To The Writers

TigerBlog spent some time yesterday in uploading the 2025 field hockey schedule to goprincetontigers.com.

You can see it HERE.

Even though it's a little less than three months until opening day, TigerBlog is already looking forward to the season. As he entered each game, he thought about what that gameday would be like, what the weather might be, what kind of season it would be. 

When he was done, he started down the road of creating a graphic to go along with the release of the schedule. TB has gotten to the point where he's not bad at taking templates and updating them with whatever info is necessary at that time. 

He's certainly no expert at it though. He'd say "passable" or maybe "solid."

If you reach out to anyone who works in college athletic communications in 2025 ad ask what that person happens to be doing at the moment, there's a reasonable chance the response will be "making a graphic." They're used for everything and anything, from Player of the Week to "Ticket Punched" to someone who set a record to the coming week's schedule and everything and anything in between.

Social media, right? That's what's it's mostly about these days. Content creation. That's how most people consume information in 2025. 

To someone like TB, though, he's certain that there is still and always will be a market for a well-written, long-form feature story. When done right, such a story can paint a picture of the subject in a way that nothing else can. 

Say, for instance, the greatest home run hitter in the history of your baseball program only had one hand. The easiest way — and yes, an effective way — to tell that story would be through video, right? 

On the other hand, a much more challenging way is to write about him. Then it's up to you, the writer, to get the reader to "see" it all with the words you choose.

For instance, there is this: 

DeRocher was born with a congenital defect on his left hand and a fierce determination to prove he belongs. That determination sometimes morphs into defiance, shaped less by what's missing from his hand than the extra chip on his shoulder. It's as though DeRocher innately chose baseball not in spite of it being among the most difficult sports to play with one hand but because of it. One could envision DeRocher being told he couldn't play catch with other toddlers and responding with a steely glare: "Hold my orange juice."

That says a lot, no? You can picture this young man in your mind as you read on.

So what's the background? The player in question is Colton DeRocher, who set the Central College program record for career home runs with 24, despite, as it says, the fact that he has only one hand. It was written by Larry Happel, the retired head of the school's athletic communications office.

Earlier this week, Happel's story was chosen as the College Division National Story of the Year in the Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest. The annual awards for the best writing in college athletic communications is organized through the College Sports Communicators. 

You can read the entire piece HERE. You'll come away with a complete picture of DeRocher without watching a single video. 

The contest is divided into the University and College Divisions. The winner for the University Division this year is someone you probably have heard of: TigerBlog himself. It was for his story on the three women's soccer players who have had someone extremely close to them who has had cancer. 

You can read it HERE.

TigerBlog isn't here to brag about this (well, maybe a little; everyone likes to win awards, right?). What he's really doing is standing up for everyone who takes the time and the effort to tell stories through the written word. 

It's a challenge. It's time-consuming. 

It's a very public thing to do, which means you open yourself up for criticism. And yet it's so worth it, largely because when it's done well it is something in that the writer can take immense pride. 

HERE is the story on the CSC website with all of the national winners. TB's story on fencer Maia Weintraub after her fencing gold medal last summer was honored as the top athlete feature in the University Division as well. 

Pick any of the stories that won the awards. Read through them. Get to know the subjects through the written word. You'll be glad you did. 

So here is to all the writers, those who won and those who had the courage to put themselves out there for their work. 

There is a world beyond graphics. It's on all of them to keep it that way.

This Is Not Goodbye

MARTY CROTTY STEPS DOWN AS PRINCETON MEN'S LIGHTWEIGHT ROWING COACH

TigerBlog was trying to think of Princetonians who have won national championships with the Tigers as an athlete and as a head coach. 

The first person he thought of was the legendary men's squash coach Bob Callahan, who did so three times as a player before graduating in 1977. He then coached the Tigers to the national championship in 1982, his first season as head coach. 

In all, he'd finish with three national titles as a head coach as well.

Callahan was the consummate gentleman. If there was a sportsmanship award to be won, he won it. If there was an act of compassion to be had, he performed it.

Sadly, he passed away in 2015 at the age of just 59 after battling brain cancer. His loss still touches TigerBlog, who had the highest respect for the man. If you never met him, you certainly missed out on someone special. 

TigerBlog wrote yesterday about a few of his favorite lines from Pete Carril, and it led to this message: 

"I wish I had known Coach Carril in my days here at Princeton but you keep him alive for me and thousands of others."

TB likes that thought. He is fortunate to have been here long enough to have met hundreds of people who are worth remembering, those who have left Princeton or those who have passed away. He likes the idea that one of the main things he's doing here is helping them to be remembered.

In the case of Bob Callahan, he should still be here. TB is still stung by his passing. Like TB said, you really missed out on someone special, someone who made the world a much better place. 

Anyway, back at the question, Bill Roper in football accomplished the player/coach national championship double, as a player in 1899 and then four times as a coach, most notably with the 1922 "Team of Destiny."

Charlie Caldwell was a player on that team; he'd go on to coach the Tigers to the 1950 national title. 

Who else? Emily Goodfellow with women's squash. Peter Thompson in men's squash. 

Are there others? Did TB miss anyone? If he has, he's sure someone will let him know. 

Even if he did, there aren't many others on that list. And it's a very exclusive list, of course. 

Oh, and then there is rowing — and this will get TB to where he was going this whole time. 

Greg Hughes won as an athlete (heavyweight, twice) and head coach (lightweight). So did Dan Roock, who won as a heavyweight athlete and then again several times as the head coach of the open women. 

And, of course, Marty Crotty. 

A teammate of Hughes on the heavyweight boat in the 1996 and 1998 IRA championship first varsity 8, Crotty also coached the lightweights to the IRA title in 2010. 

He's been a constant presence in the Shea Boathouse for decades. Yesterday, he announced that he was leaving Princeton to pursue other opportunities. 

He insists this is not goodbye, and TigerBlog believes him. In fact, here were his words: "I will always be Princeton Rowing's number one fan on the shores of Lake Carnegie."

It's hard to imagine Princeton Athletics, and not just rowing, without Marty Crotty. 

He's a big man, in physical stature, in personality and in presence. He is smart and engaging and funny. He's given so much to Princeton Athletics for all his time here. 

There haven't been too many Princeton home events where you didn't see Marty, with his broad smile a constant feature. This has never been limited to rowing, by the way. 

TigerBlog wrote the other day about the overwhelming successes of the Princeton Rowing programs. He mentioned that all of it stems from the culture that has been created there. 

Marty Crotty has had as much of an impact as anyone on that culture. He'll definitely be missed around here. 

He's another one that if you've never met, you've been missing out on a special person.

Where Do They Come From?

Every time TigerBlog fills out a nomination form for Academic All-American, he immediately thinks back to some that, who else, Pete Carril once said. 

When asked by a reporter to comment on the fact that one of his players had been named Academic All-American with a 3.8 grade point average, Carril, without hesitating, said this:

"He'd be better off with a 3.6 and more work on his jump shot."

That's as funny today as it was back when Carril first said it. 

That's one of a handful of Carril stories that TB has told before but has never mentioned the player's name. The same is true of this one:

Reporter: Your player made the all-tournament team.
Carril: So did the guy he was guarding.

TigerBlog literally chuckled as he typed that. 

Of the 100 funniest quotes that's heard from Princeton coaches through the years, TigerBlog would have to say that maybe 75 or so came from either Carril or his successor, Bill Carmody. 

Remember the time when a UConn women's basketball player was allowed to break the school scoring record despite having ruptured her Achilles the game before? It happened in 1998, when Villanova allowed Connecticut to win the opening tip and pass the ball to an unguarded Nykesha Sales, who then made an uncontested layup to break the program career points record. 

UConn then allowed Villanova to score, making it 2-2. The game then proceeded from there. 

When Carmody was asked about it prior to Princeton's next game, he responded: "Al Kaline had 399 career home runs. What's the big deal?"

The basket gave Sales 2,178 career points. Today? She currently sits in seventh place at UConn in career scoring among women.

Where was TB going with this? He has no idea.

Oh yeah. Academic All-American.

The official Academic All-American program is run by the College Sports Communicators, formerly CoSIDA, for the College Sports Information Directors of America. Today is the deadline for what CSC refers to "At-Large," which is all of the sports that don't have their own specific honor. After this, the only remaining Academic All-American category will be track and field. 

Each school can nominate up to six men and six women for the At-Large category. Princeton chose its six, and the nomination process went from there.

TigerBlog was responsible for filling out two nominations, for players from his teams. The first one was field hockey player Ella Cashman. The second was men's lacrosse player Tucker Wade. Both have finished their sophomore seasons.

Perhaps you know these names. 

Both were first-team All-Ivy League selections. Wade was honorable mention All-American. Cashman was first-team All-Region. 

Cashman, a defender, scored both goals in Princeton's 2-1 win over Harvard last season in a game that decided the Ivy champion. The first goal came when the Tigers were down in the fourth quarter; the second came in OT. 

Wade finished the season with 27 goals and eight assists. He became the first Princeton sophomore middie to be first-team All-Ivy League since Tom Schreiber in 2012. That's the kind of elite company that you want your name included with, obviously. 

Yes, both are dominant players. They also have nearly perfect GPAs. 

TB is only using them as an example, since he just submitted their nominations. There are stories like this across all of Princeton's teams. 

Great athlete. Great student. In a world where those two terms are becoming rarer and rarer for the same person, it's something that still matters — and should.

As TigerBlog has said on many occasions, even after all these years, he still marvels at the athletes who compete for Princeton. Where do they come from? 

How can they be so good as athletes and then equally as amazing as students? As funny as what Carril said about the jump shot was, the whole point is that at Princeton you can be both. 

It's a foundation of the whole athletic department, and it always will be.

The nominations for At-Large, or any other one of the CSC categories, is a clear reminder of that.

TigerBlog wouldn't want it any other way.  

Splashes Of Happiness

There are two kinds of pictures of rowing races with splashing water in them — one good, one bad.

For the bad kind, those are the ones that take place during a race. Splashing during a race? Not a good thing. 

You want all of your rowers in complete sync, all your oars in the water, as it were. Splashing is counter to that.

Ah, but after the race? If you're splashing, you're celebrating. 

Look at this picture and tell TigerBlog which of the two categories it fits:

That's a happy one. You can tell easily by the smiles and the triumphant fists.

This picture immediately vaults into the pantheon of great shots that TB has seen during his time at Princeton. 

And why wouldn't the people in the boat be happy? That's a national championship celebration right there. 

Or, more fittingly, another national championship celebration. 

Call it Splashes of Happiness. 

The celebratees are the Princeton first varsity 8 lightweight women's rowing team this weekend at the IRA championships on the Cooper River. Princeton won the 1V race and the Commissioner's Cup points trophy and has now put together a five-year winning streak of national championships.

And how do you build something like this? Well, this is the post-racing quote from lightweight women's coach Paul Rassam:

"We have some proud, ferocious racers on our team. They took some anger to the handle and threw down hard. Our boats raced with a lot of aggression and belief in those finals. I saw a lot of courage out of them. The team points trophy is a tribute to our walk ons. We had four walk ons in the four. Coach Chris welcomes these athletes in and teaches them the technical aspects of the sport very well. Our experienced recruits help teach them how to be collegiate varsity athletes - the mentality and the drive and the discipline. It's a full family effort." 

Never gets old!

The Tigers win the IRA National Championship for the fourth straight season! pic.twitter.com/Lvxmpyx65O

— Tiger Light Women (@tigerwlights) June 1, 2025

Winning a championship happens when you have great personnel. Winning multiple championships, or building the kind of program that consistently competes at a championship level, is accomplished when you put together the kind of culture that breeds these outcomes. 

TB has seen it for decades at Princeton, across so many different sports. Culture matters. In a big way.

As for the racing he 1V once again was dominant, sprinting away from the field from the start and winning by more than three full seconds. Princeton's time of 6:19.320 was an IRA women's lightweight record.

This all came after the 1V did not win its qualifying heat. That doesn't always necessarily translate into the final, and that was certainly the case for Princeton. 

Your Princeton women's lightweight 1V: Coxswain Elena Every, Cate Barry, Amelie McComb, Mimi French, Alice McCarthy, Emma Mirrer, Kalista Whildin, Claire Brockman and Hannah Hoselbarth.

This weekend marked the national championships for all four Princeton rowing teams. 

The men's lightweights finished fourth overall, while the men's heavyweights were fifth. Both of those were IRA events, which were also on the Cooper River.

Meanwhile, over on Mercer Lake, the NCAA women's championships were held this weekend as well. If you're unfamiliar with how this all works, the NCAA only has a championship for the women, which usually means open women. The other national championships are from the IRA regatta.

Princeton is one of three schools that has qualified for every one of the NCAA rowing championships, dating back to 1997. The Tigers finished sixth overall this weekend. 

The highlight was a third-place finish for the 2V, its first medal since 2014. 

The Second Varsity of Frances McKenzie, Laoise O'Donohue, Cate Sauer, Ella Barry, Helena Purves, Anna Cowell, Alice Patton, Nicole Dunn and Cameron Price earn bronze at NCAAs!

It's the first medal for the 2V since 2014! pic.twitter.com/JrZOLpLbpu

— Princeton Open Women (@princetonwcrew) June 1, 2025

Again, culture matters.

And that's something that the Princeton Boathouse has plenty of, and always has. It starts with the coaches — Rassam, Lori Dauphiny, Greg Hughes and Marty Crotty — and flows through every rower who walks through the doors. 

It's why you'll see way more Splashes of Happiness at Princeton than anything else.

Boat Championships

The IRA rowing championships begin today on the Cooper River in Camden. 

TigerBlog is rooting for Princeton, of course. Ah, but if the Tigers can't win the men's heavyweight race, then he'd like to see Dartmouth take the national championship.

Why? Because of Justin Lafleur.

Who is Justin Lafleur? He is TB's colleague at Dartmouth, where he oversees the Big Green athletic communications office. He's also someone that TB has worked with at the past 14 or so NCAA lacrosse championships, including the one that just passed. 

This year's championships were held at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, which hosted eight games in four days between the Division I women's and men's semifinals and finals and the Division II and Division III finals. 

Justin was the caller for all eight games. TigerBlog entered the stats as Justin called them out. A few guys named Nick (two from Harvard, one from Boston College) did other tasks. 

TB went back and checked. For the eight games, he entered exactly 2,432 separate stat entries. He made a few mistakes, mostly getting the teams reversed as he typed in numbers. 

All in all, it went pretty smoothly. 

For TigrBlog, by the way, he has done this now at every Final Four for the men since 2005. He's also only missed three Final Fours since Princeton made its first appearance in 1992 — in 1995, 1999 and 2003. 

The Division I winners were North Carolina for the women and Cornell for the men. UNC's redshirt freshman Chloe Humphreys was the Most Outstanding Player for the women, and why not? It seemed like 200 or so of the stats TB entered were goals from her. 

Princeton's women lost to UNC 19-10 in the quarterfinals. If you were disheartened by that result, don't be. UNC went unbeaten for the year at 22-0, and the Tigers actually played the Tar Heels relatively competitively compared to the rest of Division I.

As for the men, TigerBlog said after Cornell beat Princeton in the Ivy opener on March 15 that the Big Red were the best team. The rest of the season only proved that to be the case. 

And you know for whom TigerBlog was happiest at the Cornell title? Joe Willie, that's who.  

Congratulations go out to the Big Red, who won their fourth NCAA championship and first since 1977. Princeton has still won more NCAA titles than every other Ivy school combined with six of its own against five for the rest of the league (Cornell's four, plus Yale). 

Which team held Cornell to its fewest goals this year? That would be Dartmouth, in a 10-8 loss. And that brings TB back to Justin, who was so proud of the fact that his Big Green team had that accomplishment. Make that so, so, so proud. He may have mentioned it more than once. 

It's an interesting dynamic to see your closest rivals do well on the national stage. TigerBlog was impressed all year with Cornell men's lacrosse. He was actually in their hotel during their run to the championship last weekend, and they seemed like easy guys to root for — but, you know, TB would much have preferred that to be Princeton in the dog pile on Memorial Day.

That's why he was happy for those who were close to it — like Joe Willie and Cornell's athletic communications guru Jeremy Hartigan. And that's why he could be happy if Dartmouth heavyweights win. 

Princeton's heavyweight first varsity eight is ranked fifth as they head into, trailing, in order, Cal, Washington, Harvard and Dartmouth. The 2V is ranked fourth, behind Washington, Cal and Harvard and ahead of Dartmouth. 

You can read more about the men's heavyweights HERE.

The Tiger lightweights are also rowing in South Jersey. The 1V is ranked third, behind Harvard and Penn. You preview is HERE.

The NCAA women's championships are on Mercer Lake today through Sunday. If you're heading out there from Princeton today, TB hopes you read this early: The Varsity Eight rows at 10:24 am followed by the second varsity at 11 a.m. with the varsity four finishing up at 11:36 a.m. The top three in each heat advance to the A/B Semifinals on Saturday. The top three finishers in the A/B Semifinals move onto the Grand Finals on Sunday.

TigerBlog took that directly from the goprincetontigers.com preview, which has a lot more information HERE.

Go Princeton. Always.

Catching Up

Well, there are some items to catch up on, including the news that George Wendt passed away last week.

You know that you've had an interesting life when your obituary is almost more about the fictional character you once played than it is about you. That was certainly the case here. 

Of course, that character was Norm on the long-running comedy "Cheers." And when you think of Norm, you think of "NORM!!!!" as he walks into the bar. 

What was your favorite? Was it: 

"Hey Norm, how's life treating you?"
"Like I slept with its wife."

or

"Hey Norm, how goes it?"
"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there and I''m wearing Milkbone underwear."

or 

"Hey Mr. Peterson, do you want a beer?"
"Stop with the stupid questions."

Those are great. This one might be the best:

Rest in peace, Mr. Peterson.

*

The Indiana Fever, as you may be aware, have a player named Caitlin Clark. She seems to be worth watching. 

The Fever draw ratings that no other WNBA team could even dream of, every game, home or away. Her impact on WNBA revenues has been dramatic, obviously.

What you might not know is that the team's play-by-play man is John Nolan, who has built a nice career in Indiana calling baseball and college and G-League basketball. He's now in his first season behind the mic for the Fever. 

What is so special about him? A long time ago, TigerBlog tried to recruit him for a job at Princeton, after he'd done some broadcasting for the Tigers after he graduated from Syracuse. 

Nolan nicely turned down the job. It seems to have worked out for him. 

No hard feelings, John. Congrats on the new gig. 

*

The Princeton Athletics calendar is not quite finished for 2024-25. What remains are the national championships for women's open rowing, men's lightweight and heavyweight rowing and men's and women's track and field. 

The rowing championships will be held this weekend in New Jersey, with the NCAA championships for women's open at Mercer Lake, not far from Princeton, and the men's IRA championships on the Cooper River in South Jersey. 

TigerBlog was at the women's championships outside of Dayton last year. He was at the IRA championships on the Cooper River in 1998, when the Tigers won the men's lightweight and heavyweight titles in a span of about 15 minutes. 

If you've ever been in the boathouse, you might have noticed the great picture of the two teams taken shortly after those championships in 1998. TB was taken right back to the moment every time he's see it, as he was standing directly next to the photographer at the time. 

As for track and field, the regionals began yesterday, with 32 Tigers in Jacksonville — 16 men, 16 women — looking to qualify for Eugene and the NCAA finals next week.

*

Welcome back to Princeton Mike Brennan, a 1994 graduate and former point guard on the men's basketball team who is joining Mitch Henderson's staff this year for his second go-round as a Tiger assistant.

In all the years that TB has been around Princeton men's basketball, there haven't been too many guys he's liked more than Brennan. He doesn't say much, but what he says is definitely worth listening to.

Way back when, early in the 1994-95 season to be exact, TigerBlog and Pete Carril went into New York City for an interview on CBS with the legendary Pat O'Brien, who wanted to talk somewhat broadly about Carril and his career. 

Instead, all he got out of Carril was "I lost my point guard," a reference to the graduated Brennan. There weren't too many players Carril ever liked more than Brennan, whose career numbers weren't overwhelming but whose impact on the games he played was. 

If the stat for fewest turnovers per 40 minutes in a career had been tracked at Princeton, Brennan would be way, way, way up there on the list. 

You can read a lot more about his career achievements as an assistant at Princeton and Georgetown under Georgetown and as head coach at American, as well as his other stops, HERE.

Women's Hockey — One Tragedy, One Farewell

TigerBlog has always liked Dodie Calavecchio, Class of 1988.

She was a four-time All-Ivy League selection in women's soccer as a goalkeeper, and she was the second Tiger to be honored as league Player of the Year in her sport when she won the award in 1985. She also was named to the Ivy League's women's soccer silver anniversary team. 

She spent one year as the head coach of the women's hockey team, in 1994. She even spent her senior year on the women's hockey team.

These days she's an accomplished architect. TB hadn't heard from her in a long time, so his first reaction last week at receiving an email from her was to smile. 

Then he read the email.

Dodie asked TB if he'd heard the news of the passing of Lisa Brown Miller, the one-time head coach of women's hockey at Princeton. She said she wasn't sure if TB had been at Princeton when Brown Miller was, and the answer was yes, he was, and yes, he knew her. 

Brown Miller was only 58 years old at the time of her passing. 

A New Jersey native, Brown Miller played college hockey and then joined the US Women's National Team at a time when there was no women's hockey in the Olympics. She was on four US teams that finished runner-up to Canada at the World Championships, and she and her teammates picked a really good time to break through — taking the first-ever gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games in Japan.

She coached the Tigers from 1991-96, with a record of 60-46-5 and two Ivy League championships. 

TigerBlog hadn't heard about her until Dodie's email. It's always stunning to see that someone you knew was gone, especially someone younger than you are. 

In this case, it was no different. You can read Brown Miller's obituary HERE (and it's painful to have to write that). 

Princeton women's hockey has had only five head coaches in its entire history. It's about to get a seventh. 

The first head coach was Bill Quackenbush, who took over when the program achieved varsity status in 1979. Quakenbush was a former NHL player who had played for the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins back when the league only had six teams. 

The second was Bob Ewell, who, among other accomplishments, is the father of the great Nate Ewell, one of the TB's favorite Princetonians ever. Brown Miller was Ewell's assistant coach, and she took over for him. 

When she left in 1996 to devote herself full-time to the national team, she was replaced by a former men's player, Jeff Kampersal, whose tenure lasted for 21 years and 327 wins. When Kampy went on to become Penn State's head coach, the head job went to his top assistant, Cara Morey. 

And now her tenure has come to a close as well. 

The news broke last week that Morey was leaving Princeton to become the general manager of the expansion Vancouver team in the Professional Women's Hockey League. 

Morey, a Canadian, played at Brown (where she was an All-American in ice hockey and field hockey), but she's been a part of Princeton women's hockey for 14 years, including being the head coach since 2017. Her best season was in 2019-20, when she led the team to the ECAC championship. 

Had the pandemic not come along, Princeton had as good a chance as any team to win the NCAA title. 

You don't usually associate Princeton women's hockey and the last week of May, but that's where things are right now. 

The news about Morey's departure brought up feelings of appreciation for all she's done at Princeton and good wishes for her next challenge. It has to be exciting, and a bit daunting, to build a professional team from scratch — especially with only a few months to do so. 

The news about Brown Miller?

That was just horrible.  

TigerBlog sends his condolences to her family.

Congratulations, Class of 2025

How was Reunions? 

Did you dance all night under a tent? You probably did. 

And it doesn't matter if you were at the fifth or any other tent. It doesn't matter if you graduated in a year that started with "202" or "19-something." You loved every second of it.

TigerBlog's favorite part of Reunions is the P-Rade. The sight of wave after wave of alums from every decade as they find their way down Elm Drive is just spectacular.

Hopefully whatever it is you like about Reunions was refreshed this weekend. And TigerBlog has a suggestion for you for next year:

Find Pattie Friend and follow her around. 

Mrs. Friend, as you might recall, is the woman TB met in the diner on Nassau Street more than a year ago. Her husband Lloyd was in the Class of 1965. They were married shortly after he graduated and stayed that way until his death in 2008.

Since TB met her, he's seen her at pretty much any and every Tiger sporting event. She also is a staple at Cannon Club, where 1) Lloyd was a member, 2) where she works on Sunday nights during the year checking people in and 3) where she put some of Lloyd's ashes after he passed away. 

It all led to these two pictures that she sent to TB:

 

That's very sweet.

Mrs. Friend is aptly named. Her superpower is making friends, everywhere she goes. She'll say "I won't know anyone at the game" and then come back talking about how many people she met. 

She was non-stop on the go at Reunions, in her role as the organizer of the widow's group of the Class of 1965 — and as a walking, talking bolt of lightning. If you see the woman in the picture at Reunions next year, just follow her around. You'll have fun. 

Reunions for this are now in the past. So is the prom. So is Class Day. All that is left for this glorious time at Princeton in Commencement.

And this, by the way, is what it's all about. Whatever you did at Princeton, whatever club you were in, whatever community service project you did, whatever team you played on, whatever stage you performed on — the overriding goal was to be there today. 

It's an indescribable feeling for a parent to watch. TigerBlog knows this first hand, having watched his own daughter do so three years ago. 

He wrote this afterwards, and it is so true:

"Ultimately, he guesses the main emotion was marvel, if that is an emotion. He sat there and watched his daughter, and he marveled at the magnitude of what she had done her at Princeton. He smiled. He laughed. He also beamed. He even cried a little. He was in awe. Mostly, he marveled."

You can ask any parent who is there today to watch it. They will confirm what TB just said. 

It's extraordinary, really. It's not easy to be a Princeton student, obviously. Doing all of the work, writing the thesis, navigating it all — not easy. 

To sit there and see their faces as they wear their caps and gowns? It takes you back to every moment of their childhoods, to the day they got their acceptance letter, to every time they reached out to share the stresses and successes of being a Princeton student. 

Congrats to all of the parents. 

And congrats to the Class of 2025. You know how tough it was to get to this point. And you did it. 

You've earned your smiles. And you've earned your place as Princeton alums. 

Whatever road you take from here, TB wishes you the best. You will all remember your time at Princeton with incredible fondness, as over time the difficult moments will fade and all you'll be left with will be the knowledge that you did it. You'll also draw from these four years for the rest of your life, with the lessons that you've learned. 

And next year, if you come back, you'll have a whole new take on Reunions. 

And that'll be doubly true if you find Mrs. Friend. You'll have to take TB's word it. 

In the meantime, you should all be really proud of yourselves.

And The Winners Are ...

TigerBlog remembers clearly the day he met Roko Pozaric. 

The Princeton men's water polo team was on its way to the NCAA tournament in California, and TB was going to write a feature story about its freshman star. The two met in DeNunzio Pool shortly before the players got on the bus to go to the airport. 

And that was nearly four years ago? What the heck?

Here is how the story began:

There were 120 graduates in the most recent class at Gimnazija Titusa Brezovackog, a high school in Zagreb.

Nearly four months ago, the only one of those 120 grads who was heading to college in the United States was sitting on an airplane, heading out of Croatian airspace, wondering what exactly he was getting himself into next. Clearly Roko Pozaric, about to join Princeton’s Class of 2025 and the men’s water polo team, was diving – literally and figuratively – into the deep end of a new pool, with no idea of what to expect.

“I was stressed a lot about coming here,” Pozaric says. “I’d never been to Princeton before. I’d never been to the United States before.”

Can you imagine that flight? Heading into a new part of your life, far away from everything and everyone you've ever known? What thoughts must he have had as he made his first trip west, eventually landing in New Jersey.

TigerBlog is guessing that none of those thoughts involved the William Winston Roper Trophy, given annually to the top senior male athlete at Princeton.

And yet there he was last night at the Gary Walters Princeton Varsity Club Senior Banquet, taking home the big prize. His career at Princeton was one of excellence from the day he first stepped on the campus. Among his accomplishments: a four-time All-American, three-time NWPC Player of the Year, four-time first-team All-NWPC, 2021 NWPC Rookie of the Year. 

He also graduates as Princeton's career leader in goals scored with 281; the former record of 254 had stood for nearly 20 years. 

The C. Otto von Kienbusch Award goes to the top female senior athlete. Its namesake was certainly an interesting character (a blind art collector and collector of arms and armor from the Class of 1906 who lived his entire life in the same New York City apartment at 12 West 74th Street except for his four years at Princeton)not to mention one of the most important people in the history of women's athletics at Princeton. 

It was von Kienbusch who, for reasons he never really made clear, underwrote the earliest days of women's athletics at Princeton, essentially writing blank checks to the first woman athletic administrator at Princeton, Merrily Dean Baker. Because varsity athletics for women were supposed to be gradually launched over a five-year period, there was no money in the budget when they actually started in a few months, rather than a few years.

Maybe he did it to honor the memory of his wife Mildred, who passed away shortly before women came to Princeton. It was his wish that the award given to the top senior female athlete would be the Mildred von Kienbusch Award, but Baker insisted on naming it after him. 

The most recent winner of the award is Mena Scatchard of the women's track and field team. Like Pozaric, she too came to Princeton from Europe, in her case England.

She dominated, especially in her senior year, when she led the team to a Triple Crown of league championships in cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track andfield. 

Individually, she was the NCAA runner-up in the indoor mile this past winter, earning first-team All-American honors. She is a five-time Ivy individual champion, and she set seven individual Princeton records with two more as a part of relays. 

She was also a rarity, a middle distance runner who could also run cross country, where she was the Heps runner-up this past fall. She still has the NCAA championships this year ahead of her. 

Those two were the biggest winners at the banquet last night. Or were they? 

Maybe it was a tie, among every senior athlete there, all of whom made it to this point, all of whom were competing as Tigers through the end of their senior year. They learned lessons. They made friendships. 

And last night, they all celebrated together, as a kickoff to Reunions and the beginning of one of the best times of their lives, through Commencement Tuesday. 

Yes. It was definitely a tie. A more than 200-way tie.

Banquet Night

There were 714 members in the Princeton Class of 1965, of whom approximately 500 are still alive. 

There will be 127 members of the class who attend Reunions this weekend. That's 25 percent of the living alums who will be back on campus for their 60th. 

If you graduated 60 years ago, by the way, you're probably around 82 or 83 years old. 

Compare that to what TigerBlog wrote yesterday, about how approximately 15 percent of his class at Penn came back for its 40th. There are reunions, and then there are Reunions. 

And the ones with the capital "R" begin today at Princeton. 

It's the start of a remarkable few days, beginning with Day 1 of Reunions, which run through Saturday. Then there is the prom Sunday, Class Day Monday and finally Commencement Tuesday.

There will be upwards of 30,000 people on campus all weekend. The energy level everywhere will be next level. 

Come Wednesday? It'll be nothing but eerie silence. 

One of the highlights of this weekend every year comes up tonight in Jadwin Gym. It's the Gary Walters ’67 Princeton Varsity Club Banquet, an event that is the near-culmination of the athletic year.

TB says the near-culmination, because there are still events on the calendar, with the NCAA track and field regionals and championships and the national championships in rowing still to come. 

For the most part, though, the story of the 2024-25 athletic year at Princeton has already been told. This was the year that Princeton won 17 Ivy League championships, which means that there were Tiger titles in more than half of the league's sports. 

There is more to the banquet than just on-field success, of course. It's a time to bring an entire senior class, and the "Team Around The Team," together to celebrate the latest chapter in a long line of Orange and Black. 

There are two awards whose winners have already been announced. There is the Marvin Bressler Award, given to "that member of the Princeton family who, through heartfelt support of the University’s student-athletes and coaches, best embodies a belief in the lifelong lessons taught by competition and athletics as a complement to the overall educational mission in the spirit of Marvin Bressler, a Princeton professor of sociology from 1963-94." This year's winner is Momo Wolapaye, the assistant dean for student life at Whitman College. 

TB had lunch with Momo a few months ago and wrote this about him afterwards:

TB can tell you that Momo is exactly the kind of person you want in his role. He's someone who is definitely committed to the student experience and to doing whatever he can to make that experience the best it can be.

There is also the Class of 1967 Citizen-Athlete Award, which is presented by the Princeton Varsity Club "for selfless and noble contributions to sport and society."

The winner is Kara Nortman, Class of 1997 and a huge reason why the NWSL has had the growth it's had in recent years. This is from her bio:

In 2023, Nortman announced the creation of Monarch Collective, an investment platform focused on women’s sports teams, leagues, and adjacent rights opportunities. Monarch Collective’s strategy centers on investing in established leagues such as the NWSL, with current investments in Boston Legacy FC, the San Diego Wave, and Angel City Football Club. Nortman and her co-Managing Partner, Jasmine Robinson, raised $250 million for Monarch’s inaugural fund, making it the largest dedicated women’s sports fund in the market.

There will be other awards, of course. The Roper Trophy and von Kienbusch Awards will be given to the top senior male and female athletes. The Class of 1916 Cup will go to the senior athlete in the highest academic standing. There are also awards for service and leadership. 

There's also an orange carpet, a cocktail hour, a lot of mingling, a lot of laughing and the senior athlete video at the end, where each soon-to-be graduate will be recognized. 

The banquet that began as an idea from the man whose name is now in its title was first held with a small gathering in the lobby of Jadwin Gym. It's grown into a full multimedia, multi-fun event that no Princeton fan who has ever attended hasn't loved.

It's a marvelous way to end a marvelous year. 

And that's something that can said every year.