The 1981 Team Photo

So here's the 1981 Princeton women's lacrosse team.

Anything from that photo stand out? 

Don't worry. TigerBlog missed it too the first time around.

What he did see was that the picture was taken at what he thought was Yale Bowl. It clearly wasn't taken at Princeton, not with the blue background and all.

One of the players in the picture says that it was taken at the soccer/lacrosse field at Yale, which is now known as Reece Stadium. TB will take her world for that.

So what else do you see? TB sees a lot of smiles in that picture. 

If he's learned anything in his year of writing the history of women's athletics at Princeton, it's that there was a sheer joy to competing for the Tigers in the 1970s and 1980s. This isn't to say that the athletes since didn't have that same joy, of course. They certainly have.

It's just that when it was still something new for women to be at Princeton, let alone play sports at Princeton, there was that joy mixed with that pioneering spirit. That's something that was as common theme in the 1970s and extended into the 1980s, when it wasn't quite as new but was still something that was just starting to make its own history.

Certainly that's what each of the women TB has spoken to from those years has said about her own experience. They didn't have a blueprint to follow, so they made it up as they went along.

There were a ton of multisport athletes in those days, way more than there are now. That was truest of field hockey and lacrosse, but there were so many other combinations as well.

More than anything else, what TB has learned is that you could pick any random Princeton women's team photo from any sport and find any number of great stories.

The 1981 women's lacrosse team is no different. 

Consider in that photo alone, you have:

* Head coach Betty Logan was born in London during World War II, and her family sent her to Scotland to escape. When the war ended, no family member ever came to get her, and she never would learn what happened to them.

* Martha Russo (17) was on the verge of becoming an Olympic field hockey player when a knee injury ended her competitive athletic career; today she is an accomplished sculptor.

* Natalie Bocock (6) and Sue Kohler (goalie) were both von Kienbusch Award winners.

* Wiz Lippincott (3) is the mother of NFL quarterback Josh Rosen.

* Debbie Emery (10) is the mother of lightweight rower Alex Morss (Class of 2013).

And then there's No. 15.

That would be Tina Schmucki. She came to Princeton from Kent Place School in North Jersey, and today she is a Senior VP with Bank of America in Los Angeles.

She is part of a big Princeton family, beginning with her father George, a member of the Class of 1941 who went on to earn a Bronze Star in World War II as a Major who worked in Army Intelligence under General Omar Bradley. 

Her sister Lisa (Class of 1974) and brother Ross (Class of 1977) are Princeton grads, as is her husband Francois Mitelberg (Class of 1975, a rugby player) and one niece, Eleanor Oakes, Class of 2007.

What stands out about Tina in the 1981 team photo? It's what TB missed the first time.

She's wearing a gardening glove.

You may wonder why that is. TB certainly was. 

Here's what it turns out the glove is all about:

"Yale's top offensive player was Tracy Ball, and she was always in my sights in the defensive point position. I needed some protection for the hand checking throughout the game and found some gardening gloves in a hardware store on Harrison Street that had rubber grips on the palms. I was looking for a pair in orange and black, but the only option was green with white polka dots. They served me well throughout the 1981 season, but I was most proud of my teammates' success as All-Ivy League players."

That's pretty good stuff. 

For the record, the 1981 team produced seven All-Ivy League players: Lippincott, Kohler and Barb Russell were first-team, Bocock was second-team and Russo, Lisa Brown and Kathy Mahoney were honorable mention (Harvard had a first-team selection that year named Chris Sailer).

And the 1981 team also produced a lifetime of friendships. 

Maybe the garden gloves aren't so clear when first glancing at the team photo, but that part certainly is.