Tiler? Timer? Tiger.

TigerBlog needs to hang his head in shame.

He plays a bunch of different puzzles each day, including Wordle, Quordle and Octordle. For one of the words in Quordle yesterday, TB had "TI_ER."

He tried TILER and TIMER before it dawned on him. TIGER. 

How in the world could he not have gotten that right? 

Luckily, the extra guesses didn't keep him from winning. He was, though deeply ashamed of how he needed three guesses to get "TIGER."

While TB tries to come to grips with that failure, here are some other thoughts for the last Thursday before the 2024-25 athletic year begins, as the women's soccer team hosts Miami (Fla.) Saturday at 7 in the first Princeton Athletic event of the new year. 

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The Olympic Games ended more than a week ago. TigerBlog is currently working on a series of features on Princeton's three gold medalists from Paris. 

He's already talked to Hannah Scott, and he will be speaking with Nick Mead this coming week. He's also reached out to Maia Weintraub.

As part of the story on Scott, TB learned that before these Games, Northern Ireland hadn't had a gold medalists since the 1972 Olympics, when Mary Peters won the pentathlon. 

There was a celebration in honor of Scott in her hometown the week after the Games, and Scott sent TB a picture of her and Peters. TB thought it would be great to try to track Peters down to talk to her for the story, and he'll be catching up with her next week as well. Peters — Lady Mary as she is formally known — is 85 years old.   

Keep on eye on GoPrincetonTigers.com for these stories in the next two or so weeks. 

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TigerBlog mentioned yesterday that Bill Roper holds the record for wins by a Princeton football coach (with 89) and that Bob Surace is currently tied for second, 11 behind (78).

TB should have mentioned that James McCormick, the head coach in 1909 (the one year that Roper left Princeton for Missouri) had himself a really interesting story. McCormick was a 1908 graduate who was a three-time All-American, with first-team honors in 1905 and 1907 and second-team honors in 1906. 

When he became the head coach, he was only 25 years old. He would go on to be a Marine Corps officer in World War I and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954, five years before his death. 

Princeton went 6-2-1 in 1909 under McCormick in his only season as a head coach. As a player, McCormick was part of Princeton teams that went 32-6-1 and outscored their opponents 716-77.

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The weather in Princeton has gone from 100 degrees every day to the most perfect weather you could ever hope to have. In fact, all week it's been in the upper 70s with low humidity in the afternoon and down into the 50s at night. 

It's "turn off the AC and leave the windows open" weather. 

Of course, it'll be back in the high 80s next week. Still, a hint of fall for a few days has been pretty nice. 

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TigerBlog plays golf once a year. This year's golf outing will be Monday, when he plays at the Friends of Lacrosse event at Springdale. 

Each year when he plays he thinks that he should take it more seriously, play more often, see how good he can get. So far, he's never done so. 

In the meantime, he's pretty sure he'll hit just enough good shots to make him think he could be good and too many bad shots to remind him that he can't be. 

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Not shockingly at all, the United States and Canada cruised into the semifinals at the World U20 Championships for women's lacrosse in Hong Kong.

The semifinal matchups had the U.S. play Australia and Canada play Japan. Both of those games were to be played before dawn in the Eastern U.S. today.

It would be pretty shocking to wake up and see that either team has lost. The final will be Saturday morning Eastern time.

Both of Princeton's players at the event have done very well. Haven Dora of the United States entered the semifinal round tied for second with 17 assists and, with five goals, tied for seven with 22 points.

Canada's Jami MacDonald was tied for fifth in points with 17 goals and eight assists, for 25 points. The player she was tied with was Australia's Ocea Leavy, who also had 25 points — on 25 goals and no assists.