Get The Picture

It's Game Week for Princeton Athletics.

The first of approximately 700 events for the 2022-23 academic year will be Friday night at 7, when the women's soccer team hosts Colgate at 7. Game 2 is Sunday, also for the women's soccer team and also at 7, when Fairfield is here.

Before the season begins this weekend, to be followed a week later by five more teams, there was the matter of this past week. While things are about to turn serious, and in fact they were serious when practices began a few days ago, there was also a lot of fun to be had Thursday and Friday.

It was photo day for Princeton's fall teams, which meant a parade of athletes through various stations down on the E level of Jadwin Gym. It led to some great shots, like this one:

That's Hannah Davey of the field hockey team. That's a pretty intense shot.

The field hockey team, by the way, has a home scrimmage against St. Joe's tomorrow at 5 on Bedford Field. 

Here's another great one from last week:

 

That's Francis Akomeah-Sirleaf and Ryan Winkler of the men's soccer team.

Then there's Kateri Espinosa of the women's rugby team. Does she look tougher in this picture ... ?:

... or this one?:

There are literally thousands of pictures that were taken last week, not to mention videos for GIFs and videoboards. Each one tells its own story, with different poses, looks, emotions and everything else, and then multiplied out among all the different athletes.

If you've never been part of a large day of photo shoots, they really are something to behold. First, they require a great deal of organization beforehand, so that photographers and videographers are able to churn out roster after roster.

TigerBlog has tried, and more often than not, failed that organizational test in photoshoots through the years. He's learned that if you want your photo day to run as efficiently as possible, then you need to get his colleague Chas Dorman to take the lead.

Once you have the schedule set, you have to make sure you're coordinated with the equipment staff, since you obviously need every athlete in uniform. Again, that takes great teamwork. 

The next thing to know about photo days is that the athletes love them. They are great team-building moments, especially for this time of year, when everyone is just getting back to campus.

And then there are the new teammates. For them, picture day is the first chance for some of them ever to wear a Princeton uniform. Don't underestimate how big of a thrill that is. You can see it in their eyes.

Each team has its own culture, and these cultures are built around all kinds of experiences. Many, obviously, involve the on-field moments, and there is nothing like winning a championship together or having a great win if you're an athlete.

But there's also nothing like building friendships, the kind that endure forever. TB has seen it first hand through his daughter, who spent the weekend in New York City with some of her former women's lacrosse teammates and some football alums. They all made these friendships through their Princeton Athletic experience, and that experience includes days like picture day. 

So for the people in athletic communications, those pictures are hugely important. They'll be used for social media, for webpage stories, for player bios, for videoboards. 

Right now, those pictures are sitting in a huge photo database. 

As they were unfolding last week, and as TB watched it, they were much more than just tools to be used this year. 

They were part of what makes Princeton Athletics so special. Maybe that's why everyone was smiling.