A Bushnell For Chad Kanoff

TigerBlog had a conference call the other day.

What do you do when you have a conference call? They take awhile usually, and it's not like a regular meeting, where you're engaged with people around a table.

So can you multi-task? Do other things while you listen to the call?

TigerBlog thinks that's human nature. And he considers himself a good multi-tasker. He did that the other day, and he thought it went really well - until he got a follow up email thanking him for volunteering to do 20 different things in a week.

Just kidding. He knew exactly what was being said on the call.

At the same time, it got him wondering when the word "multi-task" first started to be used. A search for "when did multitask become a word" suggests that its origins were with an IBM computer in the mid-1960s. TigerBlog can't remember the first time he heard someone say it.

He also isn't sure when "24/7" become a saying. He was watching a movie the other day from 1949 (Ronald Reagan was in it) and one of the characters said "24 hours a day, seven days a week." TB thought it sounded really odd. He hasn't heard anyone say that in a long time.

Language is an interesting thing. Hey, the word "blog" didn't even exist all that long ago in any way, let alone as the second half of a proper noun.

Words go from not existing to being among the most commonly used elements of speech in a flash. Think about all the words you use every day that you never used five years ago because they simply didn't exist yet.

Like "tweet," for instance.

TigerBlog hardly used that word at all for most of his life, and when he did, it was because of a little yellow bird in cartoons. Now? The word "tweet" is said almost as many times as it's actually done.

What word will be next?

TigerBlog saw on Twitter yesterday that the four teams who will compete in the college football semifinals had been named. For the record, it'll be Oklahoma-Georgia and Clemson-Alabama.

If you want to know whether or not the selection committee chose the right team between Alabama and Ohio State, just poll every kid on the other three teams and ask them which one he would have preferred. It would have been roughly 100 percent for Ohio State, meaning the committee made the right choice.

TigerBlog likes the bowl games, he guesses. There are just too many of them, that's all.

And if had to make one change, he'd start the bowl season with the national semifinals and final, not end with them.

Speaking of football, Chad Kanoff was named the 2017 Bushnell Cup winner as the Ivy League's offensive player of the year. Kanoff's win made him the third Princeton quarterback in the last five years to win the award. The other two were Quinn Epperly in 2013 and John Lovett a year ago.

The other finalist this year was Penn wide receiver Justin Watson, who was a finalist for the third straight time without winning. It goes to show how hard it is for a receiver to win an award like that. Quarterbacks and running backs will get all the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, Kanoff was the deserving winner after the record-setting year he had. That's no knock on Watson. It's just that he just had the bad fortune to have his junior and senior years coincide with two of the greatest years that any Ivy offensive players have ever had.

As for the Princeton quarterbacks, if you want a misleading stat, consider that Kanoff threw for 755 more yards this year than Epperly and Lovett did combined in their award-winning years. While true, it also misses what made the other two special - the way they could pass and run and produce touchdowns, while also playing with another quarterback (Connor Michelsen with Epperly; Kanoff with Lovett) who was more of a pure passer.

TB, by the way, didn't remember that Epperly threw for 25 touchdowns the year he won.

The year that Kanoff had was staggering. His numbers were incredible, as he chased down Princeton records for season passing yards and career passing yards while setting other school and Ivy records for completion percentage. It's a testament to his abilities obviously.

It's also a testament to Bob Surace and the rest of the Princeton coaches. Remember, this is a group that figured it was coming into the season with Kanoff and Lovett and spent a great deal of time trying to figure out new ways to maximize both.

Once Lovett went down with a season-ending injury, everything changed on a dime. The result? The best season any Princeton quarterback has ever had.

So congrats to Kanoff on winning the Bushnell Cup. It's a great addition to his Princeton legacy.