Happy Friday

Happy Birthday to BrotherBlog!!!

Exclamation points and everything.  

Consider this your card from your brother. He really did mean to get you one. These things happen. 

How old is BB? As TB told his brother, age is just a number. It's just that his number is higher than TB's. 

BrotherBlog lives in Seattle, where he does a bunch of stuff in the law school at the University of Washington. And by "a bunch of stuff," TB means his brother "is the Associate Dean for Student Affairs and an Associate Teaching Professor. He has taught law courses for more than 20 years including Family Law, Administrative Law, Mental Health and Law, Beginning of Life: Rights and Choices, Legal Issues at the End of Life, HIV and Law, and Constitutional Law: Equal Protection. Additionally, he designed and implemented the two online courses for LL.M. bar exam takers: Professional Responsibility and Constitutional Law: Structures of Government."

Yes, but can he type as fast as his brother? No way. 

In other Happy Friday news ...  

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The Stanley Cup made its way to the Princeton campus yesterday, courtesy of Eric Robinson, Class of 2018. 

Robinson won the Cup this past season with the Carolina Hurricanes. Following a tradition similar to wishing a sibling Happy Birthday, each team member gets to spend a day in the off-season with the famous trophy.  

To celebrate his day, Robinson brought it back to Hobey Baker Rink, the building where he was the Tiger captain nearly 10 years ago. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Princeton Men's Hockey (@princetonhockey)

If you're wondering who the kids are, they're Charlotte and Will, who mother is Emily Dorman, the head of athletic training at Princeton. Their father? Chas Dorman? The name rings a bell (he oversees Princeton Athletic Communications). 

When TB went to Robinson's Instagram page, he saw a few other pictures that he wanted to share: 

For the top picture, who doesn't like to see "Take Your Dogs To Work" Day pictures? 

For the second, if you think the guy on the far left was smiling at media day in September 2017, you should have seen him six months later, when he scored the game-winning goal in overtime to give Princeton the 2018 ECAC championship. His name is Max Becker, as you recall. 

The bottom picture, by the way, will make every one of those guys smile every time they look at it, from now until the end of time. It's something TB considers each time he watches the current media days, with the thousands of photos of smiling faces. 

Those are memories that will last forever.

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Back at BrotherBlog, he told TB that he and Joe, the official Brother-in-Law of TigerBlog, were going to Victoria to celebrate. TB assumed they meant the one in Australia.

Turns out they opened another one in British Columbia, which borders Washington State. 

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Mega-congrats go out to Cara Holdsclaw, Princeton Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Relations, on the recent induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame of her wife Chamique Holdsclaw. Playing for the legendary coach Pat Summitt at Tennessee, Holdsclaw won three NCAA championships and then a gold medal for Team USA at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. 

If you think women's basketball started with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, it didn't. It started long ago, long before what it is now. According to history.com (one of TB's favorite websites): 

On March 22, 1893, the first women's college basketball game is played at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. With each made basket counting as one point and the game lasting two 15-minute halves, a sophomore class team prevails over a freshmen team, 5-4. Men are not permitted inside the gym at the all-women college, but a crowd of fascinated women cheer on their fellow classmates from the running track of the campus gymnasium. The winning team earns a gold and white banner.

The first intercollegiate women's basketball game? You wouldn't be surprised to know it was in 1896; you might be surprised to know that it was between Stanford and Cal. 

Cara, by the way, finished her own college playing career with 927 points, scoring 810 of them at Dayton after transferring from Arkansas after her sophomore year. Interestingly, she never attempted a three-point shot in any of her four years. 

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Have a happy weekend.  

Final Jeopardy, Opening Day

Okay, here is your Princeton Athletics "Final Jeopardy" category: 

"No. 42"

And the Final Jeopardy answer is: 

"He was the last Princeton athlete to wear the No. 42 in any sport."

Cue the music. 

Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah. Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah, Dit, Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah. 

While that is stuck in your head, consider what today is: OPENING DAY!!!!

The women's soccer team will be home tonight at 7 against Loyola. That's a real game, by the way, not a scrimmage. 

TigerBlog wrote this back on July 9, when he mentioned that it was six weeks out from the first Princeton Athletic event of the 2026-27 year: 

Enjoy the rest of the summer. It'll be six weeks from now in no time.  

He was right. And here you are, on Opening Day.

The women's soccer season will get off to a flying start, with four games between now and the end of August alone. The Tigers will be at Syracuse Sunday and then home again a week from today against West Virginia and a week from Sunday against James Madison. There are three more games in the first 10 days of September. 

To give you a sense of how the college athletic calendar gradually shifts, the first women's soccer game 10 years ago was on Aug. 26. If you go back 20 years, it was on Sept. 2. 

And keep in mind, the rest of Division I starts a week earlier than the Ivy League. They've been practicing since July, hoping to play into December — the middle of December at that. All of these teams that are playing in mid-August? The NCAA Women's College Cup will be Dec. 10 and 13 in Cary, N.C.

That's a long way off. 

In fact, the women's and men's semifinals and finals will both be that weekend at the same site, with the men's games one day behind the women's. Is this a first? Is TB reading the dates wrong? 

Also, can you tell TB who the defending champions are, by the way? Florida State on the women's side and Washington on the men's side. 

Remember, by the way, that there is no admission fee for all regular season fall teams at Princeton other than football. And those other fall teams will be underway soon as well. 

The men's soccer team will play two home games in August, opening a week from Friday against Villanova and then the 31st against Portland. Fast forward to Friday, Sept. 2 (that's two weeks from tomorrow by the way), and you have the openers for men's and women's cross country, women's volleyball, men's water polo and field hockey. 

Opening Day for any sport is always exciting. Even the New York Jets can be excited on their opening day. 

At Princeton, this is more than just one soccer game. It's the start of a run that will go all the way into June, with 38 varsity teams and 1,000 varsity athletes. There will be (hopefully, knock wood) championships won, individual honors accrued, records set. There will be great games. There will be tough losses. 

And the best part is that there is no way to know which sports and athletes and events those will all be. 

Oh, and back at Final Jeopardy: 

The question: Who is Greg Seaman?

He wore No. 42 for the men's lacrosse team until he graduated in 2009. Today he is the head of the men's lacrosse Friends' Group.  

Here he is at the dinner to retire the No. 42 back in 2009, along with John McPhee and Princeton athletic legends (and No. 42 wearers) Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier:

Lastly when TB was in the newspaper business, he used to go to a welcome back luncheon at what was then Trenton State College and is now The College of New Jersey. Each year, the college president would always say the same thing: "I predict that all of our teams will go undefeated this year." 

TigerBlog won't go that far. He's pretty sure there will be some losses mixed in. As he thinks back to those luncheons, though, he always goes back to his mindset at the time. He was in his mid-20s and wondering if he could make this his entire career. He always figured he'd do it for one more academic year and then figure out what his "real" job would be. 

And then, come the start of the next year, he'd feel recharged and excited about what might happen during the coming months. He figured when he lost that, then he'd know it was time to try something different. 

He still thinks that way. That's why he's still doing this all these decades later. 

Go Tigers. Here's to another great year.  

Whose Number Is It Anyway?

 TigerBlog can't begin to guess how many "media day" photos were taken last week on Jadwin Gym's D level.

There were five teams who went through the four stations: men's soccer, women's soccer, field hockey, women's volleyball and men's water polo. That's nearly 100 athletes. 

Total photos taken? Maybe close to 100,000? 

And that doesn't even count the teams still to come — football, women's rugby and men's and women's cross country — who will be taking their turns this coming week. That's a lot of shooting, editing, posting and everything else. 

If you follow any of these teams and athletes on Instagram, then you've seen several hundred of the finished products. If you follow teams from other schools, you can see how huge a part of college athletics this has become. It's another item on the "didn't exist all that long ago and now would be unfathomable not to do" list. 

TB is, of course, biased towards field hockey, so he says this with that disclaimer. Of all those photos that were taken, these were his two favorites.

If you're wondering, by the way, that's Molly Nye of the field hockey team, a junior who was a key part of last year's run to double overtime of the NCAA championship game. Fun fact: Nye's family home is within walking distance of the field at Harvard where Princeton won the Ivy League tournament last year. 

Anyway, which do you like better, facing the camera of facing the Tiger? TB went through this after the NCAA men's lacrosse championship last spring, when he had these two pictures taken with Miss TigerBlog ’22:

He's still not sure. He's just glad he has that conundrum in his life. You know. The championship and all. 

Oh, and a belated Happy Birthday to MTB. For those who remember her from her Little Miss TigerBlog days, she's 26 now. Yeah. 

MTB is actually four months older than Washington Commanders' quarterback Jayden Daniels, who is still 25. Or is that five? 

Daniels, you might recall, had his legal representatives tell LSU that they no longer had the right to use his name, image and likeness because the football program gave his No. 5 jersey to a different player. He called this "profoundly disrespectful."

Clearly Daniels has never done stats at an LSU football game. With rosters of more than 100 players, not having the ability to use all available ones makes it even more problematic for the statkeepers.

 Besides, it's college football, not the NFL. FBS rosters completely turn over every four five six seven eight years (or, moving forward, perhaps only five). 

Princeton has retired exactly one number, and it's across all 38 sports. That's the number 42, the one worn by both Dick Kazmaier and Bill Bradley, worn by nobody in either of their sports since they did and nobody at Princeton on any team since 2009. 

TB wrote this as he watched the field hockey team practice yesterday afternoon on Bedford Field. Opening day for the Tigers is a little more than two weeks away. 

As with every year and with every team, you have players who graduated and freshmen who are coming into the program. There are six freshmen on this team, four of whom are wearing a uniform number that belonged to someone who graduated last year and the other two of whom are wearing one that nobody wore last year but was worn for the previous four years by someone else. 

It's just how it is. In fact it's a fun part of Princeton Athletics, following the legacy of uniform numbers, something that can be traced back more than 100 years for certain teams.  

In the case of field hockey 2026, on its most simplistic level, you have the No. 14. It belonged for the last four years to Ella Hampson, an Englishwoman with a very big personality whose default was laughter. Now that number has been passed on to Savannah Faulkner, a freshman from Louisville. To see the No. 14 on the field without hearing Hampson's running commentary takes a little adjustment, but it's also something TB loves to see. 

It's the literal marching forward of each team's lineage. That's an ultimate sign of respect. 

Seeing Straight

TigerBlog's first text yesterday went to Julie Shackford, the longtime Princeton women's soccer head coach who is now at her alma mater, William & Mary. 

Here's the transcript:

TB: "Do you play Wordle?"
JS: "Sometimes."
TB: "You should play it today."

About three minutes later, she texted back one word: "Hah."

As he has mentioned before, TigerBlog is a huge fan of doing the daily puzzles. He starts out each morning with Wordle, and he uses a different starting word each day. Ideally, he'll find one that has some connection to the day to come. 

Yesterday's start word for him was "SIGHT." Why that particular word? It's because TB had to take FatherBlog yesterday to get cataract surgery. You'll be happy to know that it went well. Hey, the man is almost 91.  

When he went to take him home, TB asked the discharge nurse if he could let his father drive. She said "absolutely not;" TB still isn't sure if she realized he was kidding. Also, what does your average almost-91 year old say immediately after his surgery? Here was what FB said: 

"I'm starving. Can we stop at the diner?" 

As for the Wordle word yesterday, starting with "SIGHT," it took TB five total guesses to get the answer. If you haven't played the word yet, TB will save it until the end. 

In the meantime, Shackford's Tribe team has already opened its season this past Wednesday with a 1-1 tie against Loyola. As you may be aware, the Princeton women open their season Thursday at home against that same Loyola team. 

Who has the advantage, Loyola for having already played or Princeton for not playing its third game in eight days? Ah, what was Loyola's other game? 

The Greyhounds had its second game already, another 1-1 tie against No. 10 Arkansas. Both of Loyola's games have been played in Baltimore. Why was Arkansas willing to come to Baltimore, for a single game at that? It wasn't a return game. There wasn't another game during the same road trip. 

This got TB to thinking that Arkansas might have a player from the Baltimore area, so he went to the team's website. Turns out that the Razorbacks 1) have players from 13 different states, 2) they have no players from Maryland, 3) they beat Dartmouth in the first round of the NCAA tournament a year ago and 4) they also lost 4-1 to Baylor in their first game this season. 

Loyola has no players from Arkansas. The team has more players from Florida and Texas than any other state. 

What Loyola will bring to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium Thursday will be three Patriot League Players of the Week, two of whom are internationals (a French-Canadian midfielder from Quebec and a goalkeeper from Germany) and one of whom is from Maryland. 

Princeton? This, from TB's friend and colleague Andrew Borders' preview story, tells you a lot:

Princeton enters 2026 coming off back-to-back Ivy League titles for the first time in program history after winning the 2024 Ivy League regular-season and tournament titles and following with the 2025 Ivy League regular-season title. The Tigers went 8-6-3 overall and 5-2 in Ivy League play last season, closing the regular season with five straight wins to claim the Ivy title before defeating Brown in the Ivy League Tournament semifinal and falling 1-0 to Dartmouth in the final. Princeton returns the scorers of 21 of the team's 24 goals from 2025 and nine of the 12 players who scored a goal last season, as well as all eight players who scored more than one goal last season. 

You can read Andrew's entire preview HERE. If TB is doing the math correctly, this is the 21st year that Andrew has been the women's soccer contact, by the way. That's a lot of institutional knowledge. 

If you don't want to read it, Princeton plays Thursday night at home and then Sunday afternoon at Syracuse in its second game as the season gets off to a fast start. 

By the way, the Wordle from yesterday? Use your imagination. Why would TB have asked Shackford if she'd done it? 

The word was "TRIBE." 

Has it ever been "TIGER?" 

And The Double Jeopardy Questions Are ...

Just like that, it's the first Princeton Athletics Game Week for 2026-27. 

As TigerBlog has been reminding you, the women's soccer team will be home Thursday night at 7 against Loyola. And yes, that's a real game. 

There will be nearly 700 events between the game Thursday and the NCAA track and field championships in June. What is in store for the 2026-27 Tigers?  

In the meantime, TB hopes you enjoyed Friday's Princeton Athletics "Double Jeopardy" round. Coming soon will be "Final Jeopardy."

For today, here are the "Double Jeopardy" questions:  

JOHN MACK

$400 - John Mack is the first Princeton Director of Athletics to have competed in this sport as an undergraduate.

What is track and field?  

$800 - Before becoming Princeton's Ford Family Director of Athletics, John Mack worked in this profession.

What is law? 

$1200 - He grew up in New Haven, the one in this state, not the one with all those Bulldogs.

What is Michigan? 

$1600 - He shared the 2000 Roper Trophy with squash player Peter Yik and this Hall of Fame lacrosse player. 

Who is Josh Sims?  

$2000 - John Mack's first job after graduation was in Princeton's Department of Athletics. His second job was at this Big Ten school. 

What is Northwestern?  

PRO TIGERS

$400 - He has 141 career points in nine NHL seasons; for a hint, his name was recently engraved on the Stanley Cup. 

Who is Eric Robinson?  

$800 - He was the winning pitcher in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series, when he won the first of his two rings (the other came as a general manager). 

Who is Chris Young?  

$1200 - Winning seems to follow this Princeton women's basketball alum wherever she goes, including in this, her second year in the WNBA.

Who is Kaitlyn Chen?  

$1600 - He is the only player ever to win the Most Valuable Player Award in both Major League Lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League. 

Who is Tom Schreiber? 

$2000 - He has two Super Bowl rings after helping build the Giants' teams that took down Tom Brady. 

Who is Marc Ross?  

OLYMPIC TIGERS

$400 - Princeton had two gold medalists at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics — swimmer Jed Graef and this other alum.

Who is Bill Bradley?  

$800 - She was the first Princeton woman to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in rowing in 1976.

Who is Carol Brown?  

$1200 - This fencer won an individual NCAA championship and Olympic gold medal.

Who is Maia Weintraub?  

$1600 - This sport has produced more Princeton Olympic medalists than any other. 

What is rowing?  

$2000 - This member of the Class of 1897 won four medals (two gold, two silver) at the first modern Olympics.

Who is Robert Garrett Jr.?  

ROPER TROPHY WINNERS

$400 - The 2005 Roper Trophy was shared between fencer Soren Thompson (who would become an Olympian) and this two-sport athlete who is currently the front-runner for a major Major League award. 

Who is Will Venable?  

$800 - Football quarterbacks Chad Kanoff (2018) and John Lovett (2019) were back-to-back Roper winners. This player was the most recent quarterback to win the award prior to that after he led the team to an Ivy League championship. 

Who is Jeff Terrell?  

$1200 - The 1988 Roper Trophy was shared by two-time Olympic medal-winning rower Doug Burden and this super football player. 

Who is Dean Cain?  

$1600 - This 1952 Roper Trophy winner did not win the Heisman Trophy; his classmate Dick Kazmaier did but didn't win the Roper. 

Who is John Emery?  

$2000 - This very first Roper winner back in 1936 was also part of the only father-son duo ever to win the award.

Who is Hugh A. MacMillan?

VON KIENBUSCH WINNERS

$400 - A two-sport athlete, she was the 1991 von Kienbusch winner; she came back to work at Princeton later on. 

Who is Mollie Marcoux Samaan? 

$800 - This sport has produced more winners of the award than any other, including the most recent winner. 

What is field hockey?  

$1200 - The long and the short of it: The 2008 von Kienbusch Award was shared by 6-1 women's basketball player Meagan Cowher and this 5-0 tall women's soccer player who went on to win two Olympic bronze medals. 

Who is Diana Matheson?  

$1600 - The first two von Kienbusch Award winners were also the first two women to compete in varsity athletics for Princeton. The first winner was Helena Novakova in 1972; she was the second winner a year later. 

Who is Margie Gengler?  

$2000 - The most recent Princeton woman athlete to letter in three sports and take the von Kiensbusch Award was this 1989 winner. 

Who is Demer Holleran? 

CHAMP STAMP

$400 - The men's lacrosse team won the 2026 national championship, giving it this many NCAA titles in program history. 

What is seven?  

$800 - The 2017 Princeton men's basketball team went 14-0 during the Ivy season and then won both games in the first Ivy tournament, and that team remains the only Ivy men's basketball team to go 16-0; he was the first Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player. 

Who is Myles Stephens?  

$1200 - Julia Ratcliffe, a future Olympian for New Zealand, was the 2014 NCAA champion in this track and field event. 

What is the hammer throw?  

$1600 - The women's open rowing team won the first varsity 8 NCAA championship in 2006 and again in 2011, with a combined four future Olympic medalists in those two boats, including this rower who won Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012. 

Who is Caroline Lind?  

$2000 - This Princeton alum is the only four-time men's intercollegiate squash national individual champion. 

Who is Yasser El Halaby?  

Double Jeopardy

What better way is there to celebrate a summer Friday than with Princeton Athletics Double Jeopardy. 

You remember the Jeopardy round from two weeks ago? No? It was inspired by Kyle Brandt's appearance on ESPN's Jeopardy. 

You can find that HERE.

As with the Jeopardy round, TigerBlog will follow up Monday with the questions. For now, here are the categories: 

JOHN MACK

$400 - John Mack is the first Princeton Director of Athletics to have competed in this sport as an undergraduate.

$800 - Before becoming Princeton's Ford Family Director of Athletics, John Mack worked in this profession.

$1200 - He grew up in New Haven, the one in this state, not the one with all those Bulldogs.

$1600 - He shared the 2000 Roper Trophy with squash player Peter Yik and this Hall of Fame lacrosse player. 

$2000 - John Mack's first job after graduation was in Princeton's Department of Athletics. His second job was at this Big Ten school. 

PRO TIGERS

$400 - He has 141 career points in nine NHL seasons; for a hint, his name was recently engraved on the Stanley Cup. 

$800 - He was the winning pitcher in Game 1 of the 2015 World Series, when he won the first of his two rings (the other came as a general manager). 

$1200 - Winning seems to follow this Princeton women's basketball alum wherever she goes, including in this, her second year in the WNBA.

$1600 - He is the only player ever to win the Most Valuable Player Award in both Major League Lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League. 

$2000 - He has two Super Bowl rings after helping build the Giants' teams that took down Tom Brady. 

OLYMPIC TIGERS

$400 - Princeton had two gold medalists at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics — swimmer Jed Graef and this other alum.

$800 - She was the first Princeton woman to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in rowing in 1976.

$1200 - This fencer won an individual NCAA championship and Olympic gold medal.

$1600 - This sport has produced more Princeton Olympic medalists than any other. 

$2000 - This member of the Class of 1897 won four medals (two gold, two silver) at the first modern Olympics.

ROPER TROPHY WINNERS

$400 - The 2005 Roper Trophy was shared between fencer Soren Thompson (who would become an Olympian) and this two-sport athlete who is currently the front-runner for a major Major League award. 

$800 - Football quarterbacks Chad Kanoff (2018) and John Lovett (2019) were back-to-back Roper winners. This player was the most recent quarterback to win the award prior to that after he led the team to an Ivy League championship. 

$1200 - The 1988 Roper Trophy was shared by two-time Olympic medal-winning rower Doug Burden and this super football player. 

$1600 - This 1952 Roper Trophy winner did not win the Heisman Trophy; his classmate Dick Kazmaier did but didn't win the Roper. 

$2000 - This very first Roper winner back in 1936 was also part of the only father-son duo ever to win the award.

VON KIENBUSCH WINNERS

$400 - A two-sport athlete, she was the 1991 von Kienbusch winner; she came back to work at Princeton later on. 

$800 - This sport has produced more winners of the award than any other, including the most recent winner. 

$1200 - The long and the short of it: The 2008 von Kienbusch Award was shared by 6-1 women's basketball player Meagan Cowher and this 5-0 tall women's soccer player who went on to win two Olympic bronze medals. 

$1600 - The first two von Kienbusch Award winners were also the first two women to compete in varsity athletics for Princeton. The first winner was Helena Novakova in 1972; she was the second winner a year later. 

$2000 - The most recent Princeton woman athlete to letter in three sports and take the von Kiensbusch Award was this 1989 winner. 

CHAMP STAMP

$400 - The men's lacrosse team won the 2026 national championship, giving it this many NCAA titles in program history. 

$800 - The 2017 Princeton men's basketball team went 14-0 during the Ivy season and then won both games in the first Ivy tournament, and that team remains the only Ivy men's basketball team to go 16-0; he was the first Ivy League tournament Most Outstanding Player. 

$1200 - Julia Ratcliffe, a future Olympian for New Zealand, was the 2014 NCAA champion in this track and field event. 

$1600 - The women's open rowing team won the first varsity 8 NCAA championship in 2006 and again in 2011, with a combined four future Olympic medalists in those two boats, including this rower who won Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012. 

$2000 - This Princeton alum is the only four-time men's intercollegiate squash national individual champion. 

One Week Out

So what would you like to talk about with only seven days left until the first event of the 2026-27 athletic year for Princeton? 

Shockingly, the first game is a week from today, when the women's soccer team hosts Loyola at 7 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. 

Today is photo day for women's soccer and for field hockey as well. Tomorrow brings men's soccer, women's volleyball and men's water polo. 

The quiet that is the Princeton campus in the summer is evaporating quickly in favor of preseason meetings, practices, equipment distributions and of course photos. 

Yeah, so there's one more week til the games start up again. Where does the summer go? 

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The women's soccer season will begin one week after one Tiger alum was named the Player of the Week in the National Women's Soccer League. 

Pietra Tordin, a second-year pro with the Portland Thorns, was the NWSL Player of the Week after she scored three goals in a 4-3 win over the Boston Legacy this past weekend. Oh, and she scored those three goals in just 37 minutes of the first half. 

She started with a goal just two minutes into the game and then scored two more before intermission. She is now eighth in the league in goals on the year (seven) while also leading the league in assists (eight). Not bad. 

Also, her seven goals have come on just 26 shots, a figure that doesn't even put her in the top 20 in the league. 

This all comes after a rookie season in which she had four goals on 31 shots, with no assists.  

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While the start of classes is three weeks away and the men's basketball season is less than three months away, that doesn't mean the Tigers aren't already together. The team is in Italy now for a 10-day international trip that includes two games, the first of which is this evening. 

Before tip-off, the itinerary today also includes a Vatican tour. The team has already been to Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and Naples, with stops in Florence and at Lake Como after Rome. TB has never been to Lake Como, but everyone he knows who has swears it's the most beautiful spot they've ever seen. 

When TB thinks of men's basketball and the team's international trips, he always goes back to the summer of 1997, when the team toured Spain on a trip that was chronicled by then-rising senior Sean Gregory for a piece entitled "Bomba" that was included in that year's media guide (which makes another media guide reference this week). 

Two facts from that trip: 1) Princeton went on to have a 27-2 season that saw it reach the top 10 of the national rankings and 2) Gregory has gone on to a great career writing about sports for Time Magazine. 

You can read more about the current trip HERE and see updates on the men's basketball team's social media.  

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The Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award nominations were announced this week, and Princeton's multimedia department is very well represented again. A year ago Princeton had four nominations and two winners. This year, there are five nominations for the awards that will be announced in September. 

Drew Miller, who won his first Emmy a year ago, has three of the five Princeton pieces that have been nominated this time around. Cody Chrusciel and Keith Egan also earned nominations. 

You can see more about what was nominated and how to watch HERE. 

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Emilia Reay, a rising junior at Princeton, has completed a summer internship at USA Lacrosse in Maryland. 

Reay first came to TigerBlog early in her freshman year, when she was covering field hockey for the Daily Princetonian. Since then she has been part of the Prince, a constant at field hockey and men's lacrosse home games and now a student intern with the multimedia department. She also makes her commentary videos on her "Emilia Reay Came To Play" Instagram feed. 

Reay has spent her summer writing about lacrosse and working with the national teams who came to USA Lacrosse HQ. TB suggested that a good feature story idea might be Dana Boyle, the Virginia lacrosse alum who is starting down the path of a broadcasting career. These days, she's a regular on the sidelines at lacrosse and was there through Princeton's run to the Ivy tournament championship and NCAA championship this past spring and now this summer with the Premier Lacrosse League. 

You can read Emilia's story on Boyle HERE. 

Boyle, by the way, is not related to Princeton men's lacrosse Hall of Fame alum Ryan Boyle. 

Oh, and make sure you follow Emilia's social media. There's a ton of Princeton content there.  

Squiggly Worms

Is "squiggly" an actual word, or did some kindergartner say it one day and it just stuck?  

TigerBlog likes to walk near the river, something he was doing the other day. He used to play lunchtime basketball and then lunchtime squash in Jadwin Gym; these days he hopes to average10,000 steps a day. 

Having written that, he fully expects to hear from his friend and colleague Warren Croxton, who will point out that he averages half a million steps a day or something like that.  

A few of those steps the other day took him past a group of people who were fishing along the canal, including one seemingly teenage boy who had a shoebox with a sign that said "Squiggly Worms" on it. 

TB isn't sure if he was selling them or simply giving them away. He only asked the boy one question, and it didn't really have anything to do with fishing: "Aren't all worms squiggly?"

The response? A confused look. 

TB, by the way, has next-to-no experience fishing — and even less actually catching fish. In fact, all of his fish-catching moments have occurred with John McPhee there, and it's possible that Mr. McPhee and the fish were in on it together to make TB feel better. 

Miss TigerBlog ’22 caught a fish when she was 3 by feeling the bite on the hook, screaming and turning and running the other way, dragging the fish out of the water and across a bunch of rocks. 

Here's the before picture (it's one of TB's favorites):

The poor fish. You can see the rocks. 

Back when that picture was taken, Ivy League football media day was still an in-person thing in Connecticut, as TB mentioned yesterday, after this year's latest conference call edition Monday. it got TB to thinking about some of the media members who used to be regulars there, some of whom are now gone. 

One was Bill Wallace, who passed away 14 years ago yesterday, at the age of 88. Wallace, Yale Class of 1945, covered everything big in the world of sports for the New York Times in his nearly 40 years there, including the New York Giants football team, the Americas Cup yacht racing and boxing. He famously wrote about a certain boxer for the paper in a story that ran on June 20, 1963. TB didn't read it then, since he was, you know, an infant. 

Included was this:  

Cassius Clay, the heavyweight fighter home from his conquest of England, was beyond containing yesterday on arrival at Idlewild Airport. Clay acknowledged his knockout of Henry Cooper, the British Empire champion, in London on Tuesday night as just another tour de force and then he proposed a money fight to dwarf all others. Clay said he was ready to fight Sonny Liston, the world champion.

In case you don't know, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and Idlewild Airport became Kennedy Airport. Oh, and Clay obliterated Liston to become the heavyweight champ for the first time, proclaiming beforehand that Liston was "too ugly to be the champ" and "I'm a pretty man."

In addition to everything else, Wallace covered Ivy League football for four decades. He was nearing the end of his career when TB first came along, and he was something of a legend in Ivy pressboxes (Wallace, not TB). 

TB remembers one Ivy football media day when the league brought in the head of officials to discuss rules changes for that year. To be fair for what happened next, the ref was droning on a bit about, if TB remembers correctly, rules about towels that could be worn on the pants of quarterbacks and other skill players. 

From where he was sitting, TB could see clearly what was coming next. His old mentor Harvey Yavener was growing impatient because he wanted to get into the meat of the questioning with the coaches, not listen to some official talk about minutia. And Yav, bless his late heart, didn't do impatience well. 

"Can you speed this up," Yav said briskly. 

"This is interesting stuff," Wallace countered, equally as briskly. 

For a second, TB thought the two sportswriters, both in the 5-5 range, were going to come to blows. All TB could do was smile. Perhaps if the cellphone camera existed back then, TB could have recorded it. Alas, nobody had a phone at the time, so TB has to rely on his memory. Then again, his memory is strong because he got to be in the moment and not buried in his phone because an Eastern college football ref was being long-winded. 

Anyway, those days are gone, and TB understands why. 

It's just that there was something pretty special about those days too, and TB is glad he got to be a part of it.  

Football Media Day

TigerBlog will get back to Ivy League football media day in a moment. 

He'll reminisce about the glory days of the event, held at a Connecticut golf course, with interviews, media, box lunches and golf. It was during one of those media day golf outings back in the 1990s when TB did something for the only time in his life and is pretty sure you never have (and he'll keep you hanging on that one).

First, though, he has to talk about the story he just read about Dickie Bush. You might remember him as the center on Princeton's 2016 Ivy League championship team who then started all 10 games as a senior the next year. 

Bush was an operations research and financial engineering major. TigerBlog has a sense of what that actually is, though he'd say the only thing he really knows about it would be that it's really hard. After graduation, Bush went to work for Black Rock in Manhattan.

These days, he's living in Tampa. He's moved on from finance and is now in the, well, it's hard to sum up the business he's in these days. It's his own company, and it has to do with writing every day. 

This isn't the kind of writing that TigerBlog does. It's actually a pretty interesting business plan. You can read about it HERE.

Ivy League media day these days consists of video conference calls with the eight head coaches, and that was what the process was yesterday. As a reminder, Princeton has been selected fifth in the Ivy League preseason media poll, for whatever that's worth. 

Here is part of what Tiger head coach Bob Surace had to say: 

NEXT MAN UP.

With a veteran core setting the tone and a next-man-up mentality across the roster, @PrincetonFTBL enters 2026 looking to turn its experience and depth into results. The Tigers open at Bryant on Sept. 19 at 1 p.m. 🌿🏈@TIAA pic.twitter.com/kTPkLFbll2

— Ivy League (@IvyLeague) August 10, 2026

There was a time when football media day was one of the highlights of the annual Ivy sports calendar. Mostly for TigerBlog, back in the 1990s, it was a race to get the football media guide done in time to have it printed and delivered to the Connecticut golf course before the first coach spoke. That was stressful.

What is that? A question from someone young? What was a "media guide?" Yeah, TB can barely remember those either. 

Of course, you couldn't risk being the one out of eight who didn't have a media guide there. That would be horrible. 

TB never missed. He did have to drive to print shops on the way to Connecticut to pick up the first 20 of them or so. And what did he have to do as soon as the football guide was finished? The men's basketball one. 

The best part of media day wasn't the questions and answers. No, it was the relationships. The Ivy League athletic communications staffs usually had an annual meeting the day before the media day, with a dinner after the meeting. 

The Q&A portion of media day was okay, but it was really the lunch and the golf outing that made these days special. It was a chance to meet up with media members, of which there were plenty, and opposing coaches. 

And wrapped around it all? The knowledge that it wouldn't be that long until football season would be there.  

And that brings TB to what he did at one of those Ivy football media days that he's guessing you never have? 

It was on the 17th tee at the Yale golf course, one of the two courses the league used for its media days, with the other Lyman Orchards. It was a Par 3, elevated tee, really humid. TB hit an 8-iron, and what happened next was a bit stunning. 

Hole in one? Nope. Close. His ball landed on the green, stopping about 10 feet from the pin.

Hole in one? Maybe. His 8-iron slid out of his hands and helicoptered majestically away from the tee box, splashing down in a lake to the left. 

TB never got the club back. He never putted for birdie or played the 18th hole. 

Have you ever done that? 

He doesn't think so.  

Rooting Interest

Okay, there are three guys who put TigerBlog into a difficult spot Saturday night. 

Andrew McMeekin. Coulter Mackesy. Ryan Croddick. All three are Princeton men's lacrosse alums. All three are in the Premier Lacrosse League. 

McMeekin and Mackesy play for the Boston Cannons, who hosted the traveling PLL show this past weekend at Harvard Stadium. Croddick plays for the California Redwoods. 

As far as the PLL goes, TB's rooting interest is in the Princeton players, at least one of whom can be found on each of the eight teams in the league. Perhaps TB can ask Dan Arestia, a lacrosse writer who seems to have answers to questions like this one, how many other colleges can make the same claim. 

In fact, TB texted Dan that very question. As it turns out, Princeton is the only team with at least one player on every PLL team. UVa, Maryland and Duke have players on seven of eight. 

Thanks Dan. He is the authority. 

Meanwhile, back at the difficult spot from Saturday night, TigerBlog was faced with the dilemma of watching Croddick try to stop shots from Mackesy and McMeekin. What's someone like TB supposed to do with that? 

When McMeekin wins a face-off forward, which he often does, the excitement of the play builds to see if he's going to shoot or not. There have been very few face-off specialists who can shoot it like McMeekin, by the way. That's ever, anywhere. 

But wait. He's shooting on Croddick. The two are pretty much best buddies. They were teammates on Princeton's NCAA championship team this past spring. 

And then there's Mackesy. TB has wanted every shot Mackesy has ever taken to go in the goal — and more of Mackesy's have done just that than those of any player in Princeton men's lacrosse history (167 of them, to be exact). But again. There's Croddick in goal. 

That's unfair. 

As it turned out, Boston won the game Saturday 12-9. Croddick came off the Redwoods bench to make eight saves while allowing five goals (one a two-pointer), and one of the goals he allowed was from Mackesy, who had two goals and one assist for the game. 

The big story, quite possibly for the whole league this summer, has been the explosion of McMeekin on the pro game. The rookie who rewrote the face-off and groundballs sections of the Princeton record book has been dominant in the PLL, taking on some of the greatest face-off men ever to play the game and still leading the league in winning percentage (62.5 percent) and having more points (2G, 7A) than any other PLL face-off man this year. 

This past weekend was maybe Meeks' best effort. In two games, both Cannons wins, his numbers were 32 for 51, with 20 groundballs, a goal and two assists. 

The game Friday night was a 14-12 overtime win over the Whipsnakes. How'd they win by two in OT? The Whipsnakes got a stop but committed an interference infraction, giving the ball back to Boston. Rather than waiting for anyone to get set on either team, the Cannon's Marcus Holman simply drilled one into the vacated net. Game over. 

Ah, but how did it get to overtime? Well, the answer is a little good fortune and a lot of Andrew McMeekin. The good fortune came when, with the score 11-10 Whipsnakes and a flag down against Boston, Maryland scored a goal just as the shot clock was going to expire, making it 12-10. Had Maryland not shot it there, then it still would be a one-goal game, but with slightly over a minute to play and a 60-second man advantage. The chances of running out the clock were pretty strong at that point. 

Instead, the Whipsnakes took the goal, which actually was probably the only way Boston could win. McMeekin then won the face-off. Goal Boston. Another face-off win. Another Boston goal. OT. And then one more McMeekin face-off win.  

McMeekin's two main opponents this weekend were Petey LaSalla and TD Ierlan. If you don't have the NCAA men's lacrosse record book as one of your bookmarks, then TB will tell you that that LaSalla ranks fourth and Ierlan ranks first all-time in Division I history in face-offs won. 

McMeekin is third in the PLL in groundballs with 79, behind only Mike Sisselberger and Ierlan. Because of Princeton's long run to the NCAA title, McMeekin has played in only nine games this season, as opposed to the 12 for Sisselberger and the 11 for Ierlan. McMeekin, by the way, was 15 for 21 against Sisselberger in their head-to-head matchup, an 11-7 Cannons win over the Archers. 

For some reason, McMeekin has managed to be a bit underrated his whole career, as TB has written before. His list of individual honors doesn't match up to his impact on Princeton's success during his time as a Tiger, which includes four NCAA tournaments, three Ivy tournament championships, five NCAA tournaments wins, one Ivy League title and of course the championship. 

In all that time, McMeekin has never been first-team All-Anything. His biggest accolade was being named the Most Outstanding Player at the 2024 Ivy League tournament, an honor that came down to TB to select. 

Will he be rewarded for the impact he's had on the Cannons and the rest of the league? Boston was 1-2 in the three games McMeekin didn't play to start the season. The team is 6-3 with him in the lineup and clinched its playoff spot this weekend. 

Will he be the PLL Rookie of the Year? His three biggest challengers are all offensive players, including Princeton's Chad Palumbo (another best friend of the Croddick-McMeekin group), as well as Syracuse alum Joey Spallina and Utah alum Ryan Stines. 

Palumbo leads all rookies with 20 goals, along with six assists (that's one fewer than McMeekin by the way). Spallina leads in rookie points with 34. Stines is second in rookie goals, assists and points (18-12-30). 

Will McMeekin be PLL Rookie of the Year? He should be. No question.