Rugby's First Home Game, Greg Busch Is Back, PLL Playoffs And More

The Princeton Department of Athletics had its first staff meeting of the 2022-23 academic year yesterday.

As he sat in the Frist Multi-Purpose Room, TigerBlog thought back to the first time he attended one of these meetings. Back then, the man who was leading the one yesterday, Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack, would have been in high school.

TB figured, somewhat weirdly, that maybe a third of the people in the room weren't even born yet during the five years he spent covering Princeton back at the newspaper. Yikes

One of the highlights of the meeting yesterday was the presentation by women's rugby head coach Josie Ziluca on the rules of the game. TB has seen some rugby and has the most basic sense of how it works. Hearing from Josie was pretty enlightening.

Ziluca and her team made their varsity debut last weekend at Sacred Heart. The team plays at home (on the Washington Road field) for the first time as a varsity program tomorrow at 1 against Army. 

The game will be the team's alumni appreciate day. This is a huge year for the rugby alumni group, who had such great experiences and successes while the program was on the club level. Now that it's varsity, there is a great deal of pride for those who helped pave the way.

TB knows enough about rugby to know that it's a wild sport to watch. Admission tomorrow and for all women's rugby games is free.

What else can TB tell you today? 

* Also at the meeting yesterday was Greg Busch, who will be the new Senior Associate Director of Athletics/Student-Athlete Experience. He replaces Allison Rich, who left to become the Director of Athletics at New Hampshire.

Busch, who has spent the last 17 years at Rider, is a 1999 Princeton graduate who was a member of the men's soccer team. He has also been an adjunct professor at Rider, and he's had TB come to speak in his class.

Before he went to Rider, though, he first worked at Princeton. In fact, Busch and TB used to make the Senior-Athlete banquet video, back when it was done on iMovie and done by two relative novices who spent hours and hours watching the little pinwheel spin around and around as the file got bigger and bigger. It was frustrating as anything TB has ever done here, but on the plus side, he did get to know Busch and realize what a great person he is.

When TB texted Busch to congratulate him, this was the response he got:

Btw just thinking- do u want to start recording the senior student-athlete banquet acknowledgement video on iMovie now?  Should be ready by reunions with the multicolored circle spinning for the next 9 months…

Ah, some memories will last forever. 

In the meantime, Greg Busch will be a great addition to the Princeton senior staff. 

* The Premier Lacrosse League will hold its semifinal games tomorrow at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. Princeton will be well-represented there. 

It will start with the Waterdogs and Whipsnakes at 1 and be followed by the Archers and Chaos around 3:30. The Waterdogs include Princeton alums Michael Sowers and Zach Currier. The Archers have Princeton alums Tom Schreiber and Ryan Ambler and is coached by former Tiger head coach Chris Bates.

A week ago, the four Princetonians combined for 10 goals and four assists in their quarterfinal wins. 

You can watch the games on ESPN+, and the Whipsnakes-Waterdogs game will also be on ABC.

* TigerBlog wrote about the women's soccer team here yesterday and wrote about Princeton and women's soccer for goprincetontigers.com.

TB wrote a feature story about Princeton's leadership in the National Women's Soccer League, centered around alums/team owners Kara Nortman (Angel City), Chris and Angie Long (Kansas City) and Mark Wilf (Orlando).

Nortman was a keynote speaker at an event at the recent UEFA Women's Championship in England, where the home team won the championship in front of 87,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. That event, and the Women's World Cup, have helped build the NWSL into a stable cutting-edge league that is seeing nothing but growth.

You can read the story HERE.

* In addition to the women's rugby game tomorrow, there are also home events in field hockey (today at 4 against No. 7 Syracuse), men's water polo (Princeton Invitational all weekend) and women's soccer (Sunday at 1).

There are also other events that aren't too far away, including another field hockey game at No. 15 Rutgers at noon Sunday and the HYP cross country race tomorrow in Franklin Park.

The complete athletic schedule is HERE.