Appreciation Week

Welcome to College Sports Communicators Member Appreciation Week.

Yesterday TigerBlog wrote about all of the people who made all of last weekend's events at Princeton run smoothly, and as you saw, it took an army of them. 

Those in the Office of Athletic Communications? They also were swamped over the weekend. 

In fact, in all between home and away games, there were 40 total events. Every single one of them had a preview story, postgame story and graphics pregame, in-game and postgame. That was a lot of words and a lot of time on PhotoShop for everyone involved. 

Just like the events crew, the communications group is not one that finds itself in the limelight very often. Here is the lineup of those who made all of that content come your way this weekend (alphabetically): Andrew Borders, Elliott Carr, Warren Croxton, Chas Dorman, Joanna Dwyer and Alex Henn. 

Warren gets a special shoutout. He was at football Friday night for a game that didn't end until 10 pm. Where was he just 16 hours later? Courtside for the women's basketball game at DePaul, which, by the way, is in Chicago.

That's a big-time performance. 

Joanna does too. The rookie out of Elon College has seven sports at Princeton — and six of them competed this past weekend. She was in New England, where the women's hockey and men's water polo teams both competed, while she also had both men's and women's swimming and diving and men's and women's tennis with their own competitions. Remember — they all required stories and graphics, especially when there were school records set in men's swimming.

Anyway, once again, TigerBlog salutes his hard-working colleagues on Appreciation Week. And all of the others out there in the profession, both in the Ivy League and throughout the country.

If you really want to appreciate those who work hard, check out any Division III website you like and go to the athletic communications section. Then see how few people are listed (usually one or two), and then count the number of teams the school has.

This weekend is a bit tamer, though it is not without its big events, including NCAA tournaments for women's soccer (at Virginia Friday at 7) and field hockey (at Saint Joseph's against Boston College Friday at 1:30) and the Ivy men's soccer tournament at Penn. 

Between last Sunday and this Friday, though, there is only one event on the Princeton Athletic calendar, and it comes up tonight at 7 on Carril Court at Jadwin Gym as the women's basketball team plays Villanova in its home opener.

If you were on the team's social media yesterday, you noticed that there is a shirt giveaway tonight (while supplies last). The front of the shirt recognizes the 2024 Ivy League championship, and the back lists the all-time league titles in program history.

How many are there? Well, is 18 a lot? 

Princeton is 1-1 on the very young season, having opened with a loss at Duquesne and then rolling past DePaul 79-58. Hey, the team owed it to Warren to win, right? 

It's way too early to draw any conclusions about anything for the coming season, what with the Ivy tournament a mere four months away. If you are going to make any guesses about the Tigers, though, it's that Madison St. Rose will score a lot of points.

Rose already has an impressive resume as the 2023 Ivy League Rookie of the Year and a 2024 second-team All-Ivy League selection and Ivy all-tournament team selection. So far, through two games, she has put up 22 and 24 points while averaging nine rebounds. 

She went from 8.8 points per game to 14.8 last year, and she came into this season with 704 career points. The last three players to lead the team in points per game in a season have been Bella Alarie (four times), Abby Meyers and Kaitlyn Chen (twice). 

They are all-time greats in the program. St. Rose is on the verge of joining that rare air.

Villanova is a perennial postseason team that reached the final of the WBIT a year ago (the WBIT is the women's equivalent of the men's NIT). The Wildcats have played only one game to date this season, a 64-56 win at home against Wake Forest. 

Oh, and if you're at the game tonight, go find Warren at the scorer's table and tell him you appreciate him. He deserves it.