A Weekend Yav Would Have Loved

So what do you think of the new website? 

In case you're wondering what the direct link is for TigerBlog, it's this: https://goprincetontigers.com/sports/tigerblog/. If you
have this page bookmarked, then change it to that link. If you're looking for it on the main site, you can find it with the "Quick Links" directly on the right at the top.

TigerBlog will keep posting here and on the goprincetontigers.com site for the next week or so.

Meanwhile, this is the first weekend in Princeton Athletics since the winter teams all finished playing. It's a busy one, with 24 events between today and Sunday.

TigerBlog used to have count those up on the old site. On the new one, the calendar totals how many events there are that day. You simply click on the sport abbreviation to get the full list of events for that day (you have to scroll down to see them all).

There's home rowing in the morning, with a big men's lacrosse game at 1 on Sherrerd Field against Brown. The men's tennis team plays its Ivy opener against Penn in Jadwin Gym. 

There's track and field in three locations. There are Ivy baseball (at Harvard) and softball (at Penn) games that will have a significant impact on the standings. There's men's volleyball in Dillon Gym tomorrow at 5. It's a very busy schedule.

You know who would have loved it?

Harvey Yavener.

If you don't know the name, it likely means that you weren't a big Princeton sports fan before the last 13 years or so. Harvey Yavener — Yav, as everyone knew him — was a legendary sportswriter in Mercer County, one who probably wrote more about Princeton Athletics in a newspaper than anyone else. 

Yav's final Princeton story was on All-American swimmer Alicia Aemesigger, a member of the Class of 2010. Yav may have written about her before her senior year. 

The great sportswriter passed away recently at the age of 93. It was incredibly sad news for TigerBlog, who worked with Yav at the Trenton Times during his first five years on the Princeton beat and then all the way until Yav's retirement once TB came to work here. Since Yav retired, the two stayed close.

If you are one of the hundreds of Princeton athletes or coaches whom Yav interviewed, you know that it was an experience like no other. The average interview is 10-15 minutes. The average "Yav" interview was 45 minutes to an hour.

When he was done,  Yav could tell you almost anything there was that made for a great story about that one particular athlete, and he could tell that story without ever mentioned the athletic piece. He would then go and write a story that was, in newspaper talk, 30 or 35 or 40 column inches, which translated into a whole lot of words.

Of course, when the story ran, it was way too large to fit what had been allocated, and so editing had to be done. Nothing in the world set Yav off more than having his story edited, to which he would say "ah, they cut my story," only he would add four words before "my story." Those four words were always the same, and they were rated R. 

That doesn't even take into account "the wrap," Yav's nightly recap of all the events he couldn't attend. He'd still write about them anyway, again filling up many more column inches than were allocated. He'd often listen to games on the radio to write about them in his wrap, and he'd usually include some commentary that couldn't possibly be gained from just the broadcast, such as calling fouls against the local team "questionable" or "ticky-tack," even though he'd never seen the play. 

He loved Princeton, to be sure, just as he loved the other Mercer County colleges, and Rutgers, especially Rutgers football, which he was sure would be winning the Rose Bowl any year now. 

When news of Yav's passing began to spread, TB heard from someone who knew Yav well who texted those four missing words in tribute. 

And he was far ahead of the curve when it came to covering women's sports. There was times when he was the only one writing about women's college athletics, let alone the only man. It simply wasn't done by male sportswriters at the time. 

He also would never differentiate between events in any way other than the significance of that particular event in the framework of what it meant to that sport. To Yav, a big squash match mattered as much as a big football game — and he wrote about them both with the same zest.

There was more to Yav than sportswriting. He loved jazz. He especially loved food — eating it, cooking it, writing about it. He was as home in the finest restaurants in the country as he was in a press box.

More than anything else, though, he loved his partner of 60-plus years Polly. Where there was Yav, there was Polly. When Polly passed away in 2018, TB thought Yav wouldn't last long without her. Turned out it was nearly five years, and Yav was sharp until the end.

Yav was short and curmudgeonly, but driven with a strong work ethic and high standards for himself and those around him. He grew up poor and worked hard to make his place in the world. Does that remind you of anyone? It's not surprising that Yav and Pete Carril were very, very close.

Were Yav still working, this is how he'd tell you his plans for Saturday: "Yeah, I'm going to check out the boats in the morning and then jump over to the lacrosse game. Then I'll duck in at Rider to catch the end of the baseball there. And then there's a killer wrap."

For the five years that TB worked alongside Yav on the local college beat, they would sit down each week and go through the handwritten daily schedule to decide who goes to what. In 1992, when Duke and Kentucky played in the NCAA men's basketball regional final in Philadelphia, Yav sent TB, because the game was late and because there was a "killer wrap" that night. 

Those days are long gone.  

There are not a lot of people left at Princeton who knew him. Those who did will remember him with fondness.

TB will remember him with much more than that. There aren't too many people in TB's life who have made more of a positive impact on him than Harvey Yavener did. Were it not for Yav, there is absolutely no chance that TB would have succeeded as a sportswriter and now all these years at Princeton. TB owed him a lot for everything he did.

Much as was the case with Carril, TB knew the day was coming when he'd get the news about Yav. Also much like Carril, it was very emotional anyway when it did.

Rest in peace, Yav. Thanks for everything. 

You know how special you were for TB. Give Polly a hug.