Vote For Baughan

TigerBlog loves the picture of Princeton men's lacrosse coach Matt Madalon that goes with the Princeton Laxcast.

It's a pregame photo of a smiling Madalon, with his arms folded, almost looking straight at the camera. This is the picture:

That's a great picture, right? Of course he's smiling. And it's not just because his team is doing so well.

What you can't tell by this is that there is actually another person in the original picture. And with whom is Madalon so happy to be speaking?

TigerBlog, of course. TB cropped himself out of the picture to use it on the webpage. Here's the actual picture:

George Baughan is this week's guest on the men's edition of the Princeton Laxcast. You can hear him and Coach Madalon HERE.

What you can't tell from the podcast is that Baughan is wearing an old, old-school Princeton Lacrosse hat. It's one that has to date back to at least the early 1990s, or maybe even 20 years before that. 

Baughan is an interesting young man. If you watch Princeton play, then you know he's a ferocious defenseman, one who is freakishly athletic at that. Beyond that, he is also a tremendous student in the School of International and Public Affairs. There's this, from a nomination form TB submitted on Baughan's behalf:

His senior thesis topic is the Global War on Terror and 9/11 and the impact it had on Chinese counter-terrorism towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. He wrote two junior papers, including one entitled " State Surveillance and Security in Xinjiang: The Role of the Private Sector," which he presented to the Council on Foreign Relations in NYC and to the State Department and White House officials in Washington D.C. His other JP was entitled "Air to the Throne? How Environmental Activists Upended Airport Expansion in England and Beyond." 

The award TB nominated Baughan for was the Senior Class Award, which recognizes excellence from senior athlete across four areas: competition, classroom, community and leadership. Baughan was announced as a finalist Wednesday.

Part of the selection of the winner involves fan voting. To vote, click HERE. You can vote as many times as you like. 

By the way, knowing Baughan as TB does, he would say that it wouldn't surprise him at all to see Baughan's name on other ballots in the next few decades.

Tomorrow is a big day for Princeton lacrosse, with a doubleheader on Sherrerd Field that begins at noon with the women's game against Dartmouth and then concludes at 3 with the men's game against Dartmouth. Both Princeton teams are playing for the league championship in the last three weeks of the regular season.

The good news is that if you want to watch both teams in their quest, you can do so easily for the next three Saturdays. Each of those days features a doubleheader, with the games tomorrow to be followed next Saturday with another doubleheader at Harvard (men at 1, women at 4). The regular season ends with two games on Sherrerd Field on April 30, with the men against Cornell at noon and the women against Yale at 3. 

In between, the women also have two Wednesday games, this Wednesday at home against Penn (5) and then the following Wednesday at Columbia (4).

The Princeton women are 2-0 in the league. Yale is unbeaten at 4-0. Yale plays at Cornell tomorrow and then home against Columbia next Saturday before playing Princeton. Should the Bulldogs win one of those two, then they're assured of being in position to play for at least a share of the championship in the game at Princeton.

The Princeton men are one of four Ivy teams with one league loss, and no team is unbeaten. If you're rooting for Princeton to clinch an Ivy League tournament spot tomorrow, then root for Yale to beat Brown, Harvard to beat Penn and Princeton to beat Dartmouth. If you're rooting for Princeton to host the Ivy League tournament, which the No. 1 seeds will do, then root for Brown to beat Yale. Princeton cannot be the host unless Yale loses another game, in the same way that Yale cannot be the host unless Cornell loses another game.

Most NCAA tournament predictions continue to have five Ivy League teams in their possible fields. There continue to be five Ivies in the top 10 of the RPI. Playing each other only drives the RPI up, rather than down. 

What that means, of course, is that there is the potential for a team not to make the Ivy League tournament but make the NCAA tournament, something that's never happened before. All of that will play itself out over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, there's the doubleheader tomorrow.

And the need to vote for George Baughan.