Monday, May 4, 2020

Softball Senior Day

TigerBlog rides his bike on several different paths, all of which are about the same length.

One of them takes him through a neighborhood that he will circle three times, on his way to his total of about 12 miles. Each lap around this particular neighborhood is about a half mile, so he's not there very long.

At times this spring the neighborhood has been eerily quiet, with nobody outside. It was the opposite of that Saturday afternoon when he rode through it.

He was about three-quarters of the way around the first lap when he started to hear a bit of a buzz. A few seconds later he peered down a cul-de-sac to see a large, social-distancing compliant group of neighbors who had gathered to watch a concert of sorts.

There, on one of the driveways stood two people, both with guitars and a mic stand, hooked up to speakers. They were giving a neighborhood concert.

Was this something they always did on the first Saturday in May? Maybe it was just an impromptu thing. Maybe it was somebody's birthday.

Whatever it was, the people in the neighborhood seemed to love it.

In the spring of 2020, you don't necessarily have the world you want. You have the world as it is. And you have to mold that as best as you can to make it fit the world you wanted.

And that brings TB to Princeton softball.

This past weekend would have been the regular season finale for the Tigers, with three home games against Dartmouth on the new field next to the baseball field. Add to that the fact that Princeton in 2020 had as good a chance as anyone to be playing for an Ivy League championship as May rolled around.

Instead, the season ended before a single Ivy game could be played. And now, instead of being on that new field - one that had not yet had a home game when the cancellation happened - the members of the team were scattered.

In fact, they were probably scattered more than most teams. There are 17 players on the softball team, and they come from 11 different states.

There are four seniors, and they come from four different states: Alex Colton from Texas, Caroline Taber from Connecticut, Allison Harvey from California and Megan Donahey from Arizona.

And there they were Saturday afternoon, not in their uniforms together but instead on Zoom, for a virtual Senior Day ceremony. They weren't together in person, but they were very much together nonetheless.

Princeton head coach Lisa Van Ackeren invited several members of the Department to join the call, and TB was one of them. He doesn't know any of the softball players individually, but you that didn't matter at all as he was still able to get a really good sense of the warmth and closeness that exudes from the team.

The theme of the event was "Legacy." It was a tribute to the program that has won more Ivy titles than any other team in the league, as well as the current seniors and the impact they have had on the classes that will remain, who will in turn impact those who follow.

Van Ackeren did a great job of making the event fun and upbeat, while also talking about the values of the team and Princeton Athletics and the hope that the players will take those values with them wherever they go.

There were great video tributes to each of the four seniors, with comments from the other members of the team included. Each senior spoke as well. 

The most touching part was when Jess Deutsch, the Associate Director, Student Athlete Services, presented the Kathy Kobler Award, "given annually to that member of the Princeton varsity softball team whose generosity, positive attitude, genuine consideration for others, and quiet energy makes her essential to the success of the team."

Kobler was a 1991 grad who played soccer and softball who died tragically young, after marrying Judd Garrett, the former Bushnell Cup winning football player. She left behind four children.

TB didn't realize that Deutsch had been Kobler's roommate, and Deutsch spoke very emotionally about her late friend before announcing the winner, who was Taber. It was a very sweet moment.

Lastly, there was Van Ackeren, who talked about the 2020 season of unfinished business, who talked about how they will all emerge from this with a great perspective on life, sports and the people they love. She implored each athlete to value every time they get to wear "Princeton across your chest and play the game you love." Don't blink, she told them, because "it goes very fast."

It went a lot faster in the spring of 2020 than any of them wanted.

As TB watched the concert in the cul-de-sac shortly after he had gotten off the Zoom, he couldn't help but think of how it was a perfect day for softball.

Maybe it wasn't the Senior Day they wanted, he thought, but it was a Senior Day they'll always cherish.

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