Hall Of Famers

So here was TigerBlog's first thought when he saw that Gail Ramsay was recently inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame: "Wait, how was it possible she wasn't already in?"

Ramsay has been Princeton's women's squash coach since the 1994-95 season. This is what the story on goprincetontigers.com had to say about her induction:

Since taking over at Princeton in 1995, Ramsay has led the Tigers to four team national championships, four Ivy League championships, and three players to five individual national championships. For the past 20 years, when the top collegiate players compete for that individual national title, they are playing in the Ramsay Draw and for the Ramsay Cup, named after Princeton's coach and a four-time national champion during her collegiate career at Penn State. Ramsay's teams have won 276 dual matches in her time at Princeton, long ago making her Princeton's winningest women's squash coach.

Four-time individual national champ. Four-time national championship coach. 

Again, how was she not in?

TigerBlog is a bit biased when it comes to Gail Ramsay. For one, he was at one time her next-door neighbor. For another, it was Ramsay and former men's coach Bob Callahan who got TB started playing squash in the first place.

Any time they'd watch him play, he always felt like they were his parents, watching with a mixture of pride that TB was playing their sport and horror at the way he was playing it. Nonetheless, TB loved playing the game for as long as his knees and shoulder allowed, and it was Gail who kept him supplied in rackets, shoes, whatever else.

On top of all that, she's also just a wonderful person who loves Princeton squash and who has always been a great representative of the program. 

So, yes, again, how was she not already in?

On the subject of Halls of Fame, there's also the matter of the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame. CoSIDA, if you don't know, is the national organization for athletic communications, and it is CoSIDA that oversees the only official Academic All-American program, which means that any other national academic awards are from coaches' organizations or sport governing bodies but are not official Academic All-Americas.

The CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame "recognizes former Academic All-Americas who received a college degree at least 10 years ago, have achieved lifetime success in their professional careers, and are committed to philanthropic causes."

It's a pretty distinguished group. The complete list of honorees can be seen HERE.

The latest inductees are a group of four who were announced last week. One of the people on the list is Princeton alum Jen Babik, who played softball and field hockey before graduating in 1995.

While at Princeton she played on the first of the Tigers' two Women's College World Series softball teams. She went on to be a Rhodes Scholar and then attend Stanford Medical School. Today she is an infectious disease specialist at the UC-San Francisco medical center.

Again, she wasn't in this hall already also? 

TigerBlog wrote about Babik in the women's history book. She talked about her experiences at Princeton, how she balanced playing two sports, how she found soccer while in England as a Rhodes Scholar and her work now. She remains incredibly close to her teammates from Princeton.

She also talked about her experiences as a musician. She would be in the jazz band at Princeton, and before that, she'd play in her high school marching band, including at a festival at the old Giants Stadium, where she learned something that stayed with:

“I had a solo,” she says. “I remember how nervous I was beforehand. I think about that now if I’m
nervous about something. I think that was the most nervous I’ve ever been about anything, with that solo in front of thousands of people in that stadium. I learned a lot of life lessons from sports, like so many people do. But for me, I also learned a lot from those band competitions. I learned about being able to overcome feeling really nervous and be able to perform.”

Congratulations to Gail Ramsay and Jen Babik.

And, yeah, what took so long to get them inducted?