The Tiger Bech Story

It doesn't take long to figure out that Michelle Bech is a wonderful person.

TigerBlog found that out Monday morning, when he met her in Philadelphia. She is warm, friendly, welcoming and pretty much any other positive quality you would assign to a person.

And TB can't help but think that he would much rather have never met her at all. 

The reason he was in Philadelphia was to interview Michelle, and former Princeton football player Ryan Quigley, about another former Princeton football player, Tiger Bech. Tragically, horrifically, Bech was one of the 14 people who were murdered in New Orleans in the attack in the early morning hours of New Year's Day. 

Quigley, who was Tiger's best friend, was one of the nearly 60 who were injured. 

The result of the interview of the two of them was a story that TB posted on goprincetontigers.com yesterday. It's title was a quote from Michelle about her son: "He was the energy of love in the universe."

You can read the story HERE.

This is how it starts: 

How do you write the unwritable? How do you sit across the table for an hour from the two of them — the mother who lost her son two weeks earlier and the best friend who lost half of himself, with the half that’s left battered, both mind and body? 

How do you convey their emotions? How do you sit and watch two people who use every ounce of effort to support each other, seemingly melting together, an invisible and yet obvious halo of grief that binds them?

Maybe that’s the whole story. Maybe all that should be written is an apology, a plea for forgiveness for interfering at a time like this.

Look across the table, though. Look closely. Listen to what they say. See their faces as they say it. Suddenly it becomes obvious that the two people sitting there need this, want this. They want this story told, the story of Tiger Bech, who he was in life — “the best person I’ve ever met, with the biggest heart I’ve ever seen,” his best friend said  — and who he is in death — “the energy of love in the universe,” his mother says.

To say that it was difficult to speak with Michelle and Quigley is an understatement. This was two weeks to the day when Tiger was killed, and now TB was asking them questions about him and about what had happened. 

It was the single most emotional interview that TB has ever done. How could it not be, right? 

TigerBlog's hope is that the story he wrote brings some comfort to those who knew Tiger well. 

TB is not one of the people who knew Tiger Bech well, or at all. He saw him play football many times, but he never spoke to him, at least not that he remembers. 

For TB, it was also a chance to get to know the man who was taken away so soon, at the age of 27. The picture that was painted for him of Bech was an extraordinary one. 

Bech came into focus through the words of his mother and best friend, and also through the pictures and the videos that they shared. Clearly, this was someone who lived life to the absolute fullest. 

There were quotes about his zeal for life, and for how much he loved the people close to him. He was a person who made friends easily and was loyal to them forever. He was someone who brought people together, especially those who found themselves on the outside, or were by themselves, or weren't the social force that he was. 

There were pictures of him in football uniform, and in tuxedos — lots of tuxedos. There he was, at events with his family and hanging out with his friends. 

His smile was the constant in all of these pictures. You could almost expect him to leap off the screen at you with how much life he projected in all of the photos.

The most touching one was a video of him as he was duck hunting in Mississippi, just hours before his death. Michelle was wary of sharing it at first, because there was a curse or two in it. 

More than that, way more than that, there was also the Tiger Bech that she wants to remember. He is happy. He is laughing. He is in his element, and not the duck blind. 

His element was anywhere there were other people. His element was anywhere that a good time could be had, a new experience could be shared, an adventure could be undertaken. 

As TB wrote in the story, you couldn't help but be drawn to the man in the video — only that man is now gone. 

There are no words to change that.