So here's a story that TigerBlog is pretty sure his former boss Gary Walters will like.
TigerBlog Jr. has been driving his father's old car for a few years now. As you read this, that car has right around 199,300 miles on it.
As you can guess, it's somewhat beaten up.
Oh, and it's also a mess. That's what you get when you add together a college guy and lacrosse equipment and Wawa hoagie wrappers and empty water bottles.
The car itself still runs really well. Before this car, the most miles TB had ever put on a car was 155,000, on his old minivan, which he traded in for this car. As he understands it, his old minivan ended up as a taxi somewhere in the Caribbean. There are worse retirements for a minivan.
Meanwhile, back at this car, TB is pretty sure it'll get the remaining 700 miles to get to 200,000.
Then it'll be the fight coming between TBJ and Miss TigerBlog over who will get to drive it. MTB is three weeks into having her permit, and she's actually a pretty good driver already. In fact, she drove TB to the field hockey game Sunday, for her first drive from her house to Princeton.
One thing that concerns TB about his daughter as a driver, though, is that her sense of direction is, in a word, horrific. As she and TB drive around, he is constantly stunned by how little she has paid attention to her surroundings, leading to these kinds of conversations:
TB: Why are you turning left?
MTB: I'm going home.
TB: It's to the right.
MTB: It is?
TB: You've lived here your entire life.
Her sense of direction is so bad, TigerBlog half expects her to shoot the ball at the wrong goal in one of her field hockey or lacrosse games.
What does this have to do with Gary Walters? TB is getting to that.
TigerBlog Jr. worked this past summer as a counselor at the Campus Rec day camp at Dillon Gym, a camp he and his sister spent a lot of summers at as campers way back when. In fact, there can't be too many people who have gone to that camp more than TBJ, who was there for five summers as a camper, two or three as a senior camper, one as a CIT and now one as a counselor.
Anyway, one day TBJ returned from work to say that he'd been cut off on the Alexander Road bridge and that his sideview mirror had hit the guardrail. It cracked a little, he said.
Yes, a little. And by a little, he meant, into about 10 separate little mirrors, all of which faced into the car itself, as opposed to, oh, the lane on the right.
Anyway, TigerBlog took the car to Ron, the official car-fixer of the Office of Athletic Communications, to get it fixed. And while it was there, Ron changed the oil and did some other minor maintenance.
TigerBlog told Ron there was no rush on the car, since he was driving his other one and TBJ is at school. Eventually, a few days later, Ron called to say the car was done.
How much was the bill? This is the part that Gary will like.
Ron said it was "$116.42."
Now, do you ever find yourself in a situation where you hear some numbers and they immediately spark some memory? That's what happened when Ron told TB the price.
Was it someone's phone number? A zip code? As it turns out, it's neither.
Then it dawned on TigerBlog.
Princeton defeated Dartmouth 116-42 in the 1967 regular season, when Gary was the senior point guard. It was the first meeting between the teams that year. The second one had a much different score, one that, as TB thinks, would have been a better bill for the car.
In fact, Princeton would score 86 fewer points in the second game - which actually was at Dillon Gym, while the first was in Hanover. Oh, don't worry. Princeton still won fairly easily.
In fact, Dartmouth sat on the ball in that game to keep the score down. Back then, there was no shot clock.
So even though Princeton would score only 30 points in the game, the Tigers still won 30-16. Yeah, it would have been better to pay $30.16.
The 116 points Princeton scored in the first game are the second most Princeton has ever scored in a basketball game, behind the 118 against Wichita State in the 1965 NCAA consolation game.
In all, Princeton has reached 100 points in a men's basketball game 14 times, two of which came last year, after not having done so since 1971. TigerBlog would hardly be shocked to see the team get there again this year.
Anyway, TB has to go get the car. And leave a check.
Oh, and there are two home men's events tonight.
There's water polo against Wagner at 6:30 and there a men's soccer game against St. John's at 7.
And they're both free.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Happy New Year
If ever a day deserved to be New Year's Day, it's the Tuesday after Labor Day.
That would be yesterday, by the way.
Think about it. For the most part, yesterday was Day 1 of school in a lot of places. It was the first day of the holiday weekend that unofficially marks the end of summer. Pretty much all vacations have ended.
It also feels a little different than last week, like the page has been completely turned on one year and a new one has just started. You know, like New Year's Day.
Maybe it's more the nature of working in college athletics. Maybe if you work someplace where your fiscal year ends on June 30 or if there is no change in seasons, then your version of New Year's Day is something different.
No other time feels more like the start of a new year to TigerBlog than this time. Hey, maybe it's because his people have their New Year at this time of year. He just thought of that.
The first day of the New Year featured the first event meeting of the 2016-17 academic year.
Ah, the event meeting. It's every Tuesday, and has been every Tuesday for as long as TigerBlog has been working here.
In fact, he told this story back in 2009, in an entry about how he was confused as to why networks insist on showing Jerry Jones so much during Cowboys games. In fact, TigerBlog still doesn't get it.
You can read it HERE. It's not bad.
The part that TB wants to quote is this:
TB remembers one his first meetings, when Hank Towns, the longtime equipment manager, was complaining that Pete Carril's practices were running long. It led to this exchange:
Hank: "Pete's practices are running forever, almost until 8."
Administrator: "That late? Where are the players eating dinner. The clubs stop serving before that."
Hank: "Who cares about their dinner? Let them eat at McDonald's. I'm worried about my dinner."
Way back when, the event meeting was in the conference room on the Jadwin balcony. It would be problematic to hold it there these days, because 1) there are way more people at the event meeting now and 2) the conference room on the balcony was turned in office space more than 20 years ago. While TB understood the need for the new offices, that conference room was the best lunch room Jadwn has ever known.
Actually, one of the first or second event meetings TB attended in his time here featured this exchange, about game programs at a women's soccer game at Lourie-Love Field. The issue was that there was no place to actually put the programs, which were left in a small box on the wooden bleachers:
Gary Walters: I couldn't find a program at the women's soccer game.
Someone else: Yeah, I couldn't find one either.
Pretty much everyone else: Yeah, I couldn't find one either.
One last person: Yeah, and there weren't enough of them.
Finally, TigerBlog spoke. "If," he said, "nobody could find them, how did you know there weren't enough?"
Think about it.
The first event meeting of 2016-17 was memorable mostly for how hot it was in the D level conference room, which has hosted the meeting for years now.
If New Year's Day was yesterday, then instead of college football TigerBlog watched seven of the eight episodes of "The Night Of" on HBO (he watched the finale last night). It was okay. Pretty good idea for a story. Just didn't need to be eight episodes. It would have made a really good two-hour movie, actually.
As for New Year's Eve, TigerBlog was at the Princeton field hockey game, where the Tigers defeated Bucknell 5-2 to give Carla Tagliente her first win as Princeton head coach. She's now 65-44 in her head coaching career after coming to Princeton from UMass.
Princeton had five goals from five different players, which is always a good sign. The Tigers dominated the game, outshooting Bucknell 24-6, and only a 17-save effort from Emily Finn kept the game as close as it was.
If you've never seen Princeton field hockey, you should. It's an extremely fast game.
You'll have plenty of chances in the next few weeks to see the Tigers, who are ranked 16th this week after the win over Bucknell and a 2-1 loss to North Carolina, who reached the NCAA final a year ago.
Starting Friday, Princeton will play four games in 11 days, all four of which are against teams currently ranked ahead of the Tigers, with three of the four at home.
It starts with a game against No. 12 Albany Friday at 4 on Bedford Field. Then it's home with No. 10 Delaware Sunday at 1, at No. 11 Virginia the following Friday and then home with No. 7 Maryland on Sept. 20.
After that it's the Ivy opener against Dartmouth. Princeton has won an astonishing 20 of the last 21 Ivy League championships.
Finally, TigerBlog would like to wish a happy birthday to his Office of Athletic Communications colleague Craig Sachson, who is the big Four-Oh today.
If you read this blog, then odds are strong that you've also read a lot of stuff that Craig has written on goprincetontigers.com. Or seen his videos or listened to his podcasts.
There can't be too many people in this business who produce more content by themselves. And it's high quality content.
Maybe more than anyone, Craig buys into what Princeton Athletics are all about, with the equal emphasis of all sports and the equal mix of on-field success and the off-field educational impact that playing sports here has. Don't believe TB? Ask any of the coaches with whom Craig works.
Or, if you like, you can ask the starting quarterback on the football team and the No. 8 player on the squash teams. Craig values their experiences equally.
So happy birthday to Craig.
Hey, he's been doing this for more than one-third of his life now.
That would be yesterday, by the way.
Think about it. For the most part, yesterday was Day 1 of school in a lot of places. It was the first day of the holiday weekend that unofficially marks the end of summer. Pretty much all vacations have ended.
It also feels a little different than last week, like the page has been completely turned on one year and a new one has just started. You know, like New Year's Day.
Maybe it's more the nature of working in college athletics. Maybe if you work someplace where your fiscal year ends on June 30 or if there is no change in seasons, then your version of New Year's Day is something different.
No other time feels more like the start of a new year to TigerBlog than this time. Hey, maybe it's because his people have their New Year at this time of year. He just thought of that.
The first day of the New Year featured the first event meeting of the 2016-17 academic year.
Ah, the event meeting. It's every Tuesday, and has been every Tuesday for as long as TigerBlog has been working here.
In fact, he told this story back in 2009, in an entry about how he was confused as to why networks insist on showing Jerry Jones so much during Cowboys games. In fact, TigerBlog still doesn't get it.
You can read it HERE. It's not bad.
The part that TB wants to quote is this:
TB remembers one his first meetings, when Hank Towns, the longtime equipment manager, was complaining that Pete Carril's practices were running long. It led to this exchange:
Hank: "Pete's practices are running forever, almost until 8."
Administrator: "That late? Where are the players eating dinner. The clubs stop serving before that."
Hank: "Who cares about their dinner? Let them eat at McDonald's. I'm worried about my dinner."
Way back when, the event meeting was in the conference room on the Jadwin balcony. It would be problematic to hold it there these days, because 1) there are way more people at the event meeting now and 2) the conference room on the balcony was turned in office space more than 20 years ago. While TB understood the need for the new offices, that conference room was the best lunch room Jadwn has ever known.
Actually, one of the first or second event meetings TB attended in his time here featured this exchange, about game programs at a women's soccer game at Lourie-Love Field. The issue was that there was no place to actually put the programs, which were left in a small box on the wooden bleachers:
Gary Walters: I couldn't find a program at the women's soccer game.
Someone else: Yeah, I couldn't find one either.
Pretty much everyone else: Yeah, I couldn't find one either.
One last person: Yeah, and there weren't enough of them.
Finally, TigerBlog spoke. "If," he said, "nobody could find them, how did you know there weren't enough?"
Think about it.
The first event meeting of 2016-17 was memorable mostly for how hot it was in the D level conference room, which has hosted the meeting for years now.
If New Year's Day was yesterday, then instead of college football TigerBlog watched seven of the eight episodes of "The Night Of" on HBO (he watched the finale last night). It was okay. Pretty good idea for a story. Just didn't need to be eight episodes. It would have made a really good two-hour movie, actually.
As for New Year's Eve, TigerBlog was at the Princeton field hockey game, where the Tigers defeated Bucknell 5-2 to give Carla Tagliente her first win as Princeton head coach. She's now 65-44 in her head coaching career after coming to Princeton from UMass.
Princeton had five goals from five different players, which is always a good sign. The Tigers dominated the game, outshooting Bucknell 24-6, and only a 17-save effort from Emily Finn kept the game as close as it was.
If you've never seen Princeton field hockey, you should. It's an extremely fast game.
You'll have plenty of chances in the next few weeks to see the Tigers, who are ranked 16th this week after the win over Bucknell and a 2-1 loss to North Carolina, who reached the NCAA final a year ago.
Starting Friday, Princeton will play four games in 11 days, all four of which are against teams currently ranked ahead of the Tigers, with three of the four at home.
It starts with a game against No. 12 Albany Friday at 4 on Bedford Field. Then it's home with No. 10 Delaware Sunday at 1, at No. 11 Virginia the following Friday and then home with No. 7 Maryland on Sept. 20.
After that it's the Ivy opener against Dartmouth. Princeton has won an astonishing 20 of the last 21 Ivy League championships.
Finally, TigerBlog would like to wish a happy birthday to his Office of Athletic Communications colleague Craig Sachson, who is the big Four-Oh today.
If you read this blog, then odds are strong that you've also read a lot of stuff that Craig has written on goprincetontigers.com. Or seen his videos or listened to his podcasts.
There can't be too many people in this business who produce more content by themselves. And it's high quality content.
Maybe more than anyone, Craig buys into what Princeton Athletics are all about, with the equal emphasis of all sports and the equal mix of on-field success and the off-field educational impact that playing sports here has. Don't believe TB? Ask any of the coaches with whom Craig works.
Or, if you like, you can ask the starting quarterback on the football team and the No. 8 player on the squash teams. Craig values their experiences equally.
So happy birthday to Craig.
Hey, he's been doing this for more than one-third of his life now.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
The Magic Number Of 48
It's possible that the best ending to a Princeton athletic event for the 2016-17 athletic year may have happened before Labor Day.
Come June, it's going to be hard to beat what happened Friday night when the women's soccer team played at Delaware.
Yeah, yeah. It was Game 3 of the season. No championship was on the line. It wasn't even a league game.
Still, Princeton did do something remarkable.
The Tigers and Blue Hens were scoreless until five minutes remained, when Delaware scored what figured to be the lone goal of the night. It certainly looked that way with four minutes left, three minutes left, two minutes left, one minute left, 30 seconds left.
Ah, but not so fast.
Junior Vanessa Gregoire, a first-team All-Ivy League selection a year ago, took the ball just outside the box as time was winding down and lifted one into the top left corner to tie it with just five seconds left. Her goal was a thing of beauty.
If you don't believe TigerBlog, you can see the highlight HERE.
That same clip continues a few seconds later with another beautiful goal, this time the game-winner by Tyler Lussi, with 2:57 left in the first OT.
Gregoire would also score again Sunday in the win over Howard that left Princeton at 4-0-0 on the young season.
Lussi scored two more goals in the game against Howard, giving her five on the season and giving her the magic number of 48 for her career.
What's so magical about it? Nobody who has ever played soccer at Princeton, male or female, has ever gotten there before.
The previous record at Princeton was 47, set in 2004 by Esmeralda Negron. Her 47th goal came in the NCAA quarterfinals and helped advance Princeton to the Final Four that year.
In fact, in the entire history of soccer at Princeton, only five players have ever reached 40 goals in a career - Lussi, Negron and Linda deBoer, who scored 41 before graduating in 1985, on the women's side and Steven Davidson (41, graduated in 1969) and Yuri Fishman (40, graduated in 1984).
For the women, deBoer's record stood for nine years. Negron's stood for 12. Davidson has had the men's record for 47 years now.
There are a lot of records at Princeton that have stood for a long time. Kevin Lowe has been the all-time leading scorer in men's lacrosse sine 1994. Crista Samaras has been the all-time leading scorer in women's lacrosse since 1999.
Sandi Bittler Leland has held the record for points in women's basketball since 1990. Of course, the men's record goes back even further, to Bill Bradley in 1965.
Negron still has the school record for points in a career with 112 - for now. Lussi is three back (two points for a goal, one for an assist in soccer) at 109.
How many goals can Lussi put up before the season ends?
The next big milestone is 50 goals, which only four Ivy League women's soccer players have ever reached. The all-time league record is 68, held by Harvard's Kelly Landry, from the 1980s. Can Lussi get that many? That would be asking a lot.
Lussi and Negron are similar players.
Both are lefties. Both have an incredible ability to turn nothing into something. Any ball in the box is a potential goal. Neither is the power shooter that Diana Matheson or Mimi Asom are, but Lussi and Negron just have the innate ability to put the ball into the net.
Princeton is home Friday night against Temple at 7. The Tigers won't be home again this month after that. In a scheduling oddity, Princeton will have played two home games in August and one in September.
The men will play four home games in September, including Thursday night, against St. John's.
The Ivy League opener for the women's team is Sept. 24 at Yale.
Princeton won the league championship last year with a 6-0-1 Ivy record and the defeated Boston College in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Lussi and Asom - who figures to make her own serious run at whatever number Lussi puts up - each scored twice in that game.
There's a long way to go between now and a possible return to the NCAA tournament for Princeton. Still, four games into the season, it's a good time to marvel at Tyler Lussi and her accomplishment.
It takes a special player to stand alone at the top of the record book at any sport at Princeton. To have scored more goals than any other player ever to play a sport at Princeton is extraordinary.
And that would be at the perfect word to describe Lussi's career at Princeton.
Extraordinary.
Come June, it's going to be hard to beat what happened Friday night when the women's soccer team played at Delaware.
Yeah, yeah. It was Game 3 of the season. No championship was on the line. It wasn't even a league game.
Still, Princeton did do something remarkable.
The Tigers and Blue Hens were scoreless until five minutes remained, when Delaware scored what figured to be the lone goal of the night. It certainly looked that way with four minutes left, three minutes left, two minutes left, one minute left, 30 seconds left.
Ah, but not so fast.
Junior Vanessa Gregoire, a first-team All-Ivy League selection a year ago, took the ball just outside the box as time was winding down and lifted one into the top left corner to tie it with just five seconds left. Her goal was a thing of beauty.
If you don't believe TigerBlog, you can see the highlight HERE.
That same clip continues a few seconds later with another beautiful goal, this time the game-winner by Tyler Lussi, with 2:57 left in the first OT.
Gregoire would also score again Sunday in the win over Howard that left Princeton at 4-0-0 on the young season.
Lussi scored two more goals in the game against Howard, giving her five on the season and giving her the magic number of 48 for her career.
What's so magical about it? Nobody who has ever played soccer at Princeton, male or female, has ever gotten there before.
The previous record at Princeton was 47, set in 2004 by Esmeralda Negron. Her 47th goal came in the NCAA quarterfinals and helped advance Princeton to the Final Four that year.
In fact, in the entire history of soccer at Princeton, only five players have ever reached 40 goals in a career - Lussi, Negron and Linda deBoer, who scored 41 before graduating in 1985, on the women's side and Steven Davidson (41, graduated in 1969) and Yuri Fishman (40, graduated in 1984).
For the women, deBoer's record stood for nine years. Negron's stood for 12. Davidson has had the men's record for 47 years now.
There are a lot of records at Princeton that have stood for a long time. Kevin Lowe has been the all-time leading scorer in men's lacrosse sine 1994. Crista Samaras has been the all-time leading scorer in women's lacrosse since 1999.
Sandi Bittler Leland has held the record for points in women's basketball since 1990. Of course, the men's record goes back even further, to Bill Bradley in 1965.
Negron still has the school record for points in a career with 112 - for now. Lussi is three back (two points for a goal, one for an assist in soccer) at 109.
How many goals can Lussi put up before the season ends?
The next big milestone is 50 goals, which only four Ivy League women's soccer players have ever reached. The all-time league record is 68, held by Harvard's Kelly Landry, from the 1980s. Can Lussi get that many? That would be asking a lot.
Lussi and Negron are similar players.
Both are lefties. Both have an incredible ability to turn nothing into something. Any ball in the box is a potential goal. Neither is the power shooter that Diana Matheson or Mimi Asom are, but Lussi and Negron just have the innate ability to put the ball into the net.
Princeton is home Friday night against Temple at 7. The Tigers won't be home again this month after that. In a scheduling oddity, Princeton will have played two home games in August and one in September.
The men will play four home games in September, including Thursday night, against St. John's.
The Ivy League opener for the women's team is Sept. 24 at Yale.
Princeton won the league championship last year with a 6-0-1 Ivy record and the defeated Boston College in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Lussi and Asom - who figures to make her own serious run at whatever number Lussi puts up - each scored twice in that game.
There's a long way to go between now and a possible return to the NCAA tournament for Princeton. Still, four games into the season, it's a good time to marvel at Tyler Lussi and her accomplishment.
It takes a special player to stand alone at the top of the record book at any sport at Princeton. To have scored more goals than any other player ever to play a sport at Princeton is extraordinary.
And that would be at the perfect word to describe Lussi's career at Princeton.
Extraordinary.
Friday, September 2, 2016
RIP The Waco Kid
The news that Gene Wilder had passed away left TigerBlog a bit saddened.
Back in his days at the newspaper, before the internet, he used to his breaking news on the AP wire. He worked then with a guy named Tony Persichilli, and any time the death of someone famous came across the wire, he'd simply shrug and say "that's someone else I never met who died." In fact, the only time he showed any emotion was when the woman who played Aunt Bea on "The Andy Griffith Show" died.
The last time TigerBlog spoke to Tony Perch, as he was known, was when he called the newspaper a few years after beginning work at Princeton. What's new, TB asked him. The response? TB can still hear Tony's voice as he said "What's new? Nothing. I'm still sitting in the same chair I was sitting in the day you left. And I'm probably wearing the same shirt."
Tony passed away in 2012, at the age of 59. TigerBlog thought about both of those little anecdotes when he heard the news. He was quite a character, Tony Perch, and a good man.
These days, it's usually a bad sign for older stars who have been out of the public spotlight for awhile to be trending on Twitter. It usually means something bad has happened to them.
Such was the case with Gene Wilder. When TB saw he was trending on Twitter, he figured that the end had come.
Gene Wilder was always one of TigerBlog's favorite actors. He wasn't quite a Hall-of-Famer, but you could be pretty sure that whatever he was in was going to be pretty good.
And in some cases great.
Wilder made three great movies, TB would say. Two are obvious. The other isn't as much.
The one that isn't obvious is "The Silver Streak," a movie TigerBlog saw in the movies when it was released in 1976. It paired Wilder with the brilliant Richard Pryor, had Jill Clayburgh as the love interest, and pieced together some hilarious scenes over the course of a fluffy little plot about murder and international fraud aboard a train.
Pryor is the one who gets the frantic laughs. Wilder is the one who gets the subtle, understated ones. Between them, they made for a great comedy team for the four movies they did together.
The two that were clearly great included "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." TigerBlog is almost certain he saw it at Camp Toledo on movie night in 1971 or so. Either that or his grandmother took him to see it. But he's going with Camp Toledo.
Wilder played the title role in "Willy Wonka" and did so pretty much perfectly. You've seen it. You don't need TigerBlog to explain it to you.
The other one that is obviously great is one TigerBlog would consider among the five funniest movies of all time - "Blazing Saddles." If you haven't seen this one, then make sure you do. It's Mel Brooks at his best, with Wilder and Cleavon Little at theirs.
Wilder plays The Waco Kid, a gunslinger with lightning fast hands who has become a drunk. Little is the new sheriff. It's insanely funny, with humor that is sophisticated and slapstick at the same time. And not exactly PC, but that's the point of the humor. It's all subtle.
There were other movies with Wilder that TB really liked, including the incredibly obscure but very funny "Hanky Panky," in which the female lead is Gilda Radner, who would go on to be Wilder's third of four wives before she died of ovarian cancer in 1989. TigerBlog probably found out about it from Tony Perch off the AP wire.
So RIP Gene Wilder. And thanks for the laughs.
Wilder passed away Monday, which was Aug. 29. TigerBlog again would like to say how shocked he is by how quickly the summer has zoomed by.
Is it really September already? Miss TigerBlog had the first day of school yesterday. TigerBlog Jr. is finishing Week 1 of classes, and he said that he has one class, a politics class, in which everyone in the class but him - the professor and all of the other students - are women.
As you probably know by now, TBJ goes to Sacred Heart University. The Pioneers open their football season tomorrow at Stetson, which is coached by former Princeton coach Roger Hughes.
Princeton football is two weeks away from opening day. This, though, is the first fairly busy weekend of the Princeton Athletic year.
The first two events of 2016-17 were last weekend, when the women's soccer team swept Fordham and Villanova. Princeton plays two more women's soccer games this weekend, but this time there are four other Princeton teams who jump in.
Only one of them is at home, and TB will get back to them shortly.
The women's soccer team is at Delaware tonight and Howard Sunday. The big story there, other than the on-field results, is whether or not this will be the weekend that Tyler Lussi breaks Esmeralda Negron's school goals-scoring record.
Lussi has 45 for her career. Negron had 47. No other player, male or female, has ever had more.
There's more than just Lussi's chase for the record, and you can read about it HERE.
The men's soccer team opens its season tomorrow night at West Virginia, who is ranked 24th nationally after a 1-0 win over No. 10 Georgetown and a 2-0 loss to No. 14 Seattle. More than the record and the ranking, maybe the biggest advantage for the Mountaineers is that they have played two games, while Princeton is playing its first.
You can watch the men's soccer game for free HERE.
The men's water polo team, ranked 11th in the preseason, opens this weekend at Navy. The Tigers will be home next week, including a game against No. 1 UCLA, the two-time defending NCAA champ, Sunday the 11th at noon on ESPNU.
If you want the water polo preview, it's HERE.
The women's volleyball team is also playing this weekend, with its opener in California. When last we left the women's volleyball team, it was staging a wild rally to get a share of the 2015 Ivy League championship.
More on women's volleyball? It's HERE.
The only team on campus this weekend is the field hockey team, who plays No. 1 North Carolina today at 4 and then Bucknell Sunday at 1.
The big story for Princeton, other than the chance to knock off the defending champ, is that it's the debut weekend for Carla Tagliente as Princeton head coach.
You can read about it HERE.
And that's your weekend in Princeton Athletics.
Back in his days at the newspaper, before the internet, he used to his breaking news on the AP wire. He worked then with a guy named Tony Persichilli, and any time the death of someone famous came across the wire, he'd simply shrug and say "that's someone else I never met who died." In fact, the only time he showed any emotion was when the woman who played Aunt Bea on "The Andy Griffith Show" died.
The last time TigerBlog spoke to Tony Perch, as he was known, was when he called the newspaper a few years after beginning work at Princeton. What's new, TB asked him. The response? TB can still hear Tony's voice as he said "What's new? Nothing. I'm still sitting in the same chair I was sitting in the day you left. And I'm probably wearing the same shirt."
Tony passed away in 2012, at the age of 59. TigerBlog thought about both of those little anecdotes when he heard the news. He was quite a character, Tony Perch, and a good man.
These days, it's usually a bad sign for older stars who have been out of the public spotlight for awhile to be trending on Twitter. It usually means something bad has happened to them.
Such was the case with Gene Wilder. When TB saw he was trending on Twitter, he figured that the end had come.
Gene Wilder was always one of TigerBlog's favorite actors. He wasn't quite a Hall-of-Famer, but you could be pretty sure that whatever he was in was going to be pretty good.
And in some cases great.
Wilder made three great movies, TB would say. Two are obvious. The other isn't as much.
The one that isn't obvious is "The Silver Streak," a movie TigerBlog saw in the movies when it was released in 1976. It paired Wilder with the brilliant Richard Pryor, had Jill Clayburgh as the love interest, and pieced together some hilarious scenes over the course of a fluffy little plot about murder and international fraud aboard a train.
Pryor is the one who gets the frantic laughs. Wilder is the one who gets the subtle, understated ones. Between them, they made for a great comedy team for the four movies they did together.
The two that were clearly great included "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." TigerBlog is almost certain he saw it at Camp Toledo on movie night in 1971 or so. Either that or his grandmother took him to see it. But he's going with Camp Toledo.
Wilder played the title role in "Willy Wonka" and did so pretty much perfectly. You've seen it. You don't need TigerBlog to explain it to you.
The other one that is obviously great is one TigerBlog would consider among the five funniest movies of all time - "Blazing Saddles." If you haven't seen this one, then make sure you do. It's Mel Brooks at his best, with Wilder and Cleavon Little at theirs.
Wilder plays The Waco Kid, a gunslinger with lightning fast hands who has become a drunk. Little is the new sheriff. It's insanely funny, with humor that is sophisticated and slapstick at the same time. And not exactly PC, but that's the point of the humor. It's all subtle.
There were other movies with Wilder that TB really liked, including the incredibly obscure but very funny "Hanky Panky," in which the female lead is Gilda Radner, who would go on to be Wilder's third of four wives before she died of ovarian cancer in 1989. TigerBlog probably found out about it from Tony Perch off the AP wire.
So RIP Gene Wilder. And thanks for the laughs.
Wilder passed away Monday, which was Aug. 29. TigerBlog again would like to say how shocked he is by how quickly the summer has zoomed by.
Is it really September already? Miss TigerBlog had the first day of school yesterday. TigerBlog Jr. is finishing Week 1 of classes, and he said that he has one class, a politics class, in which everyone in the class but him - the professor and all of the other students - are women.
As you probably know by now, TBJ goes to Sacred Heart University. The Pioneers open their football season tomorrow at Stetson, which is coached by former Princeton coach Roger Hughes.
Princeton football is two weeks away from opening day. This, though, is the first fairly busy weekend of the Princeton Athletic year.
The first two events of 2016-17 were last weekend, when the women's soccer team swept Fordham and Villanova. Princeton plays two more women's soccer games this weekend, but this time there are four other Princeton teams who jump in.
Only one of them is at home, and TB will get back to them shortly.
The women's soccer team is at Delaware tonight and Howard Sunday. The big story there, other than the on-field results, is whether or not this will be the weekend that Tyler Lussi breaks Esmeralda Negron's school goals-scoring record.
Lussi has 45 for her career. Negron had 47. No other player, male or female, has ever had more.
There's more than just Lussi's chase for the record, and you can read about it HERE.
The men's soccer team opens its season tomorrow night at West Virginia, who is ranked 24th nationally after a 1-0 win over No. 10 Georgetown and a 2-0 loss to No. 14 Seattle. More than the record and the ranking, maybe the biggest advantage for the Mountaineers is that they have played two games, while Princeton is playing its first.
You can watch the men's soccer game for free HERE.
The men's water polo team, ranked 11th in the preseason, opens this weekend at Navy. The Tigers will be home next week, including a game against No. 1 UCLA, the two-time defending NCAA champ, Sunday the 11th at noon on ESPNU.
If you want the water polo preview, it's HERE.
The women's volleyball team is also playing this weekend, with its opener in California. When last we left the women's volleyball team, it was staging a wild rally to get a share of the 2015 Ivy League championship.
More on women's volleyball? It's HERE.
The only team on campus this weekend is the field hockey team, who plays No. 1 North Carolina today at 4 and then Bucknell Sunday at 1.
The big story for Princeton, other than the chance to knock off the defending champ, is that it's the debut weekend for Carla Tagliente as Princeton head coach.
You can read about it HERE.
And that's your weekend in Princeton Athletics.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Answering John Mack
Perhaps you remember John Mack?
He's moving closer to the front of the line at the P-Rade every year. While TigerBlog wouldn't call him one of the old guard quite yet, hey, the clock continues to tick.
Mack, a member of the Class of 2000, was a 10-time Heps champion in track and field and a Roper Trophy winner. Now he's a lawyer in Michigan.
At one point, Mack could run the 400 in less than 47 seconds. At some point a few years ago, TB and Mack had this actual conversation:
TB: If you started to run the 400, how far would you get in 47 seconds?
Mack: I'd be about 100 yards down the track clutching my hamstring.
In the world of Princeton Athletic alums, there are the ones that TigerBlog likes, the ones he really likes - and there's John Mack. If he's not in his own class, as Bum Phillips once said: "It doesn't take long to take the attendance."
Maybe it's because he's the only person on Earth who can say that he was a student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications, an employee of the Department of Athletics and a babysitter for TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog back when they were really, really, really little.
Mack texted TigerBlog two things yesterday.
The first was that TB "has always been one of the cool field hockey moms to me."
That was a reference to yesterday, when TB talked about the five women with whom he shares a text message chain that started when the six of them agreed to drive to MTB's high school field hockey team's preseason team bonding event in the Poconos last week.
As an aside, TB forgot to mention yesterday that the chain has continued through to this week. Since returning from the Poconos, TigerBlog has learned all sorts of valuable things about the other CFHMs. You know, like Mandy painted the windows in her family room Saturday, Kathleen was up early walking her dog in the park, Jean is the one you want in your trench when it comes time to fight authority - and they all seem to drink a lot of coffee.
And the second thing John Mack texted TB yesterday?
"What is the most disappointing loss by a Princeton team since you've been there and the most surprising win, taken from a perspective of expectations before the game started (excluding the UCLA win in hoops).
Now that's the kind of question TB loves. And they're both tough ones. Here's the caveat - It has to be a game TigerBlog actually attended.
Okay, let's take the first one first.
The most disappointed TB has ever been after a Princeton loss? That's easy. That was the 1998 second-round NCAA men's basketball loss to Michigan State, a team that would win the NCAA title two years later starting four of the same players who went against Princeton.
But that's not what John Mack is saying, TB believes. He's talking about a loss in a game that Princeton was supposed to win, and that game doesn't really fit that profile.
TigerBlog has long thought that there are some games where one team is clearly the favorite but the game never plays out that way. Oh, sometimes the favorite still wins, but it's not easy. Those games have a weird feel to them early on, like you can tell that that particular day is going to be a little different. TB thinks these are the kinds of games John Mack is talking about.
TB thought about the 1995 football loss to Yale when the Tigers were 8-0-0, but that isn't really it because 1) even though Yale came in at 2-6, the Bulldogs got their quarterback Chris Hetherington back for that game, and he would be the difference in the game and would go on to play nearly a decade in the NFL and 2) Princeton would win the outright Ivy title the next week anyway.
He thought about the 1991 NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinal loss to Towson, 14-13 in triple overtime at Palmer Stadium. TB thought after that one that maybe that might have been Princeton's best chance it would ever have to win an NCAA title, being the second seed and all. That was disappointing - until Princeton won the championship the next year and then won five more after that.
He thought about a bunch of games in a bunch of sports. Fortunately, Princeton wins a lot more than it loses, so there really haven't been that many of these kinds of games.
Then he thought of one. It was from 1999, a men's basketball game at Yale. The Tigers came into the game 15-5 overall and 7-0 in the Ivy League. Yale was 4-16, 1-7. Final score? Yale 60, Princeton 58 in double overtime.
You might remember what had happened four days earlier more than you remember this game. That game four days earlier was the 50-49 win over Penn in which Princeton had trailed 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
The Yale game was one of those games TB talked about before, where it just didn't feel right from the start. TigerBlog remembers getting to the hotel at Brown a few hours later and seeing Brian Earl (he had 21 points while going all 50 minutes) in the hallway outside his room, and they both looked at each other and simply shrugged, neither saying a word.
So yes, that's the game TB would go with for that part of the question.
For the second part? Remember, the UCLA basketball game doesn't count.
TB came up with four.
The first is the 2000 NCAA men's lacrosse semifinal against Virginia. Princeton was a huge underdog against the Cavs, who had beaten Princeton 15-8 during the regular season. Princeton was also down three in the fourth quarter before Trevor Tierney made a huge one-on-one stop after the shooter made about 100 fakes on the doorstep, and back came Princeton, tying it and then winning it 12-11 on Brendan Tierney's late goal. There was a great picture of Brendan Tierney in the New York Times the next day; the framed picture of it still hangs in the Tierney house.
So that's one.
No. 2 would be the championship game of the First Bank Classic at Marquette in 1996-97. This would be men's basketball, by the way. TigerBlog thought there was no way Princeton was going to win this one. Marquette went to the second round of the NCAA tournament the year before and would go back in 1997 as well. It was in Milwaukee. With Marquette's refs. Marquette was led by Chris Crawford, who would play seven years in the NBA.
As for the refs, there are some funny stories. First, Princeton head coach Bill Carmody said to one of the officials "hey, fouls are 10-0 this half," to which the ref replied "as soon as they commit one I'll call it." Good response.
Then there was the end of the game. Princeton had a two-point lead. Centers Steve Goodrich and Jesse Rosenfeld had both fouled out, leaving Sydney Johnson to play center for the Tigers. Princeton was trying to hold on in the final minute. But Marquette hadn't committed many fouls that half, so they had foul maybe five or six more times to send Princeton to the line. It led to "inbound, foul, repeat" as precious time ran off the clock. Then, when the next foul would send Princeton to the line, the Tigers went with a 50-foot backdoor pass off the sideline out of bounds. TB is pretty sure it went Mitch Henderson to James Mastaglio. Layup. Game over.
So that's two.
The next two rise above those two though. Both were in the NCAA tournament.
One was the 2004 NCAA quarterfinal women's soccer game between Princeton and Washington. Yes, the Tigers were the home team and the higher seed (Princeton seven; Washington 15). Still, TB thought maybe the Tigers' dream season had gone as far asit was going to go, probably because the Huskies had wins over teams like Stanford and USC and hadn't allowed a goal in five games. Or maybe it was because the idea of getting to the NCAA Final Four in women's soccer seemed impossible.
Princeton scored first. Washington tied it. 1-1 at the half. Then Esmeralda Negron and Kristina Fontanez scored in the first 10 minutes of the second half, and Princeton was in total control. The last 20 minutes or so were a party for Princeton and the overflow crowed at old Lourie-Love Field.
It remains the only time an Ivy League team has reached the women's soccer Final Four.
And the other game? The 2001 NCAA men's lacrosse championship game against Syracuse.
Princeton had lost to Syracuse in the 2000 regular season, 2000 NCAA final and 2001 regular season by a combined 43-19. None of those three games were ever competitive. There was no reason to suspect the 2001 final would be either.
The championship game was different. Princeton took it to Syracuse early and led 5-3 at the half, 8-4 after three. Then Syracuse tied it in what seemed like a minute. Princeton went up 9-8. Syracuse tied it with 16 seconds left. Off to OT the game went.
Syracuse had all the momentum, but it didn't matter. The Tigers got a stop. Ryan Boyle got the ball behind the goal. B.J. Prager finished it, 10-9 Princeton.
Is TB forgetting anything obvious?
Oh, and John Mack? TB apologizes for not getting back to you.
He's moving closer to the front of the line at the P-Rade every year. While TigerBlog wouldn't call him one of the old guard quite yet, hey, the clock continues to tick.
Mack, a member of the Class of 2000, was a 10-time Heps champion in track and field and a Roper Trophy winner. Now he's a lawyer in Michigan.
At one point, Mack could run the 400 in less than 47 seconds. At some point a few years ago, TB and Mack had this actual conversation:
TB: If you started to run the 400, how far would you get in 47 seconds?
Mack: I'd be about 100 yards down the track clutching my hamstring.
In the world of Princeton Athletic alums, there are the ones that TigerBlog likes, the ones he really likes - and there's John Mack. If he's not in his own class, as Bum Phillips once said: "It doesn't take long to take the attendance."
Maybe it's because he's the only person on Earth who can say that he was a student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications, an employee of the Department of Athletics and a babysitter for TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog back when they were really, really, really little.
Mack texted TigerBlog two things yesterday.
The first was that TB "has always been one of the cool field hockey moms to me."
That was a reference to yesterday, when TB talked about the five women with whom he shares a text message chain that started when the six of them agreed to drive to MTB's high school field hockey team's preseason team bonding event in the Poconos last week.
As an aside, TB forgot to mention yesterday that the chain has continued through to this week. Since returning from the Poconos, TigerBlog has learned all sorts of valuable things about the other CFHMs. You know, like Mandy painted the windows in her family room Saturday, Kathleen was up early walking her dog in the park, Jean is the one you want in your trench when it comes time to fight authority - and they all seem to drink a lot of coffee.
And the second thing John Mack texted TB yesterday?
"What is the most disappointing loss by a Princeton team since you've been there and the most surprising win, taken from a perspective of expectations before the game started (excluding the UCLA win in hoops).
Now that's the kind of question TB loves. And they're both tough ones. Here's the caveat - It has to be a game TigerBlog actually attended.
Okay, let's take the first one first.
The most disappointed TB has ever been after a Princeton loss? That's easy. That was the 1998 second-round NCAA men's basketball loss to Michigan State, a team that would win the NCAA title two years later starting four of the same players who went against Princeton.
But that's not what John Mack is saying, TB believes. He's talking about a loss in a game that Princeton was supposed to win, and that game doesn't really fit that profile.
TigerBlog has long thought that there are some games where one team is clearly the favorite but the game never plays out that way. Oh, sometimes the favorite still wins, but it's not easy. Those games have a weird feel to them early on, like you can tell that that particular day is going to be a little different. TB thinks these are the kinds of games John Mack is talking about.
TB thought about the 1995 football loss to Yale when the Tigers were 8-0-0, but that isn't really it because 1) even though Yale came in at 2-6, the Bulldogs got their quarterback Chris Hetherington back for that game, and he would be the difference in the game and would go on to play nearly a decade in the NFL and 2) Princeton would win the outright Ivy title the next week anyway.
He thought about the 1991 NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinal loss to Towson, 14-13 in triple overtime at Palmer Stadium. TB thought after that one that maybe that might have been Princeton's best chance it would ever have to win an NCAA title, being the second seed and all. That was disappointing - until Princeton won the championship the next year and then won five more after that.
He thought about a bunch of games in a bunch of sports. Fortunately, Princeton wins a lot more than it loses, so there really haven't been that many of these kinds of games.
Then he thought of one. It was from 1999, a men's basketball game at Yale. The Tigers came into the game 15-5 overall and 7-0 in the Ivy League. Yale was 4-16, 1-7. Final score? Yale 60, Princeton 58 in double overtime.
You might remember what had happened four days earlier more than you remember this game. That game four days earlier was the 50-49 win over Penn in which Princeton had trailed 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
The Yale game was one of those games TB talked about before, where it just didn't feel right from the start. TigerBlog remembers getting to the hotel at Brown a few hours later and seeing Brian Earl (he had 21 points while going all 50 minutes) in the hallway outside his room, and they both looked at each other and simply shrugged, neither saying a word.
So yes, that's the game TB would go with for that part of the question.
For the second part? Remember, the UCLA basketball game doesn't count.
TB came up with four.
The first is the 2000 NCAA men's lacrosse semifinal against Virginia. Princeton was a huge underdog against the Cavs, who had beaten Princeton 15-8 during the regular season. Princeton was also down three in the fourth quarter before Trevor Tierney made a huge one-on-one stop after the shooter made about 100 fakes on the doorstep, and back came Princeton, tying it and then winning it 12-11 on Brendan Tierney's late goal. There was a great picture of Brendan Tierney in the New York Times the next day; the framed picture of it still hangs in the Tierney house.
So that's one.
No. 2 would be the championship game of the First Bank Classic at Marquette in 1996-97. This would be men's basketball, by the way. TigerBlog thought there was no way Princeton was going to win this one. Marquette went to the second round of the NCAA tournament the year before and would go back in 1997 as well. It was in Milwaukee. With Marquette's refs. Marquette was led by Chris Crawford, who would play seven years in the NBA.
As for the refs, there are some funny stories. First, Princeton head coach Bill Carmody said to one of the officials "hey, fouls are 10-0 this half," to which the ref replied "as soon as they commit one I'll call it." Good response.
Then there was the end of the game. Princeton had a two-point lead. Centers Steve Goodrich and Jesse Rosenfeld had both fouled out, leaving Sydney Johnson to play center for the Tigers. Princeton was trying to hold on in the final minute. But Marquette hadn't committed many fouls that half, so they had foul maybe five or six more times to send Princeton to the line. It led to "inbound, foul, repeat" as precious time ran off the clock. Then, when the next foul would send Princeton to the line, the Tigers went with a 50-foot backdoor pass off the sideline out of bounds. TB is pretty sure it went Mitch Henderson to James Mastaglio. Layup. Game over.
So that's two.
The next two rise above those two though. Both were in the NCAA tournament.
One was the 2004 NCAA quarterfinal women's soccer game between Princeton and Washington. Yes, the Tigers were the home team and the higher seed (Princeton seven; Washington 15). Still, TB thought maybe the Tigers' dream season had gone as far asit was going to go, probably because the Huskies had wins over teams like Stanford and USC and hadn't allowed a goal in five games. Or maybe it was because the idea of getting to the NCAA Final Four in women's soccer seemed impossible.
Princeton scored first. Washington tied it. 1-1 at the half. Then Esmeralda Negron and Kristina Fontanez scored in the first 10 minutes of the second half, and Princeton was in total control. The last 20 minutes or so were a party for Princeton and the overflow crowed at old Lourie-Love Field.
It remains the only time an Ivy League team has reached the women's soccer Final Four.
And the other game? The 2001 NCAA men's lacrosse championship game against Syracuse.
Princeton had lost to Syracuse in the 2000 regular season, 2000 NCAA final and 2001 regular season by a combined 43-19. None of those three games were ever competitive. There was no reason to suspect the 2001 final would be either.
The championship game was different. Princeton took it to Syracuse early and led 5-3 at the half, 8-4 after three. Then Syracuse tied it in what seemed like a minute. Princeton went up 9-8. Syracuse tied it with 16 seconds left. Off to OT the game went.
Syracuse had all the momentum, but it didn't matter. The Tigers got a stop. Ryan Boyle got the ball behind the goal. B.J. Prager finished it, 10-9 Princeton.
Is TB forgetting anything obvious?
Oh, and John Mack? TB apologizes for not getting back to you.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Here Comes Field Hockey Season
TigerBlog is now one of the cool field hockey moms from Miss TigerBlog's high school team.
Or something like that. Or maybe it's TigerBlog and the Cool Field Hockey Moms. Like a musical group.
The whole thing started when TB volunteered to be a driver for the team-bonding event - rope climbing and zip lining - in the Poconos last week. To take all of the girls from the varsity and jayvee, there was a need for six volunteers.
Their names were Jean, Mandy, Kathleen, Dara, Sue and TigerBlog.
In order to make sure everyone knew where to be and when, a group text-message chain was started. Mostly, the group message focused on what the best way to go from the starting point to Camelback Mountain would be.
It actually made TigerBlog laugh a bit. There were a bunch of ways to go, and the discussion got fairly in-depth: routes, possible traffic patterns based on the time of the day, what each specific app suggested the best way to go would be.
None of these issues were ever really resolved.
TigerBlog went up 29 past Lambertville to 31, until it ended at 46. Then it was a left turn, past the Delaware Water Gap onto 80 and then to Camelback. From about two minutes outside the parking lot where they started, TigerBlog didn't see anyone else in the group - until he got to I-80, when suddenly he noticed Jean ahead of him and Dara directly behind him.
TB's car featured Miss TigerBlog and her teammates Amy, Alexa and Gianna. Amy made a playlist for her iPhone, and they all sang basically the whole way up. They're actually pretty good singers.
As for the team activities, TB and the CFHMs sat out the rope climbing, opting instead for breakfast. It was a nice place and a nice morning, and the group sat outside - and two-thirds of them actually got what they ordered.
When it came time to zip line, TB sat that out too. He chose to skip zip lining in Costa Rica with the men's lacrosse team in 2012, and he saw no reason to change his position on the activity this time.
TigerBlog played his music on the way back, causing Miss TigerBlog to recoil in fear that her friends would actually hear the songs that her dad likes. Interestingly, they were able to sing along to almost all of them.
Oh, and the local newspaper had its high school field hockey preview yesterday, and TB told MTB that her name was in it. He bought an actual copy of the paper and gave it to her, and it dawned on him that she has almost never held an actual newspaper in her hands.
TB, on the other hand, grew up reading newspapers, and his interest in writing started with the newspapers he used to read each day. He loved to read newspapers, and he loved working in the newspaper business. The writing piece was great, but just as much he loved to watch the production of an actual newspaper night after night after night.
And now it was dawning on him that his daughter has barely been exposed something he always assumed would be around forever. He wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry about that.
With the team-bonding trip behind them, MTB's team is heading towards its season opener. Her team had its final preseason scrimmage yesterday, and the first game is against local power Mount St. Joseph's. Perhaps you've heard that name before? It's the school that sent the Reinprecht sisters to Princeton.
Speaking of Princeton, the Tigers open their field hockey season this week too, with a strong non-league schedule and then the chase for the 21st Ivy League championship in 22 years this season.
The Tigers enter the 2016 season ranked 15th nationally. Opening day is Friday, when Princeton hosts North Carolina at 4. That would be No. 1-ranked North Carolina, by the way.
By the time three more weeks roll around, Princeton will have played seven games, including six at home. In fact, the season starts with four home games in nine days, including Game 2, which is Sunday at 1 against Bucknell.
The only road game in that stretch is Sept. 16 at Virginia, who is ranked fifth. Of those first seven games, five of them are against ranked teams.
The 2016 season starts with a new head coach and top assistant, as Carla Tagliente has come from UMass as the head coach and brought Dina Rizzo from Maryland to be her top assistant.
If you want to get to know them, you can watch the video HERE. It's really good.
It actually dawns on TB that videos like the one introducing the new field hockey staff speaks to why newspapers aren't anything like what they used to be. But hey, it's 2016.
If you've never seen Princeton play field hockey, then you're missing out. It's quite a bit faster than high school field hockey on grass.
Field hockey is a very fast game. It has quick restarts and no offsides, and the ball gets hit very, very hard.
Princeton has just three seniors on its team this year, including All-Ivy and All-Mid-Atlantic Region selection Cat Caro. There are 21 players on the team, 13 of whom are either freshmen or sophomores. Included in that group are the dynamic sophomores Sophia Tornetta and Elise Wong, who were both first-team All-Ivy and first-team all-region a year ago. Tornetta added Ivy Rookie of the Year.
Add to that the facility itself. There are very few places better for field hockey than Bedford Field, one of Princeton's best athletic venues.
And it'll be a busy venue, beginning Friday, when the No. 1 team in the country visits.
New coaches. Long history of success. Fast-paced game. Lots of home games. No admission fee.
It's definitely worth the visit.
Or something like that. Or maybe it's TigerBlog and the Cool Field Hockey Moms. Like a musical group.
The whole thing started when TB volunteered to be a driver for the team-bonding event - rope climbing and zip lining - in the Poconos last week. To take all of the girls from the varsity and jayvee, there was a need for six volunteers.
Their names were Jean, Mandy, Kathleen, Dara, Sue and TigerBlog.
In order to make sure everyone knew where to be and when, a group text-message chain was started. Mostly, the group message focused on what the best way to go from the starting point to Camelback Mountain would be.
It actually made TigerBlog laugh a bit. There were a bunch of ways to go, and the discussion got fairly in-depth: routes, possible traffic patterns based on the time of the day, what each specific app suggested the best way to go would be.
None of these issues were ever really resolved.
TigerBlog went up 29 past Lambertville to 31, until it ended at 46. Then it was a left turn, past the Delaware Water Gap onto 80 and then to Camelback. From about two minutes outside the parking lot where they started, TigerBlog didn't see anyone else in the group - until he got to I-80, when suddenly he noticed Jean ahead of him and Dara directly behind him.
TB's car featured Miss TigerBlog and her teammates Amy, Alexa and Gianna. Amy made a playlist for her iPhone, and they all sang basically the whole way up. They're actually pretty good singers.
As for the team activities, TB and the CFHMs sat out the rope climbing, opting instead for breakfast. It was a nice place and a nice morning, and the group sat outside - and two-thirds of them actually got what they ordered.
When it came time to zip line, TB sat that out too. He chose to skip zip lining in Costa Rica with the men's lacrosse team in 2012, and he saw no reason to change his position on the activity this time.
TigerBlog played his music on the way back, causing Miss TigerBlog to recoil in fear that her friends would actually hear the songs that her dad likes. Interestingly, they were able to sing along to almost all of them.
Oh, and the local newspaper had its high school field hockey preview yesterday, and TB told MTB that her name was in it. He bought an actual copy of the paper and gave it to her, and it dawned on him that she has almost never held an actual newspaper in her hands.
TB, on the other hand, grew up reading newspapers, and his interest in writing started with the newspapers he used to read each day. He loved to read newspapers, and he loved working in the newspaper business. The writing piece was great, but just as much he loved to watch the production of an actual newspaper night after night after night.
And now it was dawning on him that his daughter has barely been exposed something he always assumed would be around forever. He wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry about that.
With the team-bonding trip behind them, MTB's team is heading towards its season opener. Her team had its final preseason scrimmage yesterday, and the first game is against local power Mount St. Joseph's. Perhaps you've heard that name before? It's the school that sent the Reinprecht sisters to Princeton.
Speaking of Princeton, the Tigers open their field hockey season this week too, with a strong non-league schedule and then the chase for the 21st Ivy League championship in 22 years this season.
The Tigers enter the 2016 season ranked 15th nationally. Opening day is Friday, when Princeton hosts North Carolina at 4. That would be No. 1-ranked North Carolina, by the way.
By the time three more weeks roll around, Princeton will have played seven games, including six at home. In fact, the season starts with four home games in nine days, including Game 2, which is Sunday at 1 against Bucknell.
The only road game in that stretch is Sept. 16 at Virginia, who is ranked fifth. Of those first seven games, five of them are against ranked teams.
The 2016 season starts with a new head coach and top assistant, as Carla Tagliente has come from UMass as the head coach and brought Dina Rizzo from Maryland to be her top assistant.
If you want to get to know them, you can watch the video HERE. It's really good.
It actually dawns on TB that videos like the one introducing the new field hockey staff speaks to why newspapers aren't anything like what they used to be. But hey, it's 2016.
If you've never seen Princeton play field hockey, then you're missing out. It's quite a bit faster than high school field hockey on grass.
Field hockey is a very fast game. It has quick restarts and no offsides, and the ball gets hit very, very hard.
Princeton has just three seniors on its team this year, including All-Ivy and All-Mid-Atlantic Region selection Cat Caro. There are 21 players on the team, 13 of whom are either freshmen or sophomores. Included in that group are the dynamic sophomores Sophia Tornetta and Elise Wong, who were both first-team All-Ivy and first-team all-region a year ago. Tornetta added Ivy Rookie of the Year.
Add to that the facility itself. There are very few places better for field hockey than Bedford Field, one of Princeton's best athletic venues.
And it'll be a busy venue, beginning Friday, when the No. 1 team in the country visits.
New coaches. Long history of success. Fast-paced game. Lots of home games. No admission fee.
It's definitely worth the visit.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Italian Hoops
From the time TigerBlog started doing this until the beginning of this month, he had never mentioned "An Officer And A Gentleman."
Today, he offers his third reference to the movie in August alone.
TB mentioned the movie on Aug. 1 and Aug. 2. If you don't want to reread them, they were about how TB walked four miles to see the movie when it came out and then, the next day, how he couldn't get the song "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" out of his head.
This time, TB refers to the movie because it was on the other night. TB hadn't seen it in a long time, so he watched it, while flipping back and forth with one of the greatest movies ever made, "The Great Escape."
It was a challenge, making sure he saw the best scenes from each movie. And he had to do all this knowing full well there was a "White Shadow" marathon all weekend on the Decades channel.
Anyway, there are four great scenes in "An Officer and A Gentleman." The first is when Louis Gossett Jr. walks out of the building to meet the new recruits. It's one of the two great walks in movie history, along with John Travolta at the beginning of "Saturday Night Fever."
The second is sort of a continuation of the first. It's when Gunnery Sgt. Foley (that's Gossett's character) "welcomes" the new recruits to the Naval Officer Candidate School. When that scene ends, Gossett has already sewn up his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, what with the walk and then the intro speech.
The third is when Foley catches Mayo (that's Richard Gere at his unquestioned best) as he's running his black market inspection business and puts him through a hellish weekend to try to get him to DOR (that's "drop on request;" it sounds better when Foley/Gossett says it).
The last, of course, is when Gere carries Debra Winger out of the factory at the end.
Now, TB had to balance not missing any of those scenes with making sure he saw all the best scenes from "The Great Escape," though this is difficult, because the entire movie is one great scene after another. And heartwrenching scene after another, especially with Blythe gets shot after he and James Garner get shot down.
The first time TB saw the movie was with MotherBlog. Her favorite actor was Steve McQueen, and her favorite Steve McQueen scene was when he jumped the barbed wire fence on the motorcycle near the end.
Oh, and for every time TB has seen the movie, he still can't tell if the German commandant says to McQueen "it looks as if you will see Berlin before I do" or "it look as if few will see Berlin before I do" as he's being taken away from the camp.
"The Great Escape" is the best World War II POW movie, beating out "Stalag 17" by a reasonable margin. The third best is "Von Ryan's Express," with Frank Sinatra as Colonel Ryan. Set in Italy, Sinatra, three other Americans and a whole camp of British soldiers bust out, hijack a German train and then basically follow the same itinerary that the Princeton men's basketball team is following on its Italian trip now - going from Rome to Florence to Bologna.
The Tigers have one more day in Italy before returning tomorrow.
Princeton has played three games in Italy, one of which was epic. That game actually came on a day when several members of the team climbed to the top of the Towers of Bologna, leading TB's colleague Andrew Borders - on location with the Tigers - to write this for the game story:
"Earlier Friday, members of the Princeton men's basketball team climbed nearly 498 steps to the top of the Towers of Bologna, and yet it didn't end up being their most impressive climb of the day."
That's pretty good.
Princeton was down by 21 heading into the fourth quarter of the game against Fortitudo Kontatto, a professional team in Italy's second division. Was it over? Nope. Back came the Tigers to win in overtime, 93-87.
That's a 21-point comeback in 10 minutes.
The standard of all Princeton comebacks, of course, is the 50-49 win over Penn in 1999, when the Tigers had been down 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
Then there was the 2013 game against Penn State, when Princeton was down by 20 with 8:29 to play before winning 81-79 in overtime. Current Tigers Spencer Weisz, Hans Brase and Pete Miller all played in that game.
It's possible that coming from 20 down at Penn State in 8:29 was tougher than coming from 27 back against Penn in 15 minutes. Or that erasing a 21-point deficit in Italy against a pro team in 10 minutes might be tougher than either.
Still, historical context matters, and so doing it at the Palestra - in front of what was a totally rabid Penn crowd - rises to the top.
Princeton played its final game in Italy yesterday. TigerBlog turned the game on YouTube just in time to see Myles Stephens dunk to give Princeton the lead with 2:30 to play. He'd dunk again to force overtime too, where the Tigers would fall 84-80.
Princeton played three games in Italy, winning two. The Tigers had one massive comeback, one that was close throughout and one where they were in control throughout.
As TigerBlog watched the end of the game yesterday, he couldn't help but think ahead to the next games, which are a little more than two months away.
It'll be then that Princeton will really be able to draw from the on-court experience in Italy, when this veteran Princeton team finds itself in a tough spot on the road in the league - or maybe even in the Ivy tournament.
There have been other experiences for the team too, including climbing all those steps in the tower in Bologna. There's a really good video on goprincetontigers.com that has Jackson Forbes as narrator. You can see it HERE.
Today is the last day for the Tigers in Italy. They fly out tomorrow, with two wins, one loss and a lot to build off of as the 2016-17 season approaches.
Today, he offers his third reference to the movie in August alone.
TB mentioned the movie on Aug. 1 and Aug. 2. If you don't want to reread them, they were about how TB walked four miles to see the movie when it came out and then, the next day, how he couldn't get the song "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" out of his head.
This time, TB refers to the movie because it was on the other night. TB hadn't seen it in a long time, so he watched it, while flipping back and forth with one of the greatest movies ever made, "The Great Escape."
It was a challenge, making sure he saw the best scenes from each movie. And he had to do all this knowing full well there was a "White Shadow" marathon all weekend on the Decades channel.
Anyway, there are four great scenes in "An Officer and A Gentleman." The first is when Louis Gossett Jr. walks out of the building to meet the new recruits. It's one of the two great walks in movie history, along with John Travolta at the beginning of "Saturday Night Fever."
The second is sort of a continuation of the first. It's when Gunnery Sgt. Foley (that's Gossett's character) "welcomes" the new recruits to the Naval Officer Candidate School. When that scene ends, Gossett has already sewn up his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, what with the walk and then the intro speech.
The third is when Foley catches Mayo (that's Richard Gere at his unquestioned best) as he's running his black market inspection business and puts him through a hellish weekend to try to get him to DOR (that's "drop on request;" it sounds better when Foley/Gossett says it).
The last, of course, is when Gere carries Debra Winger out of the factory at the end.
Now, TB had to balance not missing any of those scenes with making sure he saw all the best scenes from "The Great Escape," though this is difficult, because the entire movie is one great scene after another. And heartwrenching scene after another, especially with Blythe gets shot after he and James Garner get shot down.
The first time TB saw the movie was with MotherBlog. Her favorite actor was Steve McQueen, and her favorite Steve McQueen scene was when he jumped the barbed wire fence on the motorcycle near the end.
Oh, and for every time TB has seen the movie, he still can't tell if the German commandant says to McQueen "it looks as if you will see Berlin before I do" or "it look as if few will see Berlin before I do" as he's being taken away from the camp.
"The Great Escape" is the best World War II POW movie, beating out "Stalag 17" by a reasonable margin. The third best is "Von Ryan's Express," with Frank Sinatra as Colonel Ryan. Set in Italy, Sinatra, three other Americans and a whole camp of British soldiers bust out, hijack a German train and then basically follow the same itinerary that the Princeton men's basketball team is following on its Italian trip now - going from Rome to Florence to Bologna.
The Tigers have one more day in Italy before returning tomorrow.
Princeton has played three games in Italy, one of which was epic. That game actually came on a day when several members of the team climbed to the top of the Towers of Bologna, leading TB's colleague Andrew Borders - on location with the Tigers - to write this for the game story:
"Earlier Friday, members of the Princeton men's basketball team climbed nearly 498 steps to the top of the Towers of Bologna, and yet it didn't end up being their most impressive climb of the day."
That's pretty good.
Princeton was down by 21 heading into the fourth quarter of the game against Fortitudo Kontatto, a professional team in Italy's second division. Was it over? Nope. Back came the Tigers to win in overtime, 93-87.
That's a 21-point comeback in 10 minutes.
The standard of all Princeton comebacks, of course, is the 50-49 win over Penn in 1999, when the Tigers had been down 40-13 with 15 minutes left.
Then there was the 2013 game against Penn State, when Princeton was down by 20 with 8:29 to play before winning 81-79 in overtime. Current Tigers Spencer Weisz, Hans Brase and Pete Miller all played in that game.
It's possible that coming from 20 down at Penn State in 8:29 was tougher than coming from 27 back against Penn in 15 minutes. Or that erasing a 21-point deficit in Italy against a pro team in 10 minutes might be tougher than either.
Still, historical context matters, and so doing it at the Palestra - in front of what was a totally rabid Penn crowd - rises to the top.
Princeton played its final game in Italy yesterday. TigerBlog turned the game on YouTube just in time to see Myles Stephens dunk to give Princeton the lead with 2:30 to play. He'd dunk again to force overtime too, where the Tigers would fall 84-80.
Princeton played three games in Italy, winning two. The Tigers had one massive comeback, one that was close throughout and one where they were in control throughout.
As TigerBlog watched the end of the game yesterday, he couldn't help but think ahead to the next games, which are a little more than two months away.
It'll be then that Princeton will really be able to draw from the on-court experience in Italy, when this veteran Princeton team finds itself in a tough spot on the road in the league - or maybe even in the Ivy tournament.
There have been other experiences for the team too, including climbing all those steps in the tower in Bologna. There's a really good video on goprincetontigers.com that has Jackson Forbes as narrator. You can see it HERE.
Today is the last day for the Tigers in Italy. They fly out tomorrow, with two wins, one loss and a lot to build off of as the 2016-17 season approaches.
Monday, August 29, 2016
The Second Drop-Off
TigerBlog gave you 1,414 words a year ago on his experiences in taking TigerBlog Jr. to college for the first time.
It was the most emotional thing he wrote all of last year.
Here's this year's version of yesterday's drop-off for TBJ's sophomore year at Sacred Heart University:
"The traffic was bad around the George Washington Bridge. It didn't seem like he had as much stuff as last year, or maybe it just seemed that way because his room is on the first floor this year so there were no stairs involved. His room is nicer than last year's. His roommate is another lacrosse player, this time from New Hampshire. When it came time to leave, there was this exchange: TB: want to get something to eat? TBJ: No. TB: Okay. Stay in touch."
That was 86 words. It wasn't even the most emotional thing he wrote this week.
It was a completely different experience, Year 1 to Year 2. It was sort of funny actually.
Taking your first child to college is an incredibly bizarre experience. What's even more bizarre is when they come home from college for the summer. Just when you're used to the routine that has them away, they're back to disrupt everything.
Your average returning college freshmen are to having limitless freedom for the first time. Then, just like that, they're back in the own little beds at home, but still feeling entitled to limitless freedom.
And if there is a younger sibling? They're used to the new order or things in the house.
It seems like yesterday when Miss TigerBlog said, upon her older brother's return home, these five simple words: "this isn't going to work." In fact, that was more than three months ago. Time has certainly flown by this summer.
So TigerBlog Jr. is back in Connecticut. Classes start today - TigerBlog can't remember if he used to go back to school one day before classes started. Maybe he did.
Because of the quick turnaround after the drop-off and the lack of traffic on the way back, TigerBlog was able to get to the women's soccer game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium last night against Villanova, a game the Tigers won 1-0.
Maybe you watched it on ESPNU? If you did, then you saw a ridiculous save by Princeton freshman goalkeeper Natalie Grossi with about 20 seconds left to preserve the win.
TigerBlog also saw the game Friday night, when Princeton defeated Fordham 3-1 in its season opener. Grossi, by the way, went 180 minutes this weekend and allowed one goal while making nine saves in what was a very strong debut.
Tyler Lussi came into her senior year needing four goals to tie Esmeralda Negron's school record for goals in a career. Negron, who graduated in 2005 after being a first-team All-America on Princeton's 2004 NCAA Final Four team, scored 47 goals as a Tiger, and no women's or men's player at Princeton has ever scored more.
It took Lussi less than 10 minutes Friday night to get half of what she needed to catch Negron in the win against Fordham.
There was Lussi. Then there was Lussi again, this time from Mimi Asom. Then there was Asom from Lussi.
The two of them are just relentless. They play off each other so well. And really the whole team is relentless.
In the game last night, TigerBlog figured with about 23 minutes to go that the goal was coming. It seemed inevitable.
It took 13 minutes from there, but it happened. And it came from Asom, who powered her way into the box and ripped one into the net.
The result was a great start to the season for Princeton, the defending Ivy champ after last year's 14-4-1 season, one that included a 6-0-1 dash through the league.
The first weekend is never easy. Game fitness is the issue, which combined with the weather makes it tough.
Fordham and Villanova both had played two games prior to taking on Princeton, which is a huge advantage. Add to that the fact that both games were played in heat and humidity, and fatigue becomes a real problem.
Princeton clearly had the better of the play in both games. Lussi's two early scores against Fordham basically put that one away early, but the game last night was scoreless deep into the second half, largely because of the fatigue.
Asom took care of that.
When Lussi breaks Negron's record, it will has stood for 12 years. Lussi's might not last that long, because Asom is ahead of her pace.
Having one scorer like that is huge. Having Lussi and Asom is formidable - and it makes the Tigers very entertaining. You never know when one of them, or the two of them together, will do something that brings a "wow" from the crowd.
There were two great crowds at Roberts Stadium this weekend to see the Tigers. The two did not disappoint, as they both finished the first weekend with two goals and one assist.
And the promise of a lot more to come.
It was the most emotional thing he wrote all of last year.
Here's this year's version of yesterday's drop-off for TBJ's sophomore year at Sacred Heart University:
"The traffic was bad around the George Washington Bridge. It didn't seem like he had as much stuff as last year, or maybe it just seemed that way because his room is on the first floor this year so there were no stairs involved. His room is nicer than last year's. His roommate is another lacrosse player, this time from New Hampshire. When it came time to leave, there was this exchange: TB: want to get something to eat? TBJ: No. TB: Okay. Stay in touch."
That was 86 words. It wasn't even the most emotional thing he wrote this week.
It was a completely different experience, Year 1 to Year 2. It was sort of funny actually.
Taking your first child to college is an incredibly bizarre experience. What's even more bizarre is when they come home from college for the summer. Just when you're used to the routine that has them away, they're back to disrupt everything.
Your average returning college freshmen are to having limitless freedom for the first time. Then, just like that, they're back in the own little beds at home, but still feeling entitled to limitless freedom.
And if there is a younger sibling? They're used to the new order or things in the house.
It seems like yesterday when Miss TigerBlog said, upon her older brother's return home, these five simple words: "this isn't going to work." In fact, that was more than three months ago. Time has certainly flown by this summer.
So TigerBlog Jr. is back in Connecticut. Classes start today - TigerBlog can't remember if he used to go back to school one day before classes started. Maybe he did.
Because of the quick turnaround after the drop-off and the lack of traffic on the way back, TigerBlog was able to get to the women's soccer game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium last night against Villanova, a game the Tigers won 1-0.
Maybe you watched it on ESPNU? If you did, then you saw a ridiculous save by Princeton freshman goalkeeper Natalie Grossi with about 20 seconds left to preserve the win.
TigerBlog also saw the game Friday night, when Princeton defeated Fordham 3-1 in its season opener. Grossi, by the way, went 180 minutes this weekend and allowed one goal while making nine saves in what was a very strong debut.
Tyler Lussi came into her senior year needing four goals to tie Esmeralda Negron's school record for goals in a career. Negron, who graduated in 2005 after being a first-team All-America on Princeton's 2004 NCAA Final Four team, scored 47 goals as a Tiger, and no women's or men's player at Princeton has ever scored more.
It took Lussi less than 10 minutes Friday night to get half of what she needed to catch Negron in the win against Fordham.
There was Lussi. Then there was Lussi again, this time from Mimi Asom. Then there was Asom from Lussi.
The two of them are just relentless. They play off each other so well. And really the whole team is relentless.
In the game last night, TigerBlog figured with about 23 minutes to go that the goal was coming. It seemed inevitable.
It took 13 minutes from there, but it happened. And it came from Asom, who powered her way into the box and ripped one into the net.
The result was a great start to the season for Princeton, the defending Ivy champ after last year's 14-4-1 season, one that included a 6-0-1 dash through the league.
The first weekend is never easy. Game fitness is the issue, which combined with the weather makes it tough.
Fordham and Villanova both had played two games prior to taking on Princeton, which is a huge advantage. Add to that the fact that both games were played in heat and humidity, and fatigue becomes a real problem.
Princeton clearly had the better of the play in both games. Lussi's two early scores against Fordham basically put that one away early, but the game last night was scoreless deep into the second half, largely because of the fatigue.
Asom took care of that.
When Lussi breaks Negron's record, it will has stood for 12 years. Lussi's might not last that long, because Asom is ahead of her pace.
Having one scorer like that is huge. Having Lussi and Asom is formidable - and it makes the Tigers very entertaining. You never know when one of them, or the two of them together, will do something that brings a "wow" from the crowd.
There were two great crowds at Roberts Stadium this weekend to see the Tigers. The two did not disappoint, as they both finished the first weekend with two goals and one assist.
And the promise of a lot more to come.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Opening Night
So Hope Solo earned a six-month suspension from U.S. Soccer for calling Sweden "cowards" after the loss in PKs at the Olympics earlier this month.
TigerBlog has a problem with this.
He's always had a problem with stuff like this. He had a problem when John Rocker was suspended by Major League Baseball for his rather repugnant comments in Sports Illustrated back in 1999 or so.
What's TB's problem? Is he condoning such speech?
No, but he's defending the right of people to be jerks if they so choose.
By all accounts, Hope Solo isn't a very nice person. There's certainly enough on-field and off-field evidence to suggest that's the case.
Had a Princeton athlete called an opponent "cowards" after a tough loss - either to reporters or through his or her own social media - TigerBlog would have cringed. He would have done more than cringe, actually.
What would have happened next? TB isn't sure. There is a difference, though, between a college athlete who has a responsibility to represent a university and an athletic department and its values and a professional athlete like Solo.
But TigerBlog still has a problem, and it's this: Who gets to decide where the line gets drawn?
What if, instead of saying that the Swedes were "cowards," Solo had said "I have no respect for the way Sweden played the game." Then what? Suspension?
There was nothing profane about what Solo said. She didn't use any curse words. She didn't threaten anyone.
Was she suspended because nobody likes her and U.S. Soccer is trying to turn the page from her? If that's the case, is the governing body of soccer in this country ready to suspend for six months the next player - perhaps a very popular one - who ventures down a path of saying something critical and insulting without ever dropping f-bombs and saying "If I see that so-and-so again I will kill them."
Then what? Who knows? On the other hand, TB knows the realities of the world today.
The lesson for Princeton athletes is to be very, very careful what you say or what you write before you hit "send." It's the lesson that TB and colleagues stress each year. The penalties can be severe in this day and age - and everything out there is public and permanent.
What does TB tell them? He quotes his former Office of Athletic Communications colleague John Cornell, who said that they should know that before they hit that pesky send button, they need to know that what they say is going to be seen by "their parents, coaches, teammates, officials, opponents, friends and the person on the admissions board of the medical school they're dying to get into and the hiring manager at their dream job."
Another Princeton Athletic year begins today, as the women's soccer team hosts Fordham at 7. The page turns on the wild success of last year - 14 Ivy titles, another non-Ivy title, a 33rd-place finish in the Directors' Cup - and a new blank canvas awaits.
That last sentence is a bit more formal than TigerBlog usually offers, but it wasn't bad.
Anyway, TB heads into 2016-17 hoping that the lessons John Cornell first put forward will be adhered to by all of Princeton's athletes, coaches and staff.
Enough of that. It's game day.
The first game of the new year is always exciting. This year, the women's soccer team has the entire stage to itself.
Princeton went 14-4-1 a year ago, including a 6-0-1 run through the Ivy League, in Sean Driscoll's first year as Tiger head coach. Princeton won the outright Ivy title and then a first-round NCAA tournament game against Boston College.
The big story for Princeton this year revolves around the 1-2 scoring punch of Tyler Lussi and Mimi Asom.
Lussi scored 15 goals last year to earn Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year honors for the second straight year. Asom scored 12, earning her the Ivy Rookie of the Year award.
How many other times has Princeton women's soccer had two players score at least 12 goals in the same season? That would be one other time, back in the magical 2004 NCAA Final Four season, when Esmeralda Negron had 20 and Emily Behncke had 13.
Speaking of Negron, she enters the 2016 season as the all-time leading goal scorer and point scorer in Princeton soccer history. That includes the men and the women.
Negron scored 47 goals and had 112 points in her career. Lussi enters tonight's game with 43 goals and 98 points, meaning she has a pretty good chance to break Negron's records.
Of course Asom is waiting her turn to make a run at the record book herself. Her 12 goals last year put her two ahead of where Lussi was after her freshman year.
Princeton women's soccer is more than just those two, of course, but they are not to be missed. Lussi is more of a finesse scorer like Negron. Asom is more of a power shooter like Behncke.
Princeton will be home again Sunday, also at 7, against Villanova. That game will be televised on ESPNU. As nuts as it seems, Princeton will have played 25 percent of its home schedule by Aug. 28.
So get out to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium this weekend.
It's free. And well worth the time.
And if you can't? Well, enjoy the last weekend of August doing whatever it is you're doing.
Don't worry. TigerBlog won't call you names.
TigerBlog has a problem with this.
He's always had a problem with stuff like this. He had a problem when John Rocker was suspended by Major League Baseball for his rather repugnant comments in Sports Illustrated back in 1999 or so.
What's TB's problem? Is he condoning such speech?
No, but he's defending the right of people to be jerks if they so choose.
By all accounts, Hope Solo isn't a very nice person. There's certainly enough on-field and off-field evidence to suggest that's the case.
Had a Princeton athlete called an opponent "cowards" after a tough loss - either to reporters or through his or her own social media - TigerBlog would have cringed. He would have done more than cringe, actually.
What would have happened next? TB isn't sure. There is a difference, though, between a college athlete who has a responsibility to represent a university and an athletic department and its values and a professional athlete like Solo.
But TigerBlog still has a problem, and it's this: Who gets to decide where the line gets drawn?
What if, instead of saying that the Swedes were "cowards," Solo had said "I have no respect for the way Sweden played the game." Then what? Suspension?
There was nothing profane about what Solo said. She didn't use any curse words. She didn't threaten anyone.
Was she suspended because nobody likes her and U.S. Soccer is trying to turn the page from her? If that's the case, is the governing body of soccer in this country ready to suspend for six months the next player - perhaps a very popular one - who ventures down a path of saying something critical and insulting without ever dropping f-bombs and saying "If I see that so-and-so again I will kill them."
Then what? Who knows? On the other hand, TB knows the realities of the world today.
The lesson for Princeton athletes is to be very, very careful what you say or what you write before you hit "send." It's the lesson that TB and colleagues stress each year. The penalties can be severe in this day and age - and everything out there is public and permanent.
What does TB tell them? He quotes his former Office of Athletic Communications colleague John Cornell, who said that they should know that before they hit that pesky send button, they need to know that what they say is going to be seen by "their parents, coaches, teammates, officials, opponents, friends and the person on the admissions board of the medical school they're dying to get into and the hiring manager at their dream job."
Another Princeton Athletic year begins today, as the women's soccer team hosts Fordham at 7. The page turns on the wild success of last year - 14 Ivy titles, another non-Ivy title, a 33rd-place finish in the Directors' Cup - and a new blank canvas awaits.
That last sentence is a bit more formal than TigerBlog usually offers, but it wasn't bad.
Anyway, TB heads into 2016-17 hoping that the lessons John Cornell first put forward will be adhered to by all of Princeton's athletes, coaches and staff.
Enough of that. It's game day.
The first game of the new year is always exciting. This year, the women's soccer team has the entire stage to itself.
Princeton went 14-4-1 a year ago, including a 6-0-1 run through the Ivy League, in Sean Driscoll's first year as Tiger head coach. Princeton won the outright Ivy title and then a first-round NCAA tournament game against Boston College.
The big story for Princeton this year revolves around the 1-2 scoring punch of Tyler Lussi and Mimi Asom.
Lussi scored 15 goals last year to earn Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year honors for the second straight year. Asom scored 12, earning her the Ivy Rookie of the Year award.
How many other times has Princeton women's soccer had two players score at least 12 goals in the same season? That would be one other time, back in the magical 2004 NCAA Final Four season, when Esmeralda Negron had 20 and Emily Behncke had 13.
Speaking of Negron, she enters the 2016 season as the all-time leading goal scorer and point scorer in Princeton soccer history. That includes the men and the women.
Negron scored 47 goals and had 112 points in her career. Lussi enters tonight's game with 43 goals and 98 points, meaning she has a pretty good chance to break Negron's records.
Of course Asom is waiting her turn to make a run at the record book herself. Her 12 goals last year put her two ahead of where Lussi was after her freshman year.
Princeton women's soccer is more than just those two, of course, but they are not to be missed. Lussi is more of a finesse scorer like Negron. Asom is more of a power shooter like Behncke.
Princeton will be home again Sunday, also at 7, against Villanova. That game will be televised on ESPNU. As nuts as it seems, Princeton will have played 25 percent of its home schedule by Aug. 28.
So get out to Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium this weekend.
It's free. And well worth the time.
And if you can't? Well, enjoy the last weekend of August doing whatever it is you're doing.
Don't worry. TigerBlog won't call you names.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
As The Summer Winds Down
When TigerBlog heard there'd been a devastating earthquake in Italy, his first thought was of the Princeton men's basketball team, who is touring the country on its international trip.
TB emailed his colleague Andrew Borders, who is with the team. The Tigers were in Rome Monday and then left for Florence, which was about 90 miles away from the epicenter.
That seems sort of close, but Andrew reported that he didn't feel it, didn't hear it, wasn't awakened by it.
The earthquake itself was awful, with nearly 160 fatalities. The mayor of one of the hardest hit locations said that the town essentially ceased to exist. That is scary, horrible stuff. TigerBlog can't imagine it, a town of people asleep one minute and the next minute everything is gone.
Safely in Florence, the Tigers toured the city yesterday, including a stop in a museum to see Michelangelo's "David." You can read about Princeton's day in Italy HERE.
As for the women, they are in Australia, where two of the players offered their thoughts on the early stages of the trip. One of them, Taylor Brown, signed her entry "TB;" TigerBlog is okay with that.
If you want to read what the other "TB" said, and what Gabrielle Rush said, click HERE.
Closer to home, yesterday was the first day of Princeton football practice. Opening day is a mere 23 days away.
TigerBlog has yet to watch one down of NFL preseason football this summer. The Olympics probably explain that.
Princeton opens Sept. 17 at home against Lafayette before heading on the road for three straight weeks, at Lehigh, at Columbia and at Georgetown. Then it's home for Brown and Harvard, at Cornell, home for Penn, at Yale and home for Dartmouth.
TigerBlog isn't quite ready for fall just yet. The weather here, though, seems to be hinting that the end of summer is approaching.
In fact, TB would say there have been about five days all summer in which the weather was absolutely perfect, and the beginning of this week accounted for three of them. The rest of the time the average temperature has been about what it takes to bake pizza, and that kind of weather returns starting today.
Because of that, TigerBlog isn't ready to talk about football just yet.
On the other hand, there is a little more than 24 hours until the first Princeton athletic event of the year, a women's soccer game against Fordham tomorrow night at 7. The second event will be women's soccer against Villanova Sunday at 7 in the first of Princeton's ESPNU's events of the 2016-17 academic year.
Every time a new year is about to start, TigerBlog thinks back to his years in the newspaper business. He was little more than a kid back then. Each year would go by, and when it came to the end, TB would tell himself the same thing - one more year, and then it's time to get a "real" job.
This year will be 33 years since his first trip around the academic calendar as a sportswriter, which was just a prelude to working here at Princeton. He's not 100 percent sure when he gave up on getting a "real" job and he's not really sure what that "real" job might have been.
He does know it wouldn't have been as much fun as the one he stuck with, and he would have missed out on so many great experiences and meeting so many great people.
TB has also told this story several times before, but when he was in the newspaper business, the president of The College of New Jersey (then Trenton State College) was a man named Harold Eickoff. Each year there was a kickoff luncheon for boosters and the local media and others, and TB would always go. And Dr. Eickoff would always make the same statement - "I predict that this year all Trenton State teams will go undefeated."
Also at this time of year, he thinks back to the summer before his first year in the Office of Athletic Communications. TB started on July 1, and it seemed like the next two months took forever, before athletic events actually began. He remembers having a conversation with then-baseball coach Tom O'Connell, who recently passed away, about how he liked his new job and all and how anxious he was for the games to start.
That's the lure of working in sports. The games. The athletes. The coaches.
Anyone can work in an office.
Working in sports is different. TigerBlog can't tell you how many times he's heard from a friend or someone he's just met who says "you get to go to games for a living?"
Yes. TB does.
And they start again tomorrow.
Summer is not quite over, but it's getting there. Let the games begin.
TB emailed his colleague Andrew Borders, who is with the team. The Tigers were in Rome Monday and then left for Florence, which was about 90 miles away from the epicenter.
That seems sort of close, but Andrew reported that he didn't feel it, didn't hear it, wasn't awakened by it.
The earthquake itself was awful, with nearly 160 fatalities. The mayor of one of the hardest hit locations said that the town essentially ceased to exist. That is scary, horrible stuff. TigerBlog can't imagine it, a town of people asleep one minute and the next minute everything is gone.
Safely in Florence, the Tigers toured the city yesterday, including a stop in a museum to see Michelangelo's "David." You can read about Princeton's day in Italy HERE.
As for the women, they are in Australia, where two of the players offered their thoughts on the early stages of the trip. One of them, Taylor Brown, signed her entry "TB;" TigerBlog is okay with that.
If you want to read what the other "TB" said, and what Gabrielle Rush said, click HERE.
Closer to home, yesterday was the first day of Princeton football practice. Opening day is a mere 23 days away.
TigerBlog has yet to watch one down of NFL preseason football this summer. The Olympics probably explain that.
Princeton opens Sept. 17 at home against Lafayette before heading on the road for three straight weeks, at Lehigh, at Columbia and at Georgetown. Then it's home for Brown and Harvard, at Cornell, home for Penn, at Yale and home for Dartmouth.
TigerBlog isn't quite ready for fall just yet. The weather here, though, seems to be hinting that the end of summer is approaching.
In fact, TB would say there have been about five days all summer in which the weather was absolutely perfect, and the beginning of this week accounted for three of them. The rest of the time the average temperature has been about what it takes to bake pizza, and that kind of weather returns starting today.
Because of that, TigerBlog isn't ready to talk about football just yet.
On the other hand, there is a little more than 24 hours until the first Princeton athletic event of the year, a women's soccer game against Fordham tomorrow night at 7. The second event will be women's soccer against Villanova Sunday at 7 in the first of Princeton's ESPNU's events of the 2016-17 academic year.
Every time a new year is about to start, TigerBlog thinks back to his years in the newspaper business. He was little more than a kid back then. Each year would go by, and when it came to the end, TB would tell himself the same thing - one more year, and then it's time to get a "real" job.
This year will be 33 years since his first trip around the academic calendar as a sportswriter, which was just a prelude to working here at Princeton. He's not 100 percent sure when he gave up on getting a "real" job and he's not really sure what that "real" job might have been.
He does know it wouldn't have been as much fun as the one he stuck with, and he would have missed out on so many great experiences and meeting so many great people.
TB has also told this story several times before, but when he was in the newspaper business, the president of The College of New Jersey (then Trenton State College) was a man named Harold Eickoff. Each year there was a kickoff luncheon for boosters and the local media and others, and TB would always go. And Dr. Eickoff would always make the same statement - "I predict that this year all Trenton State teams will go undefeated."
Also at this time of year, he thinks back to the summer before his first year in the Office of Athletic Communications. TB started on July 1, and it seemed like the next two months took forever, before athletic events actually began. He remembers having a conversation with then-baseball coach Tom O'Connell, who recently passed away, about how he liked his new job and all and how anxious he was for the games to start.
That's the lure of working in sports. The games. The athletes. The coaches.
Anyone can work in an office.
Working in sports is different. TigerBlog can't tell you how many times he's heard from a friend or someone he's just met who says "you get to go to games for a living?"
Yes. TB does.
And they start again tomorrow.
Summer is not quite over, but it's getting there. Let the games begin.
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