TigerBlog went into the Frist Campus Center yesterday to get his flu shot and figured it would be like every other year.
Maybe there'd be a five-minute wait.
This time, it was much different. There was a line out the door and back up the stairs. Were more people getting a flu shot? Was it just coincidence that everyone went at the same time?
There was a monitor at the top of the stairs who was telling everyone that it was about a 25-minute wait. In this way, it was like walking into a restaurant and hearing there'd be a 25-minute wait for a table.
What do you do in that situation? What's your cut off for how long you'll wait? TigerBlog knows someone who won't go to a restaurant and sit down immediately no matter how uncrowded it is; he wants to go to the bar first and then sit at his table.
Anyway, how long do you wait out a table at a place in which you're already standing? Usually, by the time you find another place to eat, your table at the first place would probably be ready.
That's what TigerBlog was thinking when he considered leaving Frist and coming back later.
As it turned out, it felt more like going through airport security rather than waiting for a table at a restaurant. The line went down the stairs and into the room, where everyone had to fill out their consent form.
And then it snaked back and forth through dividers until you go to the front, at which point you were sent to the next available table. That's the part that felt like airport security.
In TigerBlog's case, it was table No. 3. Start to finish was pretty much 25 minutes, just like the maitre D - uh, student worker - said when TB got there. Just as impressive was the other student who said that it would be about 15 minutes from that point until he got his shot.
How long did it take? Exactly 15 minutes.
As TB walked over to Frist, he walked past a sign, like a lawn sign, that said "Nobel Prize press conference in Frick Chemistry Building" with an arrow pointing in the right direction.
Considering that physics professor F. Duncan Haldane was named as a Nobel winner Tuesday, having the signs out yesterday meant one of two things. Either 1) somebody moved very quickly to get them made or 2) Princeton has pre-printed signs for its Nobel winners' press conferences, perhaps assuming that there will be one each year.
If TigerBlog is counting correctly, then Haldane is
Princeton's 41st Nobel Prize winner. Kudos to whoever updated the
princeton.edu webpage that has the list of Nobel winners on it to
already include Haldane.
The coolest thing that TB saw surrounding the news about the latest Nobel winner at Princeton was that Haldane celebrated by going to teach his regularly scheduled class. How amazing would that be?
TigerBlog would do that. If he won the Nobel Prize for blog-writing, he'd still write another one the next day.
Craig Sachson, TigerBlog's colleague, tweeted a picture of the press conference sign. Vikram Rao, a former Daily Princetonian sportswriter, tweeted back that Craig would always be a Nobel Prize-winning SID to him.
It's not quite the same award as a Nobel Prize, but Princeton did have two of the five national winners of the 2016 NFF National High School Scholar-Athlete Awards. This award goes to one winner in each of five regions around the country, out of more than one million high school football players.
Princeton's winners are John Orr, the South Region winner from Tennessee, and Andrew Griffin, the Central Region winner from Indiana. Both are freshmen on the Princeton football team, and the award recognizes only their high school achievements.
So that's two of the five winners nationally from Princeton.
Sometimes, it's worth taking a step back from the games themselves and their impact on Ivy races and focusing instead on the bigger picture of the institution itself. Princeton University is an extraordinary place, where the every day result of doing business the way Princeton does is that it produces Nobel Prize winners, national scholar-athlete winners and basically everything else in between.
Last year alone Princeton Athletics produced a Pyne Prize winner, a Spirit of Princeton winner and a Rhodes Scholar - while winning 15 league championships.
That's not too shabby.
It's what keeps everyone who works here so focused and driven, year after year. There's a standard that's been set here, and it's not one to be taken for granted.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Some Surace, Some Henderson, Some McPhee
TigerBlog walked into Jadwin Gym yesterday and headed down to his office.
As he made his way to the door to the stairwell, he heard steps coming down from Jadwin balcony. Who was it? Head football coach Bob Surace.
TB and Surace saw each other and laughed. TigerBlog knew that Surace read what TB had written Monday, about how the two were on the same page, perhaps telepathically, when Surace chose to go for it on a 4th-and-1 from his own 29 in a tie game in the second quarter Saturday at Columbia.
It worked out. John Lovett got the first down. Princeton scored touchdowns on seven straight possessions. In the end, it was 48-13 Tigers.
Now it was two days later, and Surace could laugh about it. He readily admitted that he risked being second-guessed if it didn't work but said he didn't really think about that in the moment. All he was thinking about was what would TigerBlog do.
TigerBlog is a big fan of the kinds of chances that Surace took the other day. It's all about the risk and reward. The risk is small. The reward is huge. And look what happened? Princeton got the first down and then six plays later was in the end zone.
Now suppose the play had failed. And suppose Columbia had scored. Would that have made it a bad decision? No.
It's the Tippy Martinez story all over again. You remember Tippy Martinez. He pitched for the Baltimore Orioles way back when.
TigerBlog has already told you the Tippy Martinez story. If you forgot it, you can read it HERE.
Basically the point is that it's not the outcome of a decision that matters. It's the thought process that goes into it.
Surace knew he had a great short-yardage guy in John Lovett. He knew it was early. He knew he had faith in his defense. Why not go for it?
Nothing tortures TigerBlog more in football than watching a team punt and then seeing the other team get back to the spot on the field where the punt came from in three or four plays. There's a time to worry about field position. There's a time to value possession.
Unfortunately in football, the bigger issue for coaches seems to be not getting second-guessed. If Princeton punts there, it doesn't score on that drive, but nobody asks him after why he didn't go for it. If Princeton goes for it and doesn't get it - and perhaps loses the game - then every question is about going for it on fourth down in his own territory.
As he and Surace talked about the play, the decision and the general thought process of coaches, TigerBlog couldn't help but think that there aren't too many football coaches like Princeton's. Maybe it's why he succeeds here, because he understands what's important and what isn't and isn't caught up in the kind of over-the-top power trip that TigerBlog sees when he watches Power 5 conference games on TV.
Yeah, TigerBlog can't imagine having the same sort of conversation with, say, Bobby Petrino. Or Nick Saban. Or the whiny guy who coaches Clemson. Or pretty much any of them.
It would probably go something like this:
TB: Hey, Nick, here's what you should have done on fourth down.
Nick: Have this man eliminated.
While TigerBlog is referring back to what he's said already this week, he called Bob Bradley the most cerebral coach he's ever been around. While he stands by that statement, he thought of two others who deserve honorable mention.
One is Trevor Tierney, who has been an assistant coach with Denver lacrosse. The other is Mitch Henderson, Princeton's head men's basketball coach. TigerBlog thought about that yesterday when he and Henderson had a conversation of their own.
Henderson, if you haven't been paying attention, has been doing a series of podcasts, with previous conversations with Craig Robinson, Steve Mills, Sean Gregory and Brian Taylor.
The current one is with John McPhee. You can hear it HERE.
TigerBlog might be a bit biased towards Mr. McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winner, Princeton writing professor and Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse program.
Still, the conversation with Henderson and McPhee is really, really good. Yes, it's a little long - 67 minutes, but it's really good stuff. TigerBlog had heard many of the stories before, but they're still really good.
It's great role reversal, the interviewer and the interviewee as they swap their usual positions.
And Henderson is a great interviewer. He knows his subjects. He keeps the conversations going. He asks really good questions and then allows them to be answered.
If he wasn't coaching basketball, perhaps he would be on a TV magazine show somewhere.
Anyway, listen to the podcasts. They're outstanding.
TigerBlog went downstairs yesterday after his conversation with Surace and didn't go back upstairs until it was time to leave for the day. In addition to Henderson, one other head coach came into his office yesterday.
It was water polo coach Luis Nicolao, who came around the corner shouting "I hugged Bruce Springsteen."
There are, of course, different kinds of cerebral.
As he made his way to the door to the stairwell, he heard steps coming down from Jadwin balcony. Who was it? Head football coach Bob Surace.
TB and Surace saw each other and laughed. TigerBlog knew that Surace read what TB had written Monday, about how the two were on the same page, perhaps telepathically, when Surace chose to go for it on a 4th-and-1 from his own 29 in a tie game in the second quarter Saturday at Columbia.
It worked out. John Lovett got the first down. Princeton scored touchdowns on seven straight possessions. In the end, it was 48-13 Tigers.
Now it was two days later, and Surace could laugh about it. He readily admitted that he risked being second-guessed if it didn't work but said he didn't really think about that in the moment. All he was thinking about was what would TigerBlog do.
TigerBlog is a big fan of the kinds of chances that Surace took the other day. It's all about the risk and reward. The risk is small. The reward is huge. And look what happened? Princeton got the first down and then six plays later was in the end zone.
Now suppose the play had failed. And suppose Columbia had scored. Would that have made it a bad decision? No.
It's the Tippy Martinez story all over again. You remember Tippy Martinez. He pitched for the Baltimore Orioles way back when.
TigerBlog has already told you the Tippy Martinez story. If you forgot it, you can read it HERE.
Basically the point is that it's not the outcome of a decision that matters. It's the thought process that goes into it.
Surace knew he had a great short-yardage guy in John Lovett. He knew it was early. He knew he had faith in his defense. Why not go for it?
Nothing tortures TigerBlog more in football than watching a team punt and then seeing the other team get back to the spot on the field where the punt came from in three or four plays. There's a time to worry about field position. There's a time to value possession.
Unfortunately in football, the bigger issue for coaches seems to be not getting second-guessed. If Princeton punts there, it doesn't score on that drive, but nobody asks him after why he didn't go for it. If Princeton goes for it and doesn't get it - and perhaps loses the game - then every question is about going for it on fourth down in his own territory.
As he and Surace talked about the play, the decision and the general thought process of coaches, TigerBlog couldn't help but think that there aren't too many football coaches like Princeton's. Maybe it's why he succeeds here, because he understands what's important and what isn't and isn't caught up in the kind of over-the-top power trip that TigerBlog sees when he watches Power 5 conference games on TV.
Yeah, TigerBlog can't imagine having the same sort of conversation with, say, Bobby Petrino. Or Nick Saban. Or the whiny guy who coaches Clemson. Or pretty much any of them.
It would probably go something like this:
TB: Hey, Nick, here's what you should have done on fourth down.
Nick: Have this man eliminated.
While TigerBlog is referring back to what he's said already this week, he called Bob Bradley the most cerebral coach he's ever been around. While he stands by that statement, he thought of two others who deserve honorable mention.
One is Trevor Tierney, who has been an assistant coach with Denver lacrosse. The other is Mitch Henderson, Princeton's head men's basketball coach. TigerBlog thought about that yesterday when he and Henderson had a conversation of their own.
Henderson, if you haven't been paying attention, has been doing a series of podcasts, with previous conversations with Craig Robinson, Steve Mills, Sean Gregory and Brian Taylor.
The current one is with John McPhee. You can hear it HERE.
TigerBlog might be a bit biased towards Mr. McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize-winner, Princeton writing professor and Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse program.
Still, the conversation with Henderson and McPhee is really, really good. Yes, it's a little long - 67 minutes, but it's really good stuff. TigerBlog had heard many of the stories before, but they're still really good.
It's great role reversal, the interviewer and the interviewee as they swap their usual positions.
And Henderson is a great interviewer. He knows his subjects. He keeps the conversations going. He asks really good questions and then allows them to be answered.
If he wasn't coaching basketball, perhaps he would be on a TV magazine show somewhere.
Anyway, listen to the podcasts. They're outstanding.
TigerBlog went downstairs yesterday after his conversation with Surace and didn't go back upstairs until it was time to leave for the day. In addition to Henderson, one other head coach came into his office yesterday.
It was water polo coach Luis Nicolao, who came around the corner shouting "I hugged Bruce Springsteen."
There are, of course, different kinds of cerebral.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Favorite EPL Team? That's Easy. Swansea City
Finally, TigerBlog has an English Premiere League team to call his favorite.
Swansea City.
Swansea, it appears, is a coastal city in Wales. It's town charter dates back to 1158, which makes it more than three times older than Princeton University.
All these years, he's never really had a team to call his own. He knew he couldn't root for Manchester United or Chelsea, the Yankees and Red Sox of the EPL. And he never really figured out who the closest team to the Orioles was, so he hasn't had a favorite team.
Until yesterday.
Swansea City FC currently ranks 17th of 20 teams in the EPL. The bottom three teams at the end of the year will be relegated, so it's not exactly the best team in the league or anything.
Still, it's TigerBlog's favorite.
Why? Because Swansea City just hired Bob Bradley as its manager. According to Grant Wahl, the top soccer write in the world and a former student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications, Bradley is the first American to coach in one of Europe's top four leagues.
Bradley is a Princeton grad, former Princeton soccer player and former Princeton men's soccer coach. While the Tiger head coach, Bradley led the team to the 1993 NCAA Final Four - in a year in which TigerBlog covered Princeton's three NCAA tournament wins.
Bob Bradley, the brother of Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley and father of longtime U.S. national team midfielder Michael Bradley, is the most cerebral coach TigerBlog has ever met. He speaks in a deep, strong, loud voice, with each word carefully considered and his point completely thought out in advance.
TigerBlog has long believed that Bradley never should have been fired from his position as head coach of the U.S. national team. Bradley led the Americans to first place in the group stage at the 2010 World Cup, in a group that included England, by the way.
The U.S. has not been as good since Bradley lost the position, by the way.
Bradley's resume includes stops as the head coach of the Egyptian national team and then some club teams throughout Europe. Now he has his dream chance, to coach in the EPL.
Okay, it's not exactly starting at the top. And TB senses that there's greater impatience for coaches in the EPL than even in American sports leagues.
But so what? Bob Bradley has his chance. And has made history at the same time.
Bradley is actually still one coach removed from Princeton men's soccer, as Jim Barlow, the current head coach, took over for Bradley. Now in his 21st season, Barlow has won 159 games at Princeton, the most ever by a Princeton men's soccer coach.
His current team began its Ivy League season this past Saturday by tying Dartmouth 2-2. Considering it was 2-0 Dartmouth at one point and Princeton was playing a man down after a red card early in the game, getting a tie is a very solid accomplishment.
The doubleheader Saturday began as the women defeated Dartmouth 2-0 after scoring both goals in the first eight minutes of the game. Abby Givens had the first to earn Ivy Rookie of the Week honors, and Tyler Lussi had the second, the 52nd of her career, fourth all-time in Ivy history.
TigerBlog was in the press box at Roberts Stadium when the young man who was filming the men's game asked if he could wait inside until the game started because it was chilly. TigerBlog said yes, but he also had to point out that if he thought it was chilly last Saturday in Princeton, what is he going to do in about six weeks in Hanover?
Princeton didn't really hurt itself much with the tie, which had to have felt like a win, given the deficit on the scoreboard and on the field that Princeton had to solve. As for the Ivy standings, well, they look sort of interesting after one week.
Penn is in first place at 1-0-0. Cornell is in last place, at 0-1-1. The other six teams are all tied at 0-0-1.
TigerBlog doubts that this has happened too often before. You know, seven of the eight teams in a league unbeaten.
On the women's side, which is a week ahead, there are three unbeaten teams. Harvard and Columbia are both 2-0-0, and Princeton is 1-0-1. Princeton is the defending champ; head coach Sean Driscoll is 7-0-2 in Ivy League games in his two seasons.
Before Princeton can worry about Columbia (away Oct. 15) or Harvard (home Oct. 22), there is this weekend's doubleheader against Brown (women at 4, men at 7). Actually, there's tonight's game at Lehigh for the women and tomorrow's game at Seton Hall for the men and then the Brown games.
Oh, and Swansea? No game this weekend.
Arsenal on the 15th.
Swansea City.
Swansea, it appears, is a coastal city in Wales. It's town charter dates back to 1158, which makes it more than three times older than Princeton University.
All these years, he's never really had a team to call his own. He knew he couldn't root for Manchester United or Chelsea, the Yankees and Red Sox of the EPL. And he never really figured out who the closest team to the Orioles was, so he hasn't had a favorite team.
Until yesterday.
Swansea City FC currently ranks 17th of 20 teams in the EPL. The bottom three teams at the end of the year will be relegated, so it's not exactly the best team in the league or anything.
Still, it's TigerBlog's favorite.
Why? Because Swansea City just hired Bob Bradley as its manager. According to Grant Wahl, the top soccer write in the world and a former student worker in the Office of Athletic Communications, Bradley is the first American to coach in one of Europe's top four leagues.
Bradley is a Princeton grad, former Princeton soccer player and former Princeton men's soccer coach. While the Tiger head coach, Bradley led the team to the 1993 NCAA Final Four - in a year in which TigerBlog covered Princeton's three NCAA tournament wins.
Bob Bradley, the brother of Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley and father of longtime U.S. national team midfielder Michael Bradley, is the most cerebral coach TigerBlog has ever met. He speaks in a deep, strong, loud voice, with each word carefully considered and his point completely thought out in advance.
TigerBlog has long believed that Bradley never should have been fired from his position as head coach of the U.S. national team. Bradley led the Americans to first place in the group stage at the 2010 World Cup, in a group that included England, by the way.
The U.S. has not been as good since Bradley lost the position, by the way.
Bradley's resume includes stops as the head coach of the Egyptian national team and then some club teams throughout Europe. Now he has his dream chance, to coach in the EPL.
Okay, it's not exactly starting at the top. And TB senses that there's greater impatience for coaches in the EPL than even in American sports leagues.
But so what? Bob Bradley has his chance. And has made history at the same time.
Bradley is actually still one coach removed from Princeton men's soccer, as Jim Barlow, the current head coach, took over for Bradley. Now in his 21st season, Barlow has won 159 games at Princeton, the most ever by a Princeton men's soccer coach.
His current team began its Ivy League season this past Saturday by tying Dartmouth 2-2. Considering it was 2-0 Dartmouth at one point and Princeton was playing a man down after a red card early in the game, getting a tie is a very solid accomplishment.
The doubleheader Saturday began as the women defeated Dartmouth 2-0 after scoring both goals in the first eight minutes of the game. Abby Givens had the first to earn Ivy Rookie of the Week honors, and Tyler Lussi had the second, the 52nd of her career, fourth all-time in Ivy history.
TigerBlog was in the press box at Roberts Stadium when the young man who was filming the men's game asked if he could wait inside until the game started because it was chilly. TigerBlog said yes, but he also had to point out that if he thought it was chilly last Saturday in Princeton, what is he going to do in about six weeks in Hanover?
Princeton didn't really hurt itself much with the tie, which had to have felt like a win, given the deficit on the scoreboard and on the field that Princeton had to solve. As for the Ivy standings, well, they look sort of interesting after one week.
Penn is in first place at 1-0-0. Cornell is in last place, at 0-1-1. The other six teams are all tied at 0-0-1.
TigerBlog doubts that this has happened too often before. You know, seven of the eight teams in a league unbeaten.
On the women's side, which is a week ahead, there are three unbeaten teams. Harvard and Columbia are both 2-0-0, and Princeton is 1-0-1. Princeton is the defending champ; head coach Sean Driscoll is 7-0-2 in Ivy League games in his two seasons.
Before Princeton can worry about Columbia (away Oct. 15) or Harvard (home Oct. 22), there is this weekend's doubleheader against Brown (women at 4, men at 7). Actually, there's tonight's game at Lehigh for the women and tomorrow's game at Seton Hall for the men and then the Brown games.
Oh, and Swansea? No game this weekend.
Arsenal on the 15th.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Tigers, Huskies And Tigers
If you want to look into a football stadium and see an incredible view, then it's hard to imagine beating Memorial Stadium at Clemson.
It certainly looked insane for the game Saturday night between Clemson and Louisville, which Clemson won 42-36 in what so far has been the best college football game of the season. It came down to a Clemson stop at the 5 yard line as time was running out, derailing Louisville's quick start to the season and perhaps the Heisman hopes of its quarterback, Lamar Jackson, at the same time.
TigerBlog never really figured out which team he wanted to win that game. He did figure out quickly that the atmosphere at that game was off the charts.
Can you imagine what that must be like? First, there's the build up all day. Then there's the game, wedging 82,000 people into the building. Even the arrival of the home team from the bus is nuts.
TigerBlog has never been to a game like that. What must it be like to walk around outside the stadium two hours before the kickoff, for that matter?
Maybe one day he will.
If you want to look out of a football stadium and see an incredible view, then it's hard to imagine beating Husky Stadium in Seattle.
Make that Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium.
It's the home field of the University of Washington. If you look out the open end, you'll see Lake Washington and beyond that the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainier. The stadium is famous for the boats that dock and let spectators off on game days.
TigerBlog has never seen a game there, though he's checked out the view, and it's quite impressive. The stadium is located on one end of the U-Dub campus; BrotherBlog's office in the law school is somewhere else on the campus.
Because the school is the employer of both BB and Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog, TB likes to root for the Huskies, who after an 18-53 stretch a decade ago have now been to six straight bowl games. The current head coach of the team is Chris Petersen, the man who built Boise State into a national power. Peterson, who is in his third season, is now 25-12.
The 25th win was the most impressive, as the Huskies destroyed No. 7 Stanford 44-6 to go to 5-0 on the year. Can Washington make a real run at a place in the college football playoffs? The rest of the regular season means Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Cal, USC and Washington State.
Is there a bump in the road there somewhere?
Washington opened its season by defeating Rutgers 48-13. If that score is familiar to Princeton fans, it should be.
TigerBlog first checked out the score of Saturday's Princeton-Columbia game to find the Lions up 6-0. The next time he looked, it was 6-6.
Then he put the game on the Fox Sports Go app on his iPad just in time for it to be 13-6, but he wasn't sure who had scored. Then he realized it was Princeton.
And then Princeton, Princeton, Princeton, Princeton and Princeton again.
Seven possessions. Seven touchdowns. Final score, 48-13 Tigers.
Hey, if you're going to give up the first and last scores of a game, you might as well bang out seven touchdowns in between.
The key play of the game, if there can be one in a 35-point win, came in the second quarter, with the score 6-6 and Princeton with 4th and 1 at the Princeton 29. That's the Princeton 29, not the Columbia 29.
TigerBlog would like to think that Princeton head coach Bob Surace said to himself "what would TB do in this situation" and then had John Lovett run for the first down. It was a courageous call, since Surace would have been hammered for his decision had it failed, Columbia gotten possession, scored and changed the entire dynamic of the game.
Too many football coaches make decisions not to be second-guessed. This wasn't the time for that. This was the time to say "hey, we can get a yard, and even if we can't, I'm counting on my defense." It says a lot about the faith that the coach has in his guys.
Anyway, six plays later Princeton was in the end zone, on a 26-yard pass from Chad Kanoff to Trevor Osborne. Kanoff had a great day, going 21 for 25 for 230 yards and three scores.
Lovett also had a great day. Lovett is an incredible weapon, with six rushing touchdowns through three weeks, three of which came against the Lions. He's now carried the ball 22 times, and six of those 22 have ended up in the end zone.
Against Columbia Lovett had eight carries for 50 yards and three touchdowns. No carry of his was for negative yardage. For the year, only one of his carries has been for negative yardage - a loss of one.
Lovett completed 5 of 8 for 59 yards and a touchdown and also caught two passes for 42 more yards. Like the atmosphere at Clemson, Lovett's versatility is insane.
Princeton is 2-1, 1-0 in the Ivy League. The one loss is to Lehigh, who beat Penn and Yale worse than it did Princeton (not that that means anything). Still, it's not an awful loss. And Penn looked great the other night against Dartmouth.
Princeton is at Georgetown this week in the final non-league game. Then it's the key two-game stretch of the season, at home, against Brown and Harvard. Much more will be known by the time that ends.
In the meantime, TigerBlog can leave Bob Surace to call his own plays.
And if he needs any help, he and TB seem to be connected telepathically.
It certainly looked insane for the game Saturday night between Clemson and Louisville, which Clemson won 42-36 in what so far has been the best college football game of the season. It came down to a Clemson stop at the 5 yard line as time was running out, derailing Louisville's quick start to the season and perhaps the Heisman hopes of its quarterback, Lamar Jackson, at the same time.
TigerBlog never really figured out which team he wanted to win that game. He did figure out quickly that the atmosphere at that game was off the charts.
Can you imagine what that must be like? First, there's the build up all day. Then there's the game, wedging 82,000 people into the building. Even the arrival of the home team from the bus is nuts.
TigerBlog has never been to a game like that. What must it be like to walk around outside the stadium two hours before the kickoff, for that matter?
Maybe one day he will.
If you want to look out of a football stadium and see an incredible view, then it's hard to imagine beating Husky Stadium in Seattle.
Make that Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium.
It's the home field of the University of Washington. If you look out the open end, you'll see Lake Washington and beyond that the Cascade Mountains and Mt. Rainier. The stadium is famous for the boats that dock and let spectators off on game days.
TigerBlog has never seen a game there, though he's checked out the view, and it's quite impressive. The stadium is located on one end of the U-Dub campus; BrotherBlog's office in the law school is somewhere else on the campus.
Because the school is the employer of both BB and Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog, TB likes to root for the Huskies, who after an 18-53 stretch a decade ago have now been to six straight bowl games. The current head coach of the team is Chris Petersen, the man who built Boise State into a national power. Peterson, who is in his third season, is now 25-12.
The 25th win was the most impressive, as the Huskies destroyed No. 7 Stanford 44-6 to go to 5-0 on the year. Can Washington make a real run at a place in the college football playoffs? The rest of the regular season means Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Cal, USC and Washington State.
Is there a bump in the road there somewhere?
Washington opened its season by defeating Rutgers 48-13. If that score is familiar to Princeton fans, it should be.
TigerBlog first checked out the score of Saturday's Princeton-Columbia game to find the Lions up 6-0. The next time he looked, it was 6-6.
Then he put the game on the Fox Sports Go app on his iPad just in time for it to be 13-6, but he wasn't sure who had scored. Then he realized it was Princeton.
And then Princeton, Princeton, Princeton, Princeton and Princeton again.
Seven possessions. Seven touchdowns. Final score, 48-13 Tigers.
Hey, if you're going to give up the first and last scores of a game, you might as well bang out seven touchdowns in between.
The key play of the game, if there can be one in a 35-point win, came in the second quarter, with the score 6-6 and Princeton with 4th and 1 at the Princeton 29. That's the Princeton 29, not the Columbia 29.
TigerBlog would like to think that Princeton head coach Bob Surace said to himself "what would TB do in this situation" and then had John Lovett run for the first down. It was a courageous call, since Surace would have been hammered for his decision had it failed, Columbia gotten possession, scored and changed the entire dynamic of the game.
Too many football coaches make decisions not to be second-guessed. This wasn't the time for that. This was the time to say "hey, we can get a yard, and even if we can't, I'm counting on my defense." It says a lot about the faith that the coach has in his guys.
Anyway, six plays later Princeton was in the end zone, on a 26-yard pass from Chad Kanoff to Trevor Osborne. Kanoff had a great day, going 21 for 25 for 230 yards and three scores.
Lovett also had a great day. Lovett is an incredible weapon, with six rushing touchdowns through three weeks, three of which came against the Lions. He's now carried the ball 22 times, and six of those 22 have ended up in the end zone.
Against Columbia Lovett had eight carries for 50 yards and three touchdowns. No carry of his was for negative yardage. For the year, only one of his carries has been for negative yardage - a loss of one.
Lovett completed 5 of 8 for 59 yards and a touchdown and also caught two passes for 42 more yards. Like the atmosphere at Clemson, Lovett's versatility is insane.
Princeton is 2-1, 1-0 in the Ivy League. The one loss is to Lehigh, who beat Penn and Yale worse than it did Princeton (not that that means anything). Still, it's not an awful loss. And Penn looked great the other night against Dartmouth.
Princeton is at Georgetown this week in the final non-league game. Then it's the key two-game stretch of the season, at home, against Brown and Harvard. Much more will be known by the time that ends.
In the meantime, TigerBlog can leave Bob Surace to call his own plays.
And if he needs any help, he and TB seem to be connected telepathically.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Let's Go Tigers, And Pioneers
The Lambert family was big in the jewelry business on Madison Avenue in the early 1900s, as well as big college football fans.
At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.
The name "Lambert" has long been synonymous with supremacy in Eastern college football. Victor and Henry Lambert first named a trophy in honor of their father August (again, Wikipedia) in 1935, and ever since then, the best team in the East has received the trophy.
Princeton has won it twice, in 1950 and 1951, when a certain Dick Kazmaier was the team's best player. Princeton did not lose a game in either season.
Once Division I-AA came around in 1982, the Lambert Cup began to be awarded to the top team in that division in the East. No Ivy school had ever won the Cup until last year, when Dartmouth, Penn and Harvard all shared it.
Interestingly, only one team has ever won the Lambert Cup with a perfect record. That honor belongs to Holy Cross, who went 11-0 in 1987. Four schools have won the Lambert Cup after winning the national championship - UMass in 1998, Delaware in 2003, James Madison in 2004, Villanova in 2009.
The current Lambert rankings have two Ivy teams in the top four - Dartmouth at No. 3 and Harvard at No. 4. Cornell is ranked 12th. Georgetown, whom Princeton plays next week, is ranked sixth.
It's early and all, and the Lambert rankings should change radically between now and the end of the season. But who's ranked No. 1 this week?
Is it Villanova? Nope. Stony Brook? Richmond? Fordham? Colgate? James Madison? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Give up?
It's the Pioneers of Sacred Heart University. Yup.
Sacred Heart is 4-0 on the season, heading into a game tomorrow against Wagner, ranked ninth in this Lambert Cup poll.
Ranking colleges in order of how much gear TigerBlog has, it goes like this: 1. Princeton, 2. Sacred Heart, 3. every place else combined. In case you don't realize it, Sacred Heart is where TigerBlog Jr. goes to college.
Sacred Heart is doing some really nice things these days. There is a great deal of construction of new buildings and an expansion of its academic offerings. It's small, but there is a really strong sense of community there.
And, through four weeks, the best FCS football team in the East.
Princeton will be playing a crucial game tomorrow as well, as it travels to Columbia to take on the Lions in the Ivy opener for both.
Only two Ivy League games have been played so far this year, as Cornell defeated Yale and Harvard defeated Brown a week ago. In addition to Princeton-Columbia this weekend, Penn is at Dartmouth tonight, on NBC SportsNetwork.
Of course, when only 28 Ivy games are played each year, then they're all huge. Especially the first one. The last time a team won the Ivy title after losing its first league game was in 2005, when Brown did so (other than when two teams met in the opener and then went on to share the championship).
Princeton and Columbia kick off at noon, on Fox College Sports (and Fox Sports Go).
If you're not going to New York for that one, there's a soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium tomorrow afternoon. It'll be Princeton and Dartmouth in two games tomorrow, with the women at 1 and the men at 4.
The women are 0-0-1 in the league after a 1-1 tie with Yale a week ago. Dartmouth lost to Brown 1-0 in its first league game last week.
Princeton still has the best overall record in the league at 7-1-1, but seven of the eight teams are at least .500. Dartmouth is 6-3 overall.
Again, each league game is big. Princeton, the defending Ivy champ, went 6-0-1 a year ago, winning its first six before tying the last one. Maybe this year will be the reverse of that, with a tie in the first one. Or maybe it's one of those years where something in the neighborhood of 4-1-2 or so wins the league.
On the men's side, this is Week 1 of Ivy play. Princeton began the year 0-2 and is 4-1 since, with its four-game winning streak snapped in a 1-0 overtime loss to Villanova on a penalty kick Wednesday.
There are five Ivy men's teams over .500. The other three teams are a combined 2-12-7, including Dartmouth, who is 1-2-4. No game ever in Ivy League soccer can be overlooked, though.
There are other events this weekend, including two home matches for the defending Ivy champion women's volleyball team, who hosts the other defending champ, Harvard at 7 tonight and then Dartmouth at 5 tomorrow.
There are also four home league water polo matches.
It's a big weekend all around. Go Tigers. And Go Pioneers.
At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.
The name "Lambert" has long been synonymous with supremacy in Eastern college football. Victor and Henry Lambert first named a trophy in honor of their father August (again, Wikipedia) in 1935, and ever since then, the best team in the East has received the trophy.
Princeton has won it twice, in 1950 and 1951, when a certain Dick Kazmaier was the team's best player. Princeton did not lose a game in either season.
Once Division I-AA came around in 1982, the Lambert Cup began to be awarded to the top team in that division in the East. No Ivy school had ever won the Cup until last year, when Dartmouth, Penn and Harvard all shared it.
Interestingly, only one team has ever won the Lambert Cup with a perfect record. That honor belongs to Holy Cross, who went 11-0 in 1987. Four schools have won the Lambert Cup after winning the national championship - UMass in 1998, Delaware in 2003, James Madison in 2004, Villanova in 2009.
The current Lambert rankings have two Ivy teams in the top four - Dartmouth at No. 3 and Harvard at No. 4. Cornell is ranked 12th. Georgetown, whom Princeton plays next week, is ranked sixth.
It's early and all, and the Lambert rankings should change radically between now and the end of the season. But who's ranked No. 1 this week?
Is it Villanova? Nope. Stony Brook? Richmond? Fordham? Colgate? James Madison? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope.
Give up?
It's the Pioneers of Sacred Heart University. Yup.
Sacred Heart is 4-0 on the season, heading into a game tomorrow against Wagner, ranked ninth in this Lambert Cup poll.
Ranking colleges in order of how much gear TigerBlog has, it goes like this: 1. Princeton, 2. Sacred Heart, 3. every place else combined. In case you don't realize it, Sacred Heart is where TigerBlog Jr. goes to college.
Sacred Heart is doing some really nice things these days. There is a great deal of construction of new buildings and an expansion of its academic offerings. It's small, but there is a really strong sense of community there.
And, through four weeks, the best FCS football team in the East.
Princeton will be playing a crucial game tomorrow as well, as it travels to Columbia to take on the Lions in the Ivy opener for both.
Only two Ivy League games have been played so far this year, as Cornell defeated Yale and Harvard defeated Brown a week ago. In addition to Princeton-Columbia this weekend, Penn is at Dartmouth tonight, on NBC SportsNetwork.
Of course, when only 28 Ivy games are played each year, then they're all huge. Especially the first one. The last time a team won the Ivy title after losing its first league game was in 2005, when Brown did so (other than when two teams met in the opener and then went on to share the championship).
Princeton and Columbia kick off at noon, on Fox College Sports (and Fox Sports Go).
If you're not going to New York for that one, there's a soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium tomorrow afternoon. It'll be Princeton and Dartmouth in two games tomorrow, with the women at 1 and the men at 4.
The women are 0-0-1 in the league after a 1-1 tie with Yale a week ago. Dartmouth lost to Brown 1-0 in its first league game last week.
Princeton still has the best overall record in the league at 7-1-1, but seven of the eight teams are at least .500. Dartmouth is 6-3 overall.
Again, each league game is big. Princeton, the defending Ivy champ, went 6-0-1 a year ago, winning its first six before tying the last one. Maybe this year will be the reverse of that, with a tie in the first one. Or maybe it's one of those years where something in the neighborhood of 4-1-2 or so wins the league.
On the men's side, this is Week 1 of Ivy play. Princeton began the year 0-2 and is 4-1 since, with its four-game winning streak snapped in a 1-0 overtime loss to Villanova on a penalty kick Wednesday.
There are five Ivy men's teams over .500. The other three teams are a combined 2-12-7, including Dartmouth, who is 1-2-4. No game ever in Ivy League soccer can be overlooked, though.
There are other events this weekend, including two home matches for the defending Ivy champion women's volleyball team, who hosts the other defending champ, Harvard at 7 tonight and then Dartmouth at 5 tomorrow.
There are also four home league water polo matches.
It's a big weekend all around. Go Tigers. And Go Pioneers.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Welcome To The NWPC
Luis Nicolao will be meeting Bruce Springsteen today.
To put this in perspective for you, imagine meeting the one person who has ever lived - or maybe even was fictional - that you've wanted to meet more than any other, that you've wanted to meet your whole life, that you thought you'd never meet.
It's almost like a college application essay question. Name three people, living or dead, fiction or non-fiction, that you'd like to have lunch with and why.
Luis - oh, by the way, he's the head water polo coach at Princeton if you didn't already know that - was the lucky winner of a ticket in the lottery to meet The Boss at the Philadelphia Public Library. He said he will be giving Springsteen some Princeton water polo gear; if he gives him the longsleeve T-shirt that he recently gave TigerBlog then Springsteen will love him forever.
TigerBlog emailed Luis yesterday asking him when the last time he was this excited about something. Honestly, TigerBlog can't remember the last time anyone he knows was this excited about something.
What was Luis' response? He said he keeps thinking Springsteen will be showing up at Luis' house afterwards for a drink.
It all got TigerBlog to thinking about the one person he'd like to meet that he's never met. If it has to be limited to someone "famous," then maybe he'd stay with the E Street Band theme and go with Stevie Van Zandt.
TB would have a lot to talk about. There's the music of course, including Van Zandt's own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, had a song that is a TigerBlog favorite - "If I Give You My Heart, Will You Love Me Forever?"
And of course, Little Steven was Sylvio Dante in "The Sopranos," which could be TB's favorite TV show of all time. And TigerBlog loved "Lilyhammer," a Netflix series in which Van Zandt played a character very similar to Sylvio.
On top of all that, TigerBlog and Van Zandt grew up 15 miles away from each other. Maybe they could hang out and get some pizza on the boardwalk one day? TigerBlog will buy.
Anyway, once Luis is done living out this dream of his, he can go back to focusing on his season.
His team defeated St. Francis (Pa.) last night at DeNunzio Pool in its first-ever Northeast Water Polo Conference game. What is the Northeast Water Polo Conference?
Well, if you've followed men's water polo here in the past, you know about the Collegiate Water Polo Association, in which Princeton has competed for years. This past off-season the CWPA did some realigning and renaming, and the result is two new conferences under the old conference's jurisdiction.
The split is a bit confusing.
There are now two separate conferences, but they are not divided with the same number of teams or along geographical lines.
If TigerBlog is getting this right, there are 47 men's water polo teams, of which 20 are in one of the two new conferences. That's a high percentage.
The two conferences are the Northeast Water Polo Conference and the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference. The Mid-Atlantic one has two divisions, the East and the West.
There are six teams in the Northeast - Princeton, Harvard, Brown, MIT, St. Francis and Iona. Princeton will play each team twice, including five straight at home beginning last night.
And the other four? There's Iona tomorrow night at 8. There's Brown Saturday at 7. There's Harvard Sunday at 10. There's MIT Sunday at 2.
That's a lot of water polo at DeNunzio Pool, all of which is free, by the way.
There are six teams (Bucknell, Johns Hopkins, Fordham, Navy, Wagner and George Washington) in the East Division and there are eight in the West Division (Connecticut College, Gannon, La Salle, Mercyhurst, Monmouth, Penn State Behrend, Salem International, Washington & Jefferson).
At the end of the season, there will be a playoff format for each conference. The winners of the two conference playoffs will then play each other in what will essentially be an NCAA play-in game, with the winner to advance to the Final Four.
Again, that's if TigerBlog has this right.
Princeton water polo got a lot of attention this past summer with Ashleigh Johnson as one of the best players on the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics. She'll be back this spring with the women.
At some point during the spring season, Nicolao figures to go over the 800-win mark for his career here between the two teams. He currently has 779 wins, which is a ton. He's won nine division championships with each team, and he has taken both to the NCAA championships. He's won 13 Coach of the Year awards.
And now he gets his reward.
He gets to meet The Boss.
He seems sort of happy about it.
To put this in perspective for you, imagine meeting the one person who has ever lived - or maybe even was fictional - that you've wanted to meet more than any other, that you've wanted to meet your whole life, that you thought you'd never meet.
It's almost like a college application essay question. Name three people, living or dead, fiction or non-fiction, that you'd like to have lunch with and why.
Luis - oh, by the way, he's the head water polo coach at Princeton if you didn't already know that - was the lucky winner of a ticket in the lottery to meet The Boss at the Philadelphia Public Library. He said he will be giving Springsteen some Princeton water polo gear; if he gives him the longsleeve T-shirt that he recently gave TigerBlog then Springsteen will love him forever.
TigerBlog emailed Luis yesterday asking him when the last time he was this excited about something. Honestly, TigerBlog can't remember the last time anyone he knows was this excited about something.
What was Luis' response? He said he keeps thinking Springsteen will be showing up at Luis' house afterwards for a drink.
It all got TigerBlog to thinking about the one person he'd like to meet that he's never met. If it has to be limited to someone "famous," then maybe he'd stay with the E Street Band theme and go with Stevie Van Zandt.
TB would have a lot to talk about. There's the music of course, including Van Zandt's own band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, had a song that is a TigerBlog favorite - "If I Give You My Heart, Will You Love Me Forever?"
And of course, Little Steven was Sylvio Dante in "The Sopranos," which could be TB's favorite TV show of all time. And TigerBlog loved "Lilyhammer," a Netflix series in which Van Zandt played a character very similar to Sylvio.
On top of all that, TigerBlog and Van Zandt grew up 15 miles away from each other. Maybe they could hang out and get some pizza on the boardwalk one day? TigerBlog will buy.
Anyway, once Luis is done living out this dream of his, he can go back to focusing on his season.
His team defeated St. Francis (Pa.) last night at DeNunzio Pool in its first-ever Northeast Water Polo Conference game. What is the Northeast Water Polo Conference?
Well, if you've followed men's water polo here in the past, you know about the Collegiate Water Polo Association, in which Princeton has competed for years. This past off-season the CWPA did some realigning and renaming, and the result is two new conferences under the old conference's jurisdiction.
The split is a bit confusing.
There are now two separate conferences, but they are not divided with the same number of teams or along geographical lines.
If TigerBlog is getting this right, there are 47 men's water polo teams, of which 20 are in one of the two new conferences. That's a high percentage.
The two conferences are the Northeast Water Polo Conference and the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference. The Mid-Atlantic one has two divisions, the East and the West.
There are six teams in the Northeast - Princeton, Harvard, Brown, MIT, St. Francis and Iona. Princeton will play each team twice, including five straight at home beginning last night.
And the other four? There's Iona tomorrow night at 8. There's Brown Saturday at 7. There's Harvard Sunday at 10. There's MIT Sunday at 2.
That's a lot of water polo at DeNunzio Pool, all of which is free, by the way.
There are six teams (Bucknell, Johns Hopkins, Fordham, Navy, Wagner and George Washington) in the East Division and there are eight in the West Division (Connecticut College, Gannon, La Salle, Mercyhurst, Monmouth, Penn State Behrend, Salem International, Washington & Jefferson).
At the end of the season, there will be a playoff format for each conference. The winners of the two conference playoffs will then play each other in what will essentially be an NCAA play-in game, with the winner to advance to the Final Four.
Again, that's if TigerBlog has this right.
Princeton water polo got a lot of attention this past summer with Ashleigh Johnson as one of the best players on the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics. She'll be back this spring with the women.
At some point during the spring season, Nicolao figures to go over the 800-win mark for his career here between the two teams. He currently has 779 wins, which is a ton. He's won nine division championships with each team, and he has taken both to the NCAA championships. He's won 13 Coach of the Year awards.
And now he gets his reward.
He gets to meet The Boss.
He seems sort of happy about it.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
More On The Princeton Pioneers
If there is an alumni organization, then there will be Princetonians involved.
That's TigerBlog's profound thought for your Wednesday. He has no way of proving this, of course. It's just a hunch, and he's pretty sure it's a good one.
Until yesterday, TigerBlog didn't realize that there was an alumni organization for U.S. Olympians. Then he found out that there was. Then he found out that two of the five vice presidents for the organization are Princeton alums.
All of this started when Carol Brown, a member of the Class of 1975 and a three-time Olympic rower, emailed TB a picture of Princeton alums who are working to try to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles.
Brown said that the group was part of the U.S. Olympian Paralympian Association, and that she was on the executive board. So too is Joe Cheek, Class of 2011 and a two-time Olympic speedskater.
There were four people in the picture. It has Brown, along with Augie Wolf, a 1984 Olympic shot-putter, and Brett Goodwin and Jennie Thompson, who work for NBC. Cheek, and USA Fencing president Donald Anthony, were not in the picture but are part of the efforts.
For Brown, this is the second TigerBlog appearance this month, after she helped put together the women's athlete symposium in Chicago earlier.
Brown, whom TB has never met, appears to be something of a force. If she is putting her efforts into bringing the 2024 Olympics to California, TB wouldn't be shocked to see it happen.
TigerBlog didn't know much about Carol Brown until she reached out to him about the symposium. Since then, he's learned all sorts of interesting things.
Perhaps the most interesting was her path to Olympic rowing. It certainly didn't begin when she was in high school in Illinois, where, in the pre-Title IX days, girls were legally forbidden from playing sports.
Miss TigerBlog takes it for granted that she's gotten to play a bunch of different sports her whole life, and field hockey and lacrosse in high school. She and her friends could never dream of what people like Carol Brown had to go through to compete.
Because there were no athletic opportunities for her in high school, she instead was a musician. It wasn't until she came to Princeton that she found athletic opportunities, primitive as they were for women then.
If you want to read some interesting stuff on what she and her fellow athletic pioneers went through back then, you can click HERE.
TigerBlog has said this before but not in a long time, so he'll throw it out there again. Where would women's athletics be now without Title IX?
He'd like to think that there'd have been a natural evolution that brought increased opportunities to girls and women in sports. He'd like to think that the teams his daughter plays on now would have been there on their own, but it's possible that that's not the case.
Brown and her husband live in the Chicago area. Their son, Stuart Pomeroy, is a junior on the Princeton men's hockey team. His bio on goprincetontigers.com says that his mother also played hockey and swam at Princeton, in addition to her rowing.
That's a lot of athletic achievement for someone who had never competed in anything before she came here. One day, TigerBlog will ask her what it was like when she was a girl.
Did she realize how athletic she was? Did she want to take her Olympic bronze medal and stick it in the face of everyone who told her girls could play sports when she was little?
The men's hockey season, by the way, starts one month from today, at Michigan State.
If you think back one month, to Aug. 28, that was the Sunday when Princeton played Villanova in women's soccer on ESPNU in the second event of the year. Today is Sept. 28, which, among other things, is Gary Walters' birthday.
The last month has certainly zipped by, and the next one will too, as it'll be hockey season in a blink. The women's team actually faces-off a week earlier, with a pair of games in Providence. The Princeton women are ranked seventh nationally in the preseason and are coming off an NCAA tournament appearance a year ago.
In an interesting schedule quirk, the team plays its first three games in Providence, with a game at Brown on the 28th, one month from today.
For now, it's the heart of the fall season.
There are two events today, with the men's soccer team at Villanova at 4 and the men's water polo team at home against St. Francis (Pa.) at 7:30. Hopefully head coach Luis Nicolao will focus on the game and not be reading Bruce Springsteen's book while the game is going on.
Between today and Sunday there are 22 Princeton athletic events. The breakdown by gender? There are 11 for men and 11 for women.
That's how it should be.
That's not how it always was.
There are athletes like Carol Brown - and some of the women's track and field athletes who were at the Peter Farrell dinner Saturday night and an army of others - who made it his way.
That's TigerBlog's profound thought for your Wednesday. He has no way of proving this, of course. It's just a hunch, and he's pretty sure it's a good one.
Until yesterday, TigerBlog didn't realize that there was an alumni organization for U.S. Olympians. Then he found out that there was. Then he found out that two of the five vice presidents for the organization are Princeton alums.
All of this started when Carol Brown, a member of the Class of 1975 and a three-time Olympic rower, emailed TB a picture of Princeton alums who are working to try to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles.
Brown said that the group was part of the U.S. Olympian Paralympian Association, and that she was on the executive board. So too is Joe Cheek, Class of 2011 and a two-time Olympic speedskater.
There were four people in the picture. It has Brown, along with Augie Wolf, a 1984 Olympic shot-putter, and Brett Goodwin and Jennie Thompson, who work for NBC. Cheek, and USA Fencing president Donald Anthony, were not in the picture but are part of the efforts.
Brown, whom TB has never met, appears to be something of a force. If she is putting her efforts into bringing the 2024 Olympics to California, TB wouldn't be shocked to see it happen.
TigerBlog didn't know much about Carol Brown until she reached out to him about the symposium. Since then, he's learned all sorts of interesting things.
Perhaps the most interesting was her path to Olympic rowing. It certainly didn't begin when she was in high school in Illinois, where, in the pre-Title IX days, girls were legally forbidden from playing sports.
Miss TigerBlog takes it for granted that she's gotten to play a bunch of different sports her whole life, and field hockey and lacrosse in high school. She and her friends could never dream of what people like Carol Brown had to go through to compete.
Because there were no athletic opportunities for her in high school, she instead was a musician. It wasn't until she came to Princeton that she found athletic opportunities, primitive as they were for women then.
If you want to read some interesting stuff on what she and her fellow athletic pioneers went through back then, you can click HERE.
TigerBlog has said this before but not in a long time, so he'll throw it out there again. Where would women's athletics be now without Title IX?
He'd like to think that there'd have been a natural evolution that brought increased opportunities to girls and women in sports. He'd like to think that the teams his daughter plays on now would have been there on their own, but it's possible that that's not the case.
Brown and her husband live in the Chicago area. Their son, Stuart Pomeroy, is a junior on the Princeton men's hockey team. His bio on goprincetontigers.com says that his mother also played hockey and swam at Princeton, in addition to her rowing.
That's a lot of athletic achievement for someone who had never competed in anything before she came here. One day, TigerBlog will ask her what it was like when she was a girl.
Did she realize how athletic she was? Did she want to take her Olympic bronze medal and stick it in the face of everyone who told her girls could play sports when she was little?
The men's hockey season, by the way, starts one month from today, at Michigan State.
If you think back one month, to Aug. 28, that was the Sunday when Princeton played Villanova in women's soccer on ESPNU in the second event of the year. Today is Sept. 28, which, among other things, is Gary Walters' birthday.
The last month has certainly zipped by, and the next one will too, as it'll be hockey season in a blink. The women's team actually faces-off a week earlier, with a pair of games in Providence. The Princeton women are ranked seventh nationally in the preseason and are coming off an NCAA tournament appearance a year ago.
In an interesting schedule quirk, the team plays its first three games in Providence, with a game at Brown on the 28th, one month from today.
For now, it's the heart of the fall season.
There are two events today, with the men's soccer team at Villanova at 4 and the men's water polo team at home against St. Francis (Pa.) at 7:30. Hopefully head coach Luis Nicolao will focus on the game and not be reading Bruce Springsteen's book while the game is going on.
Between today and Sunday there are 22 Princeton athletic events. The breakdown by gender? There are 11 for men and 11 for women.
That's how it should be.
That's not how it always was.
There are athletes like Carol Brown - and some of the women's track and field athletes who were at the Peter Farrell dinner Saturday night and an army of others - who made it his way.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Hail To The Redskins
So the Giants lost to the Redskins?
Somewhere, MotherBlog was smiling.
The last two days have been a pretty good reminder for TigerBlog about what he misses most about his mother, who passed away nearly 22 years ago. A Giants-Redskins game Sunday and a Presidential debate Monday?
About the only thing that could have made it better for her would have been a Steve McQueen movie marathon in between, though she'd only need the scene near the end of "The Great Escape" where McQueen - without a stunt double - hops the barbed wire fences on a motorcycle.
MotherBlog died before she ever had a cell phone or email. Still, if she was still around (she'd be closing in on her 77th birthday were she alive today), TB's phone would have been buzzing every five seconds, between the Skins' rally past the Giants and the debate last night.
As a long-time resident of the D.C. area, she loved the Redskins and politics. Her favorites at the time? John Riggins and Walter Mondale. Or was it Joe Theismann and Jay Rockefeller?
MotherBlog was a huge football fan, but only the NFL. TB doesn't remember talking too much college football with her, though she did root for Georgia by the end of her life, after she'd moved from D.C. to Atlanta.
As such, TigerBlog roots for Georgia too, even if the Bulldogs always let him down.
In fact, if TigerBlog had to give you the three college football teams he roots for the most, it would be Georgia, Sacred Heart and Princeton.
TB is pretty sure you already know this, but Sacred Heart blew out 24th-ranked Stony Brook Saturday night, improving to 4-0 on the season. And that was on the road.
As for Princeton, the Tigers are 1-1, with a win over Lafayette and a loss to Lehigh.
Up next for the Tigers is Columbia, in the Ivy League opener. That game is in New York City this Saturday and kicks off at noon, on Fox College Sports and Fox Sports Go.
Columbia is 0-2 on the year, with losses to St. Francis (Pa.) and Georgetown.
There have been 53 total points scored in Columbia's first two games. Princeton's first two games have seen an average of 68.
Columbia's first two games have seen an average of 588 yards per game. Princeton's first two games have seen an average of 919.5 yards per game.
What does it mean? Princeton's games have been pretty wide open. Columbia's have been tight defensive struggles.
It's only two games, so it's hard to say that these are definitive patterns. Still, it is 20 percent of the season already.
The biggest place this yardage difference can be seen is in passing yardage. Princeton has allowed 410 yards through the air per game through two games; Columbia has thrown for 254 yards in its two games combined.
Again, a performance like the one that Lehigh quarterback Nick Shafnisky had on Saturday skews the numbers so early in a season. Still, it's certainly an intriguing matchup, a team that doesn't throw much against a team that has struggled to stop its first two opponents in the air.
The most interesting Princeton stats through two weeks to TigerBlog involve touchdowns.
First, Princeton has scored eight touchdowns, and all eight have come on the ground. Second, Princeton is one of two teams in Division I (FBS or FCS) to have scored a touchdown on every trip into the red zone.
Princeton has made seven red zone trips and scored seven touchdowns (he's not 100% how exactly a red zone trip is defined). The only other team in Division I to do so is Delaware State, who has scored two touchdowns on two red zone trips.
The Columbia game is the only Ivy game in the first four weeks of the season for the Tigers, who are at Georgetown next week. The first goal of every season is to be 1-0 in the Ivy League. That would set up the back-to-back home games against Brown (Oct. 15) and Harvard (Oct. 22) nicely.
Anyway, FatherBlog turned 81 yesterday. What did he do to celebrate? He went to work. That's what he does.
It dawned on TB that BrotherBlog is actually older now than MotherBlog was when she died. That's a hard concept to consider.
It's not worth contemplating why some people die young and others are still going to work in their 80s. It's just how it works.
All you can do is think about the people who aren't here anymore and remember them as they were. Some days, like the last two for TigerBlog, it's so easy to do that.
Somewhere, MotherBlog was smiling.
The last two days have been a pretty good reminder for TigerBlog about what he misses most about his mother, who passed away nearly 22 years ago. A Giants-Redskins game Sunday and a Presidential debate Monday?
About the only thing that could have made it better for her would have been a Steve McQueen movie marathon in between, though she'd only need the scene near the end of "The Great Escape" where McQueen - without a stunt double - hops the barbed wire fences on a motorcycle.
MotherBlog died before she ever had a cell phone or email. Still, if she was still around (she'd be closing in on her 77th birthday were she alive today), TB's phone would have been buzzing every five seconds, between the Skins' rally past the Giants and the debate last night.
As a long-time resident of the D.C. area, she loved the Redskins and politics. Her favorites at the time? John Riggins and Walter Mondale. Or was it Joe Theismann and Jay Rockefeller?
MotherBlog was a huge football fan, but only the NFL. TB doesn't remember talking too much college football with her, though she did root for Georgia by the end of her life, after she'd moved from D.C. to Atlanta.
As such, TigerBlog roots for Georgia too, even if the Bulldogs always let him down.
In fact, if TigerBlog had to give you the three college football teams he roots for the most, it would be Georgia, Sacred Heart and Princeton.
TB is pretty sure you already know this, but Sacred Heart blew out 24th-ranked Stony Brook Saturday night, improving to 4-0 on the season. And that was on the road.
As for Princeton, the Tigers are 1-1, with a win over Lafayette and a loss to Lehigh.
Up next for the Tigers is Columbia, in the Ivy League opener. That game is in New York City this Saturday and kicks off at noon, on Fox College Sports and Fox Sports Go.
Columbia is 0-2 on the year, with losses to St. Francis (Pa.) and Georgetown.
There have been 53 total points scored in Columbia's first two games. Princeton's first two games have seen an average of 68.
Columbia's first two games have seen an average of 588 yards per game. Princeton's first two games have seen an average of 919.5 yards per game.
What does it mean? Princeton's games have been pretty wide open. Columbia's have been tight defensive struggles.
It's only two games, so it's hard to say that these are definitive patterns. Still, it is 20 percent of the season already.
The biggest place this yardage difference can be seen is in passing yardage. Princeton has allowed 410 yards through the air per game through two games; Columbia has thrown for 254 yards in its two games combined.
Again, a performance like the one that Lehigh quarterback Nick Shafnisky had on Saturday skews the numbers so early in a season. Still, it's certainly an intriguing matchup, a team that doesn't throw much against a team that has struggled to stop its first two opponents in the air.
The most interesting Princeton stats through two weeks to TigerBlog involve touchdowns.
First, Princeton has scored eight touchdowns, and all eight have come on the ground. Second, Princeton is one of two teams in Division I (FBS or FCS) to have scored a touchdown on every trip into the red zone.
Princeton has made seven red zone trips and scored seven touchdowns (he's not 100% how exactly a red zone trip is defined). The only other team in Division I to do so is Delaware State, who has scored two touchdowns on two red zone trips.
The Columbia game is the only Ivy game in the first four weeks of the season for the Tigers, who are at Georgetown next week. The first goal of every season is to be 1-0 in the Ivy League. That would set up the back-to-back home games against Brown (Oct. 15) and Harvard (Oct. 22) nicely.
Anyway, FatherBlog turned 81 yesterday. What did he do to celebrate? He went to work. That's what he does.
It dawned on TB that BrotherBlog is actually older now than MotherBlog was when she died. That's a hard concept to consider.
It's not worth contemplating why some people die young and others are still going to work in their 80s. It's just how it works.
All you can do is think about the people who aren't here anymore and remember them as they were. Some days, like the last two for TigerBlog, it's so easy to do that.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Godspeed, You Handsome Devil
“This is not some apron-wearing mother you're speaking with - I know all about your Valhalla of decadence and I shouldn't have let him go. He's not ready for your world of compromised values and diminished brain cells that you throw away like confetti. Am I speaking to you clearly? If you break his spirit, harm him in any way, keep him from his chosen profession, which is law - something you may not value, but I do - you will meet the voice on the other end of this telephone and it will not be pretty. Do we understand each other? I didn't ask for this role, but I'll play it. Now go do your best. Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid. Goethe said that. It's not too late for you to become a person of substance, Russell.” - Frances McDormand to Billy Crudup in "Almost Famous"
Suzanne Zywicki is the second of five sisters.
In order, it's Ellen, Suzanne, Carol and then the identical twins, Nancy and Patty. They grew up in the house next door to TigerBlog, back in Manalapan.
Suzanne is a year older than TigerBlog. She went from Manalapan to Princeton, where she was a high jumper for Peter Farrell on the women's track and field team.
TigerBlog hadn't seen Suzanne in decades before Saturday night, when she was one of several hundred people who turned out to honor Farrell, who retired at the end of the 2015-16 academic year after 39 years - 117 seasons - coaching Princeton in women's cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field.
Suzanne and TigerBlog weren't the only two Manalapan High School alums at the event. Robby Andrews, the volunteer assistant men's cross country coach at Princeton, was also there for Peter.
Robby, of course, ran the 1,500 in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, and he was the subject - victim? - of a questionable call that DQd him after the semifinal round. Had he reached the final, he would have had a real shot at a medal.
Suzanne wanted to meet Robby, so TigerBlog introduced them. They talked about where they lived in Manalapan - Robby grew up on the other side of Route 9 - and track and field, especially the Millrose Games.
This was all during the cocktail hour portion of the evening.
TigerBlog recognized Suzanne immediately, even after all these years. He also recognized many of the other faces of the alums during his time here, even if he couldn't come up with most of the names that matched. It was like all of the old media guides had come to life, with all of the head shots in them suddenly walking, talking and reminiscing.
There were also colleagues - current and former - and friends and relatives. Even Hank Towns, the former equipment manager, was there.
They came from everywhere and anywhere, from the 1970s through the current athletes. They drove in. They flew in. They came from this country and other countries.
Heck, they even came from before Peter ever coached at Princeton, back to when he coached at Christ the King High School in Queens, before he came to Princeton as its first full-time women's track and field coach.
Why were they there? Because they love the guy, that's why.
By now, Peter's resume is familiar to you. He and men's coach Fred Samara started at Princeton on the same day, Sept. 1, 1977. When the women’s cross country team won the Heptagonal championship a year ago, it gave Peter 27 Heps championships. In his time at Princeton, there were 117 Heps championships won in women’s cross country and track and field, and Peter Farrell’s teams won more than 20 percent of them.
Peter also coached 55 All-Americas and 182 Ivy League champions. He led the program to the Ivy League Triple Crown - winning all three Heps championships in one academic year - in both 1980-81 and 2010-11 and is the only Ivy women's coach ever to achieve this feat even once.
He always was so much more than as a coach, though. TigerBlog has known him for more than a quarter-century, and he has seen first-hand the dynamic that existed between him and many of the athletes in the room last night.
They respect him. They are humored by him. They were challenged by him.
They love him.
And that's why they were there.
It was a night of a reunions, and different from Reunions in that it wasn't primarily major years represented. Instead, as Peter said, there were former freshmen back with their captains.
There was a video. There were speeches, of course. One athlete from each decade. Two longtime former rival coaches, Mark Young of Yale and Lou Duesing of Cornell. It became something of a roast.
Sue Shea O'Connell spoke too. She is a Villanova grad, Class of 1982. And Christ the King, Class of 1978, where her coach was a young Peter Farrell. And why did she and so many of her high school teammates decide to run track in the first place?
"Because," she said, "Peter was soooooooo hot."
At one point, TigerBlog began to wonder why Peter started coaching women in the first place, and the answer was actually given to him a few seconds later by one of the speakers. It was to see if women could have the same experience from the sport that Peter and his brothers did. TigerBlog never thought of that.
Then it was Peter's turn to speak.
TigerBlog was all the way in the back of a packed room, but Peter's 30-minute talk wasn't much different than all the other ones TB has heard him give when it was just the two of them in TB's office for all these years.
Peter is the kind of person you can listen to talk for a long time, because what he's saying is so profound and how he's saying it is so entertaining. He didn't disappoint Saturday night.
He started out by saying that he had lost his notes, or someone had taken them, but it didn't matter, because every word on those notes had already been said over and over. So then, he said, he would rehash what had been said, only this time from the coach's perspective.
And so he did, asking different groups to stand up. He recognized basically everyone all over again, commenting on them from his point of view. He mentioned the pioneers of women's track and field at Princeton. He mentioned the first recruited athletes - classes that included Suzanne Zywicki. He talked about the modern era. He talked about the next generation of Princeton women's track and field coaches - Michelle Eisenreich, Brad Hunt and Reuben Jones - and the support that he knows they can count on from those in the room going forward.
More than anything else, he talked about his family, his two daughters, Virginia, who graduated from Princeton in 2013, and Susan, who is a senior now. Have you picked a thesis topic yet, Peter asked her. He said that they were good kids, the kind who never embarrassed him, even if he constantly embarrassed them.
And then there's his wife Shane, who also recently retired from Princeton. You're going to have a great retirement, Peter promised her.
Lastly, he said that for him, it wasn't about all the winning - which is something you can say when you've won as much as he has. It was about helping his athletes, either to get into Princeton, or to get through Princeton, or to give them something - the track and field program - to help them on a daily basis with the rigors of Princeton. If he'd done that, he said, then he was happy.
Of course he did that. For 39 years.
An emotional Peter ended his speech with these words: "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to."
A funny Sue Shea O'Connell ended her part by saying "Godspeed, you handsome devil." That was pretty good.
TigerBlog?
He's going to end where he started today, in the movie "Almost Famous." TigerBlog and Peter have talked about that movie as much as they have any other, and the quote TB started with today is Peter's favorite.
TigerBlog has heard Peter recite it a bunch of times. Peter says it better than Frances McDormand, and she was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie.
Whenever TigerBlog thinks of Peter Farrell, he'll think of those words.
That's Peter in a nutshell. Don't try to BS me, he's saying. Be a person of substance.
Now go do your best. Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.
For 39 years, he was the mighty force, coming to the aid of the hundreds who were there for him Saturday night.
When Peter was finished, TigerBlog turned and walked out the door on the far side. He never said goodbye to Peter; the line would be way too long.
At some point soon, Peter will come by. He'll talk about the next great movie he wants TB to see, or the next great live performance he heard on E Street Radio.
He'll do what he always does, which is to start to say something funny, walk away, pause, and throw the punchline out there. By the time it reaches TB, Peter will be around the corner and on his way.
Gone, in the moment, but never to be forgotten. Not by TigerBlog. Not by Princeton.
And definitely not by all of the women who were there for his big night, all of the women who were so proud to call him their coach - just as TigerBlog is proud to call him his friend.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Luis Gets His Dream Ticket, And Football At Lehigh
Floyd Phox Video Can Be Seen Here.
As you know, TigerBlog's old car just went over 200,000 miles.
When you have a car with that many miles, some things will invariably no longer be working. In the case of that car, it's the radio.
With the odometer now past 200,000, TigerBlog is back to driving his "new" car, the one with 78,000 miles on it. At least it has a working radio though.
When TB turned the car on yesterday, he heard the group Player singing "Baby come back. Any kind of fool could see. There was something, in everything about you."
You know the song. TigerBlog has heard about a million times, probably beginning in 1977, when the song hit No. 1 on the charts.
In all the time TB has heard that song, it never dawned on him to wonder how it turned out. Clearly someone in the band wrote it for someone specific.
Did she come back to him? TigerBlog would like to think that if someone went to that much trouble to apologize and beg for another chance that she would have been swept away by the gesture. But maybe not.
You know the song "Roseanna," by the group Toto? It's about Roseanna Arquette, who was dating one of the band members at the time. TigerBlog once saw her on one of the late-night shows, and she basically said that she hates the song and can't stand to ever hear it.
Still, TigerBlog is going on the assumption that it worked out for the guy in Player. Love conquers all and such. TigerBlog is a romantic.
As for music in general, the big story in Princeton Athletics this week is that water polo coach Luis Nicolao has gotten one of the 300 tickets available to meet Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia next week. TigerBlog is fairly sure that there exists no amount of money in the world for which Luis would sell that ticket.
TigerBlog hasn't seen someone this excited about anything in a long time. Luis, who has said he will be bringing some Princeton water polo gear for the Boss, is downright giddy. Hopefully he doesn't just wear a Speedo, which he has done to some more formal Princeton events.
Ah, but what if Springsteen is having a bad day and Luis is near the back of the line? What if Springsteen is a jerk to Luis? Or worse, what if he bails midway through and Luis never gets to see him?
TigerBlog would like to think that Springsteen is a good guy who remembers where he came from and appreciates his fans. Ah, but what if? TigerBlog can't imagine how crushed Luis will be.
It reminds TigerBlog of the Mario Soto story, from when he was a vendor at Philadelphia Phillies games in the early 1980s. He's written this before:
Mario Soto was the Cincinnati Reds' ace and the favorite player of Evan Weiss, then a vendor who used to drive TigerBlog from West Philadelphia to the stadium every day in his VW and today a doctor in Philadelphia. All season, Weiss waited for the Reds to arrive so he could get Soto's autograph, and then finally the day was there. Weiss waited for Soto to get off the bus and went up to him and asked for his autograph, only to have Soto walk by without stopping. Talk about being crushed.
Oh, and in other Luis news, he's closing in on 800 total wins as Princeton's water polo coach, between the men's and women's teams. He won't get there this weekend, when his men's team is in California.
A little closer to home, but not exactly at home, the Princeton football team - which has more than 800 wins - plays its second game of the season.
Princeton will be at Goodman Stadium at Lehigh to take on the Mountain Hawks, with kickoff tomorrow at 12:30. You can see the game on the Patriot League Network stream or hear it on WPRB FM 103.3.
Princeton is 1-0 after a 35-31 win over Lafayette a week ago. The Tigers defeated Lehigh 52-26 a year ago at Princeton.
Lehigh is 1-2 after three games. The first two were losses in which Lehigh scored 21 each time, falling to Monmouth and Villanova. The win a week ago saw Lehigh score more than it had in the first two games combined in a 49-28 win over Penn.
The football adage is that teams makes their greatest improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. Lehigh seems to have made a big jump from Week 2 to Week 3, which would be fine with Princeton, who opens the Ivy schedule next week at Columbia.
The game tomorrow is the first of three straight away games for Princeton, who is at Georgetown on Oct. 8.
Anyway, the game tomorrow will be a great test. But before kickoff, if you view nothing else at all this week on goprincetontigers.com, make sure you see the Floyd Phox video on goprincetontigers.com that TB's colleague John Bullis produced. The link is at the top of the page.
Okay, if you're too lazy to go back to the top, you can see it HERE too.
As you know, TigerBlog's old car just went over 200,000 miles.
When you have a car with that many miles, some things will invariably no longer be working. In the case of that car, it's the radio.
With the odometer now past 200,000, TigerBlog is back to driving his "new" car, the one with 78,000 miles on it. At least it has a working radio though.
When TB turned the car on yesterday, he heard the group Player singing "Baby come back. Any kind of fool could see. There was something, in everything about you."
You know the song. TigerBlog has heard about a million times, probably beginning in 1977, when the song hit No. 1 on the charts.
In all the time TB has heard that song, it never dawned on him to wonder how it turned out. Clearly someone in the band wrote it for someone specific.
Did she come back to him? TigerBlog would like to think that if someone went to that much trouble to apologize and beg for another chance that she would have been swept away by the gesture. But maybe not.
You know the song "Roseanna," by the group Toto? It's about Roseanna Arquette, who was dating one of the band members at the time. TigerBlog once saw her on one of the late-night shows, and she basically said that she hates the song and can't stand to ever hear it.
Still, TigerBlog is going on the assumption that it worked out for the guy in Player. Love conquers all and such. TigerBlog is a romantic.
As for music in general, the big story in Princeton Athletics this week is that water polo coach Luis Nicolao has gotten one of the 300 tickets available to meet Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia next week. TigerBlog is fairly sure that there exists no amount of money in the world for which Luis would sell that ticket.
TigerBlog hasn't seen someone this excited about anything in a long time. Luis, who has said he will be bringing some Princeton water polo gear for the Boss, is downright giddy. Hopefully he doesn't just wear a Speedo, which he has done to some more formal Princeton events.
Ah, but what if Springsteen is having a bad day and Luis is near the back of the line? What if Springsteen is a jerk to Luis? Or worse, what if he bails midway through and Luis never gets to see him?
TigerBlog would like to think that Springsteen is a good guy who remembers where he came from and appreciates his fans. Ah, but what if? TigerBlog can't imagine how crushed Luis will be.
It reminds TigerBlog of the Mario Soto story, from when he was a vendor at Philadelphia Phillies games in the early 1980s. He's written this before:
Mario Soto was the Cincinnati Reds' ace and the favorite player of Evan Weiss, then a vendor who used to drive TigerBlog from West Philadelphia to the stadium every day in his VW and today a doctor in Philadelphia. All season, Weiss waited for the Reds to arrive so he could get Soto's autograph, and then finally the day was there. Weiss waited for Soto to get off the bus and went up to him and asked for his autograph, only to have Soto walk by without stopping. Talk about being crushed.
Oh, and in other Luis news, he's closing in on 800 total wins as Princeton's water polo coach, between the men's and women's teams. He won't get there this weekend, when his men's team is in California.
A little closer to home, but not exactly at home, the Princeton football team - which has more than 800 wins - plays its second game of the season.
Princeton will be at Goodman Stadium at Lehigh to take on the Mountain Hawks, with kickoff tomorrow at 12:30. You can see the game on the Patriot League Network stream or hear it on WPRB FM 103.3.
Princeton is 1-0 after a 35-31 win over Lafayette a week ago. The Tigers defeated Lehigh 52-26 a year ago at Princeton.
Lehigh is 1-2 after three games. The first two were losses in which Lehigh scored 21 each time, falling to Monmouth and Villanova. The win a week ago saw Lehigh score more than it had in the first two games combined in a 49-28 win over Penn.
The football adage is that teams makes their greatest improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. Lehigh seems to have made a big jump from Week 2 to Week 3, which would be fine with Princeton, who opens the Ivy schedule next week at Columbia.
The game tomorrow is the first of three straight away games for Princeton, who is at Georgetown on Oct. 8.
Anyway, the game tomorrow will be a great test. But before kickoff, if you view nothing else at all this week on goprincetontigers.com, make sure you see the Floyd Phox video on goprincetontigers.com that TB's colleague John Bullis produced. The link is at the top of the page.
Okay, if you're too lazy to go back to the top, you can see it HERE too.
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