TigerBlog hadn't read anything about Bill Gates and his divorce until he was texted a story about the situation.
The text included a link to a New York Post story and this note: "Princeton mention in the last paragraph of this bizarre article."
Now if that doesn't get TB to want to read about the situation, nothing could. First, he was intrigued to see the bizarre part. Second, what would the Princeton mention be?
The headline was bizarre enough: "Bill Gates took getaways with his ex-girlfriend after marriage to Melinda."
The first three paragraphs take it to another level:
After marrying his wife, Bill Gates would spend a long weekend every year at a cozy beach cottage in North Carolina — with his old girlfriend.
The billionaire Microsoft founder made sure the bizarre arrangement was part of the deal when he married Melinda French in 1994, he told Time magazine in a 1997 profile.
“We can play putt-putt while discussing biotechnology,” Gates said of his private getaways with fellow nerd techie and ex Ann Winblad — Winblad — who is now happily married to actor Kevin Kline’s detective brother, Alex Kline, a source told The Post on Tuesday.
There's a lot there, not the least of which is that Bill Gates' former girlfriend and longtime travel partner was Phoebe Cates' sister-in-law.
So TigerBlog kept reading. First, he was intrigued by how Gates had gone on these trips with his former girlfriend after he got married.
Presumably Melinda knew about it. Heck, perhaps those were her favorite weekends of the year?
As he read, of course, TB was waiting for the punchline. After all, he was promised a Princeton reference. What would it be?
It had nothing to do with any of the three major players' being a Princeton grad. What was it?
As he got closer and closer to the end, his interest was more and more piqued. Then he saw this:
A former high-school valedictorian and head cheerleader from Minnesota, Gates’ ex co-founded an accounting software company, sold it — and then partnered up with retired NBA Supersonics player and Princeton University grad John Hummer in a venture-capital firm.
What the heck? TB was not expecting a John Hummer reference.
HERE is the whole story.
John Hummer is one of the greatest men's basketball players Princeton has ever seen. He's also a member of what is likely the most accomplished family Princeton basketball has known.
John's brother Ed was a three-time All-Ivy selection who played on the Final Four team of 1964-65 as a sophomore and the great 25-3 team of 1966-67. Ed's son Ian is the No. 2 scorer in Princeton men's basketball history with 1,625 career points; Ian was also the 2013 Ivy League Player of the Year.
As for John Hummer, he was a three-time All-Ivy League selection, including a first-team selection in 1969 and 1970. He finished his career with 1,031 points.
He helped Princeton go 14-0 in the league as a junior, for the first of what would be three perfect league seasons for Pete Carril as Tiger coach (1976, 1991 were the other two). Hummer and Geoff Petrie combined to average 36.6 points per game between that year.
Any guesses how long it would be until two Princeton teammates bettered that mark?
The answer is one. The next year, Hummer and Petrie combined to average 39.8. The only time in program history that any two teammates did better were in the Bill Bradley years: Bradley and Art Hyland (43.5 in 1962-63) and Bradley and Robert Haarlow (42.3 in 1963-64 and 40.1 in 1964-65).
Also, in case you're wondering, Hummer's career high was 32, which he scored in an 82-76 win against Indiana on Dec. 27, 1969, in a game played at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in the Bruin Classic. The next night he scored 25 more in a 76-75 loss to then-No. 2 UCLA, who would go on to win the NCAA championship.
That, by the way, was the first of two years in between Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton for the Bruins, who won the NCAA championship both times anyway.
Hummer put Princeton, a 30-point underdog in that game, on top 75-74 when he tipped in a missed shot with 11 seconds left, but the great Sidney Wicks broke the Tigers' hearts with a jump shot with four seconds to play to win it.
John Hummer went on to become the 15th pick in the 1970 NBA draft. He was the first pick of the expansion Buffalo Braves, whom TB remembers watching when the team had players like Bob McAdoo and Ernie DiGregorio. Extra credit if you know that today that same franchise is the Los Angeles Clippers.
Hummer would average 6.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in a six-year NBA career that saw him play for the Braves, Bulls and Seattle Supersonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder).
After that, he became a venture capitalist. And, it appears, he had a pretty interesting business partner along the way.
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2 comments:
In that Indiana game when Hummer scored 32, I believe Geoff Petrie had 31. Al Dufty was snowed in in Buffalo so the Tigers were down a starter. I remember listening to the game on the car radio. I was in the Navy and my parents were taking me to McGuire AFB to catch a flight to Scotland. About two weeks later I received a cassette in the mail. My father recorded the second half of the UCLA game. I must have listened to it at least ten times. Each time hoping for a different outcome. But alas, that damn Sidney Wicks made that shot every time.
Great column today, TB. Random train of thought on anything orange and black is always an interesting read.
Kind of sad about Bill and Melinda Gates. If two rather boring, super high functioning overachievers can't keep their marriage together, what chance do regular people have? That the Gates seem to have subdued, arguably bland personalities should have worked in their favor. So much of happiness or contentment in life is determined not by one's absolute station in life, but rather, reality versus expectations.
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