One of the challenging parts for TigerBlog each day is coming up with a headline for TigerBlog.
The headlines on goprincetontigers.com are pretty straightforward. They run towards the bland, usually something like "Princeton Hosts Harvard" or "Smith Leads Tigers To Win."
Of course, if you read the headline on goprincetontigers.com, you have a basic idea of what follows. TigerBlog, on the other hand, is different.
The headline is supposed to tease a bit without giving away the whole point of the story. The goal is to make the reader curious about where it's going that day and thus want to read it.
TB is a veteran headline writer, going back to his days in the newspaper business, and he has a long history with the art of writing interesting headlines.
This morning brought two interesting headline attempts, one of which falls under the heading of "highly optimistic" and another that is a bit more thought provoking.
The first was from a college website, and it mentioned that its golf team "takes second in dual" versus its opponent that day.
The second came off of CoSIDA's website and refers to a statement made by the chief marketing officer for NASCAR:
"COMMENTARY: NASCAR seeks communications professional, insults entire sports athletic PR profession."
The story talks about how NASCAR is looking to significantly expand its communications arm and how the organization is looking to hire a communications director and as many as 20 staff members. NASCAR currently has 25 people in media relations.
The offensive part, or supposedly offensive part, is this:
The chief communications officer most likely will come from outside of motorsports and could come from outside the sports industry, Phelps said, and will be someone with broad consumer marketing communications experience on global brands.
“This is not going to be an SID from somewhere,” [CMO Steve] Phelps said. “This will be a leader in the communications business in strategic thinking, creativity, someone who’s a proven and trusted brand thinker.”
This led to a response on a blog by a professor of recreation and sport management at the University of Arkansas named Steve Dittmore, who points out that more and more SIDs are being elevated into strategic roles.
TigerBlog was a tad offended by the original comment, because it clearly demeans the profession that TB has been in for nearly two decades. The whole point of the original comment was to imply that the NASCAR job is going to be far above what it is that SIDs in college athletics regularly do - and if one cares to extrapolate, what they're capable of doing.
For starters, TB is pretty sure that there is not one part of the new job responsibilities that NASCAR is going to come up with that many SIDs that TB knows couldn't handle.
At the same time, the comment does raise a big issue in the college athletic communications field: How are those in sports information evolving to make themselves as relevant as possible in the changing media world?
TigerBlog often refers to the Inside Lacrosse multimedia model. IL started out essentially as a newsletter and then magazine. Now it is its own complete lacrosse media universe, with a printed publication and a website that is stocked with video, audio, blogs, other original text, merchandising and every other type of communications.
The result was the launch one year ago today (or maybe yesterday; TB can't remember exactly) of goprincetontigers.tv, as well as the successful TigerCast podcasting series that originated last year.
As TB has often said, when he first started at Princeton, the OAC was about 97% a media relations outlet. Today, it's about 3% a media relations organization and about 97% a media relations outlet.
This evolution has strong ties into marketing, fundraising for Friends' groups and development, branding, corporate sponsorship and any number of other areas that fall under the heading of revenue generation, as well as the equally important areas of student-athlete experience, athletic integration on campus and other areas that can be housed under the broad umbrella of "Education Through Athletics."
Because of this, the OAC has become a critical element of the department's strategic planning.
In other words, the days when the top priority was writing a post-event release and faxing it to the media are long gone.
The comment by the NASCAR CMO is on some levels offensive to those in sports information. For the most part, though, it's thought-provoking.
Sports information offices all over the country need to ask themselves what they've done to make themselves as relevant as possible in their athletic department. The media world is changing everyday; sports information needs to keep up, or the answer to the question will be self-fulfilling.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Still Here
TigerBlog's daily arrival at work ritual goes something like this:
1) turn on the lights
2) turn on the little fan next to his desk, a fan, which, by the way, dates back to his college dorm rooms
3) get a diet peach Snapple out of the fridge and replace it with another one
4) check some basic information on the web, including who won the Padres' game the night before (not the Pads, who enter September with a dwindling lead on the Giants), some fair and balanced news headlines, the Ivy League message board, a lacrosse site or two, that kind of stuff
5) get to work
So imagine this morning when the first name that TB saw in his stroll through the web was that of Jamie Zaninovich, commissioner of the West Coast Conference.
Jamie's league is in the headlines for scoring a major coup in the world of conference realignment when the WCC took in BYU for all sports other than football, which the WCC doesn't have anyway. BYU is one of the top non-BCS schools in the country, and its presence immediately raises the profile of the league, especially in basketball.
As for BYU, it enters a league that's already way more competitive in basketball than the Mountain West (its current league) or the WAC (a possible option BYU had considered). It's also a nice fit with the existing schools in that it is a private school with a strong religious affiliation, though BYU's enrollment is higher than the next four schools combined.
Before Zaninovich became the commissioner of the West Coast Conference, he oversaw many external operations here at Princeton.
Since TB started working at Princeton, he's seen many co-workers go on to other positions all over the country. Among that group is George VanderZwaag (now the Director of Athletics at Rochester), Jim Fiore (AD at Stony Brook), Jim McLaughlin (AD at Union) and Michael Cross (AD at Bradley), in addition to Zaninovich. Amy Campbell became the AD at Bryn Mawr, and she is now back at Princeton working out of athletics in Nassau Hall. Chuck Yrigoyen used to work here in the OAC, and he is now the commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, with a long tenure in the Ivy League in between.
As an aside, the new 4,200-seat Bradley Arena has just opened as the home for the Braves' women's volleyball and women's basketball teams, as well as a practice home for the men's basketball team. It came at a cost of $55 million and would be a perfect fit, at least according to TigerBlog, on this campus as well.
Back at today's subject, beyond just the ones who have gone to become ADs and to run conferences, there have been all kinds of people who have gone on to administrative and coaching positions at other schools after working here at Princeton.
On the other hand, there is also a long list of those who haven't left.
TigerBlog and Director of Athletics Gary Walters started on essentially the same day. In the 17 years since, the entire athletic administration of Princeton has turned over several times, with the exception of Senior Associate AD for Finance Inge Radice, event manager Karen Malec and facilities/grounds director Jeff Graydon, who have all been here long than TB and GW.
There are others who were already here when TB showed up, including ticket manager Stephanie Sutton, travel coordinator Phyllis Chase and others like Nancy Donigan (compliance/awards), Gary Mosley (equipment staff), Stacie Traube (football) and Carol Weston (administrative assistance). TB is sure he's probably forgetting someone, and for that he apologizes.
As for coaches, there are nine (eight head coaches and one assistant) who predate TB and another (Gail Ramsay, women's squash, who started on the same day as TB and Gary. Again, apologies if that is incorrect.
The annual department kickoff meeting is next week, and the overwhelming majority of coaches and staff in attendance will have started after TB. When TB looks around the room, will he be able to predict those who will stay for decades and those who will be heading off to newer challenges?
Put another way, if you could go back to the early 1990s and ask TB how long he thought he would be at Princeton, would he have said that he would still be here in 2010? Probably not, but then again, he probably wouldn't have been able to anticipate the radical changes that have occurred in athletic communications in general and Princeton's OAC specifically that have helped keep him here all this time.
The new Princeton athletic year starts in two days. As with every other year, it is a fascinating time for TB, who loves to think of the previous years in review that he's written and how each year is unique. Who knows what direction this one will go in?
Thinking about the people on staff, TB can't say for sure what motivates each one who stays and each one who goes. He can only think about himself.
Princeton Athletics remains an interesting place to be, a place filled with constantly evolving issues to be dealt with, a place with great coworkers and coaches, a place where a huge part of the job is going to game, a place that's just plain fun to work at - and of course place with a neverending stream of amazing young people who come here to compete and to learn.
When TB looks out his office window, he sees a track complex and a football stadium; his office ceiling slants upward as part of the seating area for a basketball arena.
What could be so bad about that?
That's what's kept TB here all these years.
1) turn on the lights
2) turn on the little fan next to his desk, a fan, which, by the way, dates back to his college dorm rooms
3) get a diet peach Snapple out of the fridge and replace it with another one
4) check some basic information on the web, including who won the Padres' game the night before (not the Pads, who enter September with a dwindling lead on the Giants), some fair and balanced news headlines, the Ivy League message board, a lacrosse site or two, that kind of stuff
5) get to work
So imagine this morning when the first name that TB saw in his stroll through the web was that of Jamie Zaninovich, commissioner of the West Coast Conference.
Jamie's league is in the headlines for scoring a major coup in the world of conference realignment when the WCC took in BYU for all sports other than football, which the WCC doesn't have anyway. BYU is one of the top non-BCS schools in the country, and its presence immediately raises the profile of the league, especially in basketball.
As for BYU, it enters a league that's already way more competitive in basketball than the Mountain West (its current league) or the WAC (a possible option BYU had considered). It's also a nice fit with the existing schools in that it is a private school with a strong religious affiliation, though BYU's enrollment is higher than the next four schools combined.
Before Zaninovich became the commissioner of the West Coast Conference, he oversaw many external operations here at Princeton.
Since TB started working at Princeton, he's seen many co-workers go on to other positions all over the country. Among that group is George VanderZwaag (now the Director of Athletics at Rochester), Jim Fiore (AD at Stony Brook), Jim McLaughlin (AD at Union) and Michael Cross (AD at Bradley), in addition to Zaninovich. Amy Campbell became the AD at Bryn Mawr, and she is now back at Princeton working out of athletics in Nassau Hall. Chuck Yrigoyen used to work here in the OAC, and he is now the commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, with a long tenure in the Ivy League in between.
As an aside, the new 4,200-seat Bradley Arena has just opened as the home for the Braves' women's volleyball and women's basketball teams, as well as a practice home for the men's basketball team. It came at a cost of $55 million and would be a perfect fit, at least according to TigerBlog, on this campus as well.
Back at today's subject, beyond just the ones who have gone to become ADs and to run conferences, there have been all kinds of people who have gone on to administrative and coaching positions at other schools after working here at Princeton.
On the other hand, there is also a long list of those who haven't left.
TigerBlog and Director of Athletics Gary Walters started on essentially the same day. In the 17 years since, the entire athletic administration of Princeton has turned over several times, with the exception of Senior Associate AD for Finance Inge Radice, event manager Karen Malec and facilities/grounds director Jeff Graydon, who have all been here long than TB and GW.
There are others who were already here when TB showed up, including ticket manager Stephanie Sutton, travel coordinator Phyllis Chase and others like Nancy Donigan (compliance/awards), Gary Mosley (equipment staff), Stacie Traube (football) and Carol Weston (administrative assistance). TB is sure he's probably forgetting someone, and for that he apologizes.
As for coaches, there are nine (eight head coaches and one assistant) who predate TB and another (Gail Ramsay, women's squash, who started on the same day as TB and Gary. Again, apologies if that is incorrect.
The annual department kickoff meeting is next week, and the overwhelming majority of coaches and staff in attendance will have started after TB. When TB looks around the room, will he be able to predict those who will stay for decades and those who will be heading off to newer challenges?
Put another way, if you could go back to the early 1990s and ask TB how long he thought he would be at Princeton, would he have said that he would still be here in 2010? Probably not, but then again, he probably wouldn't have been able to anticipate the radical changes that have occurred in athletic communications in general and Princeton's OAC specifically that have helped keep him here all this time.
The new Princeton athletic year starts in two days. As with every other year, it is a fascinating time for TB, who loves to think of the previous years in review that he's written and how each year is unique. Who knows what direction this one will go in?
Thinking about the people on staff, TB can't say for sure what motivates each one who stays and each one who goes. He can only think about himself.
Princeton Athletics remains an interesting place to be, a place filled with constantly evolving issues to be dealt with, a place with great coworkers and coaches, a place where a huge part of the job is going to game, a place that's just plain fun to work at - and of course place with a neverending stream of amazing young people who come here to compete and to learn.
When TB looks out his office window, he sees a track complex and a football stadium; his office ceiling slants upward as part of the seating area for a basketball arena.
What could be so bad about that?
That's what's kept TB here all these years.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A Tale Of Two Soccer Coaches
TigerBlog saw a headline that read: "Bradley Resigns As U.S. Soccer Coach" and immediately thought he had resigned, not resigned.
Resigned, as in, "quit," rather than resigned, as in "put his signature on a contract extension."
Even now, TB is pretty sure that he's missing something as far as "resign" and "resign" are concerned. Is he spelling something wrong?
Anyway, the Bradley in question is Bob Bradley, who is the head coach of the U.S. men's national soccer team. Bradley, of course, is a Princeton grad and the former head coach of the Princeton men's team who took the Tigers to the 1993 NCAA Final Four.
Bradley was named interim coach of the U.S. team in 2006 and then was named permanent coach when Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German national coach, wouldn't agree to take the American job.
Bradley then led the U.S. to first place in the Concacaf group of World Cup qualifying. At the 2010 event in South Africa, the U.S. team won its group, finishing first against England, Slovenia and Algeria, before falling in the Round of 16 against Ghana.
Along the way, the American team generated considerable rooting interest among casual American sports fans, and Landon Donovan's goal against Algeria in the final seconds to give the Americans the group title and advance them to the knockout round is one of the great moments in sports this year.
When the team didn't advance any further, though, there was talk that Bradley might not be back for a run in 2014. In fact, it seemed like he might be headed to Aston Villa in the English Premiere League.
Instead, he's back with the U.S. team, even after Klinsmann's name surfaced again. Bradley's new contract is for four years, which would make him the second coach (along with Bruce Arena) to take the U.S. to two World Cups if he can navigate qualifying for the 2014 event in Brazil.
Bradley's "resigning" was national and international news in the soccer world. Unfortunately, he was not the only soccer coach with strong Mercer County roots to make news yesterday.
Brin Welsh, known to many as "Maynard," was the boys' soccer coach at West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School for nearly 30 years, with a record of 344-180-48. He was also a social studies teacher at the school.
TB, like so many who knew him well, were stunned by the news that he had taken his own life Sunday at the age of 51. There were many details that were in the various reports that can be read about his marital problems and other issues, all of which led him to the train tracks in Hamilton over the weekend.
TigerBlog, back in a previous life, coached freshman and jayvee baseball at West Windsor-Plainsboro, where he got to know Maynard, who got his nickname from Maynard G Krebs from the "Dobbie Gillis" TV show. Maynard G Krebs was played by Bob Denver, who was also Gilligan from "Gilligan's Island."
This Maynard, like that Maynard, was, as Rich Fisher wrote today, "a trip." When TB read Fish's piece on Maynard, he was looking for the story that both of them told about the time when they were high school kids that Maynard dumped a milk shake on Fish in a McDonald's.
While at WWP, Maynard sent several players to Princeton, including Scott and Shawn Pierson and Mike Nugent, and he coached against current Tiger head men's coach Jim Barlow when he was a player at Hightstown High and women's assistant coach Ron Celestin when he was the boys' coach at Princeton High.
Through the years, Maynard was a semi-regular at Princeton games, in soccer and other sports.
TigerBlog never saw Maynard when he wasn't smiling, wasn't laughing, wasn't telling stories, wasn't making everyone around him laugh. He was a completely engaging man, one you never got tired of seeing, one who always seemed to be having fun and helping everyone else around do the same. He told great stories, and everyone had great stories about Maynard.
When TB found out that he was gone, he was shocked at first, like everyone else must have been. But when he thought back to the Maynard he knew - and not the one who went through such a rough time at the end - TigerBlog couldn't help but smile and laugh as he remembered his old friend.
Even as he writes this, TigerBlog isn't sure if he should be laughing or crying, and he's pretty sure the Maynard he knew would come up to him, put his arm around him like he always would and say something like "it's okay to remember the fun parts."
When TigerBlog thinks back about Brian Welsh through the years, those fun parts are what he'll remember.
Two of TB's favorite soccer coaches made the news yesterday, one for all the best reasons and one for the worst of them all. Best of luck to Bob Bradley as he moves forward with the U.S. team; best wishes to the family and many, many friends of Brian Welsh.
Resigned, as in, "quit," rather than resigned, as in "put his signature on a contract extension."
Even now, TB is pretty sure that he's missing something as far as "resign" and "resign" are concerned. Is he spelling something wrong?
Anyway, the Bradley in question is Bob Bradley, who is the head coach of the U.S. men's national soccer team. Bradley, of course, is a Princeton grad and the former head coach of the Princeton men's team who took the Tigers to the 1993 NCAA Final Four.
Bradley was named interim coach of the U.S. team in 2006 and then was named permanent coach when Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German national coach, wouldn't agree to take the American job.
Bradley then led the U.S. to first place in the Concacaf group of World Cup qualifying. At the 2010 event in South Africa, the U.S. team won its group, finishing first against England, Slovenia and Algeria, before falling in the Round of 16 against Ghana.
Along the way, the American team generated considerable rooting interest among casual American sports fans, and Landon Donovan's goal against Algeria in the final seconds to give the Americans the group title and advance them to the knockout round is one of the great moments in sports this year.
When the team didn't advance any further, though, there was talk that Bradley might not be back for a run in 2014. In fact, it seemed like he might be headed to Aston Villa in the English Premiere League.
Instead, he's back with the U.S. team, even after Klinsmann's name surfaced again. Bradley's new contract is for four years, which would make him the second coach (along with Bruce Arena) to take the U.S. to two World Cups if he can navigate qualifying for the 2014 event in Brazil.
Bradley's "resigning" was national and international news in the soccer world. Unfortunately, he was not the only soccer coach with strong Mercer County roots to make news yesterday.
Brin Welsh, known to many as "Maynard," was the boys' soccer coach at West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School for nearly 30 years, with a record of 344-180-48. He was also a social studies teacher at the school.
TB, like so many who knew him well, were stunned by the news that he had taken his own life Sunday at the age of 51. There were many details that were in the various reports that can be read about his marital problems and other issues, all of which led him to the train tracks in Hamilton over the weekend.
TigerBlog, back in a previous life, coached freshman and jayvee baseball at West Windsor-Plainsboro, where he got to know Maynard, who got his nickname from Maynard G Krebs from the "Dobbie Gillis" TV show. Maynard G Krebs was played by Bob Denver, who was also Gilligan from "Gilligan's Island."
This Maynard, like that Maynard, was, as Rich Fisher wrote today, "a trip." When TB read Fish's piece on Maynard, he was looking for the story that both of them told about the time when they were high school kids that Maynard dumped a milk shake on Fish in a McDonald's.
While at WWP, Maynard sent several players to Princeton, including Scott and Shawn Pierson and Mike Nugent, and he coached against current Tiger head men's coach Jim Barlow when he was a player at Hightstown High and women's assistant coach Ron Celestin when he was the boys' coach at Princeton High.
Through the years, Maynard was a semi-regular at Princeton games, in soccer and other sports.
TigerBlog never saw Maynard when he wasn't smiling, wasn't laughing, wasn't telling stories, wasn't making everyone around him laugh. He was a completely engaging man, one you never got tired of seeing, one who always seemed to be having fun and helping everyone else around do the same. He told great stories, and everyone had great stories about Maynard.
When TB found out that he was gone, he was shocked at first, like everyone else must have been. But when he thought back to the Maynard he knew - and not the one who went through such a rough time at the end - TigerBlog couldn't help but smile and laugh as he remembered his old friend.
Even as he writes this, TigerBlog isn't sure if he should be laughing or crying, and he's pretty sure the Maynard he knew would come up to him, put his arm around him like he always would and say something like "it's okay to remember the fun parts."
When TigerBlog thinks back about Brian Welsh through the years, those fun parts are what he'll remember.
Two of TB's favorite soccer coaches made the news yesterday, one for all the best reasons and one for the worst of them all. Best of luck to Bob Bradley as he moves forward with the U.S. team; best wishes to the family and many, many friends of Brian Welsh.
Monday, August 30, 2010
A One Hour MRI
TigerBlog has had a few MRIs in his life, including two on his neck. If you've never had an MRI on your upper body, it's a real treat.
Basically, you lie on your back and then get sent into the tube, which is no more than an inch from your face. If they're checking for certain things, you could be strapped in, which makes it even more fun.
TB isn't sure if he was claustrophobic before his first MRI; he's positive he was claustrophobic after it was over. From a realistic standpoint, there was plenty of air in the tube, and TB remembers thinking that he was only a few feet from being outside. From a "this is freaking TB out" perspective, the MRI felt like being buried alive.
When TigerBlog read the story of the 33 miners who are trapped 2,300 feet below the ground in Chile, his first thought was that he couldn't possibly imagine how he would last for five minutes, let alone for what they are going through.
For those who haven't followed the story, the miners became trapped on Aug. 5, but they were able to find refuge in an area big enough to accommodate them. They had enough food to last two days, but they were able to make it last until last week, when the mining company was able to reach them through three small holes. These holes have been used to establish communications with the men, as well as provide them with food, water and other supplies.
The three holes have enabled the men to film and send to the surface two videos, which show them to be in a unbelievably good spirits, especially considering their situation. One miner even sent a marriage proposal through the video.
There is a difference between being found and being rescued, though. The men will now have to wait until holes large enough to bring them to the surface can be drilled, and they will have to help out by moving tons of rocks out of the way.
In the end, they'll be raised through the holes, which will require them to have waistlines of 35 inches or smaller. As one person put it on the radio this morning, it'll be like being in a "one hour MRI." The trip from the mine to the surface will take each miner one full hour.
Oh, and it's going to take three to four months to dig the hole, which means that rescue will be sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
TigerBlog can't fathom it. He's 100% sure he'd flip out long before then.
To put that it a bit of perspective, these miners will have been trapped for nearly a month before Princeton plays its first athletic events of the year, and they'll still be trapped when the fall season is over.
Princeton has 38 varsity teams, of which nine play in the fall, 13 play in the winter (including men's volleyball, which starts in late January and goes into the spring) and 16 play in the spring.
The fall season begins Friday, when the women's soccer team and women's volleyball team compete. By the end of the weekend, men's soccer and field hockey will also have played, with men's water polo to follow shortly after that. Cross country, football and sprint football will then get under way.
Despite having fewer teams compete, the fall held its own a year ago, with two NCAA Final Four teams (field hockey, men's water polo), two Ivy League champions (field hockey, women's cross country) and two other NCAA participants (women's cross country, which finished fifth out of 340 in Division I, and men's soccer). Men's cross country fell one point short of an Ivy League championship, and women's soccer started seven freshmen one year after its seventh NCAA appearance in 11 years.
The fall is a great time, with the oppressive late-summer heat lifting and plenty of outdoor events played in perfect weather. After having no Princeton athletic events since early June, there are 60 in the month of September alone.
The fall of 2010 at Princeton has all kinds of storylines:
* how will the Tiger football team look under new head coach Bob Surace and his staff, and how will Jordan Culbreath do in his return?
* will the field hockey team return to the Final Four and possibly go even further?
* after back-to-back fifth place finishes in Division I, how will the women's cross country team handle some key graduation losses? Will the men be able to make up that missing point?
* the men's and women's soccer teams both have a ton of returning young talent. Will they both be playing in the postseason?
* how will volleyball do in Jolie Ward's second year?
* can the men's water polo team match last year's postseason run?
The fall is filled with "circle the date" events, including big games across all of the sports. One gamethat TB is looking forward to with great anticipation is Oct. 8 on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, when the sprint football team takes on first-year program Post from Connecticut.
The start of the fall sports season is only four days away. The rescue of the miners in Chile is three to four months away.
TB will be keeping them in his thoughts.
Basically, you lie on your back and then get sent into the tube, which is no more than an inch from your face. If they're checking for certain things, you could be strapped in, which makes it even more fun.
TB isn't sure if he was claustrophobic before his first MRI; he's positive he was claustrophobic after it was over. From a realistic standpoint, there was plenty of air in the tube, and TB remembers thinking that he was only a few feet from being outside. From a "this is freaking TB out" perspective, the MRI felt like being buried alive.
When TigerBlog read the story of the 33 miners who are trapped 2,300 feet below the ground in Chile, his first thought was that he couldn't possibly imagine how he would last for five minutes, let alone for what they are going through.
For those who haven't followed the story, the miners became trapped on Aug. 5, but they were able to find refuge in an area big enough to accommodate them. They had enough food to last two days, but they were able to make it last until last week, when the mining company was able to reach them through three small holes. These holes have been used to establish communications with the men, as well as provide them with food, water and other supplies.
The three holes have enabled the men to film and send to the surface two videos, which show them to be in a unbelievably good spirits, especially considering their situation. One miner even sent a marriage proposal through the video.
There is a difference between being found and being rescued, though. The men will now have to wait until holes large enough to bring them to the surface can be drilled, and they will have to help out by moving tons of rocks out of the way.
In the end, they'll be raised through the holes, which will require them to have waistlines of 35 inches or smaller. As one person put it on the radio this morning, it'll be like being in a "one hour MRI." The trip from the mine to the surface will take each miner one full hour.
Oh, and it's going to take three to four months to dig the hole, which means that rescue will be sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
TigerBlog can't fathom it. He's 100% sure he'd flip out long before then.
To put that it a bit of perspective, these miners will have been trapped for nearly a month before Princeton plays its first athletic events of the year, and they'll still be trapped when the fall season is over.
Princeton has 38 varsity teams, of which nine play in the fall, 13 play in the winter (including men's volleyball, which starts in late January and goes into the spring) and 16 play in the spring.
The fall season begins Friday, when the women's soccer team and women's volleyball team compete. By the end of the weekend, men's soccer and field hockey will also have played, with men's water polo to follow shortly after that. Cross country, football and sprint football will then get under way.
Despite having fewer teams compete, the fall held its own a year ago, with two NCAA Final Four teams (field hockey, men's water polo), two Ivy League champions (field hockey, women's cross country) and two other NCAA participants (women's cross country, which finished fifth out of 340 in Division I, and men's soccer). Men's cross country fell one point short of an Ivy League championship, and women's soccer started seven freshmen one year after its seventh NCAA appearance in 11 years.
The fall is a great time, with the oppressive late-summer heat lifting and plenty of outdoor events played in perfect weather. After having no Princeton athletic events since early June, there are 60 in the month of September alone.
The fall of 2010 at Princeton has all kinds of storylines:
* how will the Tiger football team look under new head coach Bob Surace and his staff, and how will Jordan Culbreath do in his return?
* will the field hockey team return to the Final Four and possibly go even further?
* after back-to-back fifth place finishes in Division I, how will the women's cross country team handle some key graduation losses? Will the men be able to make up that missing point?
* the men's and women's soccer teams both have a ton of returning young talent. Will they both be playing in the postseason?
* how will volleyball do in Jolie Ward's second year?
* can the men's water polo team match last year's postseason run?
The fall is filled with "circle the date" events, including big games across all of the sports. One gamethat TB is looking forward to with great anticipation is Oct. 8 on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, when the sprint football team takes on first-year program Post from Connecticut.
The start of the fall sports season is only four days away. The rescue of the miners in Chile is three to four months away.
TB will be keeping them in his thoughts.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Part II
TigerBlog gets somewhat freaked out anytime he watches "The Silence Of The Lambs," especially the part where Buffalo Bill says: "It rubs the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose."
The first time he saw the original version of "The Hitcher," which ended around 11 or so (this was back in the mid-'80s, so the exact time is a bit vague), TB stayed up until around 2 a.m. watching reruns of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" on Nickelodeon before he was calmed down enough to go to sleep.
For sheer scared-out-of-your-mind fictional terror, though, nothing TB has ever seen compares to the episode of the old TV show "Superman" when the Mole Men came out of the giant oil well.
The basic premise was that the world's deepest oil well is drilled in a small town, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane head off to check it out for the Daily Planet. What nobody realizes is that the well was dug so deep that it entered the home of the mole men, who are short and hairy with giant heads.
Anyway, the mole men come up through the hole into the town, where they terrorize the locals (inadvertently). Eventually, Superman saves the day for everyone, but not before one of the mole men is shot, the rest of the mole men break out their special weapon to get revenge and ultimately the well is destroyed by the mole men after they return to their hole.
After the first time TB saw it, he got in trouble because he told his friend Anthony Morelli from down the block that the mole men were going to come out in his backyard that night, and Anthony never got to sleep. Even this very day, TB got the chills a bit from seeing a picture of the mole men after a Google search.
The episode was scary enough, but it was even worse when the first 30 minutes were ending and it became clear that this would be a "to be continued ..." situation. How cruel was that?
It was a lot crueler than when TigerBlog finished off yesterday's Part I on the marketing of Princeton athletics.
As a quick recap, TB asked some basic questions about marketing, mostly focusing on the idea of whether or not there is a huge untapped audience out there that would attend Princeton sporting events or if that audience is tapped and Princeton is drawing at what could be considered a successful rate.
Through the years, Princeton has operated under the assumption that there are all kinds of people out there who would come to events here (ticketed and non-ticketed) and that all we have to do is figure out the best way to reach them.
To that end, we have tried essentially everything, never really sticking with anything for long. Big fancy color printed pieces featuring the top players that get mailed out. No, wait, feature the kids at the game and the experience of attending the game and not the players themselves and then print it and mail it out. No wait, print it but stuff it in local newspapers.
No, that's not right. It's all about schedule cards, simple information, saturating the area. No, forget all that and try getting into a mailer like Valpak. Don't print it at all. Send it electronically. Put it on the web.
Cut prices. Raise prices. Stress season tickets. Forget season tickets. Stress groups sales. Faculty and staff. No, students. No, make it local families with kids.
Focus on the tradition of Princeton athletics. No, don't do that. Make it all about the future.
Slogans? We've had a million of them, it seems. "We Want Your Tail In Our Seats." Remember that one? Or this was a good one: "Football. Family. Friends. For $5." Or how about: "Getting Into Princeton Has Never Been Easier?" And on and on.
And then how to approach it? Pour all of the resources into football and market the other sports from there. No, don't do that. Treat everyone equally.
We need print ads in newspaper. No, we need radio spots. No, we need TV. Or a billboard. Yeah, a big one on the Turnpike. No, we don't need third-party advertising at all. We need databases that we can target directly.
And money? There's no money for a TV commercial, but nobody realizes how much it costs to mail out a brochure to 60,000 people or so.
And in the end, what affect did any of it have? Has it, as current Bradley Director of Athletics Michael Cross used to say during his Princeton days, "moved the needle?" Sometimes TigerBlog has wondered if it would be better just to take the money spent on all these different ideas, go up to Nassau Street and pay people $5 each to go to a game.
One area that we have been severely limited in has been market research. There have been, in the last 23 years (one in 1987, one in 1998), two efforts that TB knows about to gain information about fan interest and behavior towards Princeton athletics.
In reading through those two, the basic conclusion is this: There are hundreds of thousands of people who can't wait to come to games at Princeton, if only the people at Princeton could figure out how to reach them.
And so, clearly, Princeton has tried to reach them.
This past summer, Princeton had an intern named Dan Coleman, who was here as part of a class at Temple. While here, Coleman was part of a group that put together two surveys, one to be emailed out and another for a face-to-face "can-I-ask-you-a-few-questions" audience.
The emailed one went to 17,000 people, a group that included ticket buyers, local youth sports groups, summer camp participants, people who had expressed interest in Princeton on the website and others. Of those 17,000, 216 filled out the survey, which isn't quite a huge feedback but is still better than nothing.
Princeton also requested permission from seven local places (malls, movie theaters) to do its face-to-face interviews, and the only one to agree was the QuakerBridge Mall. Coleman spent four hours there and was able to interview 97 people.
So, scientific or not, Princeton had some feedback. And what did it show?
Let's start with the QuakerBridge group, which was more random than the email group, which consisted of people who had at least some level of connection to Princeton.
Among the more interesting responses among the 97 surveyed:
* 70% didn't realize that Princeton had 38 sports
* 86% didn't realize that 33 of those 38 sports charge no admission
* 81% didn't realize that Princeton charges $30 for season football tickets and $8 for single game
* 39% (by far the highest total) said that game time was the No. 1 factor in determining whether or not they would attend.
In other words, this appears to support the idea that Princeton has not reached the audience out there. It also says that Princeton is competing against kids' games, activities and other events for fans, as TB interprets the answer of "game time" to mean "a time that doesn't conflict with what we're doing."
Of the emailed group, just under 50% lived within 30 miles of Princeton, including 36% who said they lived 0-15 miles from the campus. It also appeared to be an older group, as 74% said that they had children and 62% of that group had children over 16.
Interestingly, 68% of those who responded were not alums.
This group, unlike the other, had nearly 60% who realized that Princeton does not charge admission for most of its events. Nearly 85% had been to at least one Princeton football game, and 50% had attended more than five in the last five years (28% had attended more than 10). More than 60% said they like to watch college football on TV.
In terms of ticket prices for football, 57% thought Princeton season tickets were at least $50, with 33% who said they were at least $75. In terms of staying in touch with Princeton, more than 70% go to goprincetontigers.com more than once a week.
The issue of game times for this group was also interesting, in that 61% liked the idea of having football games start at 1. Logic, at least applied by TB, suggests that this runs completely contrary to what the other group was saying, in that 1 p.m. games are probably in direct competition with the majority of the kids' activities that prevent that group from attending.
For the email group, time of game ranked fourth among the most important considerations of attending. Watching the game itself was first, followed by weather and then ease of parking.
The email group also was asked for general comments, if they wished. Among them:
* "we love the 6 p.m. starts for basketball on Saturdays. Is it possible to move them even earlier?"
* "can you move the basketball start times on Saturday back to 7 or even 8?"
Some love the band; others hate the band. In other words, you can't please everyone.
On the other hand, several comments referred to the great atmosphere for kids at games and how much they love attending, and this is really up there near the top of what Princeton's goals are for its events.
So after all this, do we have any answers to our questions? Is there really this huge untapped audience out there, and is the onus on us to figure out how to reach it?
Or is attendance here at the top end of what the market will support?
TigerBlog, along with the rest of Princeton athletics, has no clear answer.
On the other hand, TB feels that after everything that's been tried through the years, the answer to the most effective way to market the 38 teams is by putting on the best possible events for the local community and then letting them know about the affordability (or in the case of 33 sports, the lack of admission charge) and accessibility of Princeton University.
And then develop reliable databases for people who are interested in each particular sport, and then contact them directly. Let them know what event is coming up, and have that come directly to their inbox. Combine this with a strong presence on Facebook, and don't rely on newspaper ads or radio spots or other things that might be expensive.
That, for 2010-11, is the focus. And if that doesn't work, hey, we can always start over.
We've done it before. Many times.
Question: Is there a huge audience out there that wants to come to Princeton games and just hasn't learned about them?
TigerBlog has no idea.
The first time he saw the original version of "The Hitcher," which ended around 11 or so (this was back in the mid-'80s, so the exact time is a bit vague), TB stayed up until around 2 a.m. watching reruns of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" on Nickelodeon before he was calmed down enough to go to sleep.
For sheer scared-out-of-your-mind fictional terror, though, nothing TB has ever seen compares to the episode of the old TV show "Superman" when the Mole Men came out of the giant oil well.
The basic premise was that the world's deepest oil well is drilled in a small town, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane head off to check it out for the Daily Planet. What nobody realizes is that the well was dug so deep that it entered the home of the mole men, who are short and hairy with giant heads.
Anyway, the mole men come up through the hole into the town, where they terrorize the locals (inadvertently). Eventually, Superman saves the day for everyone, but not before one of the mole men is shot, the rest of the mole men break out their special weapon to get revenge and ultimately the well is destroyed by the mole men after they return to their hole.
After the first time TB saw it, he got in trouble because he told his friend Anthony Morelli from down the block that the mole men were going to come out in his backyard that night, and Anthony never got to sleep. Even this very day, TB got the chills a bit from seeing a picture of the mole men after a Google search.
The episode was scary enough, but it was even worse when the first 30 minutes were ending and it became clear that this would be a "to be continued ..." situation. How cruel was that?
It was a lot crueler than when TigerBlog finished off yesterday's Part I on the marketing of Princeton athletics.
As a quick recap, TB asked some basic questions about marketing, mostly focusing on the idea of whether or not there is a huge untapped audience out there that would attend Princeton sporting events or if that audience is tapped and Princeton is drawing at what could be considered a successful rate.
Through the years, Princeton has operated under the assumption that there are all kinds of people out there who would come to events here (ticketed and non-ticketed) and that all we have to do is figure out the best way to reach them.
To that end, we have tried essentially everything, never really sticking with anything for long. Big fancy color printed pieces featuring the top players that get mailed out. No, wait, feature the kids at the game and the experience of attending the game and not the players themselves and then print it and mail it out. No wait, print it but stuff it in local newspapers.
No, that's not right. It's all about schedule cards, simple information, saturating the area. No, forget all that and try getting into a mailer like Valpak. Don't print it at all. Send it electronically. Put it on the web.
Cut prices. Raise prices. Stress season tickets. Forget season tickets. Stress groups sales. Faculty and staff. No, students. No, make it local families with kids.
Focus on the tradition of Princeton athletics. No, don't do that. Make it all about the future.
Slogans? We've had a million of them, it seems. "We Want Your Tail In Our Seats." Remember that one? Or this was a good one: "Football. Family. Friends. For $5." Or how about: "Getting Into Princeton Has Never Been Easier?" And on and on.
And then how to approach it? Pour all of the resources into football and market the other sports from there. No, don't do that. Treat everyone equally.
We need print ads in newspaper. No, we need radio spots. No, we need TV. Or a billboard. Yeah, a big one on the Turnpike. No, we don't need third-party advertising at all. We need databases that we can target directly.
And money? There's no money for a TV commercial, but nobody realizes how much it costs to mail out a brochure to 60,000 people or so.
And in the end, what affect did any of it have? Has it, as current Bradley Director of Athletics Michael Cross used to say during his Princeton days, "moved the needle?" Sometimes TigerBlog has wondered if it would be better just to take the money spent on all these different ideas, go up to Nassau Street and pay people $5 each to go to a game.
One area that we have been severely limited in has been market research. There have been, in the last 23 years (one in 1987, one in 1998), two efforts that TB knows about to gain information about fan interest and behavior towards Princeton athletics.
In reading through those two, the basic conclusion is this: There are hundreds of thousands of people who can't wait to come to games at Princeton, if only the people at Princeton could figure out how to reach them.
And so, clearly, Princeton has tried to reach them.
This past summer, Princeton had an intern named Dan Coleman, who was here as part of a class at Temple. While here, Coleman was part of a group that put together two surveys, one to be emailed out and another for a face-to-face "can-I-ask-you-a-few-questions" audience.
The emailed one went to 17,000 people, a group that included ticket buyers, local youth sports groups, summer camp participants, people who had expressed interest in Princeton on the website and others. Of those 17,000, 216 filled out the survey, which isn't quite a huge feedback but is still better than nothing.
Princeton also requested permission from seven local places (malls, movie theaters) to do its face-to-face interviews, and the only one to agree was the QuakerBridge Mall. Coleman spent four hours there and was able to interview 97 people.
So, scientific or not, Princeton had some feedback. And what did it show?
Let's start with the QuakerBridge group, which was more random than the email group, which consisted of people who had at least some level of connection to Princeton.
Among the more interesting responses among the 97 surveyed:
* 70% didn't realize that Princeton had 38 sports
* 86% didn't realize that 33 of those 38 sports charge no admission
* 81% didn't realize that Princeton charges $30 for season football tickets and $8 for single game
* 39% (by far the highest total) said that game time was the No. 1 factor in determining whether or not they would attend.
In other words, this appears to support the idea that Princeton has not reached the audience out there. It also says that Princeton is competing against kids' games, activities and other events for fans, as TB interprets the answer of "game time" to mean "a time that doesn't conflict with what we're doing."
Of the emailed group, just under 50% lived within 30 miles of Princeton, including 36% who said they lived 0-15 miles from the campus. It also appeared to be an older group, as 74% said that they had children and 62% of that group had children over 16.
Interestingly, 68% of those who responded were not alums.
This group, unlike the other, had nearly 60% who realized that Princeton does not charge admission for most of its events. Nearly 85% had been to at least one Princeton football game, and 50% had attended more than five in the last five years (28% had attended more than 10). More than 60% said they like to watch college football on TV.
In terms of ticket prices for football, 57% thought Princeton season tickets were at least $50, with 33% who said they were at least $75. In terms of staying in touch with Princeton, more than 70% go to goprincetontigers.com more than once a week.
The issue of game times for this group was also interesting, in that 61% liked the idea of having football games start at 1. Logic, at least applied by TB, suggests that this runs completely contrary to what the other group was saying, in that 1 p.m. games are probably in direct competition with the majority of the kids' activities that prevent that group from attending.
For the email group, time of game ranked fourth among the most important considerations of attending. Watching the game itself was first, followed by weather and then ease of parking.
The email group also was asked for general comments, if they wished. Among them:
* "we love the 6 p.m. starts for basketball on Saturdays. Is it possible to move them even earlier?"
* "can you move the basketball start times on Saturday back to 7 or even 8?"
Some love the band; others hate the band. In other words, you can't please everyone.
On the other hand, several comments referred to the great atmosphere for kids at games and how much they love attending, and this is really up there near the top of what Princeton's goals are for its events.
So after all this, do we have any answers to our questions? Is there really this huge untapped audience out there, and is the onus on us to figure out how to reach it?
Or is attendance here at the top end of what the market will support?
TigerBlog, along with the rest of Princeton athletics, has no clear answer.
On the other hand, TB feels that after everything that's been tried through the years, the answer to the most effective way to market the 38 teams is by putting on the best possible events for the local community and then letting them know about the affordability (or in the case of 33 sports, the lack of admission charge) and accessibility of Princeton University.
And then develop reliable databases for people who are interested in each particular sport, and then contact them directly. Let them know what event is coming up, and have that come directly to their inbox. Combine this with a strong presence on Facebook, and don't rely on newspaper ads or radio spots or other things that might be expensive.
That, for 2010-11, is the focus. And if that doesn't work, hey, we can always start over.
We've done it before. Many times.
Question: Is there a huge audience out there that wants to come to Princeton games and just hasn't learned about them?
TigerBlog has no idea.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
To Be Continued ...
When TigerBlog was a kid, there was nothing worse on TV then the dreaded "to be continued ..." It meant that the show you were watching was going to be spread out over two parts, and you'd have to wait an entire week to find out what happened.
On the TV show "Batman," all of the episodes were either Part I or Part II, so you knew going in for a Part I that it was going to end with Batman and Robin about to be ground up in a huge garbage disposal or sawed in half or something like, and even though you knew they weren't, it still was a pain to have to wait to see how they'd get out of it.
As an aside, think of how many problems the Joker or the Riddler could have saved himself by simply staying there to make sure that the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder actually did get dropped into the vat of acid when the sand ran out, rather than leaving the room and assuming it would happen as planned. The same holds true for James Bond movies, by the way.
And then there were all the shows that didn't usually have a Part I and Part II but every now and then snuck a "to be continued" in on you. Those were even worse than "Batman," because you rarely saw it coming until just before the end, when it became obvious that the story couldn't be wrapped up in time. There was an episode of "Seinfeld" where Jerry talked about this in his monologue.
Anyway, be forewarned. This edition of TigerBlog is the first-ever two-parter.
Today, TigerBlog is asking a few questions. Tomorrow, TB will be looking for some answers.
Here are the questions:
1) Is there a huge untapped audience out there who would attend Princeton sporting events but doesn't because this group doesn't know about them or has misconceptions about them?
2) Is attendance at Princeton sporting events good or bad?
3) What resources, if any and if so in what fashion, should Princeton put into trying to get more people to come to athletic events?
4) Should marketing be focused on the five sports that are ticketed or is it possible to market for 38 sports?
5) What affect is Princeton's marketing effort having?
6) What factors go into the decision to attend a Princeton event? Question 6A can be: Is having a winning team bigger than having a place for a great fan experience?
These are the questions that TB has always wondered about when it comes to Princeton games. Unfortunately, there is no way to definitively answer them.
Start with No. 2. Is attendance good? Depends how you look at it. At sports like football and men's basketball, there are usually more empty seats than filled ones. Is that bad? Or does the fact that there are still a few thousand people at men's basketball and usually near 10,000 (with some games above that total) at football an amazing amount, given the competition for the entertainment dollar and the proliferation of games on television?
The men's hockey team and men's lacrosse teams often approach (and sometimes reach) capacity. Women's basketball is gaining a larger following, and coming off a 26-3 Ivy League championship season with all five starters back, that following figures to at least stay the same or grow.
Here at Princeton, the operating assumption has always been that the answer to question No. 1 is "Yes, of course there are thousands of people out there who would come to Princeton events if they only knew about them."
All of Princeton's marketing efforts through the years have depended on having that answer be correct.
To that end, we've tried basically everything, from targeting different audiences to slashing ticket prices to trying to appeal to youth groups to different ticket packages to anything else. And yet audience doesn't seem to be impacted.
Does this mean the answer to one is No. 1 is no and the answer to No. 5 is none? Or, without the marketing efforts, would attendance fall apart?
Then there's the question about the five ticketed sports or all 38 sports? In this area, TB thinks that the opportunity exists to use emerging technologies to reach directly to specific people who are interested in, say, fencing or water polo. To do so, though, would require taking time away from marketing for the sports that are ticketed and have larger audiences. Is it better to focus energy on them and use attendance at those sports to promote the other teams?
TigerBlog's basic theories are this:
* Attendance is pretty good across the board
* Princeton has tried so many different things to get people to games that it's hard to say if any of it worked and if so what did and what didn't?
* There is evidence to suggest that winning teams do increase attendance, but there are just as many other factors (such as weather, game time, in-game experience, parking, for instance) that have an equal impact
* We should be reaching out to all 38 sports on some level
* We are competing with the movies, birthday parties and youth sports more than anything else in terms of getting people to attend events here
Okay, so those are all the questions. What about the answers? Can they even be found out, and if so, how accurately?
This past summer, Princeton Athletics had a polite young man named Dan who interned here. As part of his internship, he did two surveys, one on-line and one face-to-face, and he compiled what he learned into a 42-page document for his class at Temple.
TB has seen the data and read through the report, which is certainly interesting. Tomorrow, he'll take a look at some of what is out there.
In the meantime, he has to go untie Batman and Robin, before they are catapulted into the machine that will shrink them and freeze them.
In other words, to be continued ...
On the TV show "Batman," all of the episodes were either Part I or Part II, so you knew going in for a Part I that it was going to end with Batman and Robin about to be ground up in a huge garbage disposal or sawed in half or something like, and even though you knew they weren't, it still was a pain to have to wait to see how they'd get out of it.
As an aside, think of how many problems the Joker or the Riddler could have saved himself by simply staying there to make sure that the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder actually did get dropped into the vat of acid when the sand ran out, rather than leaving the room and assuming it would happen as planned. The same holds true for James Bond movies, by the way.
And then there were all the shows that didn't usually have a Part I and Part II but every now and then snuck a "to be continued" in on you. Those were even worse than "Batman," because you rarely saw it coming until just before the end, when it became obvious that the story couldn't be wrapped up in time. There was an episode of "Seinfeld" where Jerry talked about this in his monologue.
Anyway, be forewarned. This edition of TigerBlog is the first-ever two-parter.
Today, TigerBlog is asking a few questions. Tomorrow, TB will be looking for some answers.
Here are the questions:
1) Is there a huge untapped audience out there who would attend Princeton sporting events but doesn't because this group doesn't know about them or has misconceptions about them?
2) Is attendance at Princeton sporting events good or bad?
3) What resources, if any and if so in what fashion, should Princeton put into trying to get more people to come to athletic events?
4) Should marketing be focused on the five sports that are ticketed or is it possible to market for 38 sports?
5) What affect is Princeton's marketing effort having?
6) What factors go into the decision to attend a Princeton event? Question 6A can be: Is having a winning team bigger than having a place for a great fan experience?
These are the questions that TB has always wondered about when it comes to Princeton games. Unfortunately, there is no way to definitively answer them.
Start with No. 2. Is attendance good? Depends how you look at it. At sports like football and men's basketball, there are usually more empty seats than filled ones. Is that bad? Or does the fact that there are still a few thousand people at men's basketball and usually near 10,000 (with some games above that total) at football an amazing amount, given the competition for the entertainment dollar and the proliferation of games on television?
The men's hockey team and men's lacrosse teams often approach (and sometimes reach) capacity. Women's basketball is gaining a larger following, and coming off a 26-3 Ivy League championship season with all five starters back, that following figures to at least stay the same or grow.
Here at Princeton, the operating assumption has always been that the answer to question No. 1 is "Yes, of course there are thousands of people out there who would come to Princeton events if they only knew about them."
All of Princeton's marketing efforts through the years have depended on having that answer be correct.
To that end, we've tried basically everything, from targeting different audiences to slashing ticket prices to trying to appeal to youth groups to different ticket packages to anything else. And yet audience doesn't seem to be impacted.
Does this mean the answer to one is No. 1 is no and the answer to No. 5 is none? Or, without the marketing efforts, would attendance fall apart?
Then there's the question about the five ticketed sports or all 38 sports? In this area, TB thinks that the opportunity exists to use emerging technologies to reach directly to specific people who are interested in, say, fencing or water polo. To do so, though, would require taking time away from marketing for the sports that are ticketed and have larger audiences. Is it better to focus energy on them and use attendance at those sports to promote the other teams?
TigerBlog's basic theories are this:
* Attendance is pretty good across the board
* Princeton has tried so many different things to get people to games that it's hard to say if any of it worked and if so what did and what didn't?
* There is evidence to suggest that winning teams do increase attendance, but there are just as many other factors (such as weather, game time, in-game experience, parking, for instance) that have an equal impact
* We should be reaching out to all 38 sports on some level
* We are competing with the movies, birthday parties and youth sports more than anything else in terms of getting people to attend events here
Okay, so those are all the questions. What about the answers? Can they even be found out, and if so, how accurately?
This past summer, Princeton Athletics had a polite young man named Dan who interned here. As part of his internship, he did two surveys, one on-line and one face-to-face, and he compiled what he learned into a 42-page document for his class at Temple.
TB has seen the data and read through the report, which is certainly interesting. Tomorrow, he'll take a look at some of what is out there.
In the meantime, he has to go untie Batman and Robin, before they are catapulted into the machine that will shrink them and freeze them.
In other words, to be continued ...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Miracles, One Yard At A Time
Bob Surace, Princeton's new head football coach, ducked his head into TigerBlog's office last week and mentioned that Jordan Culbreath had been medically cleared to play for the Tigers again.
TigerBlog's first thought was "wow."
Culbreath spent the 2008 season ripping through defenses as the Ivy League's best running back. He spent the 2009 season fighting for his life as he battled aplastic anemia.
The idea that Culbreath was not only healthy again but also healthy enough to be cleared for football was amazing, worthy actually of more than one "wow." Add in the fact that he is looking at bi-weekly blood transfusions for the rest of his life, football or no, and you could put a few of TB's least favorite punctuation mark - the exclamation point - on the end of your "wows."
His story is extraordinary.
Culbreath was essentially a walk-on with the Princeton football team, and he worked his way up the depth chart and ultimately onto the field for the Cornell game on ESPNU his sophomore year of 2007. All he did that night was go for 145 yards and two touchdowns, one of which made its way onto SportsCenter's top plays for the day.
As a junior, he was easily the best back in the Ivy League. He rushed for 1,206 yards, tops in the league, and he reached 150 yards on five occasions.
His best game is also one of the best individual performances in school history. Heading into the final game of the year, against Dartmouth, Culbreath needed 70 yards to become the seventh 1,000-yard rusher in school history. He would get 58 on his first carry and blow past 1,000, not to mention 1,100 and 1,200.
For the day, he racked up 276 yards, the second-highest total in school history, behind only the 299 yards that Keith Elias had against Lafayette in Palmer Stadium in 1992.
As an aside, Elias had his 299 yards before there were computer stats. TigerBlog, in the press box, gave Princeton SID Mark Panus a (joking) hard time about not pushing Elias' total over 300.
Culbreath was primed for a big senior year, but it wasn't to be. He gained 67 yards on 15 carries against the Citadel on opening day, and he then had 25 yards on eight carries against Lehigh before leaving with what was thought to be an ankle injury.
Shortly after that, the awful truth came out: Culbreath was battling a disease called aplastic anemia, one that could have been fatal.
The result, though, was more uplifting than anything else. Culbreath fought his illness head on, and his teammates and the entire athletic community at Princeton rallied behind him with events like a bone marrow drive and other efforts to raise awareness.
The idea that Culbreath would ultimately be a Princeton graduate became more realistic. The idea that he would play football again was still not on anyone's radar.
In fact, when last year's senior athlete video was being put together for the Princeton Varsity Club banquet, there was discussion as to whether or not Culbreath should be included.
And then Surace came down and, in his mellow style, mentioned that Culbreath was going to be back out there this year.
How could you not root for him? After everything he's been through, who couldn't want to see him have the big senior year that he was denied last year?
Still, there's a long way to go. He hasn't played in a year, and there is of course a big difference between being healthy and being able to withstanding the pounding of being a feature running back in football.
But isn't it great that Culbreath and his teammates will get to find out?
TigerBlog hardly knows Culbreath. He interviewed him once at halftime of a basketball game on the radio, and that's the only conversation he's ever had with him. He certainly came across as a nice enough kid.
You don't have to be his best friend to be happy for him and to want to see him do well.
And how will that be defined? Does he need to be All-Ivy League? Does he need to reach 1,000 yards? 500?
Maybe Surace said it best:
"Our Princeton Football Association president, Anthony DiTommaso, said that every yard we get from Jordan this year is a miracle," the coach said.
Football practice starts today for Princeton.
The season is already a success.
TigerBlog's first thought was "wow."
Culbreath spent the 2008 season ripping through defenses as the Ivy League's best running back. He spent the 2009 season fighting for his life as he battled aplastic anemia.
The idea that Culbreath was not only healthy again but also healthy enough to be cleared for football was amazing, worthy actually of more than one "wow." Add in the fact that he is looking at bi-weekly blood transfusions for the rest of his life, football or no, and you could put a few of TB's least favorite punctuation mark - the exclamation point - on the end of your "wows."
His story is extraordinary.
Culbreath was essentially a walk-on with the Princeton football team, and he worked his way up the depth chart and ultimately onto the field for the Cornell game on ESPNU his sophomore year of 2007. All he did that night was go for 145 yards and two touchdowns, one of which made its way onto SportsCenter's top plays for the day.
As a junior, he was easily the best back in the Ivy League. He rushed for 1,206 yards, tops in the league, and he reached 150 yards on five occasions.
His best game is also one of the best individual performances in school history. Heading into the final game of the year, against Dartmouth, Culbreath needed 70 yards to become the seventh 1,000-yard rusher in school history. He would get 58 on his first carry and blow past 1,000, not to mention 1,100 and 1,200.
For the day, he racked up 276 yards, the second-highest total in school history, behind only the 299 yards that Keith Elias had against Lafayette in Palmer Stadium in 1992.
As an aside, Elias had his 299 yards before there were computer stats. TigerBlog, in the press box, gave Princeton SID Mark Panus a (joking) hard time about not pushing Elias' total over 300.
Culbreath was primed for a big senior year, but it wasn't to be. He gained 67 yards on 15 carries against the Citadel on opening day, and he then had 25 yards on eight carries against Lehigh before leaving with what was thought to be an ankle injury.
Shortly after that, the awful truth came out: Culbreath was battling a disease called aplastic anemia, one that could have been fatal.
The result, though, was more uplifting than anything else. Culbreath fought his illness head on, and his teammates and the entire athletic community at Princeton rallied behind him with events like a bone marrow drive and other efforts to raise awareness.
The idea that Culbreath would ultimately be a Princeton graduate became more realistic. The idea that he would play football again was still not on anyone's radar.
In fact, when last year's senior athlete video was being put together for the Princeton Varsity Club banquet, there was discussion as to whether or not Culbreath should be included.
And then Surace came down and, in his mellow style, mentioned that Culbreath was going to be back out there this year.
How could you not root for him? After everything he's been through, who couldn't want to see him have the big senior year that he was denied last year?
Still, there's a long way to go. He hasn't played in a year, and there is of course a big difference between being healthy and being able to withstanding the pounding of being a feature running back in football.
But isn't it great that Culbreath and his teammates will get to find out?
TigerBlog hardly knows Culbreath. He interviewed him once at halftime of a basketball game on the radio, and that's the only conversation he's ever had with him. He certainly came across as a nice enough kid.
You don't have to be his best friend to be happy for him and to want to see him do well.
And how will that be defined? Does he need to be All-Ivy League? Does he need to reach 1,000 yards? 500?
Maybe Surace said it best:
"Our Princeton Football Association president, Anthony DiTommaso, said that every yard we get from Jordan this year is a miracle," the coach said.
Football practice starts today for Princeton.
The season is already a success.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Empty Nest
TigerBlog remembers visiting Jonathan Zucker on the day he was born and then continuing up to New England for Princeton's men's basketball weekend at Brown and Yale.
The Tigers swept that weekend to build a four-game lead in the Ivy League race. Sean Jackson, Rick Hielscher and Matt Eastwick were all in double figures in the 79-54 win at Brown, while George Leftwich had 12 to lead Princeton in the 46-35 win at Yale.
Those four names should be enough to let any Princeton fan know that the year was 1992, the only year that Hielscher played with Eastwick, Jackson and Leftwich. Princeton would win its fourth straight Ivy title (losing to Syracuse in Worcester, Mass., in the opening round of the NCAA tournament), Jackson would be the Ivy League Player of the Year and Eastwick would become the first (and still only) player in program history to start an NCAA tournament game in all four of his years.
TigerBlog remembers stopping to see the newborn and then heading to the basketball games like it was yesterday, as opposed to more than 6,700 yesterdays ago. And he thought about it last week, when Jonathan went to Ithaca to join the rest of the Cornell Class of 2014.
Jonathan's parents are like many other parents at this time of year who drop their kids off at college for the first time. It has to be somewhat surreal, especially when it's the oldest child in the family, and Jonathan's dad Corey was certainly emotional about the whole situation
TigerBlog works with someone here in the Department of Athletics who, when TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog were born, said these profound words: "Your job is to get them to age 18; after that, it's up to them."
The concept of having your kids grow up and leave home is sometimes called "empty nest syndrome." FatherBlog, back when he had two kids at Penn, referred to it as "empty wallet syndrome."
The whole experience was captured Monday in the New York Times, which ran a story about parents who take their kids to college and then stay for a few days. It even mentioned one case where the mother and father attended the first day of classes with the "child" and then made changes to their kid's schedule. TB is sure the kid was thrilled by that.
Princeton earned a mention in the story:
Formal “hit the road” departure ceremonies are unusual but growing in popularity, said Joyce Holl, head of the National Orientation Directors Association. A more common approach is for colleges to introduce blunt language into drop-off schedules specifying the hour for last hugs. As of 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, for example, the parents of Princeton freshmen learn from the move-in schedule, “subsequent orientation events are intended for students only.”
The language was added in recent years to draw a clear line, said Thomas Dunne, the associate dean of undergraduates. “It’s easy for students to point to this notation and say, ‘Hey, Mom, I think you’re supposed to be gone now,’ ” he said. “It’s obviously a hard conversation for students to have with parents.”
For evidence, consider a chat-board thread by new Princeton parents on the Web site College Confidential. “Do parents hang around for a day or two after orientation in case their kids need something?” one poster, mrscollege, asked. “I say no, but we have a friend who is planning to hang around for a while in Princeton for her son just in case.”
TigerBlog and the rest of the people who work in Jadwin have spent the summer coming to work without giving any thought to anything other than when construction projects have impacted road access. Even now, TB can look out his window and see the empty Weaver Track and empty Princeton Stadium, which are just part of the scenery around here.
At the same time, there are more than a thousand freshmen on their way to Princeton University in the next few weeks, and several of the members of the Class of 2014 are already here practicing with their fall teams. Some will play in games more than a week before they take their first class.
TB will spend the next two days in meetings to frame some of the key issues that the department in general and the OAC specifically face for the coming school year. During the course of those meetings, the idea that what is done here is done in the name of "enhancing the experience for the athletes" will come up many times.
In fact, it comes up so much that it's easy to take it for granted. And yet, that's something that shouldn't be forgotten.
Regardless of the agenda item, whatever is done here impacts the athletes directly. Perhaps it takes several layers to get there, but it has a big impact nonetheless.
There are so many different areas that touch the athletes that the athletes quite frankly aren't aware of and yet are so important to them. Friends' Groups. Princeton Academic Athletic Fellows. The Princeton Varsity Club. Compliance. Event management. Marketing. And many others.
As for the OAC, before the start of each season, the contact for each sport meets with the members of the team to give them an idea of what it is that is done for them out of this office.
Again, those who work here might know full well what is done and why it is done. Still, it's important to keep in mind who it is done for and the impact it has on them.
After all, parents are dropping off their most precious commodities here. With Princeton Athletics, they're doing so at a place committed to the student-athlete experience.
Those who work here should always keep that in mind.
And those who do the dropping off can take their time saying goodbye, as long as it doesn't run into a few days.
Oh, and good luck Jonathan. Hopefully your four years in Ithaca will be filled with a great education, great new friends, a lot of great times - and plenty of losses to Princeton.
The Tigers swept that weekend to build a four-game lead in the Ivy League race. Sean Jackson, Rick Hielscher and Matt Eastwick were all in double figures in the 79-54 win at Brown, while George Leftwich had 12 to lead Princeton in the 46-35 win at Yale.
Those four names should be enough to let any Princeton fan know that the year was 1992, the only year that Hielscher played with Eastwick, Jackson and Leftwich. Princeton would win its fourth straight Ivy title (losing to Syracuse in Worcester, Mass., in the opening round of the NCAA tournament), Jackson would be the Ivy League Player of the Year and Eastwick would become the first (and still only) player in program history to start an NCAA tournament game in all four of his years.
TigerBlog remembers stopping to see the newborn and then heading to the basketball games like it was yesterday, as opposed to more than 6,700 yesterdays ago. And he thought about it last week, when Jonathan went to Ithaca to join the rest of the Cornell Class of 2014.
Jonathan's parents are like many other parents at this time of year who drop their kids off at college for the first time. It has to be somewhat surreal, especially when it's the oldest child in the family, and Jonathan's dad Corey was certainly emotional about the whole situation
TigerBlog works with someone here in the Department of Athletics who, when TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog were born, said these profound words: "Your job is to get them to age 18; after that, it's up to them."
The concept of having your kids grow up and leave home is sometimes called "empty nest syndrome." FatherBlog, back when he had two kids at Penn, referred to it as "empty wallet syndrome."
The whole experience was captured Monday in the New York Times, which ran a story about parents who take their kids to college and then stay for a few days. It even mentioned one case where the mother and father attended the first day of classes with the "child" and then made changes to their kid's schedule. TB is sure the kid was thrilled by that.
Princeton earned a mention in the story:
Formal “hit the road” departure ceremonies are unusual but growing in popularity, said Joyce Holl, head of the National Orientation Directors Association. A more common approach is for colleges to introduce blunt language into drop-off schedules specifying the hour for last hugs. As of 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, for example, the parents of Princeton freshmen learn from the move-in schedule, “subsequent orientation events are intended for students only.”
The language was added in recent years to draw a clear line, said Thomas Dunne, the associate dean of undergraduates. “It’s easy for students to point to this notation and say, ‘Hey, Mom, I think you’re supposed to be gone now,’ ” he said. “It’s obviously a hard conversation for students to have with parents.”
For evidence, consider a chat-board thread by new Princeton parents on the Web site College Confidential. “Do parents hang around for a day or two after orientation in case their kids need something?” one poster, mrscollege, asked. “I say no, but we have a friend who is planning to hang around for a while in Princeton for her son just in case.”
TigerBlog and the rest of the people who work in Jadwin have spent the summer coming to work without giving any thought to anything other than when construction projects have impacted road access. Even now, TB can look out his window and see the empty Weaver Track and empty Princeton Stadium, which are just part of the scenery around here.
At the same time, there are more than a thousand freshmen on their way to Princeton University in the next few weeks, and several of the members of the Class of 2014 are already here practicing with their fall teams. Some will play in games more than a week before they take their first class.
TB will spend the next two days in meetings to frame some of the key issues that the department in general and the OAC specifically face for the coming school year. During the course of those meetings, the idea that what is done here is done in the name of "enhancing the experience for the athletes" will come up many times.
In fact, it comes up so much that it's easy to take it for granted. And yet, that's something that shouldn't be forgotten.
Regardless of the agenda item, whatever is done here impacts the athletes directly. Perhaps it takes several layers to get there, but it has a big impact nonetheless.
There are so many different areas that touch the athletes that the athletes quite frankly aren't aware of and yet are so important to them. Friends' Groups. Princeton Academic Athletic Fellows. The Princeton Varsity Club. Compliance. Event management. Marketing. And many others.
As for the OAC, before the start of each season, the contact for each sport meets with the members of the team to give them an idea of what it is that is done for them out of this office.
Again, those who work here might know full well what is done and why it is done. Still, it's important to keep in mind who it is done for and the impact it has on them.
After all, parents are dropping off their most precious commodities here. With Princeton Athletics, they're doing so at a place committed to the student-athlete experience.
Those who work here should always keep that in mind.
And those who do the dropping off can take their time saying goodbye, as long as it doesn't run into a few days.
Oh, and good luck Jonathan. Hopefully your four years in Ithaca will be filled with a great education, great new friends, a lot of great times - and plenty of losses to Princeton.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Lou Piniella, A TigerBlog Favorite
Way back in the summer of 1983, TigerBlog accompanied Jack McCaffery, then with the Trenton Times, and a few of Jack's friends to a game at Yankee Stadium that Jack had to cover.
Jack's brother Fran worked with TigerBlog in the psychology department at Penn, and it was through Fran that TB met Jack. It was through Jack that TB first got his job at the Trenton Times.
Anyway, Jack went to the cover the game, and TB and Jack's friends sat in the Yankee Stadium stands. After the game ended and Jack had written his story, everyone met up for the ride back.
The media people parked in the same lot as the players, and so as the group waited for Jack McCaffery, they saw the likes of Dave Winfield, Goose Gossage, Ken Griffey (Sr., not Jr.), Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry and others stroll by, get in their cars and head out.
Eventually, Jack made his way to the parking lot, only to find out that his battery was dead. As people (mostly non-players) made their way to the lot, Jack asked if he could get a jump start, and everyone said no.
Until Lou Piniella came out, saw that the hood was up and came over to Jack. No problem, Lou said, and he then brought his Cadillac up next to Jacks' old car, hooked up the cables and got it started again.
Then, he hung around for a little while to make sure the car was good to go.
Since that day 27 years ago, Lou Piniella has of course been one of TigerBlog's favorite people in professional sports, first as he finished his playing career and then as a manager.
Piniella, now 66, announced yesterday that he was retiring immediately as the manager of the Chicago Cubs, rather than waiting for the end of the season. He gave family issues as the reason for his abrupt retirement.
The average baseball fan who has watched Piniella through the years will probably think first of his epic confrontations with umpires that led to his many ejections. Not TB. No, TB thinks back to a rapidly emptying parking lot at Yankee Stadium, all of the people (players and non-players) who could care less about a dead battery and how Lou Piniella couldn't have been nicer.
Of course, the sports world is filled with stories like that. TB is a huge David Justice fan. Why? Because TB once saw Justice - then with the Atlanta Braves - on a plane from Atlanta to Philadelphia, at a time when MotherBlog was in Piedmont Hospital during her fight against cancer.
TB, sitting in first class because MB had upgraded his ticket, was across the aisle and one row behind Justice. When TB mentioned to the guy sitting next to him that MotherBlog was in the hospital and that Justice was her favorite player, he said that TB should go talk to him, because "where could he go?"
Armed with that logic, TB wrote a note about how his mother had cancer, was in Piedmont Hospital and was a big Braves' fan and could he drop her a line or something. Then TB gave him the note to Justice, who nodded his head.
Later that night, TB spoke to MotherBlog, who said that David Justice had called her in the hospital and spoken with her for about 10 minutes. He followed up by sending her some Braves' stuff, including a ball autographed by 17 players and manager Bobby Cox.
Like Piniella, Justice earned a lifetime pass from TigerBlog.
With the coming of the new athletic year, TB is involved in discussions about marketing for Princeton athletics, as always. There are some pretty basic questions that TB always asks (a subject for later in the week, by the way), but one of the main ones is this: What are we selling here at Princeton?
There are 38 varsity teams at Princeton, and 33 of them offer no admission charge for regular season events. Of the five that do charge (football, m/w basketball, men's hockey, men's lacrosse), none of them have outrageous costs.
But what are we selling in general? Is it quality Division I athletics? The games themselves? The chance to watch championship teams? The in-game experience?
What's more important at football, to see Princeton play a big game late in the year or to have every game present a great experience? This isn't a question for the coaches or the athletic department, who obviously want to win games, but for deciding why people come or don't come?
Maybe all these years, we've been missing the boat a bit. Maybe it's the Lou Piniella-David Justice thing that should be our focus.
Come to Princeton games and get to meet the players. They are, after all, our best ambassadors, and what parent out there wouldn't want their impressionable kids to meet up with such great role models?
Yes, they're not Major Leaguers, but that hardly matters. It is still a thrill for the little kids (a huge target audience) to meet the players.
Maybe that's what we should be stressing more than anything else.
TB will certainly put it on the table for discussions this week.
As for Lou Piniella, you'll always been an all-time TigerBlog favorite. So will David Justice.
They both earned it years ago.
Jack's brother Fran worked with TigerBlog in the psychology department at Penn, and it was through Fran that TB met Jack. It was through Jack that TB first got his job at the Trenton Times.
Anyway, Jack went to the cover the game, and TB and Jack's friends sat in the Yankee Stadium stands. After the game ended and Jack had written his story, everyone met up for the ride back.
The media people parked in the same lot as the players, and so as the group waited for Jack McCaffery, they saw the likes of Dave Winfield, Goose Gossage, Ken Griffey (Sr., not Jr.), Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry and others stroll by, get in their cars and head out.
Eventually, Jack made his way to the parking lot, only to find out that his battery was dead. As people (mostly non-players) made their way to the lot, Jack asked if he could get a jump start, and everyone said no.
Until Lou Piniella came out, saw that the hood was up and came over to Jack. No problem, Lou said, and he then brought his Cadillac up next to Jacks' old car, hooked up the cables and got it started again.
Then, he hung around for a little while to make sure the car was good to go.
Since that day 27 years ago, Lou Piniella has of course been one of TigerBlog's favorite people in professional sports, first as he finished his playing career and then as a manager.
Piniella, now 66, announced yesterday that he was retiring immediately as the manager of the Chicago Cubs, rather than waiting for the end of the season. He gave family issues as the reason for his abrupt retirement.
The average baseball fan who has watched Piniella through the years will probably think first of his epic confrontations with umpires that led to his many ejections. Not TB. No, TB thinks back to a rapidly emptying parking lot at Yankee Stadium, all of the people (players and non-players) who could care less about a dead battery and how Lou Piniella couldn't have been nicer.
Of course, the sports world is filled with stories like that. TB is a huge David Justice fan. Why? Because TB once saw Justice - then with the Atlanta Braves - on a plane from Atlanta to Philadelphia, at a time when MotherBlog was in Piedmont Hospital during her fight against cancer.
TB, sitting in first class because MB had upgraded his ticket, was across the aisle and one row behind Justice. When TB mentioned to the guy sitting next to him that MotherBlog was in the hospital and that Justice was her favorite player, he said that TB should go talk to him, because "where could he go?"
Armed with that logic, TB wrote a note about how his mother had cancer, was in Piedmont Hospital and was a big Braves' fan and could he drop her a line or something. Then TB gave him the note to Justice, who nodded his head.
Later that night, TB spoke to MotherBlog, who said that David Justice had called her in the hospital and spoken with her for about 10 minutes. He followed up by sending her some Braves' stuff, including a ball autographed by 17 players and manager Bobby Cox.
Like Piniella, Justice earned a lifetime pass from TigerBlog.
With the coming of the new athletic year, TB is involved in discussions about marketing for Princeton athletics, as always. There are some pretty basic questions that TB always asks (a subject for later in the week, by the way), but one of the main ones is this: What are we selling here at Princeton?
There are 38 varsity teams at Princeton, and 33 of them offer no admission charge for regular season events. Of the five that do charge (football, m/w basketball, men's hockey, men's lacrosse), none of them have outrageous costs.
But what are we selling in general? Is it quality Division I athletics? The games themselves? The chance to watch championship teams? The in-game experience?
What's more important at football, to see Princeton play a big game late in the year or to have every game present a great experience? This isn't a question for the coaches or the athletic department, who obviously want to win games, but for deciding why people come or don't come?
Maybe all these years, we've been missing the boat a bit. Maybe it's the Lou Piniella-David Justice thing that should be our focus.
Come to Princeton games and get to meet the players. They are, after all, our best ambassadors, and what parent out there wouldn't want their impressionable kids to meet up with such great role models?
Yes, they're not Major Leaguers, but that hardly matters. It is still a thrill for the little kids (a huge target audience) to meet the players.
Maybe that's what we should be stressing more than anything else.
TB will certainly put it on the table for discussions this week.
As for Lou Piniella, you'll always been an all-time TigerBlog favorite. So will David Justice.
They both earned it years ago.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Lack Of Lax
Has it really only been twice this summer that TigerBlog has written about lacrosse? How is that possible?
Yup. Twice, both times in July. And once in June, and that was back on June 1.
Take this as an apology from TB for the lack of lacrosse coverage. If he has the opportunity, he'll try to make up for it in the next few weeks.
Starting with today.
There are two interesting lacrosse angles for today, and why not talk about both of them?
Let's start with Inside Lacrosse and its week-long rankings of top incoming college players, as well as rising high school seniors and juniors. These online rankings accompany the mailing of the magazine's annual recruiting issue.
TB gives the people at Inside Lacrosse a lot of credit for the product they produce, on many levels. For starters, they are fully on board with the idea of multi-media, and the site is filled with video, podcasting and text, as well as reader feedback.
Second, like TigerBlog, Inside Lacrosse understands the need to update every day, so that readers get in the habit of coming to the site to see what's new. That habit is easily broken, and the best way to break it is to stop updating regularly.
IL also seems to agree with TigerBlog's theory that games are about the last thing that anyone wants to read about. To that end, IL rarely has written recaps of games but rather in-game blogs with a few notes at the end.
Instead of game stories, content is heavy on behind-the-scenes stuff and, of course, the rankings of incoming players and teams and players by position and best lacrosse towns and on and on. All of these rankings, which go on all year long, are highly subjective, and the result is a long litany of user comments that disagree, agree, critique, rip the IL staff and rip the other posters - all the while making sure they regularly come to the site.
As for the rankings themselves, how is it possible to accurately rank the top 100 incoming freshmen or the top 50 rising seniors? What differentiates No. 71 from No. 81, or No. 15 from No. 30? What guarantee is there that No. 50 will have a better career than No. 100?
For that matter, who's to say that No. 100 is better than any of the next 100, none of whom are ranked? The IL staff, that's who.
Princeton has three of the Top 50 players in the new Power 100: No. 2 (midfielder Thomas Schreiber), No. 27 (defenseman Rob Posniewski) and No. 48 (attackman Will Himler). Schreiber and Himler squared off in the Long Island Catholic final, won by Schreiber's St. Anthony's team in overtime on an amazing feed from Schreiber.
Of course, these rankings will mean nothing when the school year starts, for Princeton's three or for any of the others. How will they fit into the program? How do they match up physically? How early will they see the field?
Some of Princeton's most highly regarded players have not panned out, though the majority have. Still, there have been no guarantees for any of them.
If TB is remembering correctly, Princeton has had one No. 1 player in the Power 100 - defenseman Dan Cocoziello, who went on to be a first-team All-America with the Tigers. Had the Top 100 existed for the 20 years prior, Princeton would have had two others - goalie Scott Bacigalupo in 1990 and attackman Jesse Hubbard in 1994.
As for No. 1 recruiting classes, Princeton's classes of 1994, 1998 and 2003 would have been No. 1 (as was the class of 2008 and class of 2012). Out of that Princeton fashioned six NCAA championships and 10 NCAA Final Four appearances, accomplished with some can't miss greats and many, many more players who would have great careers without the hype coming in.
To sum up, the rankings are great fun and make for great reads, but ultimately they mean little.
One player who would have been No. 2 in the Power 100 was Ryan Boyle, who would have been No. 2 behind Mike Powell in 2000.
Boyle plays this weekend in the Major League Lacrosse playoffs, as his top-seeded Boston Cannons take on the host Chesapeake Bayhawks while the Denver Outlaws take on the Denver Outlaws in tomorrows semifinals. The championship game from Navy-Marine Corps Stadium will be Sunday at 1 on ESPN2.
Boyle led MLL in assists this year with 25, seven more than the next-highest total, despite missing two games. Boyle is one of two players in league history with at least 200 career assists, and his 202 trail only Connor Gill, who had 211 for his career.
Boyle is going for his fourth MLL title, having won three times with the Barrage. He also was on the 2001 Princeton NCAA championship team and the 2002 and, last month, 2010 U.S. national teams that won the title at the World Championships.
One thing that makes this quest different for Boyle is that of his six major championships, he has never won one without having fellow Princetonian Matt Striebel as a teammate. This year, Striebel was a key part of Team USA, but his Chicago Machine team has not made the playoffs.
And there you have it. A late-August lacrosse update.
TigerBlog apologizes for being so, well, lax on lax this summer.
Yup. Twice, both times in July. And once in June, and that was back on June 1.
Take this as an apology from TB for the lack of lacrosse coverage. If he has the opportunity, he'll try to make up for it in the next few weeks.
Starting with today.
There are two interesting lacrosse angles for today, and why not talk about both of them?
Let's start with Inside Lacrosse and its week-long rankings of top incoming college players, as well as rising high school seniors and juniors. These online rankings accompany the mailing of the magazine's annual recruiting issue.
TB gives the people at Inside Lacrosse a lot of credit for the product they produce, on many levels. For starters, they are fully on board with the idea of multi-media, and the site is filled with video, podcasting and text, as well as reader feedback.
Second, like TigerBlog, Inside Lacrosse understands the need to update every day, so that readers get in the habit of coming to the site to see what's new. That habit is easily broken, and the best way to break it is to stop updating regularly.
IL also seems to agree with TigerBlog's theory that games are about the last thing that anyone wants to read about. To that end, IL rarely has written recaps of games but rather in-game blogs with a few notes at the end.
Instead of game stories, content is heavy on behind-the-scenes stuff and, of course, the rankings of incoming players and teams and players by position and best lacrosse towns and on and on. All of these rankings, which go on all year long, are highly subjective, and the result is a long litany of user comments that disagree, agree, critique, rip the IL staff and rip the other posters - all the while making sure they regularly come to the site.
As for the rankings themselves, how is it possible to accurately rank the top 100 incoming freshmen or the top 50 rising seniors? What differentiates No. 71 from No. 81, or No. 15 from No. 30? What guarantee is there that No. 50 will have a better career than No. 100?
For that matter, who's to say that No. 100 is better than any of the next 100, none of whom are ranked? The IL staff, that's who.
Princeton has three of the Top 50 players in the new Power 100: No. 2 (midfielder Thomas Schreiber), No. 27 (defenseman Rob Posniewski) and No. 48 (attackman Will Himler). Schreiber and Himler squared off in the Long Island Catholic final, won by Schreiber's St. Anthony's team in overtime on an amazing feed from Schreiber.
Of course, these rankings will mean nothing when the school year starts, for Princeton's three or for any of the others. How will they fit into the program? How do they match up physically? How early will they see the field?
Some of Princeton's most highly regarded players have not panned out, though the majority have. Still, there have been no guarantees for any of them.
If TB is remembering correctly, Princeton has had one No. 1 player in the Power 100 - defenseman Dan Cocoziello, who went on to be a first-team All-America with the Tigers. Had the Top 100 existed for the 20 years prior, Princeton would have had two others - goalie Scott Bacigalupo in 1990 and attackman Jesse Hubbard in 1994.
As for No. 1 recruiting classes, Princeton's classes of 1994, 1998 and 2003 would have been No. 1 (as was the class of 2008 and class of 2012). Out of that Princeton fashioned six NCAA championships and 10 NCAA Final Four appearances, accomplished with some can't miss greats and many, many more players who would have great careers without the hype coming in.
To sum up, the rankings are great fun and make for great reads, but ultimately they mean little.
One player who would have been No. 2 in the Power 100 was Ryan Boyle, who would have been No. 2 behind Mike Powell in 2000.
Boyle plays this weekend in the Major League Lacrosse playoffs, as his top-seeded Boston Cannons take on the host Chesapeake Bayhawks while the Denver Outlaws take on the Denver Outlaws in tomorrows semifinals. The championship game from Navy-Marine Corps Stadium will be Sunday at 1 on ESPN2.
Boyle led MLL in assists this year with 25, seven more than the next-highest total, despite missing two games. Boyle is one of two players in league history with at least 200 career assists, and his 202 trail only Connor Gill, who had 211 for his career.
Boyle is going for his fourth MLL title, having won three times with the Barrage. He also was on the 2001 Princeton NCAA championship team and the 2002 and, last month, 2010 U.S. national teams that won the title at the World Championships.
One thing that makes this quest different for Boyle is that of his six major championships, he has never won one without having fellow Princetonian Matt Striebel as a teammate. This year, Striebel was a key part of Team USA, but his Chicago Machine team has not made the playoffs.
And there you have it. A late-August lacrosse update.
TigerBlog apologizes for being so, well, lax on lax this summer.
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