Rock On

TigerBlog was recently asked a pretty interesting question.

Could he name a musical artist who was originally part of a group and then went on to have a solo career after leaving the group and had his or her best music at that point. The question wasn't asking for someone who went on to have a very successful solo career. It was asking about someone who went on to make the best music after leaving the group.

He's struggled to come up a good answer.

John Lennon, for instance, had some great music after The Beatles broke up, but hey, they were The Beatles. The bar was set pretty high. 

Phil Collins had his most successful music after he left Genesis, but hey, it's Phil Collins.

Just kidding. Just kidding. Phil Collins actually isn't a terrible answer. He did have some pretty good solo stuff.

By the way, did you know Phil Collins might actually have done his best work before he ever even heard of Genesis? When he was 13, he played the Artful Dodger on the West End in "Oliver."

So who else could be a good answer to the question?

If you're looking at a more modern artist, there's Beyonce (Destiny's Child), Gwen Stefani (No Doubt) and Justin Timberlake (N'Sync). It might not shock you to know that TB doesn't really know much of either of their music.

Michael Jackson? He's close, but the Jackson 5 songs were either as good or in some cases better than his solo songs. Nothing Simon ever did by himself approached what he did with Garfunkel.

This is a tough one. He's certainly open to any and all suggestions. There has to be someone really, really obvious TB is overlooking, right?

While he gives it more thought, TigerBlog also did some research on what he mentioned about Susie Scanlon.

If you recall, TB recently wrote a piece for the women's history book about Scanlan and fellow Princeton alum Maya Lawrence, who were teammates on the 2012 U.S. Olympic women's epee fencing team that won a bronze medal at the London Olympics.

Scanlan took two years off to train for the Olympics before returning to Princeton in the 2012-13 academic year. She was a key part of the Tigers 2013 NCAA championship co-ed fencing team (and an individual runner up).

How many athletes have ever come back to Princeton to compete for the Tigers after having won an Olympic medal? And how many of those went on to win an NCAA championship afterwards?

To clarify, Caroline Lind won an NCAA championship as an undergrad and then two Olympic medals (both golds, in rowing). TB is looking for the other order. Olympic medal first. Then NCAA title.  

To answer the first question, Princeton has had 113 athletes who have competed in the Olympic Games. Of those 113, there have been 36 who competed as either undergraduates or, in a few cases, before they even enrolled at Princeton. 

Not all of those athletes competed for Princeton, however. For instance, there was Joey Cheek, who won four medals (two golds) in speed skating at the 2006 Winter Games and then graduated from Princeton in the Class of 2011.

In the first modern Olympics in Paris in 1896 alone, Princeton had four members of the Class of 1897 who competed in track and field, winning a combined seven medals.

Since then only two athletes would win gold medals and then compete at Princeton. Those two are Bill Bradley (basketball) and Ashleigh Johnson (water polo).

Only Susie Scanlan, among Princeton athletes, has ever won an Olympic medal and then come back to Princeton and won an NCAA championship.

Scanlan didn't get to that remarkable status accidentally. It took an incredible amount of hard work and self-sacrifice to make it happen. As she told TB her story, Scanlan talked about injuries, discipline, intense training regimens and endless travel to reach the top of the fencing world.

Today she is a Ph.D. student in economics studying at Columbia. She is, of course, no ordinary Ph.D. student.

Given how far back Princeton Athletics go, and given all of the incredible successes that Tiger athletes have had, to be the only one to have accomplished something is amazing.