this planet. The issue that came up was that Pete Carril was keeping the players too late at practice, something that caused some concern about whether or not the players would be able to get to dinner on time.
Hank, as only Hank can, said this: "I don't care about their dinner. I care about my dinner. They can eat at McDonald's."
Two things on that - 1) that's word-for-word what Hank said and 2) TB laughed when he wrote that again.
TigerBlog has been going to Tuesday event meetings since before either of his kids was born. He's used to those Tiger Tuesdays.
The actual Tiger Tuesday was a day on which high school seniors who have been admitted to Princeton were invited to the campus to go to a class or two, eat lunch, take some tours, meet some of their future classmates. The Class of 2022 will include Miss TigerBlog, and she was in attendance yesterday.
Of course, she has spent more time on the campus than your average incoming freshman, though the first other student she met yesterday was from Princeton High School.
TigerBlog is excited enough about the opportunity his daughter now finds awaiting her. He's seen so many people who have been touched by the amazing chance to attend Princeton, and now it's just a few months away from her.
Having her on campus yesterday was pretty special. He can't imagine what it'll be like when she's there all the time - other than the part where she'll go out of her way never to see him and all.
It dawns on TigerBlog that the Class of 2022 will be 100 years behind the Class of 1922, which featured the two men for whom the old soccer field was named - Donold Lourie and George Love.
The old field - it was called Lourie-Love Field - was on the same spot where Roberts Stadium now stands. Lourie-Love featured exactly zero frills, not even a place to put the programs in the early 1990s.
It was the women's soccer team's dramatic run to the 2004 NCAA Final Four, one that packed Lourie-Love, especially in the quarterfinal win over Washington, that was behind the inspiration to build the new field, which is as nice a soccer venue as you will ever see.
One of the mainstays on that 2004 team was a defender from Canada named Brea Griffiths. TigerBlog remembers her as being funny, friendly and outgoing off the field and ferocious on the field. To get to the goal required getting past Brea, something that was intimidating and, usually, impossible.
She was a two-time All-Ivy selection and the rock of a defense on a team that was perfect in the Ivy League and won four NCAA games her senior year. She also was the perfect teammate, the kind of team-oriented leader without whom you can never really reach your fullest potential as a group.
TigerBlog hadn't heard from her in a long time when she checked in a few weeks ago. These days, she's Brea Kroeker.
As it turns out, Brea has been battling very serious health issues the last four years, and honestly TB didn't really understand what exactly was wrong with her, just that it's clear that she has been in pretty rough shape.
It can be generally termed as "severe chronic illness." Basically what she needs now is more diagnostic testing. It's completely turned her life upside down.
It's been brutal, actually. It took a long time to even figure out what was wrong with her. At least now she knows, and she's trying to do something about it.
If you want more information, HERE IS THE PAGE where you can see more information and how to help.
The incredible thing about Brea is that her spirit is great. She was laughing about it to TigerBlog, and her determination comes through with every word she says. She continues to raise her three children in the face of all this.
It's a tough fight. She's a tough person, and always has been. It's like she was saying "hey, no big deal. I'll take this on too."
Her determination is obvious. Her sense of humor is still there.
She's fighting a very tough battle here, and she is doing so in extraordinary fashion. TB wants her to win now more than he ever wanted her to as a player at Princeton.
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