That's The Ticket

Well that's a big fish. 

To be exact, it's a 40-pound yellowtail amberjack. He's the only one in the picture who isn't smiling, as you might have noticed. 

The fisherman would be Matthew Anderson, who definitely is smiling. Matthew and TigerBlog Jr. grew up together, they both spent quite a few years working together as ballboys for Princeton basketball. 

Oh, those were the days. When there was a home game during the week, TB would leave Princeton in the afternoon, drive about 30 minutes to pick them up, drive them back to Princeton and then drive them home after the game.  

Matthew went on to play lacrosse at Chestnut Hill College, and he's also helped coach the junior varsity team at his old high school, Pennsbury, whose colors just happen to be orange and black and who gets a lot of use out of an orange "P" as a logo. 

If you're wondering, that fish was caught somewhere off the California coast the other day. For his part, TB can take no credit for helping, as he was 3,000 miles away at the time, though he did give Matthew that "Princeton Lacrosse" pullover. 

TigerBlog has never caught a fish anywhere near that large. He has caught a bunch of small ones, mostly shad in the Delaware River with John McPhee. 

In fact, the first time he caught a shad, he fought it all the way onto the boat and figured it had to weigh at least 40 pounds. Actually, it was two pounds, but hey, fish tails, right? That's the ticket.

And speaking of tickets (how's that for a segue)?

If you've been on goprincetontigers.com in the last two days, you might have noticed that there has been a story about Princeton (the University as a whole, including Athletics) and its new ticketing system. It's called "vivenu," and you can read about it HERE.

This is from the story:

Princeton University and Princeton Athletics have announced a partnership with vivenu, a leading technology provider in global event ticketing, to further modernize and create a simplified ticket purchasing process for Tiger fans and supporters. Through new technological advancements including a fully-refreshed ticketing website and purchase flow at goprincetotigers.com/tickets, streamlined mobile ticket downloads with season ticket passes, and easier venue entry, vivenu will assist Princeton fans in experiencing a more intuitive and efficient process during their customer journey with the Tigers. 

If you have an account on file, you're going to need to follow the steps to create a new one in the new system. It's very easy to do. 

Right now, football season tickets are available. Opening day? That would be Sept. 20, when San Diego will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium for the first of five home games, along with Columbia (Oct. 3), Mercer (Oct. 11),  Harvard (Oct. 25) and Yale (Nov. 15).

If you're planning ahead, Princeton is also at Lafayette (Sept. 27), Brown (Oct. 18), Cornell (Nov. 1), Dartmouth (Nov. 8) and Penn (Nov. 15).  

Next up will be men's and women's hockey season tickets, which go on sale July 21. Beyond that will be tickets for men's and women's basketball and wrestling, with men's lacrosse tickets still to come beyond that. 

The new ticketing system makes it easy to transfer tickets from one person to another or to donate tickets to non-profit groups. If you're ticket is saved to your device will automatically update if the start time changes.

There was a time when collecting ticket stubs was something pretty much everyone did, especially for big games and concerts. When TB first started working at Princeton, designing Princeton's tickets was a big thing, with an emphasis on making them look as artistic as possible. 

Those days are gone. Now it's about convenience and the ability to simply download them to your device. 

Princeton's new "vivenu" system does all of that and more. 

 

Thanks Allen

TigerBlog has been watching a great deal of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. 

His favorite player now is Ben Shelton, who plays with an unmistakable joy that makes him impossible to root against, at least for TB. His post-match on-court interviews have been pure gold, like the one the other day about how he needs someone at Goldman Sachs to give his sister Emma an additional week off so she could stay and watch him.

Emma was still there yesterday as her brother rolled into the quarterfinals. His opponent will be the top seed, Jannik Sinner, who advanced despite being down two sets to none and tied 2-2 in the third when his opponent, Grigor Sinner, couldn't continue due to a pectoral injury. Sinner showed great sportsmanship in the moment and in his on-court interview, and it was clearly not the way the No. 1 seed wanted to move on. 

Also, it was over the weekend that Chris Evert said that the women's No. 1 seed, Aryna Sabalenka, plays better when she's "pissed off."

TigerBlog took that as a validation of something he said on the radio during a Princeton men's basketball game many years ago, like 35 or so years ago. He's told you this before, but here goes again: 

Back in the early 1990s, TB was often part of a three-man radio crew with David Brody and Rich Simkus. One night, as halftime came, TigerBlog said that Pete Carril looked "pissed off" as he left the court.

Brody and Simkus then looked at him without speaking, at which TB said "what, you can't say 'pissed off' on the radio?"

At that point, Brody said: "I guess you can, because you just did. Twice." 

If it's good enough for Chris Evert, it's good enough for TigerBlog, no? 

Meanwhile, Wimbledon sits about an hour down the M25 from Henley-on-Thames, which is where the recently concluded regatta for 2025 took place. If you recall, TB yesterday wrote about the representatives of the Princeton heavyweight men's program who had competed there this past week so successfully. 

And thanks to a heads up from loyal reader Allen Scheuch, Class of 1976, TB has learned there is more to be told from Henley. 

Claire Collins, the 2019 von Kienbusch Award winner as the top Princeton female senior athlete, has had quite a post-Princeton career in rowing. She was especially impressive at this year's Henley.

First of all, she is a two-time U.S. Olympian, having finished seventh in the women's fours in Tokyo in 2021 and then fifth in the women's eights in Paris last summer. She also won a bronze medal at the 2022 World Rowing Championships in women's pairs. 

She has also been rowing at Cambridge University and was part of this year's winning crew in the famed Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford. 

This past week at Henley she rowed in not one but two separate events. 

First, she was with the Cambridge boat that lost to Oxford Brookes in the semifinals of the highly competitive Island Challenge Cup. As TB learned when he was at Henley a few years ago, "Oxford University" and "Oxford Brookes" are not the same institutions. 

Collins also teamed with Wisconsin alum Maddie Wanamaker, a fellow 2024 Olympian, to win the Hambleden Pairs Challenge Cup. The two Americans covered the 2,112 meters in 7:53, winning the final by more than four lengths. 

Rowing in one event at Henley is tough. Rowing in two? The physical drain has to be ridiculous. 

Each day brings another race. If you win, you advance. If you don't, you're done. Collins put in a lot of effort at this year's Henley.  

In addition to Collins, the Princeton women's lightweight boat also rowed in the Island Challenge Cup, getting a first-round bye, winning its second race against Bristol and then falling to Durham. 

There are no separate divisions for lightweights, so the Tigers were racing against the open weight boats of both of the English powerhouses.   

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Forget fireworks.

For TigerBlog, no Fourth of July is complete without a rewatch of one of the greatest movies ever made: "Yankee Doodle Dandy." As a caveat, you probably have to be at least 50 or so — or maybe even 60 or so — to agree with TB. 

If you are, then the mere thought of how James Cagney dances and sings his way through the movie makes you smile. It certainly does for TigerBlog. 

How can you not love this:

Right? Of course. 

That scene is the best in the movie, though there is one song after another that is classic Americana. And so even though today is July 7, TB will stick with "Yankee Doodle Dandy" for today.

* 

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY

The movie, from 1942, tells the story of the life of George M. Cohan, who was born on July ... 3rd, in 1878. Cohan was from a vaudeville family who went on to become one of the biggest stars in Broadway history, as well as one of the most patriotic Americans who has ever lived. 

During the course of the movie, Cagney, who won the Academy Award for playing Cohan, sings and dances to that incredibly famous song, one that you've probably heard even if you're younger than 60. 

Yankee Stadium sits not far from Broadway. In addition to being the home of the New York Yankees, it is also the place where New York City FC of Major League Soccer hangs its collective hat. 

This past weekend, NYCFC defeated Toronto 3-1 at Yankee Stadium. The home team was up 2-0 before a goal by Toronto in the 64th minute turned the momentum around. Would this one get away? No, it wouldn't. 

And why? Because in the 74th minute, Kevin O'Toole finished a pretty play to put NYCFC up 3-1, which would be the final.  O'Toole, of course, was a two-time Ivy League men's soccer Player of the Year and the 2022 Roper Trophy winner as the top male athlete at Princeton. 

You can see his goal HERE (at the six minute mark of the video). 

This was a quote from his Princeton head coach Jim Barlow from a feature story that TB wrote about O'Toole after the Tigers clinched the Ivy League title his senior year:

“He’s so easy going and calm. He’s so calm under pressure. He doesn’t get rattled. He embraces the moment, and he never forces anything. It’s clear how much fun he’s having when he plays. He just makes really big plays in really huge moments.” 

*

YOU'RE A GRAND OLD FLAG

The patriotism theme is all over the movie, beginning with when Cohan is summoned to the White House to meet with FDR and running all the way through to the very end, when Cohan — having shared his life story with the President in flashbacks — leaves the White House, dancing down the stairs and out into the street, where a military parade is passing by while everyone sings "Over There." 

Cohan, who wrote the song, is asked if he knows the words, to which he responds: "Yes, I believe I do," which are the final words of the movie. 

Beth Yeager, a rising senior on the Princeton field hockey team and a three-time first-team All-American, played two games this weekend for the USA national team against New Zealand. The Americans won Saturday 3-0 and then again yesterday 3-0, and Yeager scored two of the three goals in the game yesterday. 

Both of her goals came on drag flicks on penalty corners. If you've been following Princeton field hockey at all, you've seen that before from Yeager. 

Both of her goals can be seen HERE.

*

YANKEE DOODLE BOY

The scene that TB shared above shows jockey Johnny Jones as he heads to England for the big race. It's the show-stopper. 

If you haven't watched the clip yet, check out how Cagney dances. He studied Cohan's actual dancing and imitated it, twice suffering from an ankle sprain during filming. 

The big races this weekend in England were at the Henley Royal Regatta, an event TB has attended in the past. If you've never been, it's definitely worth a trip. 

Princeton's heavyweight rowing program produced two winners this weekend. Tristan Wenger, a rising sophomore, was part of the winning team in the Visitors' Challenge Cup with the powerhouse Leander Club and Tideway Scullers School. 

Incoming freshman Joe Wellington was in the winning boat in the Fawley Cup with the Windsor Boys' School.

Princeton also had a runner-up boat in the Silver Goblets doubles, with Theo Bell and Marcus Chute. 

All of those Princetonians, by the way, are British, so they probably weren't too upset with the fact that Johnny Jones lost his big race.  

 

"Red Panda We Love You"

TigerBlog remembers way back in the day when there was a student slam-dunk contest at halftime of a men's basketball game in Jadwin Gym.

He doesn't remember names. He just remembers an unbelievable series of dunks from three students, some or all of whom were on the track and field team at the time. Now that was a halftime show. 

Oh, and there was the guy in 1996 who participated in a halftime contest at Jadwin. When TB wrote his top 40 events in Jadwin history on the building's 40th anniversary in 2009, he ranked this one sixth. Here's what he wrote about it:

A fan, Dave Ulrich of Mount Laurel, N.J., comes out of the stands to participate in a halftime contest during the Princeton-Dartmouth women's basketball game. The contestant has three opportunities to shoot from halfcourt, once each from the where the midcourt line and sidelines meet and once from center court. If he can make two of the three shots, he will win a car. To this point, only one contestant has made even one shot, which earned $100. On this night, this particular contestant makes the first shot and then makes the second, winning the car (a Saturn). Unaware that he has already won the car, he thinks he must make the third one as well — which he then does. The highlight is played nationally and is the “Play of the Day” on ESPN's SportsCenter. 

TB wonders if Dave is still driving around in his Saturn.

Since then, TB would say his favorite halftime show at Jadwin has been "Drums of Thunder," the percussion group of fourth graders from Montclair who pretty much blow the roof off of the building each time they play. 

Then there is Red Panda. She's the woman who balances the plates and bowls on her head and feet while riding a unicycle. How in the world do you do that the first time? 

Anyway, she's long been a Jadwin favorite, and a favorite all over the country. She was doing her act at halftime of the Indiana-Minnesota WNBA game Tuesday night when she fell and had to be taken to the hospital with what apparently was a wrist injury. 

Caitlin Clark even sent her a message after the game: "Red Panda, we love you."

Everyone does. 

By the way, TB was trying to find a photo of Red Panda from her act and as such did a search. And what came up? Lots of actual red pandas. Cute.  

*

Here's a fun headline: "Entire Men's Hockey Team Named To ECAC All-Academic Team."

That's right. Princeton went 27 for 27, with every single player's having achieved at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA or 3.0 for the last three semesters. 

That's a lot of smart guys in one locker room. You can read more about it HERE.

*

The Premier Lacrosse League will hold its annual all-star weekend in Kansas City, beginning tomorrow with the skills competition and women's game and then continuing Saturday with the East vs. West men's game. 

Princeton will have one starter on both sides of the men's game. Not shockingly, Michael Sowers and Tom Schreiber are once again all-stars.

In fact, Schreiber has been an all-star 11 times now between Major League Lacrosse and the PLL. Sowers is now a PLL all-star for the fourth time. They've both been all-stars on the pro level every year they've been healthy. 

You can watch the all-star game Saturday at 1 on ESPN and ESPN+.

*

Speaking of men's lacrosse, TigerBlog found a picture of Coulter Mackesy, a rookie on the Boston Cannons, after a game last weekend in San Diego. Mackesy is posing with three of his former Tiger teammates: Jim Williams, Jameson Moore and Jackson Kane. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Princeton Men's Lacrosse (@princetonlax)

 

Hey, it's always good to have a little fun.
 

*

This is the Fourth of July weekend, of course. Ah, but lingering the not-so-distant future? 

Well, the first athletic event of the 2025-26 season is lingering a mere seven weeks away, as it'll be the women's soccer team against Rutgers on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium on Aug. 22. The team released its schedule for the season, which you can see HERE.

Seven weeks. That's not that far away. 

Still, have a safe and fun Fourth of July.  

More Hoops

And for the second straight day, TigerBlog starts off with something of a correction. 

Before he gets to that, he'll share a story from the 1980s, when he was still covering high schools at the Trenton Times. 

There had been a call into the paper asking for a correction to be issued regarding one of the local teams, the reason long since lost to history. TB's then-colleague Harry Chaykun said this: "How about just writing 'The Times regrets the coverage.'"

That still makes TB laugh, 40 years later. Ah, Harry. TB definitely learned a great deal about the newspaper business — and the effective use of sarcasm — from Harry. 

Today's correction — and TigerBlog does not regret the coverage — comes from Jason Merims, a loyal reader. When TB said yesterday that he'd come up with five instances where an NBA team had Ivy Leaguers as teammates, Jason came back with one more. 

And how could TB have missed this one? 

It was on the 1976-77 New York Knicks, where Jim McMillian of Columbia was a teammate of TB's classmate Bill Bradley.  

Those Knicks missed the playoffs, going 40-42 in the regular season. That would be Bradley's last season in the NBA. A year later he was elected as a United States Senator from New Jersey for the first of three times.

McMillian's sophomore year at Columbia was the 1967-68 season, which was also the first for Pete Carril at Princeton. The Lions and Tigers tied for the regular season championship, setting up a playoff game at St. John's for the NCAA tournament bid. 

Columbia won that game 92-74 as McMillian poured in 37 points. 

Here was a quote from Carril after the game from the Daily Princetonian:

"Nobody helped out on defense at all—they let the guards drive right by us." And how did the writer attribute the quote? Did it say "Carril said?" Did it say "Carril responded?" 

No. It said "Carril grimaced." Who can't close their eyes and see Carril's face at that? 

That was the only time between 1963 and 1988 when the Ivy League representative in the NCAA tournament was someone other than Princeton or Penn. 

McMillian, for his part, went on to be part of the great 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers team, which won 33 straight games and then ultimately the NBA title by beating the Knicks (and Bradley) in five games in the finals. The Knicks returned the favor a year later, winning their second title in four years (a streak that is now two titles in 55 years).

So a thank you goes to Jason for pointing out the missed teammates. 

Another thank you goes TB's longtime friend and local sportswriter Rich Fisher, who emailed yesterday with another basketball note. 

If you knew Carril, you knew "grimaced" was perfect. If you know Fish, then you know he would write this: 

"Well this hoop item may or may not interest you as a little Blog Blurb, but I'm sending just in case. 

 Fred Falchi has gotten the head coaching job at Pennington, and he's bringing back his former player Richmond Aririguzoh as a volunteer assistant his first year. He said Richmond is finishing up his masters' degree so this may be a one-year deal but I'm letting you know. If you don't use it, I'll throw myself off a cliff ... but it will be a very low cliff, so I'll live."

Yeah, that had to be Fish. 

Falchi was the longtime coach at Trenton Catholic, which used to be McCorristin and then before that St. Anthony's.

Aririguzoh played for Falchi during the final years at Trenton Catholic, which has since closed. Aririguzoh also played at Princeton, where he was a two-time All-Ivy selection, including a first-team selection as a senior in 2019-20.

If you look in the Princeton men's basketball record book, you'll see Aririguzoh's name under the field goal percentage section. His career number of .636 ranks second all-time at Princeton (who is first?), and he holds the No. 2 and No. 9 best single-season numbers. 

Who is first on the single-season list? 

The career record is held by Howard Levy (.647). The single-season record is held by Alan Williams (.703).  

July Hoops

Hey, it's July 1.

What else is there to talk about other than basketball, right? 

Oh, there is one thing. TigerBlog wrote yesterday that Princeton has led the Ivy League in the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup standings every year except for five since it began in 1994. As it turns out, that's actually all but three times. 

And with that, now the conversation can turn to basketball. There are, in fact, four Princeton Basketball-related updates. 

The first is a story by Elliott Carr on goprincetontigers.com about recent alum Blake Peters and his "Journey to Jadwin." You can read it HERE.

When it comes to the basketball career Peters had, there will always be two highlights for anyone who has been paying attention. The first came when he was a freshman at Evanston High School outside of Chicago. 

It came in a January game against Maine South. His team was down two with 2.6 seconds to go. Peters rebounded a Maine South missed free throw and proceeded to toss in the game-winner from about 80 feet away, with one hand, no less. 

The shot earned him the top play of the day on SportsCenter and a trip to the ESPY Awards. 

Then there was the more recent one, the one that came in a Princeton uniform. This was in the 2023 NCAA tournament, when Peters made 10 three-pointers in wins over Arizona and Missouri, helping Princeton to the Sweet 16. 

Read the story. Watch the video of his high school shot. Remember his postgame interview on CBS after the Tigers beat Missouri in the NCAA tournament. 

Next up? A current Tiger, Jackson Hicke, a rising junior. 

Now that it's July, it's accurate to say that later this month Hicke will be competing at the World University Games in Germany in 3X3. It'll be an all-Ivy League team, as Hicke will be joined by Avery Brown (Columbia), Chandler Piggé (Harvard) and Nick Townsend (Yale).

Then there is Parker Hill, another recent graduate. Hill just signed to play professionally in Switzerland with a team called Hellios, who plays in the highest level of Swiss pro women's basketball. 

Hill will be the sixth women's basketball alum to be playing professionally this year, joining Blake Dietrick '15 (3XBA), Carlie Littlefield '21 (3XBA), Abby Meyers '22 (Maccabi Bnot Ashdod), Grace Stone '23 (Perry Lakes Hawks) and Kaitlyn Chen '24 (Golden State Valkyries). 

It's the last one that TB would like to talk about now. 

Here's a highlight from the Valkyries' 84-57 win over Seattle Sunday night:

Chen vision -> @TemiFagbenle -> team vibes high. @ampm | Assist of the Game pic.twitter.com/SxXEwFLN3U

— Golden State Valkyries (@valkyries) June 30, 2025

That was an Ivy-to-Ivy assist, from Chen to Harvard alum Temi Fagbenle (who also was a teammate of Abby Meyers' with the London Lions team that won the European championship a year ago). Elliott (he of the Blake Peters story) had asked TB last week if he knew of any Ivy League teammates in the NBA, what with Princeton alum Tosan Evbuomwan as a returnee for the Brooklyn Nets and former Michigan and Yale player Danny Wolf's having been drafted by the Nets. 

It's possible that there are more, but TB found five of those examples. The first was in 1949-50, when the Boston Celtics had Yale's Tony Lavelli and Dartmouth's Ed Leede (the Big Green arena is named for him). 

There was also Matt Maloney and Ira Bowman on the 2000-01 Atlanta Hawks. The other three all involved Princetonians: 

* Butch van Breda Kolff and Bud Palmer were teammates for three years on the Knicks in the 40s 
* Brian Taylor and Penn’s Tony Price were teammates on the 1980-81 Clippers
* Geoff Petrie and Penn's Dave Wohl were on the 1972-73 Trailblazers

As for Chen, she's off to a really good start in Golden State, who is also off to a good start in its first season. 

More than the points and the rebounds and the assists, you can see the absolute joy that Chen plays with, in that highlight or in any other.  

It's the same look you saw when she was playing at Princeton, and when she won an NCAA title at UConn as a grad student last season. 

And that's your Princeton Basketball update for July 1. 

Now go enjoy your summer day.  

No. 32

TigerBlog's former colleague Stacy Bunting begins her tenure as the Director of Athletics at Bates College this week. 

Bates, if you didn't know, is the Bobcats. The college is located in Lewiston, Maine — where it gets relatively cold in the winter. 

It's around a 45-minute drive north from Bates to the campus of Colby College, which is in Waterville. The Director of Athletics there is Amanda DeMartino, who came to Colby from the College of New Jersey. 

It's the Mercer County to Maine NESCAC AD pipeline.

The NESCAC is the New England Small College Athletic Conference. It is the one of the two dominant conferences in Division III athletics, along with the University Athletic Association, at least if you go by the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup. 

In fact, when TigerBlog went through the final standings for 2024-25, and it was sort of like trying to figure out who won Heps cross country. The No. 1 team in Division III was Emory of the UAA, which also had No. 4 (Washington U.), No. 8 (Chicago), No. 9 (NYU) and No. 16 (Carnegie Mellon).  

The NESCAC countered with No. 3 (Tufts), No. 5 (Middlebury), No. 7 (Amherst), No. 11 (Williams) and No. 19 (Wesleyan). That's 10 of the top 19 teams in Division III, all from those two conferences. Of the other nine, they represent seven different conferences. 

If you're scoring it like cross country, with the top five finishers, then the UAA has 38 to the 45 of the NESCAC. If you add in the sixth for both conferences, though, then you have No. 33 Colby and No. 41 Case Western Reserve, which makes the score NESCAC 78, UAA 79.

Bates, by the way, was 48th in Division III and eighth in the NESCAC. That is one competitive league that Bunting is walking into this week.

If you're wondering who won Division II, that would be Grand Valley State. The top 10 in DII represented nine different conferences. 

Division I? The winner was Texas, who edged out USC and Stanford. Only 4.25 points separated those three. 

The top 33 teams in Division I feature 32 from either the Big Ten, the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC. The other one is from the Ivy League.

Any guesses? Well duh, it's obviously Princeton. Why else would TB mention it, right? 

The Directors' Cup uses a points system based on NCAA tournament qualification and success. There's nothing else that factors into it. There are no bonus points for being from a Power Conference or for being from a different conference. 

You either make the NCAA tournament or you don't. You either advance or you don't. 

The Cup standings award points in 19 sports for Division I. There are five sports that are included for every team in Division I: baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball, women's volleyball and women's soccer. After that, the top scoring 14 sports per school are counted, so not every school uses the exact same sports. 

The Directors' Cup dates to 1993-94, when Princeton finished 34th. Since then, Princeton's average finish has been 37.1. 

The Tigers have finished as the top Ivy program all but five times. Princeton has also been in the top 50 26 times, including each of the last 15 (other than the Covid years). 

The 2024-25 athletic year saw Princeton win a record 17 Ivy League championships, as well as two other non-Ivy titles. Yes, it was quite a year. 

A new one will be starting soon. How will it go for the Tigers? How will it go for the Bobcats?  

And good luck to Stacey as she starts her new job. You're in a tough league. Moving up in the Directors' Cup will be one big challenge. 

Staying warm will be another. 

It Would Have Been Funny

Something happened to TigerBlog the other day that made him think "this would be a funny way to start a new entry this week."

And now he can't remember what it was. 

It did remind him of this old Pete Carril quote: 

“One of the signs of dementia is that you can remember things from a long time ago but you can't remember what you just did. I read an article about this. I can remember the starting lineup for the old Minneapolis Laker teams. I went to a reunion in Reading of the 1961 team. I think Gary [Walters] was a sub on that team as a sophomore. We made it to the Eastern finals that year. Anyway, I could remember where each of them sat in the classroom. I thought to myself 'dementia; that's what I have.' And then I couldn't remember I read the story, so I thought I was okay, right?” 

Ah yes. There's a Carril quote for everything. 

TB can remember exactly where he was when Carril said that to him, even though it was 18 years ago. He just can't remember what it was that was so funny the other day. 

That quote comes from THIS STORY that TB wrote about Carril in 2007.  

Anyway, whatever it was the other day, it was funny. 

You can laugh now. 

*

If you're in the Eastern time zone, you'll have to stay up late to see Princeton alums in the pros on TV.

The Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA take on the Chicago Sky tonight at 10 Eastern in a game that can be seen on ION. The Valkyries are an expansion team, but they're off to a reasonable start, with a record of 7-7 to date. 

The Valkyries are in a three-way tie, along with Indiana and Las Vegas, for sixth place in the league. They're also one-half game ahead of Washington, who is coached by Princeton alum Sydney Johnson.

Speaking of Princeton alums, Kaitlyn Chen is a rookie on Golden State. Chen, a three-time Most Outstanding Player at the Ivy League tournament who then went on to win the NCAA title at UConn last year as a grad student, made her WNBA debut earlier this week with five points in 20 minutes of gametime. 

*

This week's edition of the Premier Lacrosse League comes from San Diego, where there will be two games tonight and two more tomorrow. All four of those games feature at least one former Princeton Tiger.

Game 1 features the California Redwoods (with Princeton alum Sam English) against the Denver Outlaws at 9 Eastern, followed at 11:30 with the Utah Archers and the New York Atlas. That second game has all kinds of Princeton connections, with Jake Stevens on the Atlas and Beau Pederson, Tom Schreiber and Ryan Ambler all on the Archers, who are coached by former Tiger head coach Chris Bates. 

The other team in the league that's loaded with Princetonians is the Philadelphia Waterdogs, who have Michael Sowers and Zach Currier, not to mention head coach Bill Tierney. The Waterdogs will play California at 6 Eastern tomorrow, with the Boston Cannons (with Coulter Mackesy and Alexander Vardaro) and Carolina Chaos at 8:30.  

Sowers leads the league in assists with 15 and is second in points with 20. Mackesy did not have a goal in his first game but has back-to-back three-goal games since. 

In all, Princeton's alums have combined for 27 goals and 23 assists through the first four weeks of the season.  

*

Princeton fencing was well represented at the Pan American Championships in Brazil. 

From the story on goprincetontigers.com:

The women's épée event saw Princeton fencers take home three medals, with incoming freshman Ruien (Angel) Xiao finishing second, rising junior Hadley Husisian taking third, and Kasia Nixon '21 also taking third as three of the four semifinalists were Princetonians. Argentine Isabel Di Tella defeated American Husisian 15-8 in one semi while Xiao, fencing for Canada, getting a touch past U.S. fencer Nixon 15-14. Di Tella was a touch in front of Xiao 13-12 in the final. Tristan Szapary '24 defeated Venezuelan fencer Ruben Limardo Gascon 15-7 to win the men's épée title, and Maia Chamberlain '22 defeated Mexico's Natalia Botello 15-12 to win the women's saber title. Rising junior Alexandra Lee finished 14th in the women's saber competition.  

The team competitions will be held today and tomorrow.  

License Plates

TigerBlog was driving along yesterday when he noticed that the license plate on the car in front of him ended with "YAV."

Ah, Yav. 

To TigerBlog, "YAV" will always be Harvey Yavener, the longtime local sportswriter who has been one of the most influential people in TB's life. Yav lived into his 90s before passing away two years ago.

If you were ever interviewed by Yav, you remember it. If you ever were in a press conference with Yav, you remember it as well. 

He had a way of making an impression.  

TB will have to reach out to his longtime friend over at the Big Green Alert blog, Bruce Wood, who has to have any number of Yav stories to tell.  

The license plate that ended with "YAV" was one of four that TB has seen in the last few days that conjured up Princeton Athletic memories. Seriously. He's not making this up. 

The first one he saw was "UVA96." 

TigerBlog wanted to follow that car to see if it was a former Virginia men's lacrosse player. Or even fan. 

It it was, then that person would have said "grrrrrr" to TigerBlog. After all, Princeton defeated Virginia in overtime in the NCAA final in both 1994 and 1996. 

Those UVa teams had some of the best players who have ever played, including Michael Watson and Doug Knight, teammates on attack who are both in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Watson, in fact, was the Most Outstanding Player of the 1996 Final Four. 

Those two teamed with Tim Whiteley to form one of the greatest attack units ever — only to be foiled on Memorial Day with OT goals from Princeton's Kevin Lowe and Jesse Hubbard (both Hall of Famers themselves).

Then there was the license plate that ended in "149." What immediately came to mind? 

That would be "Princeton 14, Dartmouth 9."

Obviously TigerBlog is referring to the 2018 football game on Powers Field between a pair of 7-0 teams. It was an epic defensive struggle, one that started with two long scoring drives on each team's first possession and then turned into one where every yard the rest of the way was a struggle. 

Dartmouth's only points after its first drive came on a safety. Princeton's only points after its first drive came on a fourth-quarter touchdown run from John Lovett. 

Princeton went 10-0 that year. Dartmouth went 9-1. That game remains the best Ivy League football game TigerBlog has ever seen. 

This is from the Daily Princetonian:

Princeton came back into the ball game Saturday to nose out a fighting Dartmouth team, 14 to 9. It was as fine an exhibition of cool headedness, determination and fight as has been shown by any Tiger team in recent years.  

If that doesn't sound like writing from 2018, that's because it was from 1940. Did you know that Princeton rallied past Dartmouth in the fourth quarter for a 14-9 win that season too? 

In that game, Dartmouth kicked a field goal from the Tiger 8-yard line to go up 9-7 with a little more than five minutes left, only to have Princeton's David Allerdice bring his team down the field with his passing, including the winning TD pass with two minutes left. 

Then there was one other license plate, though this one wasn't quite like the others. This one was simply "GO TGRS."

When he saw that one, TB was positive that some major Princeton fan was in front of him. Who was it? Would he recognize the driver?

He even sped up to pass the car and see who was driving. Would he figure it out? Or would he get pulled over, because by the time he pulled up next to the car, he was going around 80.

Well, neither possibility actually played out. 

Instead, there was a man behind the wheel who turned to face TB, presumably to see who it was who was chasing him. And there he was, with his gray hair sticking out under his hat.

And what about that hat? Did it say "Princeton Basketball?" Or "Princeton Soccer." Or "Princeton Anything." 

Nope. It said ...  

... Auburn. 

What a letdown that was.  

Those Are The Rules

INSIDE LACROSSE STORY ON PROPOSED WOMEN'S RULES CHANGES 

The NCAA women's lacrosse rules committee seemingly recognized two realities in the sport:

1) the athletes are faster and stronger and shoot harder than they ever have before, and 
2) the games themselves were taking way too long to play

It's a tough position for a committee. You don't want to overhaul everything that has helped your sport grow, while at the same time you have to do something to move the pace of the game along. 

Women's lacrosse games in recent years have regularly run to nearly two hours and 30 minutes, or even longer. And why? 

The main culprit, ironically enough, has been the increased athleticism, which has led to greater goal-scoring numbers. It's made the game way more exciting, of course, though it needed some major fine-tuning. 

What does extra scoring bring? Yes, it results in many more draws at midfield. And that's been the No. 1 source of the extra time. 

It starts with the need to do a stick check after each goal. You've seen this if you've been watching. 

The player who scores has to immediately drop her stick, or, as it has evolved, slams her stick down as hard as possible in triumph. Then the officials have to confirm it's a legal stick, and only then do the teams head to midfield for the draw. 

This rule, by the way, came from overtime of an NCAA championship game a few years ago, when the goal was scored and all of the sticks flew in the air in celebration. The team that lost wanted to challenge the stick that scored the game-winner — though nobody could figure out which one it was. 

This week, the NCAA women's lacrosse rules committee announced that, among other proposals, the need to do a stick check should be eliminated. Also, teams would have 30 seconds to line up at midfield to be ready for the next draw or possession would be automatically given to the other team. 

There are other proposals as well, but that one is the one that should do the most to speed things up. This is from committee chair Amy Foster.

“At the Division I level in particular, there was concern about games consistently extending well beyond two hours. For media purposes, that window is important, but it is also important for just the enjoyment of the game. Changes in the penalty structure and penalty and game administration could positively impact both.” 

Foster, by the way, is a Senior Deputy Athletic Director at Cornell. It seems that both the men's and women's rules committee chairs are from the Ivy League. How about that? 

This was a non-change year for the men's committee but obviously a change year for the women. This proposal, and the others, really seem to be a move in the right direction. 

From here, by the way, the next step is to have the recommendations of the committee go to the NCAA's Playing Rules Oversight Panel for its approval. 

While the subject today is women's lacrosse, TigerBlog would like to congratulate Princeton's coaches for being selected as the IWLCA Mid-Atlantic Region Coaching Staff of the Year. As you hopefully recall, Princeton won the Ivy League championship and reached the NCAA quarterfinals before falling to eventual champion North Carolina. 

Princeton is led by head coach Jen Cook and her staff featuring Maggie Brown, Molly Dougherty, Kerrin Maurer and Ali Robinson.   

This is from the story on goprincetontigers.com:

Princeton's .800 winning percentage was No. 1 in the Ivy League and No. 5 nationally, and the Tigers were among the nation's cleanest teams in terms of possession with a national rank of No. 5 in clearing percentage (.939) and No. 3 in turnovers-per-game (11.1). No team in Ivy League history had a more prolific offensive season than the 2025 Tigers who scored an Ivy record 308 goals, led by a second-team All-American attacker in McKenzie Blake, who broke a 41-year old Ivy League record with 89 goals herself. She was one of three IWCLA All-America selections for Princeton this season, the first such honors during Cook and staff's tenure. Improvement has been the hallmark of this group as they have increased their win total each year, including a +5 improvement in victories this year from last.
Included this year was an 11-game winning streak, Princeton's longest in 21 years and eight wins against teams ranked in the Top-25.

Congrats to the Tiger coaches.

And to the NCAA women's lacrosse rules committee, who seemed to get it right with these proposed changes.