Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

TigerBlog walked into Jadwin Gym yesterday morning and could see the football team out on Finney/Campbell Fields as he came by.

By lunchtime yesterday, the freshmen for the men's soccer team had invaded his office for headshots.

Actually, he never even had to get out of his car to know that things are coming back to life around here. All of Lot 21A, that's the small piece of the big Jadwin lot where athletic staff parks, was filled.

The first game of the new academic year is tomorrow. Does that make today sort of like New Year's Eve?

Princeton will host Monmouth in women's soccer tomorrow night at 7. The men's soccer team, women's volleyball team, field hockey team and men's water polo team all get started next weekend.

Then it'll be cross country the following weekend. And football the one after that.

Pretty soon it'll be basketball, hockey, lacrosse and summer.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

TigerBlog also heard the song "Runnin' With The Devil" on the radio yesterday.

You know it? The song is from 1978, and it's the best song Van Halen ever did, which is saying something if you were into what is now called classic rock as it came of age. You know, like TigerBlog is.

That song was the favorite song of a friend of TB's from Penn, a guy named Pat, who grew up in Longmeadow, Mass. TB has no idea whatever become of Pat. He hasn't heard from him in decades. He does remember that he was a really good guy.

But he does remember how much he loved "Runnin' With The Devil." It's interesting the little things that stick with you all these decades later.

Pat lived on TigerBlog's floor his freshman year at Penn. Back then, TigerBlog was thinking about law school. How'd that work out?

TigerBlog Jr. leaves today for his junior year of college. He's double majoring in English and Politics, with an idea that he might want to go to law school.

TigerBlog wrote about 1,400 words, very emotional words, about the day two years ago when he first took his son to college. You can read it HERE.

This time, as TBJ leaves, it's more like "you can fit everything in your car, right?" and "text when you get there." It's not quite as emotional perhaps.

It does take TigerBlog back to when he was a college junior. As he said, he, too, was thinking about law school, something that, as you might have guessed, never materialized.

Instead, it was at the start of his junior year of college that he got sidetracked, away from law school. Perhaps if MotherBlog had been more like Mrs. Miller in "Almost Famous," that might not have happened.

Anyway, it was back when TB was a college junior that he first got a part time job covering high school football at "The Trenton Times." He figured it would be a fun way to earn a little money and then got on with life.

Now, it's four decades later, and, well, he's still basically doing the same thing.

TigerBlog has told you this story before, but on his first day in the newspaper business, he was warned by Jack McCaffrey, then in Trenton and now for a long time with the Delaware County Times, that one story and TB would have "the ink in his blood."

He was sort of right about that. Jack's brother, by the way, is Fran McCaffrey, the head men's basketball coach at the University of Iowa. A long time ago, Fran played at Penn and worked with TB in the basement of the psychology department, which is where they became friends, and how TB first met Jack, and how Jack came to get TB a job in Trenton.

Who knows where TB would be right now had he not met Fran, and then Jack. He hasn't spoken to Jack or Fran in a long, long time, but the major directions in his life all started with those two guys.

Life can be random, no?

Anyway the point is that TigerBlog has gone on this carousel his entire professional life. and for the last nearly 30 years, the carousel that is Princeton Athletics. The end of August is always when the momentum for a new academic year begins. Then there's the overlap of fall and winter. Then the winter, which is pretty slow in December and especially January, with first semester exams.

Then it gets going in a big way again. Then it's the busiest time of all, the winter/spring overlap. Then there's the rest of the spring. The banquet. Reunions. Graduation. And then another summer.

Like he said, repeat, repeat repeat.

If you get to this time on the calendar and you're not exciting about the start of the new year, then you shouldn't be working here.