A Random Summer Thursday

TigerBlog wasn't expecting to see Billie Jean King on the front page of goprincetontigers.com yesterday.

And yet there she was. You can see the story HERE.

Billie Jean King, who did more to advance women's athletics than any other single person, presented an award to Princeton rising junior Ryan Seggerman, a first-team All-Ivy League selection who has also battled Type 1 diabetes.

From the release:
Seggerman was one of two recipients of the 2019 Novo Nordisk Donnelly Award, which provided a one-time scholarship toward education, tennis development or medical care. Seggerman won the honor in May and was presented the award at the Philadelphia Freedoms' World Team Tennis match Tuesday at Saint Joseph's' Hagan Arena alongside co-winner Brendan Wolan, a student at Illinois, and World Team Tennis co-founder and tennis legend Billie Jean King. 

The picture on the webpage got TB to wondering who is the most famous athlete who has ever been on the Princeton athletics site. He's not counting anyone who actually played at Princeton, like Bill Bradley or Jason Garrett.

The answer is ... that he can't think of anyone more famous than Billie Jean King. Maybe there's been one. He just can't think of who it was.

Since it's the middle of July, there's something of a randomness to what appears on the webpage. This week is no different.

There was a story was about the two goals scored by Princeton women's soccer alums in the NWSL, one each from Jen Hoy and Tyler Lussi.

You can see them HERE.

Lussi scored more goals at Princeton than any player who has ever played here, male or female, with 53. Hoy scored 36 of her own. Both were Ivy League Players of the Year.

Also, both goals were game-winners in stoppage time. 

What stood out from the two clips is how many people were at the game in Portland, where Lussi scored the winner. When TB looked it up, he found out that the number was 18,909, which is basically what the home attendance has been for the Thorns all year.

There was also a story about the Princeton Football Association's release of the top Princeton football players from the Ivy League era. The list covers 192 players between offense, defense ad special teams, and Jay Greenberg of princetontigersfootball.com did writeups on all of them.

The story is HERE.

Then there was a story about George Humann.

The 6-11 rising senior on the men's volleyball team had himself quite a few months on the court, beginning when he was named the EIVA Player of the Year as Princeton won the league championship, the MVP of the EIVA tournament as Princeton won the title, led Princeton to an NCAA tournament opening round win and then now on the international stage helping the United States to a second-place finish at the FIVB Nation's League playoffs this past weekend.

The U.S. hosted the event in Chicago and then made an incredible run to the final before falling to Russia. Along the way, the Americans defeated France, Russia and Brazil.

You can read all about that one HERE.

Parker Dixon, Huhmann's teammate and classmate, also competed internationally, at the World University Games in Italy. The U.S. team went 2-5 and finished 16th.

As for Dixon, he was also a first-team All-EIVA selection this past spring.

The story about Dixon is HERE.

The sixth story as TB was scrolling through the website yesterday was about the addition of Courtney Birchard-Kessel to the women's hockey coaching staff.

Birchard-Kessel has a long and impressive history of playing and coaching professionally and internationally, after she graduated from the University of New Hampshire. You can read more about her HERE.

And that was yesterday afternoon on goprincetontigers.com.

The website isn't nearly as busy in the summer as it is during that academic year, obviously, but there is always some sort of news that involves Princeton Athletics.

On a random Thursday in the the summer you never know what you'll find there.

Maybe even Billie Jean King.