Election Day

Today is, obviously, Election Day.

The Ivy League teams have done an admirable job in setting - and in most cases achieving - the goal of having 100 percent of the athletes of as many teams as possible be registered to vote. For a pretty high percentage of these athletes, today will be their first Presidential election.

This if the fourth Presidential election since TigerBlog started doing this blog. 

Back in 2008, TB wrote this:

"TigerBlog endorses ... voting."

He stands by that statement this year, and for every other year there is an election. 

Also back in 2008, he added this:

"Speaking of voting, the closest a Princeton athlete has come to being elected President of the United States was obviously in 2000, when Bill Bradley ran against Al Gore for the Democratic nomination. Had things gone differently, maybe Robert Ehrlich could have gone from Governor of Maryland to a Vice Presidential spot."

TB is fairly certain that at some point, there will be a Princeton athletic alum who becomes the President of the United States. He's not quite sure who or when, but he does know that Princeton athletes have the perfect background when it comes to being prepared for such a challenge.

They're obviously smart. They know how to multi-task. They buy into the notion of service wholeheartedly. The list goes on.

There have been Presidents who were varsity college athletes. George H.W. Bush played baseball at Yale and therefore against Princeton. In fact, Bush was the captain of the 1948 Yale team that defeated Princeton 14-2 on June 5 that year, in a game at which Babe Ruth - who passed away two months later - was a spectator, according to the Daily Princetonian:

The Bambino, who presented the original manuscript of his book, "The Babe Ruth Story" to Eli captain George Bush before the game, saw some batting and pitching reminiscent of his work for the Red Sox and Yankees of yore, but unfortunately from a Princeton standpoint, it was all done by the Blue.

There was a rematch seven days later, in a game that Princeton lost 7-5. The Prince had stopped publishing for the summer by then, and there was no game story in the Princeton Herald that week. There was, though, a note about how 195 students had graduated in the Princeton High School Class of 1948, one of whom was none other than John McPhee.

Dwight Eisenhower played football at Army, famously tackling Jim Thorpe in 1912 - and then tearing up his knee later that season and seeing his football career end. Army did not play Princeton during Eisenhower's time there.

Gerald Ford played football at Michigan, and he in fact did play against Princeton, in 1932, in a game Michigan won 14-7 in Ann Arbor. Michigan, by the way, won the national championship that year, and Ford was an All-American.

Are there others? 

There have only been two Princeton alums who have been elected President of the United States, and neither of them were alums of the 20th or 21st centuries. A 21st century alum would be 35 already and therefore eligible to be President, right? Yes.

On the other hand, there are currently three United States Supreme Court Justices who attended Princeton. That's one-third of the court. 

In all, there have been 12 Princeton alums who have served on the Supreme Court, out of 115 justices. That's a little more than 10 percent.

As far as Presidents, though, it's two of 44, or 4.5 percent. There have been 45 Presidents, but only 44 people have been President, since one was elected, then not re-elected and then elected again four years after that.

Of course, that's not the most interesting thing about Grover Cleveland. Do you know what is?

 TB will give you a few paragraphs about that one.

In the meantime, you have to agree about what TB said after a Princeton athlete who might become the U.S. President some day.

For today, TB once again endorses simply voting. 

And Grover Cleveland? 

He's actually buried in Princeton, in the cemetery across the street from the public library.