TigerBlog's favorite PA announcer is, well, TigerBlog.
Of course, it's possible he's not being objective.
TigerBlog likes to be the PA announcer at events, especially Princeton football, which has been his main PA job for the last decade.
TB can't remember who the PA announcer was for Princeton football when he first started covering the team and then working at Princeton, and it's going to bother him all day. He does know that eventually he got his old friend Jim Chesko to be the Palmer Stadium PA announcer, and a woman named Wendy Herm - who played softball at Princeton - was the PA announcer when Princeton Stadium opened.
Eventually, John McAdams became the Princeton football PA man.
McAdams is one of TB's favorite people who has ever walked this planet. And the best PA announcer of all-time. In fact, he is the only person TB has ever heard of who made an entire career of doing public address.
McAdams was a giant of a man, probably more than 400 pounds until he lost a lot of weight. He had a great delivery behind a microphone, and TB's own style is to basically try to imitate McAdams and his understated, well-enunciated style. Don't talk too much. Don't overdo it.
During his career, McAdams worked for the Eagles and Phillies and for maybe every Minor League baseball team in the general area. He did all kinds of college sports for all kinds of colleges, including Princeton football and women's soccer during that team's run to the 2004 NCAA Final Four.
Mostly, though, he is known for the being the voice of the Philadelphia Big 5, whose games he did from 1981 until his death in 2005. McAdams would start every game with his iconic call welcoming fans to the Palestra, "college basketball's most historic gym."
After McAdam's death, TB decided to take his place with Princeton football. Rich Kahn, another amiable man, filled McAdams' seat at the Palestra, where he has done a great job.
As for Princeton basketball, well, TigerBlog can't remember the exact year that he brought Bill Bromberg in, but it's been awhile. If you come to Princeton games at Jadwin Gym - or if you come to Princeton lacrosse games at Sherrerd Field - you know Bromberg's voice.
Like McAdams and Kahn, Bromberg is an extraordinarily nice person. He's also an extremely reliable one, something that is hugely important when it comes to having a voice of a building.
Unlike McAdams, Bromberg is not a professional PA announcer. In fact his career was as a schoolteacher in North Jersey, and he retired several years ago.
Every year TB jokes with Bromberg that he's fired, and every year Bromberg jokes with TB that he's quitting. In reality, Bromberg checks out the schedule for basketball and lacrosse, men's and women's, and then just shows up for pretty much every game - except for one or two a year between all four sports, such as tomorrow, when Princeton hosts North Carolina in men's lacrosse at 5:30 and Cornell in women's basketball at 7, meaning he can't do both.
Bromberg had been the PA announcer for the Trenton Thunder and at Seton Hall University before he came to Princeton. As a PA announcer, Bromberg is a bit more animated than TB, but it works for him.
TB likes to be a neutral voice of an event. Bromberg is more like the kindly uncle of Princeton basketball and lacrosse.
He also is better than any other PA announcer that TB has ever heard at improvising during the in-game contests and promotions, especially when they involve little kids. It's an innate ability and it's not easy to do, because there's a fine line between being funny and insulting the contestants. At the same time, you hardly want to dryly let the contest unfold without adding any flavor to it. In this regard, Bromberg is the best.
In all the time that Bromberg has been at Princeton, TB can't remember a day like he had last Saturday.
TB got to Class of 1952 Stadium around 10 last Saturday, and Bromberg showed up shortly thereafter. At some point, TB was on the field during the pregame before the men's lacrosse game against Johns Hopkins when he and Ryan Ambler mentioned that it was a pretty nice day, as opposed to the days before it, when it was beyond freezing. Ambler said it was way warmer, and then TB looked at his phone, which indicated that it was 27 degrees.
TigerBlog then settled into the press box to do stats for the men's game at noon and the women's game against Georgetown at 3. Bromberg? He was in his usual spot, on the field between the benches. From well before noon until the women's game ended, which was a little past 5:30.
Of course, the temperature did rise into the 30s, and the sun was out for awhile. By mid-afternoon it had clouded up, and it was hardly warm out anymore.
And there was Bromberg, outside for the entire time. And that was hardly his entire work day.
As the women's game began to head to overtime, TB began to wonder if Bromberg would get to Jadwin in time for the men's basketball game against Brown. He did get there - barely.
His day began around 10:30. It ended around 9. Three games. Two outside in winter weather, with 57 goals scored between them. One hurried trip to the gym and then his spot behind another microphone.
At some point during the basketball game, TB asked Bromberg how old he is, and Bromberg replied 68.
Sixty-eight? TB joked to Yariv Amir, Princeton's Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing, that they'd be needing a new PA man soon.
In reality, TB doubts that's the case.
In reality, TB knows that Bill Bromberg had a pretty long day this past Saturday - and yet TB also knows that Bromberg loved every second of it. And don't underestimate the toll that it takes to stand outside for seven hours or so on a winter day, and to talk the amount of time he did, at the age of 68.
As for TB, he's a harsh judge when it comes to PA announcers. Bromberg isn't TB's favorite - but he's close. Not that TB would ever tell him that.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Back To School
Connie Zotos offered to buy TigerBlog dinner last night.
Zotos teaches a graduate seminar on sports management at NYU, and TigerBlog was there to speak about his experiences at Princeton. This would be the third straight year he's done so.
As with the other two appearances, TB's trip into the city included dinner. This time, Connie apologized for the lack of quality places to eat between the parking lot and the classroom, which was about a four or five block area.
There was a diner, she said, almost embarrassed. A diner? Perfect, TB said.
Like any good New York City diner, this one had a menu that ran about 10 pages long or so. It didn't matter. TB didn't even need to open his up. There's only one choice.
A turkey club.
TB's favorite sandwich by far is the turkey club. And at an NYC diner or deli? With real turkey? Even better.
It's a simple sandwich. Turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato. In this case, TB got his without mayo and on wheat toast, three slices worth.
What could be better? Well, TB added matzoh ball soup. That made it better.
The sandwich came with fries, cole slaw and pickle. TB, figuring he could splurge in the big city, ate the fries but not the cole slaw.
And there were a lot of years when he would have gone with either the huge chocolate chip cookie or even a black-and-white, but he passed on those as well.
TigerBlog encountered almost no traffic on his way into the city, which is a rarity. Other than a really minor fender-bender that had a lane near the Holland Tunnel blocked, there was nothing that slowed him down on his way in.
He reached the Holland Tunnel at 4. The class began at 6:20 and ran to 8:50, and TB was supposed to meet Connie on 12th Street around 4:30-4:45. He figured he was running late, since getting in at that time of day could cost an extra half-hour or more.
Actually, the traffic by the tunnel and on the approach to the Turnpike was worse on the way out, even though it was after 9:30 by then.
In between, TB had his great sandwich. And he got to speak to the grad students again, something he's come to really enjoy.
As with the other two years, TB was supposed to talk about Princeton Athletic Communications and Princeton Athletics in general. Talk about the differences between the Ivy League model and the rest of Division I. Talk about social media and Princeton's policies and procedures. Talk about how what he does has evolved through the years.
It can be a daunting task to talk for 2.5 hours and try to make it entertaining and educational. It's really up to the students to make the class work, and all three years they've done so.
There were 16 students in this class, and they were all pretty engaged in the subject. They asked questions about recruiting, fund-raising, Twitter, what advantages Princeton has, what disadvantages Princeton has.
There were a lot of questions about Ivy League admissions and how the Academic Index works.
One of the best questions was about how Princeton measures athletic success. Is it simply wins and losses, or does it go beyond that?
TigerBlog's answer was an involved one. And it's one of his favorite parts about being at Princeton.
TB started out by explaining all of the co-curricular value of Princeton Athletics. And about many of the amazing non-athletic achievements of Princeton's athletes, how they balance their athletic and educational commitments and still find the chance to give their time in the community and even around the world.
And then TB said that it would be easy for Princeton to hide behind all of that as an excuse as to why it would also be too much to expect to put quality teams on the field. Instead, it's not something that TB has ever heard.
No. College athletics is a competitive business. Someone wins. Someone loses. Athletic success is measured publicly in that manner, and it's something that just goes along with the territory. Hey, Princeton's competitors are trying to win. Why wouldn't Princeton?
Athletic success is measured by winning. Just not at all costs.
TB showed the class some of the most recent Tiger All-Access video, the one about the wrestling team. When he talked about videostreaming, he clicked on the link for the men's volleyball match just in time to see the final point - and hear the very entertaining women announcers say "good night America."
TigerBlog enjoyed his time speaking in New York. As he has each time he's done it.
He's not wild about New York City. It's never been his favorite place.
Still, for this night, it was really nice. No traffic. A real turkey club.
And some interested, and interesting, young men and women who wanted to know about Princeton Athletics.
All in all, it was a pretty good trip.
Zotos teaches a graduate seminar on sports management at NYU, and TigerBlog was there to speak about his experiences at Princeton. This would be the third straight year he's done so.
As with the other two appearances, TB's trip into the city included dinner. This time, Connie apologized for the lack of quality places to eat between the parking lot and the classroom, which was about a four or five block area.
There was a diner, she said, almost embarrassed. A diner? Perfect, TB said.
Like any good New York City diner, this one had a menu that ran about 10 pages long or so. It didn't matter. TB didn't even need to open his up. There's only one choice.
A turkey club.
TB's favorite sandwich by far is the turkey club. And at an NYC diner or deli? With real turkey? Even better.
It's a simple sandwich. Turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato. In this case, TB got his without mayo and on wheat toast, three slices worth.
What could be better? Well, TB added matzoh ball soup. That made it better.
The sandwich came with fries, cole slaw and pickle. TB, figuring he could splurge in the big city, ate the fries but not the cole slaw.
And there were a lot of years when he would have gone with either the huge chocolate chip cookie or even a black-and-white, but he passed on those as well.
TigerBlog encountered almost no traffic on his way into the city, which is a rarity. Other than a really minor fender-bender that had a lane near the Holland Tunnel blocked, there was nothing that slowed him down on his way in.
He reached the Holland Tunnel at 4. The class began at 6:20 and ran to 8:50, and TB was supposed to meet Connie on 12th Street around 4:30-4:45. He figured he was running late, since getting in at that time of day could cost an extra half-hour or more.
Actually, the traffic by the tunnel and on the approach to the Turnpike was worse on the way out, even though it was after 9:30 by then.
In between, TB had his great sandwich. And he got to speak to the grad students again, something he's come to really enjoy.
As with the other two years, TB was supposed to talk about Princeton Athletic Communications and Princeton Athletics in general. Talk about the differences between the Ivy League model and the rest of Division I. Talk about social media and Princeton's policies and procedures. Talk about how what he does has evolved through the years.
It can be a daunting task to talk for 2.5 hours and try to make it entertaining and educational. It's really up to the students to make the class work, and all three years they've done so.
There were 16 students in this class, and they were all pretty engaged in the subject. They asked questions about recruiting, fund-raising, Twitter, what advantages Princeton has, what disadvantages Princeton has.
There were a lot of questions about Ivy League admissions and how the Academic Index works.
One of the best questions was about how Princeton measures athletic success. Is it simply wins and losses, or does it go beyond that?
TigerBlog's answer was an involved one. And it's one of his favorite parts about being at Princeton.
TB started out by explaining all of the co-curricular value of Princeton Athletics. And about many of the amazing non-athletic achievements of Princeton's athletes, how they balance their athletic and educational commitments and still find the chance to give their time in the community and even around the world.
And then TB said that it would be easy for Princeton to hide behind all of that as an excuse as to why it would also be too much to expect to put quality teams on the field. Instead, it's not something that TB has ever heard.
No. College athletics is a competitive business. Someone wins. Someone loses. Athletic success is measured publicly in that manner, and it's something that just goes along with the territory. Hey, Princeton's competitors are trying to win. Why wouldn't Princeton?
Athletic success is measured by winning. Just not at all costs.
TB showed the class some of the most recent Tiger All-Access video, the one about the wrestling team. When he talked about videostreaming, he clicked on the link for the men's volleyball match just in time to see the final point - and hear the very entertaining women announcers say "good night America."
TigerBlog enjoyed his time speaking in New York. As he has each time he's done it.
He's not wild about New York City. It's never been his favorite place.
Still, for this night, it was really nice. No traffic. A real turkey club.
And some interested, and interesting, young men and women who wanted to know about Princeton Athletics.
All in all, it was a pretty good trip.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Exclamation Point
The monthly "current events" email that comes from Kim Meszaros - the assistant to Ford Family Director of Athletics Gary Walters - showed up last night.
TigerBlog can't remember when Kim first started doing the current events each month. It's sort of a departmental newsletter, with some of the bigger news of the month, birthdays, personnel changes, things like that.
This month's was a particularly good one.
Among the links that Kim included were this one, which is an update on Chris Dittrich, whose mother Mary Beth works in campus recreation. Chris got into a horrible car accident six years ago this week; his road back has been a remarkable and uplifting one.
There was a list of staff members who will be honored at the University's service luncheon, led by Nancy Donigan, compliance assistant, who has been here for 25 years.
Will Green, who coached Princeton to the Ivy League men's golf championship last year, was featured in a podcast, one from which TB learned a great deal about Will. Kim included the link.
Kim chose to embed the video of Fred Samara's appearance on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," something TB touched on last week.
Oh, and each month, there's a trivia question.
Last month's asked how many staff members are Princeton grads. The answer is 20, most of whom are coaches.
This month's trivia question asks what the first two paying jobs Gary Walters had as a kid in Reading, Pa. TigerBlog has no idea what the answer is.
There was also a link to a video about the men's volleyball team's win over Penn State from Friday night.
TigerBlog doesn't pretend to know much about volleyball. Of all the sports that Princeton's OAC keeps stats at, TB would be the most lost behind the computer at a volleyball match.
He does know that men's coach Sam Shweisky is a very upbeat soul, one whose emails routinely are dotted with exclamation points, multiple ones. He's always smiling, always happy.
Even by his standards, Shweisky was the picture of joy at the end of the video, when he talks about what a great night it was for his team. And boy was it a great night.
For starters, Penn State is the dominant Eastern power in men's volleyball and a perennial contender (or winner) for the national championship. For another, Penn State was ranked 10th at the time, and Princeton had never beaten a Top 10 before.
Then there was the history of the rivalry. Princeton defeated Penn State in 1998 to earn its only trip to the NCAA Final Four, held in Hawaii. Since then Penn State had won 35 straight - until Friday night.
The video begins with a pregame meeting with the team and University president Chris Eisgruber. If you watch it and don't come away as a huge fan of the president, then TB will be shocked.
The rest of the video shows some key moments in the match, with points won by both teams. The Tigers won 3-2, taking the fifth set 15-11.
The video also showed just how into it the overflow crowd of 1,565 at Dillon Gym was. The place was jammed, and loud, and it was a festive, party atmosphere.
At the very end of the video, there are some still shots of Princeton players and fans, younger and older.
TigerBlog followed the match on Twitter. When the final point pushed the Tigers to the win, the entry from @putigers had seven exclamation points.
TigerBlog accidentally will use an exclamation point instead of a question mark when texting sometimes. Other than that, it's been decades since he's used one in actual writing.
He's not a fan.
In this case, though, it was very fitting.
It was a huge night for Princeton volleyball, and for its decidedly exclamatory head coach, Sam Shweisky.
No other punctuation mark could have properly captured the moment.
TigerBlog can't remember when Kim first started doing the current events each month. It's sort of a departmental newsletter, with some of the bigger news of the month, birthdays, personnel changes, things like that.
This month's was a particularly good one.
Among the links that Kim included were this one, which is an update on Chris Dittrich, whose mother Mary Beth works in campus recreation. Chris got into a horrible car accident six years ago this week; his road back has been a remarkable and uplifting one.
There was a list of staff members who will be honored at the University's service luncheon, led by Nancy Donigan, compliance assistant, who has been here for 25 years.
Will Green, who coached Princeton to the Ivy League men's golf championship last year, was featured in a podcast, one from which TB learned a great deal about Will. Kim included the link.
Kim chose to embed the video of Fred Samara's appearance on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," something TB touched on last week.
Oh, and each month, there's a trivia question.
Last month's asked how many staff members are Princeton grads. The answer is 20, most of whom are coaches.
This month's trivia question asks what the first two paying jobs Gary Walters had as a kid in Reading, Pa. TigerBlog has no idea what the answer is.
There was also a link to a video about the men's volleyball team's win over Penn State from Friday night.
TigerBlog doesn't pretend to know much about volleyball. Of all the sports that Princeton's OAC keeps stats at, TB would be the most lost behind the computer at a volleyball match.
He does know that men's coach Sam Shweisky is a very upbeat soul, one whose emails routinely are dotted with exclamation points, multiple ones. He's always smiling, always happy.
Even by his standards, Shweisky was the picture of joy at the end of the video, when he talks about what a great night it was for his team. And boy was it a great night.
For starters, Penn State is the dominant Eastern power in men's volleyball and a perennial contender (or winner) for the national championship. For another, Penn State was ranked 10th at the time, and Princeton had never beaten a Top 10 before.
Then there was the history of the rivalry. Princeton defeated Penn State in 1998 to earn its only trip to the NCAA Final Four, held in Hawaii. Since then Penn State had won 35 straight - until Friday night.
The video begins with a pregame meeting with the team and University president Chris Eisgruber. If you watch it and don't come away as a huge fan of the president, then TB will be shocked.
The rest of the video shows some key moments in the match, with points won by both teams. The Tigers won 3-2, taking the fifth set 15-11.
The video also showed just how into it the overflow crowd of 1,565 at Dillon Gym was. The place was jammed, and loud, and it was a festive, party atmosphere.
At the very end of the video, there are some still shots of Princeton players and fans, younger and older.
TigerBlog followed the match on Twitter. When the final point pushed the Tigers to the win, the entry from @putigers had seven exclamation points.
TigerBlog accidentally will use an exclamation point instead of a question mark when texting sometimes. Other than that, it's been decades since he's used one in actual writing.
He's not a fan.
In this case, though, it was very fitting.
It was a huge night for Princeton volleyball, and for its decidedly exclamatory head coach, Sam Shweisky.
No other punctuation mark could have properly captured the moment.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Ashleigh Johnson, TV Star
There are two days, TigerBlog believes, when the best movies are on television.
One seems to be Election Day, for some reason. TB supposes that it's to provide an alternative to the wall-to-wall returns that dominate most channels that night.
The runaway winner is clearly the day of the Academy Awards, of course.
This year was no different. In the hours leading up to last night's award's show, all of the following were on one network or another: "Bridge on the River Kwai," "My Fair Lady," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Goodfellas," "Mutiny on the Bounty," L.A. Confidential," "Tootsie" and any number of others.
The Saturday lineup included "Casablanca," which TB has seen enough times to have essentially memorized. It's hard for TB to pick out his favorite line from the movie, and if he had to come up with his 100 favorite lines from any movies of all-time, then there'd probably be five to 10 from "Casablanca."
TigerBlog used to love the Academy Awards, back when he'd see most if not all of the movies that were nominated. This year, he'd seen only one, and, quoting a line from a long ago Weekend Update from "Saturday Night Live," based on what he'd seen, then "American Hustle" should have won.
TB didn't watch any of the awards show. It's a little too much self-love for him among the presenters and host and all.
In fact, for all of the great movies that were on yesterday, the two best things he saw on TV had nothing to do with film-making or the Academy Awards or anything.
First was the "30 For 30" documentary called "Ghosts of Ole Miss," which actually was released two years ago but which TB had not yet seen.
In the first 10 minutes, there is footage of James Meredith as he integrates the University of Mississippi, back in 1962. He walks in escorted by two white men, one of whom was very tall and very thin.
Now, more than 50 years later, that tall white man is one of the most impressive people TB has ever met. His name - John Doar - is now familiar to TB, though not from any history book. Instead, it wasn't until years after he graduated from college with a degree in American history that he even heard of Doar.
For that matter, the documentary never mentions him by name, even though he, along with Meredith, were the ones with the real courage. And yet there he was in the footage, doing what needed to be done because, as he's said simply to TB several times, "it was the right thing to do." One of TB's most cherished possessions is a handwritten note from Mr. Doar thanking TB for nominating him for the NCAA Inspiration Award, which he won several years ago.
The documentary does a great job of chronicling what it took to enroll Meredith while tying it into the Ole Miss football program. The best part - other than the footage of Doar - were the actual phone conversations of then-President John Kennedy surrounding the events.
And again, it left TB wondering what more John Doar could have done to get a little credit for what he did, not that he really cares about that.
In addition to the documentary, TB also watched Princeton's 11-9 win over Harvard in women's water polo on ESPNU.
Princeton's agreement with ESPN is nearly 10 years old and was recently renewed through 2019. Somewhere along the line, ESPNU began to televise Princeton water polo, and the feedback TB gets from the network is that they love it - and that people watch it.
Each of the last few years, there has been a Princeton men's water polo game among the seven events ESPNU has broadcast. This year, the network added a women's game to the men's game, and so there was DeNunzio Pool, on ESPNU again, yesterday morning.
It's easy to overlook water polo when thinking about the great athletes Princeton has had representing it in recent years, but that would be a mistake, especially on the women's side. As TB has said before, there are very few athletes who dominate the way sophomore water polo goalie Ashleigh Johnson does.
That's how it was yesterday during the game. The first half was high-scoring; the second half was all Johnson, and therefore wasn't.
Princeton led 8-7 at the break, and Johnson didn't make a single first-quarter save. It's fair to say she heated up after that.
In the end she'd allow just two second-half goals as Princeton improved to 11-0 on the year. Johnson would finish with 17 saves, and TB has no idea if that's a high number or not for an average goalie. For Johnson, it's her third-best total in 11 games.
More than the number, it's how she does it. She's ridiculously quick and strong. Think about it. She's treading water the entire time and still able to explode to the ball as it comes to her.
One of the reasons ESPNU loves water polo is that it fits into a 90-minute time slot. Because the game was over before that, there was a chance to interview Princeton head coach Luis Nicolao when it was over. It doesn't get too much better than Luis Nicolao, as an interview subject or as a person in general.
As always, Luis came across great on TV. In fact, everything did. The team. The pool. The event. The University's institutional spot with that great narrator with a great voice.
On a great TV day, Princeton water polo couldn't have asked for much more.
One seems to be Election Day, for some reason. TB supposes that it's to provide an alternative to the wall-to-wall returns that dominate most channels that night.
The runaway winner is clearly the day of the Academy Awards, of course.
This year was no different. In the hours leading up to last night's award's show, all of the following were on one network or another: "Bridge on the River Kwai," "My Fair Lady," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Goodfellas," "Mutiny on the Bounty," L.A. Confidential," "Tootsie" and any number of others.
The Saturday lineup included "Casablanca," which TB has seen enough times to have essentially memorized. It's hard for TB to pick out his favorite line from the movie, and if he had to come up with his 100 favorite lines from any movies of all-time, then there'd probably be five to 10 from "Casablanca."
TigerBlog used to love the Academy Awards, back when he'd see most if not all of the movies that were nominated. This year, he'd seen only one, and, quoting a line from a long ago Weekend Update from "Saturday Night Live," based on what he'd seen, then "American Hustle" should have won.
TB didn't watch any of the awards show. It's a little too much self-love for him among the presenters and host and all.
In fact, for all of the great movies that were on yesterday, the two best things he saw on TV had nothing to do with film-making or the Academy Awards or anything.
First was the "30 For 30" documentary called "Ghosts of Ole Miss," which actually was released two years ago but which TB had not yet seen.
In the first 10 minutes, there is footage of James Meredith as he integrates the University of Mississippi, back in 1962. He walks in escorted by two white men, one of whom was very tall and very thin.
Now, more than 50 years later, that tall white man is one of the most impressive people TB has ever met. His name - John Doar - is now familiar to TB, though not from any history book. Instead, it wasn't until years after he graduated from college with a degree in American history that he even heard of Doar.
For that matter, the documentary never mentions him by name, even though he, along with Meredith, were the ones with the real courage. And yet there he was in the footage, doing what needed to be done because, as he's said simply to TB several times, "it was the right thing to do." One of TB's most cherished possessions is a handwritten note from Mr. Doar thanking TB for nominating him for the NCAA Inspiration Award, which he won several years ago.
The documentary does a great job of chronicling what it took to enroll Meredith while tying it into the Ole Miss football program. The best part - other than the footage of Doar - were the actual phone conversations of then-President John Kennedy surrounding the events.
And again, it left TB wondering what more John Doar could have done to get a little credit for what he did, not that he really cares about that.
In addition to the documentary, TB also watched Princeton's 11-9 win over Harvard in women's water polo on ESPNU.
Princeton's agreement with ESPN is nearly 10 years old and was recently renewed through 2019. Somewhere along the line, ESPNU began to televise Princeton water polo, and the feedback TB gets from the network is that they love it - and that people watch it.
Each of the last few years, there has been a Princeton men's water polo game among the seven events ESPNU has broadcast. This year, the network added a women's game to the men's game, and so there was DeNunzio Pool, on ESPNU again, yesterday morning.
It's easy to overlook water polo when thinking about the great athletes Princeton has had representing it in recent years, but that would be a mistake, especially on the women's side. As TB has said before, there are very few athletes who dominate the way sophomore water polo goalie Ashleigh Johnson does.
That's how it was yesterday during the game. The first half was high-scoring; the second half was all Johnson, and therefore wasn't.
Princeton led 8-7 at the break, and Johnson didn't make a single first-quarter save. It's fair to say she heated up after that.
In the end she'd allow just two second-half goals as Princeton improved to 11-0 on the year. Johnson would finish with 17 saves, and TB has no idea if that's a high number or not for an average goalie. For Johnson, it's her third-best total in 11 games.
More than the number, it's how she does it. She's ridiculously quick and strong. Think about it. She's treading water the entire time and still able to explode to the ball as it comes to her.
One of the reasons ESPNU loves water polo is that it fits into a 90-minute time slot. Because the game was over before that, there was a chance to interview Princeton head coach Luis Nicolao when it was over. It doesn't get too much better than Luis Nicolao, as an interview subject or as a person in general.
As always, Luis came across great on TV. In fact, everything did. The team. The pool. The event. The University's institutional spot with that great narrator with a great voice.
On a great TV day, Princeton water polo couldn't have asked for much more.
Friday, February 28, 2014
16 On Saturday
TigerBlog went to the eye doctor yesterday.
He likes his eye doctor, except for when she's putting those eye drops in his eyes, the ones that make his pupils gigantic - and burn like crazy.
By the way, did you hear about the cyclops teacher? Only had one pupil.
Anyway, the trip to the eye doctor was like every other one. A check of his vision, which deteriorates a little bit year-by-year. And then the drops, followed by the torturous part.
It starts with his chin on the little gadget that holds his head in place, so that his eye doctor can check him for glaucoma and some other things that eye doctors look for. And how does she do this? By shining extremely bright lights in his eyes from extraordinarily close distances.
The worst is the one with the sharp blue light on the end of a metal rod, which basically comes up to almost flush on his eyeball before stopping. That's always good for a few yucks.
Then there's the 15 minute wait until his pupils become completely dilated for one last check for something else, during which time TB has to pick out his new glasses. In loyalty to Princeton's official apparel provider, he only goes with the Nike brand glasses, and he gets the same basic frames each time.
Of course, once he's picked out essentially the same thing he's always had, he tries on the other ones, like the big black Buddy Holly framed ones. Then he realizes he'll always have the same glasses and goes with the Nike ones.
His eye doctor is an interesting woman. It seems like every time he's there, she and her husband are getting ready for some majorly wild trip, someplace like the Galapagos Islands or Fiji or something like that. This time they're heading out to Utah to go skiing, because as she said, Utah has the best snow.
Once TB leaves the eye doctor, it takes about three or four hours for his pupils to go back to normal. In the meantime, the light is just blinding.
All in all, it's a fun experience. At least it's only once a year. The drops alone would be nightmarish more than once a year.
So now he doesn't have to go back until at least February 2015. March of 2014 begins tomorrow, and it does so with a huge weekend for Princeton athletics.
How huge?
There are 16 teams that will compete tomorrow. Sixteen? That's insane.
Among the events are the Heps track and field championships (at Dartmouth), the men's Ivy League swimming and diving championships, the individual squash national championships and the ECAC women's hockey playoffs (best of three at Cornell).
There is also early-season men's and women's lacrosse, and of course the season-opening weekend for baseball (in California) and softball (in Florida).
There's also the end of the regular season in men's hockey and two basketball games against Brown, after the teams play Yale tonight, with the men home and the women on the road.
The Yale men desperately need to stay within a game of Harvard before their showdown next Friday in New Haven, and so the Bulldogs must win tonight at Princeton and tomorrow at Penn.
As for the women, they are at Yale and Brown after a wildly successful weekend trip to New England last weekend. The Tigers are now 8-1 in the Ivy League, one game up on Penn (7-2). Harvard is 7-3 and needs a lot of help to get back to the top.
To have 16 teams play on one day is not something that happens too many times. There are some schools that don't even field 16 teams total, let alone 16 that can play all at once.
It's easy to look at the schedule the way it is and forget everything that goes into putting that many teams into competition at the same time. It takes so many different people from all over the athletic department, and actually every office in the department plays an active role in getting these teams to where they need to be.
Hey, there are 14 events today, and that pales in comparison to tomorrow.
It's something unique to the Ivy League, and it's one of the best parts of being at Princeton.
He likes his eye doctor, except for when she's putting those eye drops in his eyes, the ones that make his pupils gigantic - and burn like crazy.
By the way, did you hear about the cyclops teacher? Only had one pupil.
Anyway, the trip to the eye doctor was like every other one. A check of his vision, which deteriorates a little bit year-by-year. And then the drops, followed by the torturous part.
It starts with his chin on the little gadget that holds his head in place, so that his eye doctor can check him for glaucoma and some other things that eye doctors look for. And how does she do this? By shining extremely bright lights in his eyes from extraordinarily close distances.
The worst is the one with the sharp blue light on the end of a metal rod, which basically comes up to almost flush on his eyeball before stopping. That's always good for a few yucks.
Then there's the 15 minute wait until his pupils become completely dilated for one last check for something else, during which time TB has to pick out his new glasses. In loyalty to Princeton's official apparel provider, he only goes with the Nike brand glasses, and he gets the same basic frames each time.
Of course, once he's picked out essentially the same thing he's always had, he tries on the other ones, like the big black Buddy Holly framed ones. Then he realizes he'll always have the same glasses and goes with the Nike ones.
His eye doctor is an interesting woman. It seems like every time he's there, she and her husband are getting ready for some majorly wild trip, someplace like the Galapagos Islands or Fiji or something like that. This time they're heading out to Utah to go skiing, because as she said, Utah has the best snow.
Once TB leaves the eye doctor, it takes about three or four hours for his pupils to go back to normal. In the meantime, the light is just blinding.
All in all, it's a fun experience. At least it's only once a year. The drops alone would be nightmarish more than once a year.
So now he doesn't have to go back until at least February 2015. March of 2014 begins tomorrow, and it does so with a huge weekend for Princeton athletics.
How huge?
There are 16 teams that will compete tomorrow. Sixteen? That's insane.
Among the events are the Heps track and field championships (at Dartmouth), the men's Ivy League swimming and diving championships, the individual squash national championships and the ECAC women's hockey playoffs (best of three at Cornell).
There is also early-season men's and women's lacrosse, and of course the season-opening weekend for baseball (in California) and softball (in Florida).
There's also the end of the regular season in men's hockey and two basketball games against Brown, after the teams play Yale tonight, with the men home and the women on the road.
The Yale men desperately need to stay within a game of Harvard before their showdown next Friday in New Haven, and so the Bulldogs must win tonight at Princeton and tomorrow at Penn.
As for the women, they are at Yale and Brown after a wildly successful weekend trip to New England last weekend. The Tigers are now 8-1 in the Ivy League, one game up on Penn (7-2). Harvard is 7-3 and needs a lot of help to get back to the top.
To have 16 teams play on one day is not something that happens too many times. There are some schools that don't even field 16 teams total, let alone 16 that can play all at once.
It's easy to look at the schedule the way it is and forget everything that goes into putting that many teams into competition at the same time. It takes so many different people from all over the athletic department, and actually every office in the department plays an active role in getting these teams to where they need to be.
Hey, there are 14 events today, and that pales in comparison to tomorrow.
It's something unique to the Ivy League, and it's one of the best parts of being at Princeton.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Saturday At 52
TigerBlog is all thawed out, finally.
To say it was cold at Manhattan's Gaelic Park Tuesday night would be something of an understatement. TigerBlog was wearing long underwear, pants, heavy socks, a long-sleeve t-shirt, one fleece, another fleece, his heaviest sweatshirt, his big heavy Princeton Athetics coat, gloves and a hat - and he was still freezing.
TB much prefers 95 degrees with high humidity to nights like Tuesday, when it was in the 20s with a gentle lazy wind blowing. A lazy wind, by the way, is a wind that is too lazy to go around you, so it goes through you.
The occasion was the Princeton-Manhattan men's lacrosse game. It's become something of a necessary evil to play lacrosse games beginning in February, weather notwithstanding, and so the early-season schedule is dotted with dates like "Feb. 25, Princeton at Manhattan" and just hope for tolerable weather.
Tuesday night didn't cooperate in the least.
TB assumes that the players are used to the cold, after practicing in it. And when you're young and moving around playing lacrosse, you probably don't feel it as much as you do when you're more than twice the age of any of the players and you're just standing there watching.
Gaelic Park sits under the subway tracks, and the No. 1 train that comes up Seventh Ave. and ends at 242nd Street and Van Cortlandt Park, a few blocks from the Manhattan campus. Several times during the game, the unmistakable sound of a subway train's brakes could be heard above the normal sounds of lacrosse.
The field itself is an enormous piece of field turf, one that is the home of Manhattan lacrosse, soccer and even softball. Unlike almost any other college lacrosse field that TB can think of, there is no fence directly behind one of the goals, only another 70 yards or so of turf field that is where the softball field is laid out. As a result, it gives the impression that the lacrosse game is being played on a gigantic piece of land.
The park is tucked into the city streets of the Bronx, which is actually where Manhattan College is. If you like cities, it's a nice little place.
It just doesn't happen to have a press box, though, which meant TB couldn't take refuge from the cold. He does recognize that this hardly makes him a sympathetic figure or anything.
He'll be back in the press box Saturday, when Princeton hosts Johns Hopkins at noon in the opening game of a doubleheader on Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium, one that concludes with the Princeton-Georgetown women's game.
Princeton-Hopkins is one of TigerBlog's favorite games each year. There was a time that Princeton lost 24 straight games to Hopkins, which meant that there were players who went from being born to graduating as Princeton seniors and never having the Tigers beat the Blue Jays in all that time.
The 0-24 streak was part of a 1-33 run that ended in the 1990 NCAA tournament, Princeton's first. Since then, the Tigers are 16-10 against the Blue Jays, including 3-0 in the NCAA tournament.
Recently it's been something of an odd series, in that the game has had little impact on the remainder of the season. The teams almost always play on the first Saturday of March, so it's not always easy to tell what direction either team is going to go in after they cross paths.
For instance, Princeton beat Hopkins 8-3 at Homewood Field in 2011. Leaving the field that day, TB would never have guessed that Hopkins would end up as the third seed in the NCAA tournament and that Princeton would struggle all year with injuries and tight losses.
Last year Princeton knocked off Hopkins 11-8, on a day when the Blue Jays were ranked third nationally. Big win for the Tigers, right? One that fit perfectly into the selection criteria for NCAA tournament bids, no?
Only Hopkins' 2013 season fell apart in a series of its own tight losses, and by season's end, that was no longer a big win - and neither team made the NCAA tournament.
The visiting team has had overwhelming success in this series as well. In the last 12 games played on one of the team's campuses - not counting the four games at M&T Bank Stadium from 2007-10 - the visiting team is a remarkable 10-2.
This year Princeton is 2-0 and Hopkins is 3-0. It certainly seems like both teams will very much be in the mix for the NCAA tournament and can even think about going deep into May, but hey, there have been other years like that where it didn't pan out.
In the meantime, the game features two high-scoring teams, as well as an opportunity to see two players who will probably end up being among the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy. Hopkins is led by Wells Stanwick, who has 13 assists in three games, while Princeton is led by the amazing Tom Schreiber, who has four goals and six assists in two games and needs one more assist to become the third Princeton player with at least 80 career goal and 80 career assists.
The second game matches two teams with 1-1 records. Princeton opened with a loss at Loyola before beating Rutgers last night on yet another very cold early-season evening. Georgetown defeated Delaware and lost to Towson.
No, it's not going to be a warm sunny spring day for the doubleheader.
Yes, it will still be worth attending.
To say it was cold at Manhattan's Gaelic Park Tuesday night would be something of an understatement. TigerBlog was wearing long underwear, pants, heavy socks, a long-sleeve t-shirt, one fleece, another fleece, his heaviest sweatshirt, his big heavy Princeton Athetics coat, gloves and a hat - and he was still freezing.
TB much prefers 95 degrees with high humidity to nights like Tuesday, when it was in the 20s with a gentle lazy wind blowing. A lazy wind, by the way, is a wind that is too lazy to go around you, so it goes through you.
The occasion was the Princeton-Manhattan men's lacrosse game. It's become something of a necessary evil to play lacrosse games beginning in February, weather notwithstanding, and so the early-season schedule is dotted with dates like "Feb. 25, Princeton at Manhattan" and just hope for tolerable weather.
Tuesday night didn't cooperate in the least.
TB assumes that the players are used to the cold, after practicing in it. And when you're young and moving around playing lacrosse, you probably don't feel it as much as you do when you're more than twice the age of any of the players and you're just standing there watching.
Gaelic Park sits under the subway tracks, and the No. 1 train that comes up Seventh Ave. and ends at 242nd Street and Van Cortlandt Park, a few blocks from the Manhattan campus. Several times during the game, the unmistakable sound of a subway train's brakes could be heard above the normal sounds of lacrosse.
The field itself is an enormous piece of field turf, one that is the home of Manhattan lacrosse, soccer and even softball. Unlike almost any other college lacrosse field that TB can think of, there is no fence directly behind one of the goals, only another 70 yards or so of turf field that is where the softball field is laid out. As a result, it gives the impression that the lacrosse game is being played on a gigantic piece of land.
The park is tucked into the city streets of the Bronx, which is actually where Manhattan College is. If you like cities, it's a nice little place.
It just doesn't happen to have a press box, though, which meant TB couldn't take refuge from the cold. He does recognize that this hardly makes him a sympathetic figure or anything.
He'll be back in the press box Saturday, when Princeton hosts Johns Hopkins at noon in the opening game of a doubleheader on Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium, one that concludes with the Princeton-Georgetown women's game.
Princeton-Hopkins is one of TigerBlog's favorite games each year. There was a time that Princeton lost 24 straight games to Hopkins, which meant that there were players who went from being born to graduating as Princeton seniors and never having the Tigers beat the Blue Jays in all that time.
The 0-24 streak was part of a 1-33 run that ended in the 1990 NCAA tournament, Princeton's first. Since then, the Tigers are 16-10 against the Blue Jays, including 3-0 in the NCAA tournament.
Recently it's been something of an odd series, in that the game has had little impact on the remainder of the season. The teams almost always play on the first Saturday of March, so it's not always easy to tell what direction either team is going to go in after they cross paths.
For instance, Princeton beat Hopkins 8-3 at Homewood Field in 2011. Leaving the field that day, TB would never have guessed that Hopkins would end up as the third seed in the NCAA tournament and that Princeton would struggle all year with injuries and tight losses.
Last year Princeton knocked off Hopkins 11-8, on a day when the Blue Jays were ranked third nationally. Big win for the Tigers, right? One that fit perfectly into the selection criteria for NCAA tournament bids, no?
Only Hopkins' 2013 season fell apart in a series of its own tight losses, and by season's end, that was no longer a big win - and neither team made the NCAA tournament.
The visiting team has had overwhelming success in this series as well. In the last 12 games played on one of the team's campuses - not counting the four games at M&T Bank Stadium from 2007-10 - the visiting team is a remarkable 10-2.
This year Princeton is 2-0 and Hopkins is 3-0. It certainly seems like both teams will very much be in the mix for the NCAA tournament and can even think about going deep into May, but hey, there have been other years like that where it didn't pan out.
In the meantime, the game features two high-scoring teams, as well as an opportunity to see two players who will probably end up being among the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy. Hopkins is led by Wells Stanwick, who has 13 assists in three games, while Princeton is led by the amazing Tom Schreiber, who has four goals and six assists in two games and needs one more assist to become the third Princeton player with at least 80 career goal and 80 career assists.
The second game matches two teams with 1-1 records. Princeton opened with a loss at Loyola before beating Rutgers last night on yet another very cold early-season evening. Georgetown defeated Delaware and lost to Towson.
No, it's not going to be a warm sunny spring day for the doubleheader.
Yes, it will still be worth attending.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Randy Neeff, Harvard Class Of 1990
TigerBlog was getting ready to walk out of Jadwin Gym
Saturday night after the men’s basketball game when he ran into Randy Neeff,
Harvard class of 1990, he believes.
She would have been class of 1989 had a bad car accident the
summer after she graduated high school not pushed her back a year, so TB is pretty
sure she was class of 1990.
TB met her after the accident, around when she had healed
to the point of being ready to go to college but unable to do so until the
following fall semester. He and his friend Corey became friends with Randy back
then, and he stayed in contact with her while she attended Harvard. After that,
they drifted apart.
TB remembers a time back in one of those summers when his
friend Frank , who was living in Virginia at the time, invited him and Corey to
a party he was having. TB immediately enlisted his then roommate Ed Mikus Jr.,
and right as they were leaving, Randy called to see what was up.
Told to be ready in 10 minutes, Randy said “why not?” and
was in the car shortly thereafter. It was the kind of spur-of-the-moment
weekend that can be had when you’re young and then be remembered long, long
after the fact.
Randy Neeff was beautiful back then. Her smile was
omnipresent; she laughed easily. She wore wayfarer sunglasses and had long reddish
hair that, much like her face, sparkled in the summer sun. She had a zest for
life that let her drop everything and head to a party four hours away at the
house of someone she never met and coupled that with an intellectual drive that
took her to the nation’s second-best undergraduate college.
TB, Corey and Ed Mikus Jr. have talked about that weekend at
various times through the years, and the conversation has always come around to
wondering whatever happened to Randy Neeff.
Now, all these decades later, she flashes the same smile
from the same beautiful face and laughs just as easily. TigerBlog in seconds was
taken back to Randy as a 19-year-old, even as she looked up at him from her
wheelchair.
Perhaps it was the long-term effect of that original car
accident. Maybe it was that zest that took her mountain climbing and on other
adventures that ultimately led to one nasty fall from a cliff.
Whatever the cause, Randy these days sees the world from her
chair. She struggles to talk and be heard, but she does not struggle to smile
or laugh. She still has her zest, even if her mobility is severely hampered.
She and TB reconnected a few months back, through LinkedIn,
of all things. They’ve gone to dinner, to see “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty,”
talked about old times and new times.
TB didn’t know she was at the basketball game Saturday night
until it ended and she was wheeling her way through the double doors into the
hallway near the ticket office.
She has a live-in caregiver, an affable woman named Katie,
and her family is in the area. She gets out as much as she can, whether it’s to
dinner or the movies or even a Princeton basketball game against her alma
mater.
By the time TB saw her, Harvard had beaten Princeton 59-47
in a game that was close for 35 minutes or so. Princeton was done in by an
unfortunate sequence when it was a one-point game when Hans Brace missed a dunk
and then Harvard came down and knocked down a three-pointer on its next
possession.
Often turning points in games are hard to pick up on as they
happen. This was not one of those times. Had Brace’s dunk gone in, Princeton
would have been up one with about six minutes left, and the crowd would have
raised the noise level considerably.
Instead, Harvard came down and dropped in a three-pointer.
Princeton went from about to go up one to down four. Another minute later it
was a six-point game after a Harvard dunk of its own.
In many ways, this defines the 2014 Ivy League season for
Princeton men’s basketball. Close to breaking through – only to be knocked back
down in a very frustrating manner.
Princeton is now 3-6 in the league, while Harvard is 9-1.
Yale lost to Columbia Sunday to fall to 8-2 in what is a two-team race.
Princeton can make it essentially a one-team race by beating
the Bulldogs Friday night at Jadwin. Yale desperately needs to be within one
game of Harvard when they play the Crimson on March 7, and that means sweeping
Princeton and Penn this weekend.
Or they could get some help, and if any team wants to knock
off Harvard, it’s Columbia, who takes on the Crimson this weekend. Columbia,
you may recall, came within a disputed block/charge in overtime of beating
Harvard the first time around.
As for the Tigers, there is still the goal of winning out
and finishing above .500 in the league. Regardless, the 2014 season will go
down as one of the tougher ones, after the way the 2013 part of the season –
the non-league part – went for Princeton, who gave every indication that it
would be the other team in a two-team race with Harvard come late February.
Randy Neeff, of course, is rooting for the Crimson. TB
doesn’t blame her. It’s her alma mater.
Katie had gone to pull Randy’s specially equipped van to the
DeNunzio Circle, so TB waited with her for a few minutes. At that time, Gary
Walters walked by, so TB introduced him to his old friend.
Gary strained to hear her soft voice talk about how she was
a Harvard grad, how she jokingly apologized for her team’s beating Princeton.
Then it was off to the parking lot and into the van. She
needs a neck brace to stabilize her as she is driven, and she needs her chair
to lock into place on the passenger side, which has no front seat.
She joked to TB earlier that she had been able to renew her
driver’s license and that nobody at the DMV even blinked at the fact that she
was in a chair.
Her body has been beaten down through the years, but her
sense of humor is still intact.
Corey got in on the reunion at P.F. Chang’s for dinner not
that long ago, and as Randy motored her way through the door, he greeted her by
saying “don’t get up,” in a manner that made all three laugh hilariously.
Someone who spent her days saying “why me” wouldn’t laugh at
that. Randy Neeff did.
And she talks about the day when she will get up out of
that chair and walk again and go back to climbing her mountains, even if some
mountains may now seem insurmountable.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Keeping Up
TigerBlog would never watch "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" if he didn't have a good reason.
In TB's opinion, the Kardashian show more than any other captures so many of the ills of contemporary American popular culture - and really American society as a whole.
Let's face it. These are people who are narcissists and who will do anything for fame and fortune. They have no discernible talent, other than having been in the right place at the right time when reality TV kicked into high gear - and very little in the way of shame.
And so they've spent years and years living their lives with cameras pointed at them. In fairness, who wouldn't start to think that they were fascinating if every little piece of one's life were part of a TV show?
Of course you have to hand it to them. They have achieved great fame and fortune, which is America today is what the whole goal seems to be. Find whatever shortcut you can to wealth and notoriety, and it was really the Kardashian family that wrote the playbook of how to do so.
TB hates when he's going through the channels and stumbles upon it for a second before he changes the channel. It makes him feel unclean just to see that much of it.
So if he watched a segment of it Sunday night, there must have been a good reason, right?
There was.
This episode centered around Bruce Jenner's birthday - and his daughter's coming 18th birthday and desire to buy a beach house in Malibu, because, you know, isn't that what 18-year-olds do?
Anyway, there was a time that Bruce Jenner was the studliest of studs, the Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, the greatest athlete in the world, a genuine American sporting icon. Seriously, after the 1976 Olympics, Jenner was to marketing in this country what Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning would become. That's how huge he was.
Now? He's just part of the trainwreck.
Anyway, his step-daughters wanted to do something nice for his birthday though, and they hit upon the idea of surprising him by inviting his 1976 Olympic decathlon teammates to California for his dinner.
Both of those teammates were named Fred. One of them is Fred Samara, the longtime Princeton men's track and field coach.
And that's how TigerBlog came to watch "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" Sunday.
Actually, he didn't watch the whole thing. He relied on his coworker Kristy McNeil, an avid fan of the show, to let him know when Fred was about to be on.
When TB put it on, he saw the barely recognizable Bruce Jenner dressed in a Princeton Track and Field shirt. And there was a part where Kim Kardashian looks up the 1976 Olympic decathlon team and then calls Fred to invite him the party.
Fred - both Freds, Samara and Dixon, actually - is then shown walking into where the family has gathered. Kim's concern was that Bruce wouldn't recognize the two Freds after all these years, but that's hardly the case.
TB remembers when Fred went out to California for the party/filming. It was awhile ago.
And there he was on TV Sunday night.
It went as well as it could have for Samara, with the Princeton Track and Field t-shirt and with a fairly respectable treatment by the narcissists, the ones who could have been condescending without too much effort.
When TB spoke to Samara yesterday, he was pleased with the way it went. And TB could tell he wasn't the first person to ask him about it.
If Samara was uncomfortable with the whole thing, he'll be much more in his element this weekend, when Princeton competes in the Ivy League Heptagonal championships at Dartmouth.
From his bio:
As head coach, Samara has guided the Tigers to 35 Ivy League titles, 17 indoor, 14 outdoor and four in cross country. Since 2000 alone, Samara had guided the Tigers to 12 Ivy League track & field titles, winning eight in indoor track and field and four in outdoor. His team posted an Ivy League triple crown in 2010-11 as Princeton became just the 10th program in NCAA history to sweep all six titles (men and women) in a single academic year and did it again in 2011-12.
As for indoor Heps, the men's winner has been either Princeton or Cornell every year since 1994 except for one year, 1997, when Penn won the title. Princeton won in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before Cornell regained the championship last year.
Samara looks like he could still be a decathlete all these years later. His workouts are a standard part of daily life in Jadwin Gym, and he doesn't have an ounce of fat on him.
Yeah, he's way more athlete/coach than reality TV star.
His cameo appearance Sunday was more than enough for him. And for TigerBlog, who will watch again when another Princeton coach is on.
In TB's opinion, the Kardashian show more than any other captures so many of the ills of contemporary American popular culture - and really American society as a whole.
Let's face it. These are people who are narcissists and who will do anything for fame and fortune. They have no discernible talent, other than having been in the right place at the right time when reality TV kicked into high gear - and very little in the way of shame.
And so they've spent years and years living their lives with cameras pointed at them. In fairness, who wouldn't start to think that they were fascinating if every little piece of one's life were part of a TV show?
Of course you have to hand it to them. They have achieved great fame and fortune, which is America today is what the whole goal seems to be. Find whatever shortcut you can to wealth and notoriety, and it was really the Kardashian family that wrote the playbook of how to do so.
TB hates when he's going through the channels and stumbles upon it for a second before he changes the channel. It makes him feel unclean just to see that much of it.
So if he watched a segment of it Sunday night, there must have been a good reason, right?
There was.
This episode centered around Bruce Jenner's birthday - and his daughter's coming 18th birthday and desire to buy a beach house in Malibu, because, you know, isn't that what 18-year-olds do?
Anyway, there was a time that Bruce Jenner was the studliest of studs, the Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, the greatest athlete in the world, a genuine American sporting icon. Seriously, after the 1976 Olympics, Jenner was to marketing in this country what Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning would become. That's how huge he was.
Now? He's just part of the trainwreck.
Anyway, his step-daughters wanted to do something nice for his birthday though, and they hit upon the idea of surprising him by inviting his 1976 Olympic decathlon teammates to California for his dinner.
Both of those teammates were named Fred. One of them is Fred Samara, the longtime Princeton men's track and field coach.
And that's how TigerBlog came to watch "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" Sunday.
Actually, he didn't watch the whole thing. He relied on his coworker Kristy McNeil, an avid fan of the show, to let him know when Fred was about to be on.
When TB put it on, he saw the barely recognizable Bruce Jenner dressed in a Princeton Track and Field shirt. And there was a part where Kim Kardashian looks up the 1976 Olympic decathlon team and then calls Fred to invite him the party.
Fred - both Freds, Samara and Dixon, actually - is then shown walking into where the family has gathered. Kim's concern was that Bruce wouldn't recognize the two Freds after all these years, but that's hardly the case.
TB remembers when Fred went out to California for the party/filming. It was awhile ago.
And there he was on TV Sunday night.
It went as well as it could have for Samara, with the Princeton Track and Field t-shirt and with a fairly respectable treatment by the narcissists, the ones who could have been condescending without too much effort.
When TB spoke to Samara yesterday, he was pleased with the way it went. And TB could tell he wasn't the first person to ask him about it.
If Samara was uncomfortable with the whole thing, he'll be much more in his element this weekend, when Princeton competes in the Ivy League Heptagonal championships at Dartmouth.
From his bio:
As head coach, Samara has guided the Tigers to 35 Ivy League titles, 17 indoor, 14 outdoor and four in cross country. Since 2000 alone, Samara had guided the Tigers to 12 Ivy League track & field titles, winning eight in indoor track and field and four in outdoor. His team posted an Ivy League triple crown in 2010-11 as Princeton became just the 10th program in NCAA history to sweep all six titles (men and women) in a single academic year and did it again in 2011-12.
As for indoor Heps, the men's winner has been either Princeton or Cornell every year since 1994 except for one year, 1997, when Penn won the title. Princeton won in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before Cornell regained the championship last year.
Samara looks like he could still be a decathlete all these years later. His workouts are a standard part of daily life in Jadwin Gym, and he doesn't have an ounce of fat on him.
Yeah, he's way more athlete/coach than reality TV star.
His cameo appearance Sunday was more than enough for him. And for TigerBlog, who will watch again when another Princeton coach is on.
Monday, February 24, 2014
156-0
You know who had a bad weekend? The U.S. Olympic men's hockey team.
You know who had a good weekend? The Princeton women's basketball team.
Both teams played Friday and Saturday, and they had vastly different experiences.
The Princeton women's basketball team outscored the U.S. men's hockey team 156-0 in their two games this weekend. Okay, so it's not really fair to offer up comparative scores from basketball and hockey, so maybe it's better to say that the difference was the fact that the Princeton women got the points when they needed them, while the Americans didn't.
Oh, and they also got some help where they might not have expected it, in a way that speaks volumes about how sports can work.
Let's start with the Olympic hockey team.
A few hours before the Princeton women started their weekend, the U.S. men were confident and ready heading into a semifinal game against Canada. And then it all fell apart.
Canada defeated the U.S. 1-0 Friday to advance the gold medal game, which meant an extra day off. The Canadians, on a roll, thumped Sweden yesterday 3-0.
The loss Friday dropped the U.S. into the bronze medal game. For TigerBlog's money, there is no worse place to be and no game that has more pressure on it than the bronze medal game.
A day earlier, the gold is in your sights. This is immediately followed by the very real possibility that you could be going home with no medal at all.
And that's what happened to Team USA. One day after playing a very, very emotional game, the U.S. had to come right back against Finland, playing with the added problem of having to win to medal. Instead, it was all Finland, who won 5-0.
Tough loss one day? Hard to dial it back up the next.
Then there was the weekend for the Princeton women.
Back on Friday, Princeton, Harvard and Penn all had one Ivy League loss in women's basketball, while Dartmouth was winless. The matchups for the weekend were Princeton at Dartmouth and Penn at Harvard Friday and Princeton at Harvard and Penn at Dartmouth Saturday.
Clearly, there was going to be some sorting out of the league race this weekend.
If you're Princeton, you weren't really sure which team to root for in the Penn-Harvard matchup. If Princeton was going to beat Harvard Saturday, then it would be better for Harvard to beat Penn. If Princeton was going to lose to Harvard, then it would be better for Penn to beat Harvard.
Why? Because Princeton plays Penn in the final game of the regular season, March 11 at Jadwin. If Princeton had a second loss, then it would need Penn to have one loss, not Harvard.
Anyway, that was the background to the weekend.
So what happened? Princeton pasted Dartmouth by 41 Friday night. And Penn pulled away from Harvard to win 63-50.
At the midway point of the weekend, Penn was in the position of rooting for Harvard to beat Princeton, which would leave both with two losses. Surely Penn would cruise in Hanover against the 0-9 Big Green, right?
Well, let's see what happened next. Princeton had a back-and-forth game against Harvard, one that the Tigers sealed 69-64 with some clutch foul shooting, especially by Michelle Miller, who was 6 for 6 for the Tigers, who went 20 for 24 as a team. Princeton won despite a 1 for 13 shooting night from Blake Dietrick, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week and probably the frontrunner for Ivy Player of the Year, especially if Princeton wins.
With the win over Harvard in the bank, TigerBlog checked on the Dartmouth-Penn game - and found that it was 26-17 Green at the half. Surely Penn would come back, right?
Well, the Quakers did. But Dartmouth gutted it out, taking it 53-50, after Penn had taken the lead at 50-49 late in the second half. It was a shocking result on some levels, but on others it was understandable.
Huge Friday win? Just like with a tough loss, it can be tough to dial it back up 24 hours later.
It's what happened to Harvard after its win at Jadwin earlier this year was followed by a 29-point loss at Penn the next night. And it's what happened to the Quakers this weekend, after its emotional win over the Crimson Friday.
So now what?
Princeton is 8-1, with games remaining at Yale and Brown this weekend and then home with Columbia, Cornell and then Penn.
The Quakers are 7-2, hoping for a Princeton slip-up but knowing that they cannot afford one of their own and that they at the very least need to come to Jadwin within one game of the Tigers and then take their chances at two straight wins, one to force a play-off and then it the play-off itself.
Harvard now is 7-3, with no more games against the teams in front. Mathematically the Crimson are still there, but they need a lot of help from the rest of the league.
Princeton got the sweep it needed and the help from Dartmouth that it never expected to get. All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.
John Thompson, when he was Princeton's coach, used to say the goal was to be in first place at the end of each weekend. Princeton finds itself there now in women's basketball.
Sole possession of first, actually. It makes it somewhat sweeter, though there is a still a long way to go.
You know who had a good weekend? The Princeton women's basketball team.
Both teams played Friday and Saturday, and they had vastly different experiences.
The Princeton women's basketball team outscored the U.S. men's hockey team 156-0 in their two games this weekend. Okay, so it's not really fair to offer up comparative scores from basketball and hockey, so maybe it's better to say that the difference was the fact that the Princeton women got the points when they needed them, while the Americans didn't.
Oh, and they also got some help where they might not have expected it, in a way that speaks volumes about how sports can work.
Let's start with the Olympic hockey team.
A few hours before the Princeton women started their weekend, the U.S. men were confident and ready heading into a semifinal game against Canada. And then it all fell apart.
Canada defeated the U.S. 1-0 Friday to advance the gold medal game, which meant an extra day off. The Canadians, on a roll, thumped Sweden yesterday 3-0.
The loss Friday dropped the U.S. into the bronze medal game. For TigerBlog's money, there is no worse place to be and no game that has more pressure on it than the bronze medal game.
A day earlier, the gold is in your sights. This is immediately followed by the very real possibility that you could be going home with no medal at all.
And that's what happened to Team USA. One day after playing a very, very emotional game, the U.S. had to come right back against Finland, playing with the added problem of having to win to medal. Instead, it was all Finland, who won 5-0.
Tough loss one day? Hard to dial it back up the next.
Then there was the weekend for the Princeton women.
Back on Friday, Princeton, Harvard and Penn all had one Ivy League loss in women's basketball, while Dartmouth was winless. The matchups for the weekend were Princeton at Dartmouth and Penn at Harvard Friday and Princeton at Harvard and Penn at Dartmouth Saturday.
Clearly, there was going to be some sorting out of the league race this weekend.
If you're Princeton, you weren't really sure which team to root for in the Penn-Harvard matchup. If Princeton was going to beat Harvard Saturday, then it would be better for Harvard to beat Penn. If Princeton was going to lose to Harvard, then it would be better for Penn to beat Harvard.
Why? Because Princeton plays Penn in the final game of the regular season, March 11 at Jadwin. If Princeton had a second loss, then it would need Penn to have one loss, not Harvard.
Anyway, that was the background to the weekend.
So what happened? Princeton pasted Dartmouth by 41 Friday night. And Penn pulled away from Harvard to win 63-50.
At the midway point of the weekend, Penn was in the position of rooting for Harvard to beat Princeton, which would leave both with two losses. Surely Penn would cruise in Hanover against the 0-9 Big Green, right?
Well, let's see what happened next. Princeton had a back-and-forth game against Harvard, one that the Tigers sealed 69-64 with some clutch foul shooting, especially by Michelle Miller, who was 6 for 6 for the Tigers, who went 20 for 24 as a team. Princeton won despite a 1 for 13 shooting night from Blake Dietrick, the reigning Ivy Player of the Week and probably the frontrunner for Ivy Player of the Year, especially if Princeton wins.
With the win over Harvard in the bank, TigerBlog checked on the Dartmouth-Penn game - and found that it was 26-17 Green at the half. Surely Penn would come back, right?
Well, the Quakers did. But Dartmouth gutted it out, taking it 53-50, after Penn had taken the lead at 50-49 late in the second half. It was a shocking result on some levels, but on others it was understandable.
Huge Friday win? Just like with a tough loss, it can be tough to dial it back up 24 hours later.
It's what happened to Harvard after its win at Jadwin earlier this year was followed by a 29-point loss at Penn the next night. And it's what happened to the Quakers this weekend, after its emotional win over the Crimson Friday.
So now what?
Princeton is 8-1, with games remaining at Yale and Brown this weekend and then home with Columbia, Cornell and then Penn.
The Quakers are 7-2, hoping for a Princeton slip-up but knowing that they cannot afford one of their own and that they at the very least need to come to Jadwin within one game of the Tigers and then take their chances at two straight wins, one to force a play-off and then it the play-off itself.
Harvard now is 7-3, with no more games against the teams in front. Mathematically the Crimson are still there, but they need a lot of help from the rest of the league.
Princeton got the sweep it needed and the help from Dartmouth that it never expected to get. All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.
John Thompson, when he was Princeton's coach, used to say the goal was to be in first place at the end of each weekend. Princeton finds itself there now in women's basketball.
Sole possession of first, actually. It makes it somewhat sweeter, though there is a still a long way to go.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Busy Weekend?
Cara Morey, assistant women's hockey coach and wife of sprint football head coach/eternal optimist Sean Morey, wore a bright red sweatshirt and bright red hat to yesterday's monthly department meeting.
They were emblazoned with the word "CANADA" on them.
Given Morey's sport and nationality, it was obvious that she was rooting for the Canadians in the Olympic women's hockey gold medal game, which would be facing off shortly before the end of the meeting.
By now you probably know what happened. Canada won the game and the gold medal 3-2 in overtime, handing the U.S. a brutal setback after the Americans had led 2-0 late in the third period.
Canada broke through to make it a 2-1 game with three minutes left, tied it with just over a minute left after pulling the goalie and then won it in OT. The U.S. team almost wrapped it up when it was 2-1, when a shot at the empty Canadian net trickled gently into the post, about an inch or two away from sealing it. The Canadians then came down and tied it instead.
The U.S. and Canada were destined to be in the gold medal game in women's hockey, just like they were four years ago and just like they will be four more years from now, TB assumes. Because of that, coming home with another silver medal stings a bit, especially after having come so close to finally winning the gold.
It's pretty hard for TigerBlog to work up any kind of animosity for Canada, even more so these days, after he recently saw "Argo" for the first time.
The Olympics foster a great many things, including over-the-top amounts of jingoism. As TB said before the men's hockey quarterfinal game, he knows plenty of Americans he doesn't like but not a single person in the Czech Republic that he doesn't like.
Besides, the American women's team was dotted with players from Harvard and Cornell, which always brings TB back to one of his favorite questions. Do you root for the rest of the league when they get to championship competition beyond the Ivy League?
TB usually roots for Ivy Leaguers in pro sports. The Olympics are sort of an extension of that, but this wasn't one underdog Ivy League-type who made it big.
Add it all up, and TB was mostly rooting for a good game in the women's final, and he got it. He's definitely rooting for the U.S. team in the men's game today though.
If you want to root against current Harvard athletes, then you can come to Jadwin Gym tomorrow night at see the Princeton-Harvard men's basketball game, tip-off for which is at 8.
The Tigers are 2-5 in the Ivy League, so there will be no title this year. There is still a chance, though, to greatly impact who does win the title.
Harvard is 7-1 and tied for first place with Yale, and both teams still need to make the trip to Princeton and Penn. It might not be the kind of big game that Princeton envisioned when it was 11-2 prior to the start of the league season, but it will still be a big game nonetheless.
It's hardly the only Princeton event this weekend, though.
How many events are there? How about 34 between tonight and Sunday. And some of them are huge, such as the Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships and the women's basketball game at Harvard. And the Howe Cup women's squash championships, also to be held in Jadwin.
If you don't feel like leaving the Princeton campus tomorrow, you can be pretty busy. Men's lacrosse opens at 11 a.m. against Hofstra. The men's basketball game wraps it up.
In between is wrestling against Penn (1), men's hockey against Cornell (7) and the squash all day.
It's only going to get busier as the winter/spring overlap gets into full swing for the next few weeks. Of course, this weekend is busy enough.
The lacrosse game will be the first home outdoor event since Nov. 16, when there was home football and men's soccer.
The weather has been brutal all winter, and it's supposed to go back to being brutal next week. But there is a bit of a window this weekend, just in time for Princeton-Hofstra, which will be played apparently on a day that will be sunny with temperatures in the high 40s or low 50s, which will seem like August after what's been going on around here.
Either way, it's a big sign that spring is on the way.
Maybe today's rain and warm temps can melt a lot of the snow, or at least allow some of the grass to peak through in spots. It's enough with seeing snow as far as the eye can see.
They were emblazoned with the word "CANADA" on them.
Given Morey's sport and nationality, it was obvious that she was rooting for the Canadians in the Olympic women's hockey gold medal game, which would be facing off shortly before the end of the meeting.
By now you probably know what happened. Canada won the game and the gold medal 3-2 in overtime, handing the U.S. a brutal setback after the Americans had led 2-0 late in the third period.
Canada broke through to make it a 2-1 game with three minutes left, tied it with just over a minute left after pulling the goalie and then won it in OT. The U.S. team almost wrapped it up when it was 2-1, when a shot at the empty Canadian net trickled gently into the post, about an inch or two away from sealing it. The Canadians then came down and tied it instead.
The U.S. and Canada were destined to be in the gold medal game in women's hockey, just like they were four years ago and just like they will be four more years from now, TB assumes. Because of that, coming home with another silver medal stings a bit, especially after having come so close to finally winning the gold.
It's pretty hard for TigerBlog to work up any kind of animosity for Canada, even more so these days, after he recently saw "Argo" for the first time.
The Olympics foster a great many things, including over-the-top amounts of jingoism. As TB said before the men's hockey quarterfinal game, he knows plenty of Americans he doesn't like but not a single person in the Czech Republic that he doesn't like.
Besides, the American women's team was dotted with players from Harvard and Cornell, which always brings TB back to one of his favorite questions. Do you root for the rest of the league when they get to championship competition beyond the Ivy League?
TB usually roots for Ivy Leaguers in pro sports. The Olympics are sort of an extension of that, but this wasn't one underdog Ivy League-type who made it big.
Add it all up, and TB was mostly rooting for a good game in the women's final, and he got it. He's definitely rooting for the U.S. team in the men's game today though.
If you want to root against current Harvard athletes, then you can come to Jadwin Gym tomorrow night at see the Princeton-Harvard men's basketball game, tip-off for which is at 8.
The Tigers are 2-5 in the Ivy League, so there will be no title this year. There is still a chance, though, to greatly impact who does win the title.
Harvard is 7-1 and tied for first place with Yale, and both teams still need to make the trip to Princeton and Penn. It might not be the kind of big game that Princeton envisioned when it was 11-2 prior to the start of the league season, but it will still be a big game nonetheless.
It's hardly the only Princeton event this weekend, though.
How many events are there? How about 34 between tonight and Sunday. And some of them are huge, such as the Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships and the women's basketball game at Harvard. And the Howe Cup women's squash championships, also to be held in Jadwin.
If you don't feel like leaving the Princeton campus tomorrow, you can be pretty busy. Men's lacrosse opens at 11 a.m. against Hofstra. The men's basketball game wraps it up.
In between is wrestling against Penn (1), men's hockey against Cornell (7) and the squash all day.
It's only going to get busier as the winter/spring overlap gets into full swing for the next few weeks. Of course, this weekend is busy enough.
The lacrosse game will be the first home outdoor event since Nov. 16, when there was home football and men's soccer.
The weather has been brutal all winter, and it's supposed to go back to being brutal next week. But there is a bit of a window this weekend, just in time for Princeton-Hofstra, which will be played apparently on a day that will be sunny with temperatures in the high 40s or low 50s, which will seem like August after what's been going on around here.
Either way, it's a big sign that spring is on the way.
Maybe today's rain and warm temps can melt a lot of the snow, or at least allow some of the grass to peak through in spots. It's enough with seeing snow as far as the eye can see.
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