You're Kidding

The Double-B turns three this week.

That's Blake Borders, by the way. He's the son of Andrew and Amy Borders. Andrew is TigerBlog's colleague here in the Office of Athletic Communications.

Blake is into cars, er, "vehicles," as he calls them. He has a big bag of them, the matchbox kind, and the bigger imagination that three year olds have to bring them to life. When Blake is here with his dad, there will be a trail of cars, as well as improvised roads, ramps and everything else.

By the way, as he turns three, Blake can claim something that you probably can't. He's been to all 50 states.

TigerBlog hasn't been. He's at 37.

Hanging out with Blake and his cars is tiring. It's been awhile since TigerBlog has had a three year old, and he forgot just how much energy they have. Of course, maybe TB had more energy himself that long ago.

It actually got him thinking something weird. He could be closer to the time that he has a three-year-old grandchild than when he had a three-year-old child.

Yikes.

As TigerBlog walked into his office, just before he got to play with Blake, he saw Jared Petty in the hallway. Jared has a summer internship at Princeton with the engineering department, and he was here with a group of engineers on some project in Jadwin.

Jared will be a junior at York College in Pennsylvania. He's one of TigerBlog Jr's. best buddies and has been since not they were not that much older than Blake Borders is now. They've been to a million events on this campus through the years.

TBJ and Miss TigerBlog will take with them for the rest of their lives the memories they have from their childhood times at Princeton. It's been a really special part of working here for as long as TigerBlog has, seeing his children come to games, go to summer camps, stay overnight in the dorms, walk up to Nassau Street.

Each September, Princeton Athletics takes a "team picture" of the entire departmental staff together. What would be really interesting would be to take a picture of the children of all of the people who work here.

TigerBlog isn't really sure how many kids would be in such a picture. It would be a lot.

The OAC is on E level of Jadwin, next to the wrestling office. Between the 10 people who work in those two offices, TigerBlog counts 13 children. There are at least 20 between the people who have the word "athletic director" in their titles.

There are more little kids than older kids, it seems. It's like an army of them sometimes.

Yeah. The more TB thinks about it, the more he likes the idea of a group picture of all of the kids of the people who work here. At the very least, he'll try to figure out how many kids that wouldn't be in total. Has to be at least 200, he'd think.

Speaking of families, the Princeton athletic family will be growing shortly with the addition of the Class of 2021. Wow. The Class of 2021 already?

TigerBlog has started to get the emails that are automatically generated whenever a coach adds a player to a roster, or, for whatever reason, takes one off. These emails come sort of randomly during the year, like when someone quits a team or withdraws from injury or something like that.

And then they come flying at TB in bunches, when coaches add incoming freshmen to the roster.

If he gets one for a larger-rostered sport, like track and field or football, then he knows that once he's gotten one email, then the flood will be starting.

Each of these emails, of course, is a different player, with a different story and a different path to Princeton. In the case of the incoming freshmen, they're home right now, in all likelihood, figuring out what they need to buy, what they need to bring, what to expect when they get here.

From the time they arrive, the Princeton experience will start to grab them. They will hear "Class of 2021," and probably "great Class of 2021," about 2,021 times before they ever go to a class.

For the athletes, they'll be meeting teammates, getting settled into their team's routines and cultures and starting down the path that will lead them, hopefully, to the 2021 senior banquet, all having had great, winning, championship athletic experiences with corresponding educational success, with time left over to give back to the community.

You know. Achieve, Serve, Lead.

For now, they're still with the high school friends, or on vacations, or working summer jobs - or all of the above.

Shortly, very shortly, they'll be here, no longer just names on emails, as their Princeton time starts to come to life.

It's exciting.

Ah, to be young, right?