Retirees, And More, Including A Sad Remembrance

TigerBlog starts today by giving credit to his colleague Greg Busch for knowing something about Bill Carmody that TB didn't.

Carmody, as Busch pointed out to TB, was briefly a member of Sydney Johnson's staff at Fairfield, as a special assistant. TB didn't realize that. 

Busch, by the way, is a former Princeton men's soccer player who is now the Senior Associate AD for Student Athlete Experience. He came back to Princeton at the start of this academic year after a long tenure in the athletic department at Rider.

And what did Busch ask from TB as a reward for knowing something he didn't? Public recognition, of course, which is what he has now gotten.

Meanwhile, here are some other things for your Friday:

* Bella Alarie has announced her retirement from professional basketball. The all-time leading scorer in Princeton women's basketball history did so in a social media post last week.

Alarie is the only Princeton basketball player, male or female, to win three Ivy League Player of the Year awards. Only Bill Bradley ever played basketball at Princeton and scored more points than the 1,703 that she did. Bradley and Alarie are the only two players in Princeton history who had at least 40 points in a game.

Princeton women's basketball has never seen a player quite like her. At 6-4, she was unstoppable as an inside player, a rebounder and a defender. Her 249 career blocked shots are 88 more than the next-highest total in Princeton women's history (Ellen Devoe) and 90 more than the men's record (Rick Hielscher). She ranks first, second, third and fourth on the women's basketball single-season blocks list.

Alarie's pro career started when she was the No. 5 overall pick in the WNBA draft after her senior season of 2020. She also played, very successfully, in Europe.

She's also another Princeton athlete who in so many ways seemed to be too good to be true, with her humility, friendliness and obvious joy at being a Tiger. TB, and pretty much anyone who met her during her time at Princeton, congratulates her.

* Loyal reader Steven Feldman gave TB the heads up about an item in Track and Field News that said that Julia Ratcliffe has retired from international track and field.

Ratcliffe was the 2014 NCAA champion in the hammer throw, as well as an Olympian representing her native New Zealand in 2021. In fact, she reached the Olympic final in Tokyo and placed ninth, which is extraordinary.

Like Alarie, Julia Ratcliffe was also an athlete who was always smiling, always up, not to mention a great student. TB will always remember when she first arrived in Jadwin Gym as a freshman and walked past TB's office, asking where the women's track office was. She had just gotten off the plane and taken a car service from JFK. Peter Farrell, then the women's track and field coach, said that she'd be a special one, and he was right.

She barely missed qualifying for the 2016 Olympics by a matter of an inch or so, but she pushed through to qualify on her final attempt for the most recent Games, even if her appearance was delayed by a year due to Covid.

That's two recent retirements of two of the greatest women athletes Princeton has known. In fact, TB would put Alarie in the top five, with Ratcliffe not that much further down the list. 

* The men's basketball team is at Dartmouth tomorrow at 2 in a rematch of a game the Tigers won 93-90 three weeks ago in Jadwin. Princeton trailed by six late in regulation before rallying for that victory in overtime.

Princeton, after a sweep at home last weekend of Cornell and Columbia, is in first place in the league at 7-2, one game up on 6-3 Yale. The next five teams are separated by two games, with Penn, Cornell and Brown at 5-4, Dartmouth at 4-5 and Harvard at 3-6.

The top four will advance to the Ivy tournament at Jadwin next month. In the Ivy tournament era, obviously a great deal of emphasis is put on the push for finishing in the top four, but remember, the Ivy League champion is the team that wins the regular season. That will always, always be a huge accomplishment.

* Speaking of insane comebacks in basketball, did you see the end of the Rowan-NJCU men's game the other night?

#SCTop10 | HOLY MOLY! MADNESS AT THE JMAC!!!

Savoy drains a three and then Battle banks in the DEEP three-point buzzer-beater to take down #23-ranked Rowan; the Profs' first @NJACSports loss of the season!!@njcumbb @NJCUniversity @d3hoops @espn @ESPNAssignDesk @SportsCenter pic.twitter.com/xvfzubJDFM

— NJCUGothicKnights (@NJCUAthletics) February 9, 2023

That's craziness. Give a ton of credit obviously to the one who hit the game-winner (Jason Battle), but also save some for the player who tipped the inbounds (Pharo Allah). That's how Princeton caught Dartmouth in its first meeting, when Caden Pierce did the same for the Tigers by getting his hand on the inbounds pass.

NJCU, by the way, is New Jersey City University. TB has been there many times. 

When TB was covering NJAC (that's New Jersey Athletic Conference) basketball way back when, NJSU was known as Jersey City State, Rowan was known as Glassboro State and the local team, the College of New Jersey, was known as Trenton State College. 

That game reflects the beauty of sports. You never know when you're going to have a magical moment like that. 

* Congratulations go out to Andrew Weiss, now an officer with Princeton's Department of Public Safety. Andrew's grandmother was Marge DeFrank, a well-loved longtime member of the Department of Athletics. Andrew was a familiar presence in Jadwin Gym when he was a kid, most especially at men's basketball games in Jadwin. 

It's great to have him back on campus. 

* Lastly, this Sunday marks the 14th anniversary of the day that Lorin Maurer was killed in a plane crash near Buffalo. TB has remembered Lorin every year since, even as the number of people who worked with her at Princeton and knew her continues to dwindle. 

He wrote this last year:

Lorin was the Friends Group manager at Princeton when she passed away. She was a fundraiser, but so much more than that. She had an incredible work ethic, taking on whatever task needed to be completed. More than once TB saw her setting up tables and chairs or putting tablecloths on them. Why? Because it needed to be done.

She was also a super nice, super upbeat person. She always seemed to be smiling. She was smiling the last time TB ever saw her. He'll never forget that.

Each year since her passing, TigerBlog has told the story of the last time her saw her. At the time TB's office was up on the Jadwin mezzanine, and he always left his door open. Some people would stop in and say hi. Most would just walk by.

Lorin would always stop. Sometimes, when she didn't have time to say anything, she'd just stop and smile. And that's what happened on that day.

There was a meeting that was running late, and Lorin had to get to the airport to catch a flight to Buffalo. There was a wedding in her boyfriend's family that she was going to attend. She'd be meeting him there.

She'd found love in the months before. She was really happy. 

Tragically, her plane crashed just before reaching the Buffalo airport. TigerBlog didn't know this until the next morning, when he woke up to an email with the news. It's almost as shocking now as it was then.

It was just so unbelievable, so impossible to wrap your head around. She'd just been there, so alive. And then she was gone. 

It's still too sad to imagine. Lorin is missed by those who knew her, and she will never be forgotten.