Moon Shots

TigerBlog was a kid at Camp Toledo, a sleepaway camp near New Paltz, N.Y., where he'd spend eight weeks a summer for five summers, when the Apollo 11 mission took place.

He can't remember watching the landing on the news, though he's certain he remembers being told of the fact that men had landed and then walked on the moon by the head counselor at the camp. As he thinks about it, back then, there probably wasn't a TV at the camp.

The first lunar landing took place on this day in 1969, which is 53 years ago already. The two astronauts who were the first humans on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and they spent two-and-a-half hours exploring the lunar surface early in the morning of July 21.

The fact that this happened in 1969 is important, as is the fact that it was done by American astronauts and not Soviet cosmonauts. The space race was a big thing in the 1950s and 1960s, and it became imperative for the Americans to get there first.

Also, back in 1961, President John F. Kennedy had said that it should be America's goal to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, that goal drove NASA to get it done by the end of the 1960s.

TB went back through Town Topics from that week to see what the coverage was like of the lunar landing, and it was as you might have expected. It was wall-to-wall coverage, and it was very clear how overwhelming it was to those who watched it live.

Mostly, the consensus among those in Princeton who were interviewed was that it was 1) the greatest achievement human beings had ever done and 2) something they didn't think they'd see in their lifetimes. 

It would have been better, for this purpose at least, if it had happened a few months earlier. TB would have been interested in seeing what the Daily Princetonian coverage would have been like.

As it turned out, the next issue of the student paper wasn't until Sept. 8., and there was no mention of the lunar landing. What took the wall-to-wall coverage of the first issue of the 1969-70 academic year? It was the arrival of women students.

The second moon landing, which was the Apollo 12 mission, was led by a Princeton alum, Pete Conrad, Class of 1953. The Prince had a headline that said "Tiger On The Moon" when he got there, in November of 1969.

Elsewhere, it wasn't quite a moon shot, but it was a long shot with a great splashdown at the end. 

What is TigerBlog speaking of now? It's a shot from Princeton's Blake Peters from the Maccabiah Games earlier this week that TB didn't see until yesterday.

By the way, Peters had a 24-point game against Israel Tuesday that included seven threes.

He thought about adding it to yesterday's entry, but by then it was too late, since he's guessing a large part of his audience had already seen it. As such, he includes it for today:

Blake Peters from DEEP!

He beat the 3rd quarter buzzer on Sunday with this 3/4 court heave in the Open US Men's Basketball 90-77 win over France. @ballerblake34 @GottliebShow

Video: @NoamWatt and @ymca pic.twitter.com/mM0W7xs0Nt

— MaccabiUSA (@MaccabiUSA) July 18, 2022

Of course, all such "moon shots" in Princeton will be compared to the one Ed Persia nailed in December 2002 at Monmouth. On that night, Princeton rallied from 10 down to seemingly force overtime before Persia, a former Texas high school quarterback, threw one in from about 80 feet or so to beat the buzzer and give the Tigers a 60-57 win. 

Maybe, though, it depends on what you consider a "moon shot." If you're referring to names, or nicknames, then maybe any basket ever scored by Chris Mooney or Kevin (Moon) Mullin might count as well.  

Speaking of Moon Mullin, how's this for a stat line: 12 for 15 from the field, 14 for 16 from the foul line, 38 points, seven rebounds. That was Mullin's line in a 65-56 NCAA tournament win over San Diego in 1984 at the Palestra. Other than Bill Bradley, no Princeton player has ever scored more points in an NCAA game.

Also, as TB looked back at that box score, he noticed a familiar name who played one minute and had one assist for San Diego. Who was that? Eric Musselman, who is now the head coach at the University of Arkansas. In fact, Musselman has taken Arkansas to the Elite Eight the last two years and earlier in his career took Nevada to the Sweet 16.

Anyway, as for July 20, it'll always be a special day in the history of America and the world. Landing people on the moon and returning them to Earth was science fiction not that long before. 

It came true on this day 53 years ago.