Global Tiger Day

Yesterday, apparently, was Global Tiger Day.

Princeton Athletics offered this tweet in celebration:

Happy Global Tiger Day! 🐅
Show us how you support Tigers on #InternationalTigerDay using the hashtag #BeATiger pic.twitter.com/yRRHcemsBf

— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) July 29, 2018

 
Apparently, this was the eighth Global Tiger Day, held annually on July 29. TigerBlog isn't quite sure why that's the date, but it seems that the holiday is meant to call attention to the plight of Tigers in their natural habitats. TigerBlog didn't realize this, but wild Tigers are few in numbers these days.

The Tiger, of course, has been Princeton's nickname since the 1880s, when the orange and black school colors coupled with a newspaper account of how the football team fought like Tigers led to an enduring mascot.

TigerBlog has only ever seen one picture of a live Tiger on the Princeton campus. It was on the back of a football media guide from the late 1980s or very early 1990s, before 1) it was TigerBlog's responsibility to do the media guide and 2) before Princeton stopped doing media guides.

Peter Farrell, the former women's track and field coach, stopped in the other day, talking about Nick Donatiello, the former sports information director at Princeton who passed away last week.

TigerBlog is pretty sure Nick's title at Princeton was sports information director. TigerBlog has had a bunch of different titles at Princeton (seven actually), but none of them have been sports information director.

TB's first title here was as Manager of Sports Media Relations. He doesn't think any of his immediate predecessors here - Chuck Yrigoyen, Kurt Kehl, Mark Panus - had the title of SID, so he's not sure why Nick might have.

Anyway, Peter told TigerBlog that it was actually Nick who came up with the idea of having the picture of the live tiger. The picture itself was of the tiger, in the grass, playing with a football.

The story, as Peter told it, was that the circus was in Jadwin Gym. Actually more than once. TigerBlog knew this. In fact, when he did his countdown of the top 40 moments in Jadwin Gym's first 40 years, the 34th best moment was one of the times the circus came to town - and the elephants damaged the floor just before the start of basketball practice.

Jadwin, by the way, turns 50 this coming winter, and TB will probably - almost surely - update that list to make it the top 50 in 50 years. How many things have happened in building in that last 10 years that warrant being added to the list and take the place of the things that were already on it?

You'll just have to wait a few months to find out. TigerBlog can think of a few off the bat.

You'd think, of course, that the order of the 40 events that had already occurred wouldn't change, but hey, maybe with 10 years of reflection, historical perspectives could possibly have evoled.

Again, that's a few months away.

Peter said it was Nick's idea to take the live tiger from the circus out onto the grass outside of Palmer Stadium to take its picture with a football. It was a pretty good idea, actually.

Maybe one day there'll be another chance to get a live tiger and another picture. That would be interesting.

TigerBlog would keep a safe distance, of course. Does that make him a bit pathetic?

TigerBlog would probably not be much good with a live tiger anyway. By the picture from the 1980s, the big cat seemed to be enjoying the football. TB's surmises he would have been just have happy gnawing on, say, TB's leg or so.

Speaking of tigers, there was a story on goprincetontigers.com yesterday with this headline: Five Tigers Claim Medals At U23 World Championships. That's a good way to celebrate Global Tiger Day, no?

You can read the entire story HERE.

All five medals were won by returning Princeton rowers, including four who were teammates in the Ivy League champion women's open boat. Claire Collins and Hadley Irwin won bronze with the U.S. 8+, while Hannah Scott won a silver with the British pairs and Emily Kallfelz won silver in singles sculls.

David Bewicke-Copley won silver with the British 8+.

Once again Princeton rowing has a tremendous performance on the international stage. And those are names worth remembering for future international competitions, such as the Olympics down the road.