Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Here's The Story

As old sitcoms from when he was a kid go, "The Brady Bunch" was never one of TigerBlog's favorites.

It was okay. It was no "Gilligan's Island" or "I Dream Of Jeannie," and it wasn't in the same universe as "Get Smart." And then there was the golden age of sitcoms, the 1970s, which included the greatest ones of all time: "All In The Family," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Barney Miller," "WKRP In Cincinnati" and of course "The Odd Couple."

"The Brady Bunch" was okay, though its concept is what made it not as funny as it could be. The family didn't have any tensions it could play off of, since they were all so committed to being nice and getting along. What's funny about that?

It was a bit too wholesome to be really funny. 

As everyone knows, the best part of "The Brady Bunch" was the song at the beginning, where they all sang "Here's the story ..." while they were in their own little squares.

There was a video on Twitter yesterday that played off of that theme, one that the University put up on the first day of remote classes for students. Perhaps you saw it:


 
That's really good, right?

If you looked closely enough, you may have noticed a familiar face in the final third of the video. That would be the face of women's lacrosse player Kyla Sears.

There aren't too many more well-rounded student-athletes than Kyla Sears, who excels at both parts of that term.

She's a standout student with one of the top GPAs on the team, and she is obviously one of the best women's lacrosse players Princeton has ever seen. And she can sing.

Sears sang with choirs and a cappella groups at Skaneateles High School outside of Syracuse, and she's sang the national anthem before Princeton games throughout her career. Princeton, in fact, has a long history of women's lacrosse players who sing before games, going back to Theresa Sherry, who scored the game-winning goal in OT of the 2003 NCAA championship game.

On the field, Sears holds five school records and two Ivy League records. The two Ivy records are the most goals (64) and points (83) by a freshman, and she also holds the Princeton records for free position goals in a season and career and assists in a season.

Sears currently has 217 career points, which has her sixth all-time at Princeton. She is also tied for sixth in career assists with 68, and her 139 goals leave her three away from the top 10. She's already earned a special place in Princeton women's lacrosse history.

It's not a coincidence that Sears has the school records for free position goals, since she is the best TigerBlog has ever seen at drawing a free position in the first place. In fact, TB asked Chris Sailer about her ability to do on one of the podcasts this years, and Sailer spoke about how Sears just has an innate ability and a tenacity put herself in the right spots to make it happen.

And she can sing, as TB said.

Her spot in the "Brady Bunch" video came about as part of an effort to put together a group that represented pretty much all segments of the campus. It includes, as you can see, several members of the band, not to mention the actual Tiger.

Its original purpose wasn't to be a reminder of a connectedness to the campus during these surreal times, but that's what its best usage is. You can't be part of the Princeton community and not be touched by it.

And it's great that Kyla Sears was able to be a part of it.

At a time when everything is up in the air the way it is, it's always great to remember the people who make the place so special in the first place. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And when these halls in dust are laid
With reverence and awe,
Another throng shall breathe our song
In praise of Old Nassau.