Pigskin And Bones

As game shows go, TigerBlog's favorite is "Jeopardy."

When he was a kid, he liked a show called "Split Second," though honestly he can't remember much about it, other than it required contestants to answer a series of trivia questions in a short time. Like a split second, TB supposes.

TB doesn't really spend much time watching game shows. There are some that are funny. There are some that are pure luck. He prefers the ones, like "Jeopardy," that require thought.

And "Split Second," actually.

He couldn't remember the rules of the game, so he looked it up online and actually found videos of the game on YouTube. It's not exactly high tech stuff.

It is, though, a fast-paced game and does require some general knowledge. TigerBlog does remember the part at the end, where the winner chose the key to one of five cars on the stage, and if it started, then the winner got to keep it. If not, then the champion came back the next day, and if that same person won again, this time there'd only be four keys left to choose.

When TB watched the video yesterday, he noticed that the brand-new shiny cars on stage where 1975 cars. His first was a 1977 Dodge Diplomat.

TigerBlog also liked "Password," even more so because of the hilarious episode of "The Odd Couple" where Oscar and Felix are on the show. If you're a fan, you know what Felix said after Oscar sneered "Aristophanes" as a clue. The answer? "Ridiculous."

Another game show that was okay for TB was the "$100,000 Pyramid," which he's pretty sure started as the "$10,000 Pyramid."

TB once heard a pretty good stand-up bit from Robert Klein, who said he had just been on the "Pyramid" and was having trouble adjusting after taping so many shows in a week. "I walked into the restaurant and they asked me 'table for how many,' and I said 'things the Maitre D' would say.' "

There has been a remake of the "$100,000 Pyramid" this summer, hosted by Michael Strahan. And who should show up as a contestant this week but Sean Gregory, a former Princeton men's basketball player in the great men's basketball Class of 1998 (which included current head coach Mitch Henderson).

TB didn't watch. He would have if he knew the man they called "Bones" as an undergrad would be on it. "Bones" is one of TB's all-time favorites from Princeton Athletics, and he was the source of a pretty funny conversation between Pete Carril and Trenton Times sportswriter Mark Eckel in 1996, when another player was out:
Mark: What are you going to do for those minutes?
Carril: Not sure. May use a couple of guys. May use Bones.
Mark: What's Bones?

Anyway, Bones is now a very successful writer for Time Magazine (his Olympics stuff is always great), so TB thinks he should have been the celebrity and not the contestant. At what point do you become the celebrity anyway? Who decides?

As it turned out, Bones won $50,000. And wrote about it. You can read it HERE. It's definitely worth reading.

So that's basketball. It'll be here soon enough.

What's here tomorrow is the opening day for Princeton football.

TigerBlog was walking on the driveway between the football stadium and the practice fields a few days ago when he heard a player yell "Game Week." Tomorrow is Game Day, as Princeton hosts Lafayette at 5.

The day begins with Community and Staff Day at 3:30 and ends with fireworks after the game ends. There's information about it HERE.

TB has said this before, but he would suggest moving opening day of Ivy League football up a week and then having all eight schools have an off week in Week 6. At this point, each team will have played three non-league games and two league games, have a week off and then finish with five straight league games.

As it is, Ivy League football is 10-week sprint, with a season that starts a little later than it does basically anywhere else.

TigerBlog remembers going to visit BrotherBlog at Penn when TB was still in high school and seeing not the football game but the visiting team (Dartmouth) at a postgame tailgate. That was his introduction to Ivy League football.

He went to many games as a Penn undergrad at Franklin Field, and his first college class (you should know what it was if you've been paying attention) and last college final exam were both in rooms that faced the stadium (from opposite sides).

The first time he was at Palmer Stadium was for a Princeton-Penn game as a student broadcaster. It was the first of many games he'd see in the old horseshoe stadium, into which he could look from his desk when he first started working here.

The days before the first home game at Palmer Stadium were always busy for TB and the rest of the Office of Athletic Communications in the 1990s, before the stadium was torn down in 1997. Among other tasks, the OAC staff had to carry a copy machine up to the press box through the stands (no elevator existed) and then bring it down at the end of the year.

Powers Field at Princeton Stadium continues to be a great place to see a football game. TigerBlog has seen almost every game played there since the stadium opened in 1998, and he has been the PA announcer since 2005.

He'll be in the PA booth again tomorrow for the game against Lafayette.

For everything else that is great about Ivy League athletics, there's nothing that draws people to campuses like a football game. It's an event as much as a game.

TigerBlog loves the feel of the stadium before the game starts, with all of the activity that goes on around the game itself.

He's ready for kickoff tomorrow night. And that's what he wanted to say today.

Sean Gregory and football.

Or, as his title said, pigskin and Bones.

That's not too bad.