Monday, March 28, 2016

An All-American Weekend, Or Is That All-America?

TigerBlog has to admit something embarrassing about his brother.

Until last week, BrotherBlog had never been to a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Yes, it's true. A kid from the Jersey Shore, and he had never seen The Boss. How was that even possible?

TigerBlog - and BrotherBlog - went to high school about five miles from where Springsteen did. TB's high school in the late ’70s/early ’80s was prime Boss country.

TigerBlog has been to a bunch of Springsteen concerts, the first of which was in 1981, at the Meadowlands Arena. Springsteen played 29 songs that night, and here is the setlist:
1    Born to run
2    Prove it all night
3    Out in the street
4    Darkness
5    Independence day
6    Johnny Bye Bye
7    Two hearts
8    Who'll stop the rain
9    Promised land
10    This Land is your Land
11    The River
12    Badlands
13    Thunder road
14    You can look
15    Cadillac ranch
16    Sherry darling
17    Jole Blon
18    Hungry heart
19    Wreck on the Highway
20    Follow that dream
21    Racing in the street
22    Ramrod
23    Rosalita
24    I'm a rocker
25    Jungleland
26    Jersey girl
27    I don't wanna go home
28    Detroit medley
29    Rocking all over the world

Uh, yeah that's a great concert.

BrotherBlog went to see Springsteen at the Key Arena in Seattle last week. Here is the setlist from that show:

Meet Me in the City
The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Two Hearts
Independence Day
Hungry Heart
Out in the Street
Crush On You
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
I Wanna Marry You
The River
Point Blank
Cadillac Ranch
I'm a Rocker
Fade Away
Stolen Car
Ramrod
The Price You Pay
Drive All Night
Wreck on the Highway
I'm Goin' Down
Badlands
She's the One
Adam Raised a Cain
Because the Night
Tougher Than the Rest
The Rising
Thunder Road
* * *
Bobby Jean (with Eddie Vedder)
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Shout

Uh, yeah, that's a great concert too.

Springsteen, by the way, is 66 years old and still rocking like that. 

Springsteen, as TigerBlog has said before, is the greatest of all time in concert. He's the best there's ever been and the best that ever will be.

Don't argue with TigerBlog on this. And especially don't argue with Princeton water polo coach Luis Nicolao, who's a bigger Bruce fan than TB.

Nicolao's women's team was in California for spring break, and it now finds itself in the middle of a three-week break in their schedule. The Tigers don't play again until April 9, in Ann Arbor, where they'll take on Michigan, Indiana and of course Harvard.

The lull in the schedule doesn't mean there wasn't news for Princeton women's water polo this weekend. Ashleigh Johnson, who has taken the year off from school, helped the U.S. national team qualify for the coming Summer Olympics, where the Americans will be the favorite to win the gold medal.

Is Ashleigh Johnson the Bruce Springsteen in the history of Princeton women's athletics? It's quite possible.

As for current Princeton athletes, this weekend marked the end of the winter season, and it did it in an All-America fashion.

Oh, and this is for Princeton wrestling coach Chris Ayres, who called out TigerBlog in an email about the use of the term "All-America" as opposed to "All-American." Here it is: "All-America" is a noun; "All-American" is a adjective.

As it relates to Ayres' team, Brett Harner is an All-America. Chris Ayres is the All-American boy.

Princeton added quite a few All-Americas this weekend as winter came to a close.

In the pool, Princeton actually had its All-Americas Thursday, when En-Wei Hu Van Wright, Sandy Bole, Julian Mackrel and Alex Lewis finished 13th nationally in the 200 free relay. Princeton almost added another All-America relay, but the 400 free relay team came up one second short.

Princeton finished third nationally at the NCAA fencing championships this weekend, behind Columbia and Ohio State. For the Tiger program, that's six straight years of finishing in the top four nationally.

The fencing championships are a co-ed events. Teams can qualify a maximum of 12 fencers, which Princeton did, and points are awarded based on number of bouts won.

Princeton came out of the weekend with 161 teams wins. The top four fencers in each weapon qualify for the individual playoffs, and Princeton advanced three - women's epee Charlene Liu, women's saber Gracie Stone and men's saber Edward Chin.

In all, Princeton had eight of its 12 fencers earn All-America honors - four women and four men.

And so that's the end of the winter.

Princeton heads into the heart of spring with nine Ivy League championships in 2015-16: women's cross country, women's soccer, women's volleyball, field hockey, men's swimming and diving, men's fencing, women's fencing, men's indoor track and field and women's hockey.

This coming weekend marks the opening of Ivy League softball and baseball, and the baseball team plays home Wednesday for the first time (against Seton Hall) before hosting Harvard and Dartmouth.

And with the baseball home opener, TigerBlog can finally get around the story of the big rock.

It can wait until tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday. But definitely soon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There has never been a Meadowlands Arena...it was the Brendan Byrne Arena until 1999, then became the Continental Arena, and is now known as the Izod Center.