Seven Historic Days

As TigerBlog watched the World Cup play-in game between Costa Rica and New Zealand yesterday, he realized two things.

First, the most recent World Cup began on June 14, 2018, or exactly four years ago yesterday. If you forgot, the 2018 World Cup was played in Russia, and France defeated Croatia in the final 4-2.

The second thing TB realized was that exactly 10 years ago this week, back in 2012, he was in Costa Rica with the men's lacrosse team on one of their international trips. It was the second of the three trips TB has done with the men's lacrosse team, including adventures to Spain and Ireland in 2008 and Portugal in 2016.

As part of the trip to Costa Rica, TB and most of the team members attended a World Cup qualifier between the home team and El Salvador. TigerBlog has been to a lot of sporting events in his life — he's never been to anything quite like that, and that game was only part of the qualifying round.

He's said before that if he could attend any sporting event in the world, it would be the World Cup final. What in the world must that be like? He can't even imagine. He'd much rather see that than the Super Bowl (he's never been to one) or even the Olympics (maybe, depending on the events).

Ever since that qualifier, he's rooted for Costa Rica, so he was happy that Los Ticos won the game 1-0 after scoring three minutes into the game. Of course, he did feel like he was rooting against Princeton alum and New Zealand native Julia Ratcliffe, the NCAA hammer throw champion from 2014 who competed in the 2021 Olympic Games.

By the way, Joe Campbell scored the goal for  Costa Rica yesterday. He also scored one of the Costa Rican goals in the game in 2012 that the Princeton team attended, a game that ended up 2-2 by the way. 

The win vaulted Costa Rica into the World Cup, which is not starting any time soon. Because it's being played in the sweltering heat of Qatar, the first games won't begin until Nov. 21. That'll be two days after the final Princeton football game of the 2022 season.

For now, it's a little early to be looking ahead to the coming fall season. That's still a few months away. 

Over the next few days and weeks, you'll be able to see stories on incoming classes and releases of schedules, and it'll be opening day for 2022-23 soon enough - August 26, to be exact, when the women's soccer team hosts Colgate.

Of course, after the events of the last few years, it's not a good idea ever to take anything for granted. No season, no game — no international trip, though those are returning soon — will ever be something that TB just assumes will happen. He has a newfound appreciation for any game day, or any part of the Princeton experience for that matter.

The recently completed 2021-22 athletic year was an incredible one for Princeton, whose teams won 16 league championships and produced multiple national champions. Doing all of that in any year would have been achievement enough; to do so after the pandemic had such an impact on the two years before it makes it even more amazing.

Beyond just athletics, it was a great year just to be on the campus, to enjoy a "normal" academic year. 

Maybe that's why the video that the University communications office put out yesterday hit home so much with TigerBlog when he watched it. You can see it too:

The video snaps around quickly, so it's not easy to pick up faces at first glance. TB is pretty sure he saw Samuel Wright, the first-team All-Ivy League defensive lineman who, as it turns out, was also an architecture major. 

The story isn't the individuals, though. The story is Princeton itself, and the celebration of Reunions, Class Day, Commencement and all of the great pageantry that is so special here. That cannot be missed in the video.

In fact, it's a reminder of why Princeton brings out such love and loyalty among those who've competed here, or studied here, or just worked here.

It's well worth the two minutes or so to check it out. Or the 10 minutes or so after that as you watch it over and over.