RIP George Shultz

TigerBlog's first Super Bowl prediction was Kansas City 35, Tampa Bay 17.

He was off by only a whole lot. In fact, since TB said Kansas City would win by 18 and in fact Tampa Bay won by 22, he was way, way, way off.

In an effort to make better predictions, TB will do next year's after the game is over, for greater accuracy.

In the days before the Super Bowl, TigerBlog saw a story that ranked the first 54 Super Bowls in order of how good the game was. The worst was the one between San Francisco and San Diego 26 years ago. San Francisco won 49-26 in a game that wasn't even remotely close.

Back then TB was in the newspaper business, and he wrote that it was an important Super Bowl because no Super Bowl could ever be worse. It's highly probably that the game Sunday found a way to actually do the unthinkable and be worse than the Niners-Chargers game.

It was ever in doubt. The excitement that Pat Mahomes always brings was negated by a makeshift offensive line and a bad foot. Tom Brady was good, but he got a lot of help from his defense and some timely help from the refs (again).

The most amazing part of the game was that Brady, at the age of 43, was able to take a franchise that had one winning season in the last 10 years and was coming off records of 7-9, 5-11 and 5-11 and win the Super Bowl in Year 1.

That's seven Super Bowl wins for Brady, who won six at a place that had never won one before and then won another at a place that had been an afterthought for a long time. Hmmmm. What does that remind TB of (hint - Bill Tierney)?

TB's other prediction for the game did come true. The commercials were pretty universally awful,

Why do these companies spend all of that money on their spots and then have nobody say "hey, this really is bad?" The only ones that are any good are the ones that don't have someone who could be considered a "celebrity." Seriously, when was the last good commercial that had a celebrity in it?

Maybe they spend so much money on the celebrity and the production that they have no money left for a writer?

Anyway, that's the end of the football season.

On the day of the Super Bowl, the news came that George Shultz had passed away at the age of 100.

Here is the first sentence from his obituary:

Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died. He was 100.

George Shultz lived an extraordinary life. He served in the cabinet of two Presidents of the United States, first as Labor Secretary and Treasury Secretary under Richard Nixon and then later under Ronald Reagan as one of the greatest Secretaries of State this country has seen.

He was an artillery captain in the Marine Corps during World War II. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, and his career also included time as a professor at MIT, the University of Chicago and Stanford. 

As much as anything, he was a loyal Princetonian. 

This was from University President Christopher L. Eisgruber:
When George Shultz ’42 passed away this weekend, not long after celebrating his 100^th birthday, Princeton lost an alumnus who brilliantly exemplified this University’s ideals of learning, integrity, and service to the nation and humanity.   

A member of the Class of 1942, Shultz was a blocking back in the single-wing offense for the Tiger football team, until injuries ended his career. Even then he stayed with the program, helping coach the freshman team his senior year.

Legend had it that Shultz was such a devoted Princeton football player that he had a tattoo of Tiger on his butt. This was, according to one story TB read about Shultz, confirmed by his wife.

James Baker, another Princetonian who followed Shultz as Secretary of State, joked at Shultz' 90th birthday that he would do anything for him other than "kiss the Tiger."

That's great stuff.

With Shultz' passing, this country has lost another member of "the greatest generation." 

Princeton, and Princeton football, lost a giant of an alum.

HERE is the full obit for George Shultz.