Near the beginning, Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack asked everyone who was at a staff meeting for the first time to come forward. TigerBlog was on the end of his row in the stands, and he had to get up into the aisle to let someone in his row head down.
As he stood there, someone behind him who was also walking down paused to let TB go in front of him.
"First meeting?" he said to TB.
That made TB chuckle.
In the world of college athletics, there will be always be turnover year over year. It's the nature of things. There was a time (a long time ago) when it was in fact TB's first meeting. These days, there are only a handful of people who have been here longer than he has.
In fact, he's pretty sure there's only football coach Steve Verbit, ticket officer Stephanie Sutton and women's open rowing coach Lori Dauphiny. TB and women's squash coach Gail Ramsay are tied, since they started on the same day.
The parade of new faces was great to see. Most, but not all, are early in their careers. Others are new to Princeton but not the world of college sports.
One face that TB was glad to see there was that of Alex Henn, his Office of Athletic Communications colleague. Alex is in Year 3 at Princeton, after she graduated from Georgetown.
Why single her out? It's because she was recently promoted.
Elliott Carr recently left the OAC to become the Assistant AD for Strategic Communication at some other school somewhere, a school where he traded his orange and black for green. Given that Elliott stands 6-6, that makes him truly representative of the Big Green of his new employer, Dartmouth.
Even though he left for an Ivy League rival, Elliott deserves a few words of praise from TigerBlog, especially since there haven't been too many nicer people who ever walked into Jadwin Gym. He came to Princeton single and left for Hanover with his wife Colleen and son Leon.
No matter where his career takes him or whatever big events he gets to experience, it's likely — or actually almost a certainty — that he'll never have anything that matches his time with the Princeton men's basketball team during its run to the 2023 Sweet 16. Elliott was the men's basketball contact for that magical ride, and he was a great representative of Princeton in every way.
TB wishes him the best in Hanover. It was great to work with someone so upbeat, friendly, willing to help and easy going.
To nobody's surprise, Alex has been promoted into Elliott's spot. Many of the same things that TB said about Elliott apply to her (other than the fact that she's more than a foot shorter).
From Day 1 Alex has shown the same kind of work ethic as Elliott. She also has the qualities that you need to have to be successful in this field, which certainly isn't for everyone. And TB isn't talking just talking about the skills for the job.
Alex in some ways reminds TB of himself with the way she walks the fine line of being the biggest fan of her teams while also having enough professional distance to not be a cheerleader. It's a difficult balance, and she does it extraordinarily well.
It's been nearly 40 years since TigerBlog first started covering Princeton Athletics during his newspaper days. This is Year 33 of being on the University payroll.
If you asked him all those years ago if he could see himself at Princeton in 2026, he would have said "yes" in a heartbeat. He sort of said that to Alex the other day, that she could, if she wanted, have the same longevity here. She certainly has all the components for it, as well as an innate leadership quality that might one day take her into the administration once she has more experience.
Can she see herself at Princeton 30 or so years from now? That would be 2056. That's a pretty big projection.
For now, she has a very well deserved promotion, for which TB congratulates her.
Princeton Athletics is very lucky to have her.
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