Finishing Second, And That's Just Fine

TigerBlog has kept his "Homeland" record perfect. He's seen every episode of every season of the show.

Way back when, Season 1 was as good as any season of any show he's ever seen. It was riveting, with its story, its writing and its acting. Now in Season 7, it's not nearly what it was. In fact, TB hardly knows anyone who still watches it besides him.

It's not that it's bad. It's still really good. It's just that it set the bar so high from where it started that it couldn't possibly maintain that level.

TigerBlog is pretty sure that there's one more season and then that will be it for the show. That's a really good run.

He just finished Season 1 of two other shows - "7 Seconds" and "Imposters." They're both really good.

The first one is about cops in Jersey City who get involved in a cover up. This one has great acting, and the show is very, very gritty. It has a great pace to it, and right up until the end you're not really sure what's going to happen.

The same is true of "Imposters," though minus any grittiness. This one is much lighter, a story of grifters who get a taste of their own medicine. It's worth your time as well.

"Homeland" is the only show that TB still watches at the specific time it's on each week - Sunday at 9. That's how all of television used to work, by the way. A show was on, say, Tuesday night at 9, and that's when you had to watch it.

Now, with everything on demand, TB isn't even sure why networks schedule shows at all.

Actually, there is something else TB watches at the same time each week - the NCAA Lacrosse Plays of the Week. It's released each Tuesday at 2.

The NCAA solicits highlights from schools across a bunch of different sports. Each Monday, TigerBlog will upload the best Princeton highlight of the weekend to the NCAA, and then each Tuesday he checks to see if it was chosen.

His record is decent.

This past week, he nominated Tyler Blaisdell, the goalie, after he made back-to-back-to-back saves from close range in the win over Stony Brook. Then he went back Tuesday to check.

Actually, he checked later than 2, because he was at Siena for the Tigers' midweek game.

By the way, there was still snow piled up in the parking lot there. And it flurried during the game.

But this weekend? Can it be true? Will it really be sunny and in the 70s Saturday, when Sherrerd Field hosts a big Ivy League doubleheader?

The men get it started at noon when they take on Dartmouth on Military Appreciation Day. There will be several Princeton alums who have been or still are in the military honored, and current military members with a military ID will get four free tickets.

The women will then play Yale at 3 in the second game of the doubleheader. Princeton lost a really tough 11-10 decision to defending NCAA champ and second-ranked Maryland Tuesday night.

He would look on the NCAA site while the game was going on, which meant that he was doing the color commentary on the radio, Tweeting updates and checking out the top highlights all at once.

TB is a highly accomplished multitasker.

The NCAA takes all the nominations and then makes it into one video with 10 plays, men's and women's combined. It isn't always five of each either.

As you watch the video and don't see your nominated play as the countdown unfolds, then it either means you're closer to the top - or left out altogether. TB was pretty sure that Blaisdell would be on there, and he was also pretty sure he wouldn't be No. 1.

Blaisdell, who is No. 2 on the men's lacrosse team, ended up in that spot on the countdown. It was well-deserved.

This past week, though, the No. 1 spot could only have gone to one person, and that was Noelle Lambert of UMass Lowell.

If you're not familiar with her story, Lambert lost her leg in a moped accident two years ago. Now she's back on the UMass Lowell team, and last week against Hartford - with her prosthetic left leg - scored her first goal since the accident.

HERE IS THE COUNTDOWN FOR THE WEEK, WITH BLAISDELL AT NO. 2 AND LAMBERT AT NO. 1.

You can see for yourself. This is extraordinary stuff.

You can tell there's a lot to this story. You can see how much her teammates love her. You can sense just how hard she had to work to get back to playing lacrosse. You can tell how much spirit she has, how special she must be to have endured all that and come back.

For this week, being second was more than good enough.