Three Goodbyes

Today's theme is, unfortunately, "goodbye" — three of them, to be exact. 

TigerBlog starts on Nassau Street, where he attended the retirement party of his longtime friend and colleague Dan Day. There had been a request made of attendees to mirror Dan's typical outfit, which is hat and bow tie. TB obliged, as you can see. 

Who is Dan Day? He's been one of the great additions to so many areas of the Princeton campus for the last 14 years, after a long career in the newspaper business (not to mention an athletic fellow for the baseball team). This is from his official bio: 

Day has served in a variety of roles at Princeton, including director of news and editorial services, assistant vice president for communications, director of operations for communications and public affairs, and director of special projects in Communications. He is chair of the University Copyright Committee and is a member of the Trademark Committee. 

Then again, so is this:

He and his wife live in Lawrence Township with their pet guinea pig, Millard Fillmore. 

That's a great name for a guinea pig, naming it for one of the more obscure Presidents ever. If you've forgotten, Filmore was the 13th President, taking office when Zachary Taylor died in 1850 and finishing his term. Filmore's biggest claim to fame is that he was a member of the Whig party, which makes him the last President who was not a Republican or Democrat. 

Back at Dan Day, he was celebrated yesterday with speeches and acknowledgements of what he brought to Princeton all these years. TigerBlog didn't speak, but if he had, he would have said something along the lines of "it's been an honor to know him and to be his friend all this time. Princeton has one fewer great person on its campus."

The second goodbye goes to Jade Hennessy, whom TigerBlog got to know during her time as the athletic trainer for the Princeton field hockey team. Make no mistake — without Jade, there would have been no trip to the NCAA championship game last fall for the Tigers. 

The season began with a broken hand for Beth Yeager. It ended with a torn ACL for Ella Cashman. Those two were the team's two All-Americans. 

Somehow, Jade worked with them to get them both back on the field. Beth didn't miss a game. Cash missed two but returned to play in the Final Four just two weeks after the injury. 

Add to that all of the wear and tear that comes along with a long season and all of the players who come into the training room every day, and Jade became one of the team MVPs. She is leaving college athletics and heading into the next phase of her career, and TB is happy for her — though he speaks for the whole field hockey team in saying that she will be missed. 

And that brings TB to the third goodbye from yesterday. 

As it turns out, yesterday was the final day of the 39-year Princeton career of Nancy Donigan. TB has written about her before, including this back in April when she announced her retirement after working in the compliance office: 

When TB thinks about what to write about Nancy, he comes back to two words: warmth, and smile. Nancy exudes the first and almost always has the second. TigerBlog has had his share of ups and downs during his time at Princeton. Through it all, Nancy has been a constant as a friend whose support, compassion, humor and kindness have helped sustain TB through those downs. 

Nancy walked out of Jadwin Gym yesterday for the final time as a Princeton employee around 4 yesterday afternoon. She left the building as about 30 of her co-workers formed a gauntlet for her. She didn't say a word. She merely walked out as if it had been just another day in those 39 years. 

It was only after she was out the door that she turned around and waved. She told TB that had she stopped, she would have started bawling.  

That Tracks

So this picture was taken outside TigerBlog's front door the other night. 

What are those two dots in the sky? The one on the left is Jupiter. The one on the right is Venus. 

To give you a sense of the vastness of space, Jupiter is actually 14 times larger than Venus, though it appears smaller in the picture because of how far away it is. Venus is 25 million miles away from TigerBlog's front door. Jupiter is 460 million. 

While the subject is interesting Venus/Jupiter facts, here is one: It takes Venus 243 days for one full rotation (in other words, a day), while it takes Jupiter less than 11 hours. 

Okay, one more about Venus: It takes Venus 225 days to orbit the sun, which means that a year on Venus takes less time than a day. 

That must really mess with the ability of teams on Venus to make their schedules. What? There are no teams on Venus? 

That must be because of the fact that on the surface of Venus it is 700 degrees and rains sulfuric acid. Actually, even that weather wouldn't be as challenging as having to schedule games on a planet where a day is longer than a year. 

Meanwhile, back on this planet, it's finally time for the final Princeton events of the 2025-26 athletic year. The NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships begin today in Eugene, Ore., and Princeton will be well-represented after its showing on the men's and women's sides at the regional in Kentucky. 

TigerBlog has never been to Hayward Field, the site of the event, but he'd love to go one of these years. It is, according to anyone he's known who has attended, a can't-miss good time with great competition. 

Hayward Field opened in 1919, five years after Princeton's Palmer Stadium opened, as was the home of Oregon track and field and football until 1966. It was perfect for track and field; it was awful for football, with a capacity of 9,000 that was the smallest in Division I at the time. Once Oregon football moved to Autzen Stadium, Hayward Field became track and field only and is now, according to its website, "magic."

Princeton has won two NCAA titles in the facility — Julia Ratcliffe in the 2014 hammer and Sondre Guttormsen in the 2022 pole vault.  

The 2026 championships start today with a full schedule of men's events. The women will begin tomorrow. It all wraps up Saturday. 

The Princeton men are represented in seven individual events and in the 4x400 relay. The women will have seven athletes in Oregon; all seven are competing in field events, which is the most of any school in Division I. 

Added together that's 17 Princetonians in Oregon (Joey Gant will run the 400 and on the 4x400 relay).  

Connor McCormick will be the first Tiger on the track when he runs in the 1,500 semifinals at 8:21 Eastern this evening. Within the next three hours, there will be five other Princeton athletes who will compete in individual events and four who will run the relay semifinal. 

You can watch tonight on ESPN and ESPN2 and then on ESPN2 for the rest of the championships.  

Here is the schedule for today (Eastern times): 

Connor McCormick, 1500m (Semifinal, 8:21 PM)
Brian Boler/Jackson Shorten, 3000 meter steeplechase (Semifinal, 8:38 PM) 
Greg Foster, Long Jump (Final 9:40 PM)
Joey Gant, 400 (Semifinal, 9:41 PM)
Jacob Nenow 10,000m (Final, 10:56 PM)
4x400 Relay of Gant, Xavier Donaldson, Kavon Miller, Jonathan York (Semifinal, 11:36 PM) 

Miles Hogan will run Friday in the 5,000 final. Hopefully he won't be the only Princetonian to run in that session, after the qualifying events today. 

As for the women, as TB said, there are seven of them, all in the field events. Here is their schedule:

Angela McAuslan-Kelly, Hammer (Final tomorrow 5:30 PM)
Tessa Mudd, Pole Vault (Final tomorrow 8:35 PM)
Shea Greene, Javelin (Final tomorrow 9:15 PM)
Alexandra Kelly/Georgina Scoot, Long Jump (Final tomorrow 9:40 PM)
Layla Giordano, Discus (Final Saturday 2:30 PM)
Alysa Carrigan, High Jump (Final Saturday 7:30 PM)
Scoot, Triple Jump (Final Saturday 8:10 PM) 

HERE is the entire schedule for the NCAA outdoor track and field championships. 

Making The Rules

Well, it's been a week since one of the great moments of self-control TigerBlog has ever had. 

It was at a Brazilian steakhouse in Indianapolis. Have you ever been to one of these restaurants? They keep bringing perfectly cooked meat right to your table and slice it right there for you. 

You're given a coaster that has a green side and a red side. If you've had enough, you put it on the red side. If you want more, you put it on the green side. Not that it matters. It's pretty much impossible to turn it down when you see it. 

And yet? TigerBlog did not overeat. He didn't under-eat or anything like that. It's just that he tasted all the ones he wanted and then flipped over to red. It wasn't easy or anything but he did it. 

TigerBlog was there as part of a celebration dinner at the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee meetings. The main honoree was Willie Scroggs, the outgoing Secretary-Rules Editor, who was completing 12 years of service. 

Scroggs is a Hall of Fame former coach who led North Carolina to three NCAA championships, in 1981, 1982 and 1986. That 1981 championship came at Palmer Stadium, with a crowd of 14,000 in attendance. 

You can also add the three titles Scroggs won as a player at Johns Hopkins and the two he won as a Hopkins assistant and that still doesn't come to the number of NCAA championships his wife Karen Shelton won in field hockey as the UNC coach. That would be 10.

Willie Scroggs is someone TB certainly knew about but had never met prior to TB's time on the rules committee. Now he knows him as Willie the person, not just Coach Scroggs, the one who did so much to help grow the sport. 

Willie has a dry sense of humor and a warm, welcoming personality. He brought a lot to the meetings, both for his historical perspective and knowledge of the rulebook and for the way he made everyone in the room feel valued. 

Like Willie, TigerBlog's time on the committee is ending. His four-year term — the last two of which have been spent as the committee chair — comes to a close officially on August 31. The meetings last week in Indy were his last real opportunity to have an official impact on the rules of the game. 

TB came onto the committee at a time where the game had recently undergone major changes, including a shot clock, a goal mouth, continued refinements of the face-off rules. Those changes had done wonders for the pace of play and for consistency, which meant that it was important that the committee in TB's four years not overhaul the book just for the sake of doing so. 

That's not to say there weren't major challenges. TB's focus was always on three areas: first and foremost player safety, along with a balance between offense and defense and making the game as easy as possible on the officials. Also, when considering the need to make a change, think about what you'd want the outcome to be if this occurred in overtime of the national championship game. 

Probably the biggest change during TB's time was the advent and expansion of video review to men's college lacrosse. There have been growing pains, to be sure, but the basic premise remains the same: be able to make corrections in some specific situations, do not "re-ref" every call and keep the review time to a minimum. 

The meetings last week also included, among other items, a change to the way overtime works, going from four-minute sudden-death to 15-minute sudden-death. Oh, and the color of the ball will be evolving to a florescent yellow or green. 

What didn't happen was the one rule TB wanted to see changed. If he could have simply waved his hand to make it happen, then the ability to call live-ball timeouts would have vanished from the game. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. 

There were massive NCAA structural changes this year as the rules committee was split into two: Division I and Division II/III. Unlike the past, the rules that TB's committee put forth this year will need to be approved by the new Division I oversight committee, as opposed to the former process of the Playing Rules Oversight Panel (which still exists for Division II/III). 

Also this year, the Division I rules sub-committee was joined by a current player (in a non-voting capacity). In this case it was Notre Dame's Shawn Lyght, who became the first defenseman to win the Tewaaraton Award. Lyght was also on the team that Princeton defeated 16-9 on Memorial Day to win the NCAA title. 

TB had never met Lyght in person prior to saying hello in Charlottesville at the Final Four. He got to spend a good deal of time with him in Indianapolis, and he can say that 1) Lyght is a very impressive person, 2) he brought a great perspective to the meetings and 3) TB never mentioned who won the NCAA final. For that matter, he didn't even wear Princeton stuff to the meetings. And he especially didn't let Lyght see his phone, where his wallpaper is now a picture of TB with the championship trophy. 

Once the approval process plays out this summer, that'll be it for TB with this experience. He's not sure that anyone has ever had this opportunity from a background in communications, and he'd like to thank everyone who helped him get on in the first place and then made him feel so welcome from Day 1. 

He doesn't want to shortchange anyone, but he does need to offer some thank-yous by name besides Willie: Maryland head coach John Tillman (the chair for TB's first two years), former VMI head coach James Purpura and Grove City head coach Alec Jernstedt (on the committee TB's first three years), Michigan head coach Kevin Conry (no meeting that he is in will ever be boring), Montevallo head coach Jason Lange, and Big East administrator James Green and Gwynedd Mercy administrator Dana Lindstrom (who came onto the committee when TB did). Lindstrom gets a special recognition for being the first-ever chair of the Division II/III committee. 

Also, there was Supervisor of Officials Tom Abbott and incoming Secretary-Rules Editor Dave Seidman, as well as Ryan Tressel, Will Hopkins, Greg Johnson and Dante Jones of the NCAA and especially Andy Supergan and Connor Lancashire, the NCAA's liaison's to the rules committee.

It was a great four years. A quick four years, but a great four years. 

And, TB likes to think, the rules of the game have been changed for the better in those four years. 

For TB? It was one of the great honors of his career. 

He'll certainly miss it — the rules, and especially the people.  

Knicks Knacks

When TigerBlog was a kid and he wanted to watch a game that started late, he'd ask his parents if he could stay up and watch it if he took a nap in the afternoon. 

Even if they said yes, it wouldn't matter. Nap or no nap, TB would never come close to making it through the game. 

The current NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs have a similar vibe to them. Each game in the series is scheduled for an 8:30 start, though that has proven to be about 15 minutes short of when the ball actually goes up. 

All these years later, nap or no nap, staying up to the end isn't easy. Take the first two games of the series.  

TB fell asleep during Game 1 and woke up in time to see the fourth quarter. Final: Knicks 105, Spurs 95. 

Game 2? He didn't make it past halftime at all. He woke up around 12:30 on his couch and checked to see who won. Final: Knicks 105, Spurs 104. 

Once he saw the score, he had to check to see how it came to that. He'll just say that it wasn't Victor Wembanyama's finest moment.  

Winning twice on the road to start the NBA Finals isn't exactly something that happens a lot. In fact, the Knicks are only the third team to do so. That's three times in the history of the league. 

The other two? The 1993 Chicago Bulls, who went on to beat Phoenix in six games, and the 1995 Houston Rockets, who would sweep Orlando. 

In other words, no team has ever lost the first two games at home and then come back to win the title. Also, only five teams in all have come back from 2-0 down regardless to win the Finals: the 1969 Celtics, the 1977 Trail Blazers, the 2006 Heat, the 2016 Cavaliers and the 2021 Bucks. 

If the Knicks are going to lose the series, things are going to have to change — and quickly. New York was down 2-1 to Atlanta in Round 1 but has ripped off 13 straight since then, closing out the Hawks and then sweeping Philadelphia and Cleveland. That sort of momentum is hard to stop. 

Right now, Jalen Brunson leads the Knicks in points per game in the finals with 25. Today's question: Who was the leading scorer for New York in the Finals the last time the team celebrated a title? 

Hint — why would TigerBlog ask if the answer wasn't Princeton's own Bill Bradley. 

The last time the Knicks were the NBA champion was in 1973. That's, uh, a long time ago. 

New York beat Los Angeles four games to one that year. Interestingly, today is June 8; the 1973 Finals ended on May 10. 

Bradley led the Knicks with 18.6 points per game in the five games, followed by four teammates with at least 15.6. Those four were Walt Frazier (16.8), Willis Reed (16.6), Earl Monroe (16.0) and Dave DeBusschere (15.6). 

Those are hallowed names if you're a longtime Knicks fan like TB. Also, if you are, you love this photo of the Knicks at Jadwin Gym for an exhibition game:

 

In addition to the 18.6 points per game, Bradley averaged five rebounds and 3.4 assists in the five games. He shot 44 percent from the field and was 13 for 14 from the foul line. In the 102-93 series clincher in Game 5, Bradley had 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists. 

Bradley of course is the most dominant Princeton basketball player ever and the No. 1 Princeton athlete of all time according to the alumni weekly. He finished his Tiger career with 2,503 points, in three varsity seasons with no three-point shot. He had 11 games with at least 40 points; no other Princeton men's player ever has had even one. 

He led the Tigers to the 1965 Final Four as a senior, after being the captain of the gold medal-winning USA team at the 1964 Olympic Games and winning the Sullivan Award as the top American amateur athlete. After his Hall of Fame career with the Knicks, he served three terms as a U.S. Senator from New Jersey. 

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, the 1973 NBA Finals featured 12 players who would reach the Hall of Fame, as well as both head coaches (New York's Red Holtzman, Los Angeles' Bill Sharman) and even two referees.  

Anyway, Game 3 is tonight. At 8:30 (sort of). 

Nap time?  

The 53rd Tiger

If you took all 52 members of the NCAA champion Princeton men's lacrosse team, lined them up on the sideline and asked someone who doesn't know anything about any of them to choose the 10 most athletic looking, it's quite possible that some would choose the 53rd.

Ben Heske is not a Princeton men's lacrosse player. He just looks like one. He could pass for a midfielder in a heartbeat. 

Of course, he's not even a Princeton student. He's a Drexel student. As such, he scored no goals, picked up no groundballs, caused no turnovers. He did, though, definitely do his part in the team's success. 

Whatever they're teaching him at Drexel, they're doing a really good job. Heske has been the lead videographer for the Tigers this season, and the content he's produced has been superior. 

Game after game, week after week. There was Ben, camera at the ready, capturing his video and then turning it into social media pieces that have all been highly professional, engaging and inspiring.  

And all of those were just the tuneup for what he produced this week. 

You don't have to take TigerBlog's word for it. Here's what Dan Aburn of Inside Lacrosse had to say about Heske's latest project:

This might be the closest thing college lacrosse has ever gotten to an NFL Films level production. 📽️

Ben Heske, Angelo Scolari, and the Princeton media team have risen the bar on what lacrosse media can be: pic.twitter.com/WtwrH4bMOh

— Dan Aburn (@dan_aburn_) June 3, 2026

The video is more than 13 minutes long. It is 100 percent worth your time. 

It was only posted two days ago and already went past 10,000 views. Of course, it's possible that 1,000 of those have been TigerBlog. Well, maybe not 1,000, but still, he's watched it a bunch of times and can't help but smile each time. 

It's not just the goals. It's the way you can see how the coaches speak, the way the players are in the locker room, the way the crowd was so into it all weekend in Charlottesville.  

Aburn, by the way, is not the only one who has talked about how great this production is. You can go to pretty much any lacrosse Instagram feed and see. 

TB wanted to make sure to call your attention to the video if you haven't seen it. He figured the first Friday in June was a good time. 

This is the second weekend since mid-August of last year where there are no Princeton athletic events. Not to worry of course. The 2025-26 athletic year still has one more weekend to go, next weekend, when nearly 20 men's and women's track and field athletes will compete in the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. 

The only other weekend off was Dec. 13-14, during first semester exams. Other than that, there's been something to see every weekend. 

Right now, plans are in the works to release schedules for the coming fall, or to roll rosters over for 2026-27. The incoming freshmen will be members of the Class of 2030. 

Twenty-thirty? Does that sound as wild to you as it does to TigerBlog? It doesn't really seem all that long ago when saying "twenty-twenty-twenty-one" was tongue-tying. 

TigerBlog was in Florida back on the weekend on Dec. 13-14. When he went back to see what he wrote, he came up with this: 

You know the two things that bother TB about renting a car? First, the first few times he goes back to a parking lot, he's looking for his car, not the one he rented. Second, every car he rents is nicer than his. In this case, that would be a KIA Soul. You know your own car is fairly beaten up and old when you're envious of a KIA Soul. 

He still has the same car. It's actually 10 years old but still going strong. And yet, when he sees a Kia Soul, well, you know. 

Anyway, on that note, enjoy your June weekend. 

And make sure you watch the video.  

Flying With The Cardinals

The line at Chick-Fil-A was longer than the line at security yesterday at the Indianapolis airport. 

That worked out well for TigerBlog, especially since he wasn't in the mood for Chick-Fil-A. His meeting in Indy ended earlier yesterday than was originally scheduled, which led him to scramble to change to an even earlier flight. If you're keeping score, he changed from the 6:45 flight to the 4:30 flight and then ultimately to the 1:10 flight. 

Getting back to your car at the destination airport nearly four hours before your original flight was supposed to leave is always a good thing. 

As TB walked into the airport yesterday, he noticed a phenomenon he's seen lots of times before. There, in front of him at the American Airlines counter, was a team of college athletes. 

They're always easy to spot. For starters, the matching outfits are a dead giveaway. In this case, they all said "Ball State Volleyball."

Of course, being TigerBlog, he had to look up how the team did this past year. Turns out Ball State women's volleyball went 17-1 in the MAC but fell in the league tournament to Toledo to miss out on the NCAA tournament. Also, the team is made up entirely of players from the Midwest, with more than half from Indiana. And average home attendance for last year was nearly 1,200.  

TB was in line to use the check-in kiosk when he saw a man who was clearly a coach. "International trip?" TB asked him. 

The answer was yes. Ball State women's volleyball was on its way to 11 days in Spain and Portugal. If you're wondering, you can't fly non-stop from Indianapolis to Barcelona, which explains why the team was on the same flight as TB to Philadelphia. 

TigerBlog then explained to the coach that he was a veteran of such trips and could relate to the logistical challenges that putting one together entails. He also said how he's been on four of these with the Princeton men's lacrosse team. 

The purposes of these international trips are obvious. They are all about team bonding, experiencing a different country or two, taking in the artistic and educational culture — and competing. In Ball State's case, they will be playing three matches. 

TigerBlog's most recent international trip was in 2022, when the Tigers went to Barcelona and Andorra. As he wrote back then, TB had never heard of Andorra before he saw the itinerary. It turns out that Andorra is one of six microstates of Europe (trivia: can you name the other five?) and is located in the Pyrennes. 

Turns out, Andorra is quite possibly the most beautiful place TigerBlog has ever visited. Barcelona, where the Ball State women's volleyball team presumably has just arrived, is one of the best cities TB has been to as well. All in all, it was a great trip. 

The other international trips that TB has been fortunate to go on with men's lacrosse were to Spain and Ireland in 2008, Costa Rica in 2012 and Portugal in 2016. That trip to Portugal started and ended in Lisbon, where the Ball State team will head after Spain. 

That Portugal trip also featured a brief amount of time in Spain, though it's hard to figure out exactly how long the Tigers were there. The team took a ferry across a river between the two countries to experience the zipline that took them back from Spain into Portugal. Of course, in addition to going from one country to another, the zipline also went from one time zone to another. 

As he thinks about it, the trip to Andorra technically included a stop in France. Andorra sits between Spain and France, and the team at one point found itself walking around a small town and unknowingly wandering across a foot bridge over a stream about two feet wide, something that took them into France. 

Seeing the Cardinals (of Ball State) in the airport yesterday brought back all of these memories for TigerBlog. The players hung out by the gate waiting for the first leg of their trip and then made their way onto the small jet for the quick ride to Philadelphia. 

As they got on the plane, TB heard one say that another had never been on a plane before. It was clearly an excited, wide-eyed group. 

And why wouldn't they be? This is a trip of a lifetime, one they'll remember forever. TB hopes their experience is as great as the ones that he has been so lucky to have with Princeton. 

Trivia answer: The other six European microstates are: Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Vatican City, San Marino. 

Good News

It dawns on TigerBlog that last night was his 11th night in a hotel in the last 32 nights. 

This has all been men's lacrosse related. Oh, and it covers four states: New York (Ivy League tournament), Delaware (NCAA quarterfinals), Virginia (Final Four) and Indiana (NCAA Division I rules committee meetings). 

It's not as interesting as the time he slept in four countries in four nights. If you forgot, that was the United States, England, France and Poland. 

Still, it does have him in a state of reflection. How many hotel nights has he had in his Princeton career? How many different places? Why didn't he think of keeping track back when he first started doing this? 

He'll be home tonight, back in his own bed. Is that good news? Sure. 

In fact, even better is the fact that he was able to change his flight, moving it up a few hours because the meetings went so smoothly and the agenda moved along. That's more good news.  

And for the rest of your Wednesday, here's some more good news: 

*

Today is the birthday of Princeton superfan Pattie Friend. 

TigerBlog stumbled upon her a few years back in the diner on Nassau Street. Since then, they have become great friends. 

You've probably met her too. She's hard to miss. She is everywhere. 

TB wonders how many Princeton Athletic events she attended this year. The answer is more than he did. In fact, maybe more than anyone — with the possible exception of photographer Shelley Szwast. 

Mrs. Friend's husband Lloyd was in the Princeton Class of 1965. She is an honorary member of the class (as is TB). She moved back to Princeton three years ago, and since then she has probably seen every team play at least once. 

More than that, she will always say "I have no one to go to the game with" and will come back with "oh, I met so many interesting people." One moment you're a stranger. The next moment she is taking you on a campus tour. 

Oh, and you never know who is going to show up in a picture with her, like this one: 

Or this one: 

Or this one:

 

If you're wondering, that's Mrs. Friend with Pia Beaulieu, with field hockey goalie Olivia Caponiti and with the people who work at one of the campus bake shops.  

Whether it's a game or the refurbished art museum, Mrs. Friend brings an unmistakable love and happiness to everything Princetonian. It's why people are so naturally drawn to her. 

And it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, what your connection to Princeton is. She is friends with the athletes in Cannon Club, where she swipes students in for dinner on Sundays, and with parents of players from all different sports. And fans. And administrators. And broadcasters. Everyone knows her.  

As is often the case with people in his own family, TB has not gotten his friend Mrs. Friend a card for her birthday. She can consider this her card. 

Happy birthday, Pattie Friend. Everyone should be more like she is. Her super power? She brings the sunshine wherever she goes. 

*

Zack DiGregorio's birthday is coming up, but that's not why TB is recognizing him today. Nope. Zack recently got engaged. 

If you know the history of the DiGregorio family, you know that this is a group of people who are much deserving of life's happy moments. TB won't go too deeply into the tragedies that this family has faced, since he's written about them so many times in the past. 

Still, the family lost its patriarch, Steve DiGregorio, a longtime assistant football coach at Princeton, to pancreatic cancer almost five years ago. Digger, as he was known, is about the best person TigerBlog has ever met. Then, a year ago, Derek DiGregorio passed away just short of his 28th birthday after a lifetime spent battling Ataxia-Telangiectasia, a crippling disease that attacks the nervous system and the immune system. 

No two people have ever been as strong in life and death as those two. And no one should have to do what Zack did, which is to deliver the two most amazing obituaries TB has ever heard, after the deaths of his father and brother. 

Now Zack will be getting married. He, along with his mother Nadia and brother Aaron, deserve nothing but the best.

*

Zack is a Penn alum but a Princeton guy. Sounds sort of like TB. 

Speaking of TigerBlog, there is THIS.

TB offers this up not to call attention to himself but instead to remind everyone of former Princeton football player Tiger Bech, who was killed at the age of 27 in New Orleans two New Year's Eves ago. TigerBlog is proud to have been able to tell his story and to document the incredible strength and dignity that Michelle Bech, Tiger's mother, and Ryan Quigley, Tiger's teammate and best friend. 

TB is not sure this falls under the heading of good news. It's more like bittersweet news.  

More bitter than sweet.  

 

A Plane, The Boats And Yav

Today's entry is about, as his longtime friend and mentor Harvey Yavener would have said, the boats. 

Ah, but first, TigerBlog starts with an airplane. 

TB flew out yesterday morning for his final meeting with the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee. If you recall when he first wrote about it, well, that was four years ago already. 

When it comes to flying, TigerBlog wants to sit by the window. He was there yesterday, in seat 17A, Philadelphia to Indianapolis, on one of those smaller jets that has two seats on each side of the aisle. 

The plane took off to the east, which meant it needed to do a sweeping 180-degree turn to head towards Indiana. With how clear the weather was yesterday, the climb afforded the most incredible views of Philadelphia, including going right over University City. From his seat, TB could see all of the Penn campus, especially Franklin Field and the Palestra and the hi-rise buildings where he lived as a junior and senior. 

For TB, he considered it "Princeton over Penn." Has a nice ring to it. 

He spent the rest of the trip trying to pick out other landmarks along the way, or figure out when the plane crossed from Pennsylvania to Ohio and then to Indiana. As he said, he loves to look out the window. 

Oh, and there is also the matter of the airport itself. His flight left at 10:40 in the morning, and yet there were people eating pizza and burgers and cheesesteaks. That always makes him laugh. 

Anyway, he landed in Indianapolis 98 minutes after take-off. Then it was an uber to the hotel and a 4:30 start for the meetings. 

And that's enough about TB's travels. As he said, today is about the boats, with a little mention of Yav, a legendary Trenton sportswriter for 60-plus years who passed away a few years ago well into his 90s. TB has written about him before. 

If you were lucky enough to have known him, then you know you haven't met too many other characters quite like him. If you were even luckier to have been interviewed by him, then you really got the full Yavener experience. TB learned a lot from Yav, especially how to do interviews — to write about the person you need to learn about the person, not just the athlete. 

Yav loved all college sports in the area. Somehow, a man who grew up in Newark and lived his entire adult life in Trenton became a huge fan of Princeton Rowing. Well, it's not too surprising. For Yav, it was always about the people as much as anything. 

Also, to Yav, the biggest "boat races" were as big as the biggest football games or the NCAA basketball tournament or anything else. The significance is what mattered, not the sport itself. 

As such he would have loved this past weekend, when all four Princeton teams competed in their national championship events. He would have talked to a few rowers before the teams left, the open women for Georgia and the NCAA championships and the lightweight women and heavyweight and lightweight men for California and the IRA championships. 

He would have walked into the newsroom gushing over the Princeton athletes he'd just talked to for about 45 minutes each. Then he would have written about three times as many words as the newspaper had budgeted and then complained about how badly his stories were chopped (though he'd use much, uh, saltier language than that), but that was just how he was. 

The open women finished sixth at the NCAA regatta in both the 1V race and in the overall team standings. You can read more about them HERE.

The men's lightweights and heavyweights also had big performances, with a second-place finish by the 1V and team on the lightweight side and a third-place finish in the 1V and second-place points finish for the heavyweights. You can read about them HERE and HERE. 

As for the lightweight women, they did again what they seem to do every year — which is to say that the Tigers won the national championship. That's five straight 1V championships and six straight overall points championships. 

You can read about that HERE.  

Right On Track

It's June, and Princeton athletes are still competing. 

The athletic year began back in August with women's soccer. It ends in June with the upcoming NCAA track and field championships, which will begin in 10 days in Eugene, Ore. 

Pia Beaulieu didn't get to compete in August and won't be able to compete in June. Still, what she did in between is nothing short of extraordinary; hopefully, she can take a great deal of consolation in what she did accomplish. 

Beaulieu, back in August, was hoping to get back on the soccer field as quickly as she could after stress fractures in both of her sins. Not to spoil the story if you want to read it HERE, but she did make it back in dramatic fashion and then went on to earn second-team All-Ivy honors. 

She also made it to the end of May, where she did something she would never have guessed was remotely on the horizon for her. Here is the context:  

Back on April 4, Beaulieu ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase for the first time in her life. It came at the Sam Howell Invitational at Weaver Track and Field Stadium. Despite being a novice, she won the race, in a time of 10:30.86. 

The second time she ran the event was two weeks later, at a meet at Wake Forest. This time, she ran 10:20.79. Next up was the Penn Relays; this time her time was 10:02.39. 

The fourth time was at the Ivy League Heptagonal championships, where she won the steeplechase in a time of 10:01.99. That's a wild trajectory, no? 

Wait. It gets better. 

This past weekend, Beaulieu ran at the NCAA Eastern regional at the University of Kentucky. She didn't win her heat. She just missed out on qualifying by one spot for the NCAA finals in Eugene in two weeks. 

What she did, though, was extraordinary. Her time was 9:52.54. In less than two months, she went from never having run the race to cutting more than 38 seconds off her time. Oh, and she set the Princeton program record in the process.

Considering how many great steeplechasers Princeton has had, especially Ashley Higginson and Lizzie Bird, graduating with the school record is impressive. Considering it was her fifth time running it? That's just "wow." In what universe could Beaulieu have imagined that back in August? 

It would have been a better story had she not finished one spot away from moving onto Eugene, but still. TigerBlog thinks this is one of the more amazing stories at Princeton he's heard in a while. 

Beaulieu's time at Princeton has come to an end. She'll continue her running career this coming year at Duke. As for Princeton Track and Field, there are Tigers who are headed to Eugene. 

In fact, there are two Princeton steeplechasers who will be there: Brian Boler and Jackson Shorten. Both of them finished second in his heat, earning an automatic qualification to the finals. If you're wondering about their times, they were 8:31.28 (Boler) and 8:34.11 (Shorten). 

In all seven Princeton individuals and one relay have advanced to Eugene for the Princeton men. You can read about them HERE. Joey Gant, who graduated last week, reached in two events, with a 45.13 in the 400 to finish third in his heat, which brings him to the NCAA finals for the first time as an individual. 

He also was part of the 4x400 relay with Jon York, Xavier Donaldson and Kavon Miller that set an Ivy League record in 3:02.60, which took down the record that Princeton's foursome had set a year ago at the East Regional. 

For the women, there are also seven, if TB is counting correctly. You can read all about them HERE. 

TB wants to be mindful of the accomplishments of Georgina Scoot, who won the triple jump at the qualifier with a personal best 13.67 m/44-10.25 feet. Scoot had already qualified in the long jump as well, which means it'll be the second straight year she does both at the finals. 

Her leap in the triple jump at Kentucky puts her in the top five nationally and makes her a legitimate contender to win in Oregon. She was already a first-team All-American in the event indoors this year. 

Elsewhere

Yes, the big story in Princeton Athletics this week was the men's lacrosse NCAA championship.

There were other stories, of course. For instance: 

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Freshman women's golfer Thanana Kotchasanmanee finished tied for 12th at the NCAA championships last weekend. That's the best finish ever by an Ivy League women's golfer at the event. 

Only four Ivy League women's golfers have ever qualified as individuals for the final NCAA rounds, and all four are Princetonians. The highest previous finish among that group was 37th, by Kelly Shon in 2013. The other two were Mary Moan (T40th; 1997) and Maya Walton (T113th; 2017).

Kotchasanmanee was tied for third after the first round and was in contention throughout. It was a great performance, one that certainly makes you wonder what the rest of her career has in store. 

You'll get your next chance to see when she competes at the U.S. Women's Open next weekend in Los Angeles. Kotchasanmanee earned her spot in the field when she won a qualifying event in Virginia. 

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Speaking of Kotchasanmanee, she is a native of Thailand who went to high school in Rome — the one in Georgia, where she attended the Darlington School. 

TigerBlog has a long history of learning how to spell names of Princeton athletes that are challenging. He figures that names like hers are actually relatively easy to get right, since they make you focus so much at the beginning. 

From his time as the men's tennis contact, TB can tell you that it took maybe three times to figure out how to spell the last name of the No. 2 singles player Top Nidunjianzan. Also, Tosan Evbuomwan was a challenging one, and TB can still only get that one right if he sounds it out, even though it's not how it's actually pronounced. 

One of the Princeton men's lacrosse alums TB saw the other day has a name that has always been way more of a challenge: Phillip Robertson. When there are names like his, or Zach/Zack, it's so much harder to remember how many "l"s or whether it's an "h" or "k" at the end. 

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What was the greatest clutch shot in the history of Princeton Basketball? 

Well, here is TB's entry, quoting himself from the women's basketball team's win over North Carolina State in the 2023 NCAA tournament:

The Tigers trailed in this one 63-55 with five to play. Along the way, the Tigers had a 1 for 24 shooting stretch (yes, that's not a typo) while NC State had a 17 for 22 stretch of its own. And yet Princeton was still in the game. Princeton got a three from Grace Stone and another three from Kaitlin Chen to make it a one-point game with less than a minute to go. It was still that way when Princeton got the ball back on a steal by Stone with just 11 seconds left. Out of the timeout, Stone then drained a three from the corner. Ballgame. It was an extraordinary shot, one that was put up with complete confidence, and which splashed through while barely moving the net. 

As he thinks back on it, that shot was beyond clutch.  

Stone will be back in Jadwin Gym moving forward, as she has joined head coach Lauren Gosselin's staff as Director of Operations. Gosselin. That's another name you have to practice a few times to spell correctly, with the two "s"s and the one "l" — TB thinks. 

Here is what Stone had to say about her new job: 

"I am incredibly excited to be back with Princeton Women's Basketball. My four years as a player were the best four years of my life. I can't wait to step back into the winning culture that is Princeton Women's Basketball and help the continued success of a program that has made me who I am. It feels good to be back and Go Tigers!" 

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The NCAA track and field regionals are underway in Kentucky. Greg Foster (long jump) and Jacob Nenow (10,000) have already qualified for the Championships, to be held in Eugene, Ore., beginning June 10. 

There are four other men who will try to join them today after advancing past their first rounds Wednesday: Joey Gant in the 400, Connor McCormick and Collin Boler in the 1500 and Jackson Clarke in the 200. Foster will also run in the 110 hurdles today as well. 

The women sent 17 athletes to Kentucky for the qualifying rounds as well. Those 17 began competing yesterday, with the final rounds set for tomorrow.  

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Lastly, the women's lightweight rowers will look for a fifth straight national championship at the IRA regatta in Sacramento tomorrow and Sunday.