Six Months From Today

The high temperature in Princeton yesterday was 99 degrees.

Why not just call it 100?

It reminds TigerBlog of the Princeton Football record for rushing yards in a game, which was set back on Sept. 26, 1992, in Palmer Stadium. TigerBlog was in Palmer Stadium that day.

As an aside, it's become more and more amazing to TB how few people who work in Princeton Athletics ever saw a game in the old stadium, which was torn down after the 1996 season.

Anyway, back then, stats were still kept by hand, and Keith Elias ran for 299 yards (on 25 carries, with four touchdowns) that day. TB suggested pushing his rushing total to 301. Who would know? 

Were it 300, it might seem fishy. But 301? Nobody would question that. He was only half-serious at the time, but hey, like he said, who would know? 

Also, Princeton needed every inch Elias got that day. The final score? Princeton 38, Lafayette 35.

This was in the Daily Princetonian after the game:

The corps of seniors Chris Theiss, J.C. Stilley and lan Lombard and juniors Chris Cyterski and Scott Miller played a tremendous game, opening gaping holes and regularly allowing Elias to break into the secondary. 'The line was incredible," saidElias. 'They work so hard for me, I've got to work hard for them." 'They're the ones who should get their names in the book for the record."

They're not in the record book, but TB remembers all five of them. And 32 years later, they get to be remembered at least.

Elias broke the record that had previously been held by Homer Smith, who ran for 273 against Harvard in 1952, also at Palmer Stadium. Guess who was at the game? According to the Prince: 

The crowd of 35,000 included Massachusetts senator John Kennedy. 

Trivia question: Elias had two games with at least 260 rushing yards, and Smith had one. There are three other Princeton players who have rushed for at least 260 yards in a game. Can you name them? The answer is at the end.

Today is July 17 (happy birthday to Bryce Chase). If it seems odd to be talking about football today, then imagine how odd talking hockey is. Ice during a heat wave like this one? 

The lead story on goprincetontigers.com yesterday was the release of the 2024-25 men's hockey schedule. This coming season will be Year 1 as Tiger head coach for Ben Syer, who comes to Princeton after coaching at Cornell.

His first team will play 29 games, of which 17 will be at Hobey Baker Rink. The story on GPT pointed out that a date to circle on the schedule was when Syer would host the Big Red for the first time. 

TigerBlog saw that the date of that game was January 17. It took TB about five seconds until it dawned on him that January 17 is exactly six months from today. 

Princeton and Syer will be in Ithaca on Nov. 23, which is four months away. Four months? That's a blink.

Princeton will play all of its ECAC league games, and it will also play two non-league games against each of Ohio State, New Hampshire and Bentley. All of those games will be at Baker, where Ohio State has never been and where New Hampshire has not been since 1983. 

Syer had this to say: 

"It all comes together to hopefully produce an amazing experience for our players, staff and supporters this season. I can't wait to be behind the home bench at Baker Rink and embrace the energy of everyone in such a historic environment."

It is a great environment. That's for sure. It has the history of being 100 years old, but it remains a great place to watch a game, with every single one of the more than 2,000 seats pretty much on top of the ice. 

Trivia answer: 

Dick Kazmaier (262 vs. Brown, 1951), Jordan Culbreath (276 vs. Dartmouth, 2008), Collin Eaddy (266 vs. Yale, 2018). Only Eaddy did so on the road.