The Last Dance

TigerBlog had a Zoom call yesterday with the Office of Athletic Communications group.

The OAC has been meeting twice a week via Zoom this spring, each Tuesday and Friday. They've been good discussions, a blend of thoughts about content to be produced in the present and what the future might look like.

There are all sorts of topics that have come up, going in every conceivable way as it relates to athletic communications. These are challenging times for everyone everywhere in every walk of life, and the challenges others face far exceed the ones that TB and his colleagues do.

At the same time, there are challenges, and one of them is to come up with ways to keep people engaged during a spring without actual athletic events. The focus has been varied, with stories and video pieces on the athletes, on senior days, on nostalgia.

TB thinks his colleagues have done a great job, especially considering that they don't have the standard access to Jadwin Gym, the archives, their offices and the Levine Broadcast Center.

The calls have also been fun. It's good to see all of his colleagues, especially the ones he would be spending most of his time with on Jadwin E level.

As he thinks about the office suite in which he has not been in nearly two months, he hopes that nobody left anything in the fridge that needed to be thrown away.

The OAC call yesterday was scheduled for 1:30, only there was a meeting before it than ran long, meaning that one of the five people on the OAC call hadn't yet joined.

So what do communications people talk about with some time to kill?

Well, for one, it was who might have been the goprincetontigers.com Athlete of the Week had all of the events that had been scheduled for the week been played. That was a good subject.

Each week the OAC staff chooses an Athlete of the Week. It's always a fun exercise, especially when people get a bit territorial about the athletes from their sports.

This week would have been such a week, what with all the teams who were competing and figured to be competing for high stakes in the last seven days.

What else came up?

Well, there was "The Last Dance." That's the Michael Jordan documentary series on ESPN.

TigerBlog has watched all six episodes to date. He's loved it.

Michael Jordan took TigerBlog to a place that no other athlete ever has. TigerBlog always, always rooted for Michael Jordan, even if it meant rooting against his favorite team, the Knicks.

It was weird. That's how good Jordan was. TB couldn't help but root for him, even if he really wanted the Knicks to win an NBA championship and Jordan singlehandedly kept them from doing so.

The documentary series has been great. The access, which is what makes any documentary the best it can be, is extraordinary in this case. The film from the 1997-98 season is incredible, and TB wonders why it has sat dormant for so long.

Also, the interviews are also excellent. It seems that anyone who figured anywhere into the story has been interviewed - and spoken with 100 percent honesty.

The emotions come across as genuine and raw, even from events now 30 years old in some cases.

It's definitely worth checking out.

By the way, Jordan is the greatest athlete TigerBlog has ever seen, let alone the greatest basketball player. The documentary showcases how different the NBA of today is compared to when Jordan played, even with thinking then that you needed a big man to win a championship, which is why the Trail Blazers passed on Jordan to take Kentucky's Sam Bowie after the Rockets took Hakeem Olajuwon.

Also, the video from back then shows how much teams have gotten away from attacking the basket and now rely on the three-point shot. But that's a different story.

TB's point is that for him, no player who has played since (or before) is better than Jordan.

The whole "root for Jordan while he demolishes your favorite team" thing got TB to thinking. Has there been an athlete in the Ivy League during his time at Princeton who has had the same impact?

Has there been an athlete on any competing team who has been such a great player, such an exciting player, such a dynamic player, with such an awesome personality that he or she caused TB to root for that particular athlete to succeed, even at Princeton's expense?

Thinking. Thinking.

No chance.