The Kid From Princeton

TigerBlog had just gotten into his car yesterday afternoon when he heard a caller on Rich Zeoli's show on 1210 AM say that he agreed with "the kid from Princeton."

TigerBlog had to laugh at that. After all, he's the "kid" to whom the caller referred.

It's been awhile since TigerBlog has been an actual kid. Multiple decades actually.

He's not sure who the last person who called him a kid was or when that was. It might have been Harvey Yavener, who was last a kid long before TigerBlog was.

This time, it was Chris from Langhorne who said "the kid from Princeton." TigerBlog isn't sure which he liked better, being agreed with or being called a kid.

TigerBlog would have made a lot of guesses about how he would end his Tuesday workday before he got to "being on the Rich Zeoli Show." There he was, though, at 4:30 yesterday.

To hear TigerBlog with Rich Zeoli, click HERE.

It started with yesterday's blog. Actually, more precisely, it started with Zeoli's show the day before, when he talked about the 161-2 girls' basketball game in California.

TigerBlog disagreed with some of what Zeoli said about the game and the larger context about whether or not there's an obligation on the part of a coach to keep a score down if possible and the even larger contexts of what that obligation or lack thereof says about modern society, the educational value of sports and the role that sports plays in preparing the young people who play it for the harsher realities of the real world.

You know, for when they're not kids anymore.

When TB posted yesterday's blog, he tweeted it to Zeoli. At that point, he never imagined that Zeoli would read it and want to include TB on his show later in the day to discuss their differences.

TB had no idea what to expect other than a comment Zeoli made on Twitter that said: "You left out some key points of my position. Care to come on the show today and discuss?"

Just before TB came on, Zeoli and his producer Greg Stocker were talking about something they'd seen about how showering every day can be bad for you. A caller named Heather then was on saying how she showers twice a week.

When TB came on the air, he thanks Zeoli for having him and mentioned that he'd already showered twice that day.

From there, the subject at hand was addressed immediately. TigerBlog agreed with Zeoli that the coach shouldn't have been suspended (he was given two games off) but for different reasons.

TB does believe that there is a responsibility to run a classy program, and that's the word that TB used a few times. There has to be an educational component to high school sports, possibly even more so than in college.

Pete Carril used to talk about good high school coaches with glowing respect. John Thompson once said of a bad high school coach that he should have been "taken out in the town square and flogged."

There are three points that TB hopes he made during his 10 minutes.

First, there's no excuse for winning 161-2. Running it up isn't always about the margin of victory, and TB wouldn't want to be the one who has to decide if 50 points is too many but 40 is okay or anything like that. But when you're a coach in a situation like the one that coach found himself in, there are any number of ways to keep it from becoming humiliating for the other team.

Second, when Zeoli asked TB about what he hopes the losing team took from the game, TB's answer was unequivocal. The lesson is that if those players didn't enjoy losing 161-2, what they can do is work harder to improve. As TB said, shoot another 50 shots per day and then another 100 after that. TB thinks this is something that too often is missing from today's kids. As Zeoli said, it's okay to fail. It's what you do about it afterwards that helps define you. Are you willing to work hard to improve? As TB said on the radio, the idea of not keeping score for little kids is nuts. It's okay for them to learn that there's a winner and a loser, and if you don't like losing, then work harder to get better.

Third, TigerBlog wanted to make sure that everyone listening understood that Princeton Athletics is in it to win. TB would never be able to handle an attitude of "hey, we have all these academic standards, how can we possibly compete?" Fortunately, that's not how Princeton coaches are. They are competitive, and they want to win. They use perceived disadvantages as advantages. At the same time, TB would also hate a win-at-all-costs attitude. Princeton Athletics understands that its role is equally to educate the athletes and to provide for the athletes an avenue for the personal growth that comes from athletics. Winning 161-2 doesn't fit in with that.

TigerBlog has done a lot of radio in his life.

He started out on the student station at Penn, and he's done a ton of games at Princeton for the last, oh, 25 year. He'll be back on WPRB this spring doing men's lacrosse games. He's also interviewed probably hundreds of people during those games.

Yesterday's experience was a little different. First of all, he was the interviewee. Second, he didn't really know what to expect.

In the end, he thought he did well. He was happy with how it went.

And ultimately, the word he'd use to describe it was "fun."

And there's nothing wrong with having a little fun, especially when you're a kid.

So thanks to Rich Zeoli for having him. Even if Zeoli was wrong about the issue.