The Grandfather

Well, it's September.

TigerBlog likes to keep you updated on all important news.

He spent the last weekend of August watching college football and the U.S. Open in tennis. What he learned was that there was a connection between the two, in the form of Princeton, of course. 

First of all, his favorite player is Francis Tiafoe. There's something about the power and drive with which he plays, and the fact that he's always been a step below the top players. 

TB is hoping that he breaks through at this Open, where he reached the semifinals two years ago. He'd get back that far with a win tonight in the quarters against Grigor Dimitrov, in a match that probably won't start until around 9.

This is from his Wikipedia page, by the way:

His father immigrated to the United States in 1993, while his mother joined him in 1996 to escape the civil war in their country (Sierra Leone). In 1999, his father began working as a day laborer on a construction crew that built the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland. When the facility was completed, he was hired as the on-site custodian and given a spare office to live in at the center. The Tiafoe brothers lived with their father at the center for five days a week for the next 11 years. They took advantage of their living situation to start playing tennis regularly at age 4. They stayed with their mother when she was not working night shifts as a nurse.

As far as TB knows, Tiafoe has no connection to Princeton. The same is not true of another player who plays today at the Open.

The first women's quarterfinal today will match Spain's Paula Badosa and Emma Navarro of the United States. Navarro definitely has a Princeton connection — one that TB didn't realize. 

Navarro defeated Coco Gauff, the defending champion, in three sets Sunday night. Gauff double-faulted an astonishing 19 times, compared to only two for Navarro.

As he watched the match, TB did what people do these days. He looked up Navarro online to see what he could learn about her.

How did TB ever watch TV before he could do that? Ah, the old days. 

So here's what TB learned as he started to research Emma Navarro:

First, she was the NCAA champion in 2021 at Virginia. Okay.

This got TB to think about whether or not she ever played against Princeton, and the answer is yes, she did. It was in the second round 2022 NCAA tournament in her second and final season as a college tennis player.

How did she do? Well, she didn't win, or lose. Playing first doubles, her match was tied when the other two matches finished in favor of the Cavs, so she didn't finish.

Then, in the No. 1 singles match, she played Princeton's Daria Frayman. Navarro won the first set 7-5 and was up 3-0 in the second set when UVa finished off the match, which meant that the first singles match no longer mattered and wasn't completed. 

Frayman, by the way, would win the von Kienbusch Award as the top senior female athlete a year later.

Next, TB found out that Navarro's father is a billionaire investor. Okay. That would be a fun thing to be, TB supposes.

Then, as TB looked up more about her dad, he saw that he was listed as "the son of a football coach." 

Wait? What? Football coach named "Navarro?" You mean, Frank Navarro?

As it turns out, that's exactly who his father — and therefore Emma's grandfather — was. Frank Navarro. 

If you are a fan of Princeton football, then you know that Frank Navarro coached the Tigers from 1978-84. He had a record of 23-23-2 in the Ivy League as Princeton's coach in Ivy League games, which mirrors his all-time career record of 99-99-6, including his time with Williams, Columbia and Wabash.

Navarro was the Princeton head coach the first time TigerBlog saw a Princeton football game. What TB didn't know about Navarro is that he played at the University of Maryland on a team that beat Tennessee in the 1953 Sugar Bowl to win the national championship. 

Navarro went 16-36-2 at Columbia, for a .307 winning percentage. While that might not seem too high, consider that it was the best by a Columbia head coach from the time he left in 1973 until the most recent coach, Al Bagnoli, went .500

Navarro didn't live to see his granddaughter get this far is this year's Open. He passed away in 2021, at the age of 91.

Rooting for Emma Navarro now is like rooting for Princeton.