Beth Yeager began her season as an American Olympian and ended it as a first-team All-American.
When the NFHCA announced its All-American teams yesterday, there was Yeager, not shockingly as a first-team selection. TigerBlog then went to make a graphic for the honor, his original version brought back a suggestion from Gracie McGowan, Yeager's teammate and the Princeton field hockey social media leader: Why not use a picture of Beth with an American flag?
Now that was a great idea.
Of those 28, how many played at Princeton? The answer is 23. That's pretty impressive.
In other words, Princeton field hockey has produced 82 percent of the Ivy League's first-team All-Americans. It's fitting for a program that has won more than half of the league's championships, including the most recent one, in which Princeton went 7-0 to win the title for the 28th time.
Are there any other sports in which one school has produced 82 percent of the Ivy League's first-team All-Americans? For that matter, how many teams in any league have done so.
TigerBlog would ask ChatGPT, except the last time he did, the answer was "Jarron Rosa," a reference that would make you chuckle if you'd read what TB wrote about it last week. In fact, he'd like to see ChatGPT answer "Jarron Rosa" to every question he ever asks it.
The list of those 28 first-team All-Americans in Ivy field hockey history consists of anyone who has been honored even once. There are only three Ivy players who have been first-team All-American three times, and all three of those are Princetonians.
That list would be four, all Princetonians, had Martha Russo not destroyed her knee twice in the early 1980s. She'd already been a two-time first-team All-American by that point and would have been a lock for her senior year, which would have been after she played in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games.
Instead she'd never play an organized sport again. Her "replacement sport" became art, and today is she is a well-respected and well-known sculptor in Colorado.
The first two who did in fact earn three first-team All-American honors were Katie Reinprect and Kat Sharkey, teammates on Princeton's 2012 NCAA championship team. Yeager became the third with yesterday's announcement.
Should Yeager repeat the honor next year, she would become the first ever four-time Ivy League first-team All-American in field hockey. It got TB to thinking about any Princeton athletes who would have been named first-team All-American four times.
He limited this to sports where the honor is voted on, not won by finishes in what could be considered individual sports — such as in swimming and driving, track and field, fencing, golf and squash.
So is there anyone in "team" sports (understanding that the individual sports are very much team sports on the collegiate level)? If there is someone, TB didn't find that person.
If Yeager does manage to be a four-time first-team All-American, she will be truly deserving. You only need to watch her for a few seconds to see just how skilled she is, and if you watch her for 60 minutes, you'll see how fit she is. She elevates everyone around her, even as she is the focal point of every opponent.
If you've never seen field hockey, you need to see her play next year. She will give you a quick education on what a fairly perfect player in the sport looks like.
When TB first saw the All-American list, he was confident that Yeager would be first team after the season she had. It wasn't a lock just because she was an Olympian though — there were five U.S. Olympians who played college field hockey this year and not all of them were first-team All-American.
At the same time, TB was disappointed that Princeton sophomore Ella Cashman was not named to any of the three teams. Cashman played at an All-American level all season, and even with Yeager's greatness, Princeton would not have had the season it did had Cashman not made the jump she did from freshman year to this year.
Cashman has two more chances to be honored. Yeager has one more to make history.
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