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? 

*

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.  

*

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.  

*

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. 

*

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. 

Physical Fitness

TigerBlog had his annual physical early yesterday morning. 

When he schedules doctor's appointments, he likes to take the first one of the day, so the doctor can't be backed up by then. That was the case yesterday as well. 

When the nurse was running through his chart, she asked all the usual questions. Then she asked him this: "Do you drink?" To that, TB responded: "It's a little early, no?"

She laughed. 

As for the doctor, she saw TB's "Princeton Lacrosse" t-shirt and asked what his connection was. As TB explained, she pointed out that she did her undergraduate and medical training at Virginia, site of Princeton's NCAA championship this past spring. 

Dr. Cavalier said that UVa had won the NCAA title when she'd been there, TB started doing the math in his head. These days, all doctors look like they're about 20 years old or so to TigerBlog, so he figured she was way too young for the 2006 championship. 

When he said "2011?," she said that was before her time. That left 2019 and 2021, which means that she's probably not even 30 yet. Oh well. She seems like she knows what she's doing. 

What's the point? Make sure you get your physical and go to the dermatologist. TB needs all the readers he can get. 

*

As TigerBlog mentioned yesterday, the women's basketball team released its schedule for the coming season. The Tigers return four starters (Skye Belker, Ashley Chea, Olivia Hutcherson and Fadima Tall) and have a new head coach (Lauren Gosselin). 

There was a time that doesn't seem that long ago (though it was probably before TB's doctor was born) when the college basketball season didn't start until December. By the time Dec. 1 rolls around, Princeton will have played nine games already. There will be five in December, by contrast.

Among the highlights — well, the highlight — of the non-conference schedule will be the Nov. 15 game at defending NCAA champion UCLA, which comes two days after Princeton plays at Pepperdine. Those games will be a homecoming for Belker, Chea and Emily Eadie. 

HERE is the complete schedule again. 

*

The women's soccer team opens its season in 13 days, at home against Loyola. The men's season won't be that far behind, with an Aug. 28 season opener at home against Villanova.  

Between the two teams, Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium will host five games in August and six games by Sept. 4, which is the Friday before Labor Day.  

The men will open the season as the No. 8 team in Division I according to the United Soccer Coaches. Princeton is coming off a great season, one that saw the Tigers go 7-0-0 in the Ivy League without allowing a goal and earn the No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament.   

*

Back at lacrosse, the Premier Lacrosse League has two weekends left in its regular season, with games this weekend in Boston and next weekend in Philadelphia. The playoffs begin Aug. 29 in Minneapolis and then continue in Utah Sept. 7 before the championship game Sept. 20 at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison. 

Princeton alums are all over the top of the PLL leaderboards this season, where not shockingly the two leading scorers in Tiger history are in the top four in points. Michael Sowers, whose 302 points are the most by any Princeton player ever, leads the PLL with 41 points (21G, 20A); his assists also lead the league, and he has a seven-point lead on second-place C.J. Kirst, his Waterdogs teammate. 

Coulter Mackesy, second all-time at Princeton with 248 points, is tied for third with 33 points, with 17 goals (including three two-pointers) and 13 assists. Andrew McMeekin, Mackesy's Boston Cannons teammate, leads the PLL in face-off winning percentage at 64.2 percent. 

McMeekin has vaulted himself into the thick of the Rookie of the Year race, along with another NCAA champ Tiger, Chad Palumbo (18G, one two-pointer, five assists), Syracuse alum Joey Spallina (32 points) and Utah alum Ryan Stines (28 points).

Mackesy and McMeekin play twice this weekend, tonight at 6 against the Whipsnakes (Joe Juengerkes) and tomorrow at 8 against the Redwoods (Sam English, Ryan Croddick). The second game tonight has the Archers (Ryan Ambler, Beau Pederson) and the Chaos (Palumbo) at 8:30, while tomorrow's schedule also includes the Outlaws (John Dunphey) against the Atlas (Jake Stevens) at 1. 

The Waterdogs (Sowers, Zach Currier) are off this weekend. 

*

Speaking of Andrew McMeekin, he will make his U.S. national team debut at the Pan American Men's Lacrosse Championship in Kingston (the one in Jamaica, not the one that's the next town from Princeton). The tournament will be held Aug. 16-23.

The tournament will be a qualifier for next year's World Championships in Japan. This is full field lacrosse, not the Sixes game that will be played at the 2028 Olympics. 

There are nine teams who will compete in Jamaica, and the top five will qualify for Japan. The U.S. team has a 100 percent chance of being in that top five, as does Canada.  

*

Have a great weekend. And schedule your doctor appointments, preferably the first ones in the morning.  

And The Questions Are ...

And now there are two weeks until the first Princeton Athletic event of the 2026-27 academic year. 

Is that correct? Two weeks? Today is Aug. 6. The first event is women's soccer against Loyola on Aug. 20. Yup. The math checks out.

The first group of Tigers are back on campus. This group will be followed quickly by the rest of the fall teams. 

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A post shared by Princeton Women's Soccer (@princetonwsoc)

Among yesterday's news was the announcement of the Princeton women's basketball schedule for the coming season, which begins Nov. 2. Is that really fewer than three months away? Again, the math checks out. 

Princeton will open its season at home against Belmont in what will be the first game as Tiger head coach Lauren Gosselin. The entire schedule is HERE; TigerBlog will have more about this tomorrow.  

Meanwhile, TigerBlog thanks everyone who seemed to enjoy Princeton Athletics Jeopardy yesterday. TB can tell you that it took him way longer to compile the clues than it would have to write a regular entry. 

He actually had a handful of other categories in mind before settling on the ones he used. Also, like his attempts at Princeton Athletics Connections, it's hard to find the sweet spot between too easy and impossible.

Anyway, he's definitely going to try this again. Hey, there needs to be a Double Jeopardy round and then a Final Jeopardy clue as well.  

As promised, here are the answers questions:

GARY WALTERS

$200 - Gary Walters was the starting point guard on Princeton's NCAA Final Four men's basketball team is this year. 

What is 1965? 

$400 - Gary was the head men's basketball coach at three different colleges — Union, Providence and this Ivy League school. 

What is Dartmouth?

$600 - Gary spent 20 years as the Director of Athletics at Princeton for the second-longest tenure in the position behind only this man.

Who is Ken Fairman? 

$800 - Gary appeared on the Feb. 27, 1967, cover of Sports Illustrated along with this Princeton teammate.

Who is Chris Thomforde? 

$1,000 - A graduate of Reading High School, Gary had this man as his high school government teacher.

Who is Pete Carril?

NUMBERS

$200 - He wore No. 66 for the 2026 NCAA men's lacrosse championship team. That was 66 higher than his father wore as a two-time Ivy men's basketball Player of the Year. 

Who is Cooper Mueller?

$400 - Sarah Lessig is No. 4 on the softball team and No. 8 for this other Princeton team.

What is basketball? 

$600 - Princeton has retired this number, worn by Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier, across all of its sports. 

What is No. 42? 

$800 - The leading scorers on both the Princeton women's and men's basketball teams in 2025-26 wore uniforms that ended with this number.

What is 3 (Madison St. Rose wore 23; Jackson Hicke wore 33)? 

$1,000 - She wore No. 15 for the 2012 NCAA field hockey championship team. 

Who is Kat Sharkey? 

FICTIONAL TIGERS

$200 - Fred Flintstone was the star quarterback at this school for the big game against "Shale."

What is Prince-Stone? 

$400 - The World War II movie "The Caine Mutiny" featured a character named Willie Keith, who played this sport at Princeton.  

What is football?  

$600 - Former Princeton football player Joe Cable was a Lt. in the United States Navy in World War II in this musical.

What is South Pacific? 

$800 - Sam Wainwright, the lead character in the novel "With You," was a classmate of this current Princeton head coach. 

Who is Bob Surace? 

$1,000 - F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Allenby" was based on Princeton's Hobey Baker in this novel. 

What is This Side of Paradise? 

BROKEN RECORDS

$200 - Keith Elias is Princeton's career rushing leader with 4,208 yards, or 1,099 more than this player, who previously held the record. 

Who is Judd Garrett? 

$400 - Kathy Issel set the Princeton women's hockey record for points in a career with 218 before graduating in 1995. The previous record was 216, set by this player four years earlier. 

Who is Mollie Marcoux Samaan? 

$600 - Bella Alarie holds the Princeton record for career points in women's basketball with 1,703. The record she broke stood for 30 years and was held by this player. 

Who is Sandi Bittler? 

$800 - Tyler Lussi's 53 goals are the record for Princeton soccer, men or women, and six better than this player whose record she broke. 

Who is Esmeralda Negron? 

$1,000 - Crista Samaras held the women's lacrosse team's record for career goals from 1999 until 2017. Since then, her record has been broken three times, by Olivia Hompe, Kyla Sears and this current holder of the record. 

Who is McKenzie Blake? 

WORKING OT

$200 - His three-pointer with less than a minute to go in overtime gave Princeton the lead for good in the 1996 Ivy League playoff game at Lehigh. 

Who is Sydney Johnson?  

$400 - She is the most recent Princeton field hockey player to score an OT goal, which she did against Rutgers last season. 

Who is Ella Cashman? 

$600 - Princeton has had five players score an overtime goal in the championship game of an NCAA lacrosse tournament — four men and this woman.  

Who is Theresa Sherry (the four men were Andy Moe, Kevin Lowe, Jesse Hubbard and B.J. Prager)? 

$800 - Running back Rob Toresco pitched the ball to quarterback Jeff Terrell on a fourth-and-1 in overtime in Princeton's 31-30 win over this opponent en route to the 2006 Ivy League title. 

Who is Penn? 

$1,000 - Princeton has won two ECAC men's hockey championship games in overtime, with goals from Syl Apps in 1998 and this player in 2018. Hint — this was a max effort goal.  

Who is Max Becker? 

TODAY I AM A DOCTOR

$200 - Deciding to see this Princeton men's basketball alum turned surgeon should be a layup — he made the most famous one in Tiger history. 

Who is Gabe Lewullis? 

$400 - Nicole Harrison is an eye surgeon and still the holder of the Princeton women's track and field record in this event. 

What is the 110-meter hurdles? 

$600 - He graduated as Princeton's career leader in men's lacrosse goals; now he is a renowned surgeon at Johns Hopkins — and seventh all-time in goals scored with the men's lacrosse team.

Who is Justin Tortolani? 

$800 - Orthopedic surgeon Ilvy Friebe was a two-time first-team All-American in this sport. 

What is field hockey? 

$1,000 - This orthodontist has an official bio that reads: As a graduating senior at Princeton University, he received the Pyne Prize, Princeton's highest academic and leadership honor. He was an All-American placekicker, the Burger King Division 1-AA Scholar Athlete of the Year and the recipient of a National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame post-graduate scholarship.

Who is Alex Sierk? 

This Is Princeton Athletics Jeopardy

As TigerBlog mentioned yesterday, he watched Princeton Football alum Kyle Brandt on ESPN's "Jeopardy" show the other day. 

He also said that he might try putting out his own "Princeton Athletics Jeopardy" quiz one of these days. Well, today is "one of these days." TB offers you the "Jeopardy" round. If this goes over well, he'll do a "Double Jeopardy" round on another day. 

Good luck and have fun. TigerBlog will give you the answers questions tomorrow. 

The categories are: Gary Walters, Numbers, Fictional Tigers, Broken Records, Working OT and Now I Am A Doctor.

GARY WALTERS

$200 - Gary Walters was the starting point guard on Princeton's NCAA Final Four men's basketball team is this year. 

$400 - Gary was the head men's basketball coach at three different colleges — Union, Providence and this Ivy League school. 

$600 - Gary spent 20 years as the Director of Athletics at Princeton for the second-longest tenure in the position behind only this man.

$800 - Gary appeared on the Feb. 27, 1967, cover of Sports Illustrated along with this Princeton teammate.

$1,000 - A graduate of Reading High School, Gary had this man as his high school government teacher.

NUMBERS

$200 - He wore No. 66 for the 2026 NCAA men's lacrosse championship team. That was 66 higher than his father wore as a two-time Ivy men's basketball Player of the Year. 

$400 - Sarah Lessig is No. 4 on the softball team and No. 8 for this other Princeton team.

$600 - Princeton has retired this number, worn by Bill Bradley and Dick Kazmaier, across all of its sports. 

$800 - The leading scorers on both the Princeton women's and men's basketball teams in 2025-26 wore uniforms that ended with this number.

$1,000 - She wore No. 15 for the 2012 NCAA field hockey championship team. 

FICTIONAL TIGERS

$200 - Fred Flintstone was the star quarterback at this school for the big game against "Shale."

$400 - The World War II movie "The Caine Mutiny" featured a character named Willie Keith, who played this sport at Princeton.  

$600 - Former Princeton football player Joe Cable was a Lt. in the United States Navy in World War II in this musical.

$800 - Sam Wainwright, the lead character in the novel "With You," was a classmate of this current Princeton head coach. 

$1,000 - F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Allenby" was based on Princeton's Hobey Baker in this novel. 

BROKEN RECORDS

$200 - Keith Elias is Princeton's career rushing leader with 4,208 yards, or 1,099 more than this player, who previously held the record. 

$400 - Kathy Issel set the Princeton women's hockey record for points in a career with 218 before graduating in 1995. The previous record was 216, set by this player four years earlier. 

$600 - Bella Alarie holds the Princeton record for career points in women's basketball with 1,703. The record she broke stood for 30 years and was held by this player. 

$800 - Tyler Lussi's 53 goals are the record for Princeton soccer, men or women, and six better than this player whose record she broke. 

$1,000 - Crista Samaras held the women's lacrosse team's record for career goals from 1999 until 2017. Since then, her record has been broken three times, by Olivia Hompe, Kyla Sears and this current holder of the record. 

WORKING OT

$200 - His three-pointer with less than a minute to go in overtime gave Princeton the lead for good in the 1996 Ivy League playoff game at Lehigh. 

$400 - She is the most recent Princeton field hockey player to score an OT goal, which she did against Rutgers last season. 

$600 - Princeton has had five players score an overtime goal in the championship game of an NCAA lacrosse tournament — four men and this woman.  

$800 - Running back Rob Toresco pitched the ball to quarterback Jeff Terrell on a fourth-and-1 in overtime in Princeton's 31-30 win over this opponent en route to the 2006 Ivy League title. 

$1,000 - Princeton has won two ECAC men's hockey championship games in overtime, with goals from Syl Apps in 1998 and this player in 2018. Hint — this was a max effort goal.  

TODAY I AM A DOCTOR

$200 - Deciding to see this Princeton men's basketball alum turned surgeon should be a layup — he made the most famous one in Tiger history. 

$400 - Nicole Harrison is an eye surgeon and still the holder of the Princeton women's track and field record in this event. 

$600 - He graduated as Princeton's career leader in men's lacrosse goals; now he is a renowned surgeon at Johns Hopkins — and seventh all-time in goals scored with the men's lacrosse team.

$800 - Orthopedic surgeon Ilvy Friebe was a two-time first-team All-American in this sport. 

$1,000 - This orthodontist has an official bio that reads: As a graduating senior at Princeton University, he received the Pyne Prize, Princeton's highest academic and leadership honor. He was an All-American placekicker, the Burger King Division 1-AA Scholar Athlete of the Year and the recipient of a National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame post-graduate scholarship.

Who Is Kyle Brandt?

TigerBlog didn't realize that ESPN was doing its own version of "Jeopardy" until Mark Eckel told him. 

Who is Mark Eckel? He was a longtime Mercer County sportswriter who covered some of the biggest moments in Princeton Athletic history. 

It was Mark who was in Providence on March 17, 1989, when Princeton almost defeated Georgetown in the legendary NCAA tournament opening round game. He was at Lehigh for Princeton-Penn in the Ivy League playoff game in 1996; he was in Indianapolis five days later for Princeton's win over UCLA. 

You can throw in some men's and women's lacrosse, including Princeton's 2003 women's NCAA championship in overtime in Syracuse. And all of that was his sidelight. His main beat was the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL in general. 

These days he's retired and living on a beach somewhere in the South, though he still follows Princeton sports from down there. It was Mark who asked TB the other day if he knew Kyle Brandt, the former Princeton football player. 

It turns out that Brandt was one of the contestants on the ESPN Jeopardy, which featured athletes, commentators (Brandt fits in this category) and a few actors mixed in. Here is what one of those answers could have been:

"He was the first person to run with the ball on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium."
"Who was Kyle Brandt?"

That's correct. 

Brandt, who appears to have the same outgoing, fun personality he had as a Tiger, was TB's only reason for watching the series. Like most with "celebrities," it can become a little silly, with all the forced humor — and there was certainly enough of that from what TB saw. Still, it'll hold your interest, and you can root for Brandt. 

TB won't tell you how he did, but he will say that Brandt has an interesting approach to a Daily Double. He also mentioned his rather interesting career path during the "tell us about yourself" portion, a path that includes time on a reality show and a soap opera before he got into sports media. You can find him on "Good Morning Football" on the NFL Network, along with his work on various podcasts. 

Meanwhile, the Ivy League released its 2026 football media poll yesterday. Yale received 15 of 16 first place votes to finish first in the poll, followed by Harvard, Dartmouth and Penn. Princeton and Cornell tied for fifth, followed by Brown and Columbia. 

These polls don't really have a great history of predicting how the season will actually play out, but they do serve one really important function. They remind you that football season is approaching. 

The current edition of Princeton Football is a little more than six weeks away from its season opener. The Tigers will kick off their 2026 run at Bryant, before the home opener against Albany seven days later.  

If you go to the Princeton Football record section and the all-time results to do a search for "Bryant," you'll find out that 1) the teams have played only once before, in 2023, a game Bryant won 16-13 in overtime and 2) that the captain of the 1881 Princeton team was Pendleton Bryant. That 1881 team, by the way, won the national championship, the third straight on teams on which Bryant played. 

Bob Surace heads into this season with 84 career wins as Princeton head coach, which leaves him second all-time in program history. The record is 89 and has been held by Bill Roper since 1930, so that's an interesting sidelight for this season. 

Another interesting note is that Princeton will have an NCAA champion on its roster this fall, as wide receiver Jackson Green returns after catching three TD passes last year and then being an All-American shortstick defensive midfielder for the men's lacrosse team, who won it all this past spring. That's certainly interesting. 

The Tigers don't currently have a player who has started a game at quarterback, so that decision will be a big part of the preseason. In addition to Green, whoever plays the position will have Josh Robinson, last year's Ivy Rookie of the Year, as a wideout. 

There will be plenty of time to go through the lineup position by position as August rolls into September. In the meantime, the poll does what it does, which is to let you know that Princeton Football is not far off. 

Before then, you can watch Brandt on ESPN Jeopardy. Maybe TB will come back with a Princeton Athletics Jeopardy version one of these days.  

Once

It's been nearly 20 years ago when Princeton head men's soccer coach Jim Barlow asked TigerBlog if he'd seen the movie "Once."

TB doesn't remember the exact conversation, though he's pretty sure it went something like this:

TB: No.
JB: Watch it. You'll love it. 

And so TB did, and he very much did. In fact, he went to Blockbuster and rented the DVD. If that sentence confuses you, then you're way younger than TB. 

"Once" is a great movie. If you've never seen it, "Once" is like no other movie TigerBlog has ever seen. It was filmed for $112,000, without permits, using street scenes in Dublin and apartments belonging to the members of the cast and crew. What came of it was a movie that earned more than $30 million, something that doesn't count the Broadway musical adaptation. 

The movie won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The show won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. 

Here is the scene from the movie where the song that won the Oscar was first heard:

The movie tells the story of two characters who are never named and are simply "Guy" and "Girl" on the final credits. They are struggling through difficult lives in Dublin, and their shared love is music. 

TB has now seen the movie dozens of times, he'd guess. He also saw the show on Broadway and saw it at McCarter Theater, where Princeton men's lacrosse player Sam Gravitte — then a senior — played the guy.  

The original "Guy" in the movie was Glen Hansard, an Irish singer with the Frames. Hansard played an acoustic guitar and sang with an incredible range, and he performance in the movie was just about perfect. 

The news came last week that Hansard had died in a motorcycle crash at the age of just 56, and it was more crushing, at least to TB, than the news of the average celebrity death. It took TB back to when Barlow first mentioned the movie and how certain he was that TB would like it. 

The movie was released in 2007. A year later, the Princeton men's lacrosse team did an international trip to Spain and Ireland, staying in Dublin on the back end of the trip.  

TB went back yesterday through the file of photos he still has from that trip. They were a reminder of how much TB enjoyed that whole experience, especially when he got to the photos of the magnificent beauty of the Upper Lake at Glendalough. 

On one of the afternoons in the Irish capital, TigerBlog stayed behind while the group went to tour the Guinness factory, choosing instead to walk from the hotel to the nearby Grafton Street, where much of the movie had been filmed. He remembers vividly thinking that everyone there would know every landmark and was amused to see that they didn't. 

TB had not yet started doing his daily blog back then. In fact, it was just a few months off, though he had no way to know it at the time. 

 Instead, he chronicled his experience that afternoon on Grafton Street for a story on goprincetontigers.com, which he shares below. 

First, RIP Glen Hansard. That's a loss that really hurts. Go watch "Once," if you haven't already.   

For those who don't know, "Once" is the story of an Irishman who works in his father's vacuum repair store during the day and plays his guitar and sings on the streets of Dublin at night. He meets a young woman from the Czech Republic who is also a musician, and the movie is the story of their relationship. It won an Academy Award this past year for Best Original Song for the song "Falling Slowly." The man who plays the lead is Glen Hansard, who sings with the famous Irish group The Frames.

More background on the movie includes the fact that it was filmed on the streets of Dublin, and the entire movie took 17 days to shoot. It was done with next to no money and has gone on to make a fortune. The film's maker had no permits to shoot, so all of the street scenes were done from across the street, and the people on the street at the time had no idea they were in a movie.

With that background, it was off to try to find these locations. How hard could it be? Everyone in Dublin must know where this movie was shot, right? It had to be legend by now. Right?

Wrong.

The first 10 people randomly asked had never heard of the movie, let alone knew where it was filmed. It was only after going to Google that it was learned that the street scenes were on the famous Grafton Street. So off to Grafton Street it was. To get to Grafton Street from the Jury's Inn requires a right turn out of the hotel and then a 10-minute walk down Dame Street to Trinity College. Once at Trinity, go right, and the first street sign tells you that you are now at the intersection of Grafton Street and, ironically enough, Nassau Street.

Grafton Street is a walking street, filled with shops and shoppers. Somewhere on this street, Hansard stood and sang, and much of the story of the movie revolved around that. Certainly now somebody would know where exactly all this happened.

Nope. Not the first four people asked, but at least they had the excuse of being from Toronto. Not the women who worked at the flower stand, not a guy named Adrian who worked in a gift shop, nobody. Not even the four-man singing group from the Czech Republic who performed halfway down the street and hawked their new CD. They were pretty good, too. Could it be a coincidence that they were singing somewhere around where the street musicians in the movie did?

"Yeah, never heard of it," their manager said. "It had a Czech singer in it? Cool."

The first scene of the movie includes a song by Hansard, who is standing outside of one store with his guitar case open as people throw coins in. A young man comes and swipes the case and then sprints under an archway into a park, where Hansard tackles him. The park had to be at the end of Grafton Street, so finding it was simple.

St. Stephen's Green Park was a busy place in the early afternoon. There were people everywhere, including Mark, who buys and sells cars and was born and raised in Dublin. He was sitting on the grass in the exact spot where Hansard made his tackle.

"I saw the film," Mark said. "Loved it. Don't remember that scene, though. It was right here?"

Yes, right there. With the park found, it was time to zero in on the storefront that had been the background for Hansard and the filming spot across the street that was out of sight to passersby.

Crossing back onto Grafton Street, there was Linda, a radio station personality who was doing "man on the street" interviews. Her "man" on this street was actually a 17-year-old named Maude, who became the first Dubliner who actually saw the movie and knew where it was filmed.

"Right over there," she said. "Right in front of the Dunnes store."

Yup. That was it. Dunnes was a short distance away. Inside the entryway stood John Doyle, the store security manager. Surely John knew the reason his store was, uh, famous.

"Right on this spot," John said, poking his head out of the store and pointing straight down as he faced to the right. "He stood right there and sang."

Did John know a movie was being filmed?

"No. There are always people singing out there. I think I was on holiday when they filmed."

As for that filming, there were four large windows opposite the Dunnes, any of which could have hidden a camera.

And that was that. The locations of "Once" had been found, though with very little help from the locals. They had to be kidding, right? When "IQ" or "A Beautiful Mind" were filmed in Princeton, they couldn't record a frame without having the entire town know where it was.

The Dubliners had to have known all the time. Maybe they all got together and decided to mess with the tourists, and maybe they forgot to tell 17-year-old Maude.