TigerBlog was walking out of the building yesterday when he noticed spring football practice going on on the FieldTurf fields adjacent to Princeton Stadium.
TB glanced over for a few seconds before heading over to the lacrosse game against Rutgers. As he watched warmups for the lacrosse game, he started thinking about Princeton's new coaches and how their jobs are radically different.
For instance, Megan Bradley, the first-year women's tennis coach, oversees a roster of seven players. Sam Shweisky has the men's volleyball team in second place in the EIVA, which is an extraordinary accomplishment considering the road block that is Penn State.
The job of men's lacrosse Chris Bates is a difficult one, taking over for a Hall-of-Fame coach when Bill Tierney left for Denver. It's not hard just because of how successful Tierney was; it's also difficult taking over for someone who has overseen every aspect of a program for better than two decades.
TB is talking about simple stuff here, like the team photo for instance. Tierney's policy for the team photo was to have players only, with no coaches or support staff or anyone. Bates' policy? TB had no idea.
As for the Tigers on the field, well, there haven't been too many radical lineup changes. About the biggest has been the move of Paul Barnes from being the face-off specialist to a regular second midfielder. The other major changes have involved fusing the freshmen and sophomores into the lineup, something Tierney would have had to have done anyway.
TigerBlog was thinking about that while his mind went back to spring football practice.
In lacrosse, Jack McBride is going to be an attackman, Chad Wiedmaier is going to be a defensemen and Tyler Fiorito is going to be the goalie no matter who the coach is.
In football, it could be completely different.
TigerBlog tried to think of it from the standpoint of Bob Surace, Princeton's new football coach. Here you are, starting your first head coaching position. Where do you begin?
You have a roster of more than 100 players. Some are entrenched in their positions; others are trying to get on the field. Plus, the skill difference between being an offensive lineman and defensive lineman or fullback vs. linebacker isn't as great as it is in other sports.
In other words, the potential to move players all over the field is greater in football than it is in any other sport, at least in TigerBlog's opinion.
So what do you do? Take your 100 players and not care where they played before? Watch every minute of every game for the last two or three years to see what they can do, or start completely from scratch?
Do you move your quarterback to wide receiver? Your cornerback to tailback? Doesn't it have to be at least slightly intimidating, with the number of possibilities?
From his quick view of spring practice, TigerBlog saw associate head coach Steve Verbit, whose tenure at Princeton dates to when Ron Rogerson was the head coach. Verbit is now working for his fourth Princeton head coach, and he was a coach (on the defensive side) when Surace was Princeton's center in the late 1980s.
What must it look like to him? Or to E.J. Henderson, who was also on the staff last year?
You're set in a certain way of doing things, and now everything is changed. At least to the new members of the staff, they don't have any familiarity with how things used to work around here.
The spring practice weather has been perfect for Princeton, and the first set of practices under a new coaching staff are hugely important for coaches and players.
Even though it's mid-spring in terms of Princeton athletics, TigerBlog couldn't help but think ahead to the fall and next football season. Surace's first game comes up Sept. 18 at Lehigh; the home opener is one week later against Lafayette.
That opener is five months and four days away, which must seem like an eternity now to the Princeton coaches as they go through spring football.
To TigerBlog, it promises to be as intriguing as watching the other new coaches put their stamps on their program. Actually, it'll probably be more intriguing, given the nature of the sport.
In the meantime, it's back to spring, where five new head coaches - Bradley, Shweisky, Bates and rowing coaches Greg Hughes and Marty Crotty - are all in position for strong finishes to their first seasons in their new assignments.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Opening Day
Roy Marder was a bear of a man who lived down the street from TigerBlog when TB was a kid. Most kids grow up with a family nearby like the Marders, a family whose own children were grown and who were welcoming to all the kids on the block.
Roy Marder had Giants' season tickets, which made him a unique figure in TB's childhood world, and he offered to take some of the kids to a game at Giants Stadium one week. As TigerBlog remembers it, the Giants were playing the Cardinals.
TB will never forget entering the stadium, which might have been a year or two old at the time. The long escalators went to the three different levels, in our case the lower tier, where Mr. Marder's tickets were. Actually, they were in the second row off the field, in the end zone to the right.
It's one of those memories that has never faded for TB, beginning with the roast beef sub with oil and vinegar that he got on route 9 and continuing with the trip to the stadium and ultimately the game. TB thought the stadium was the coolest place he'd ever been, especially from the second row.
Anytime TB went back to Giants Stadium through the years - to see the Giants, the Cosmos, college football, Springsteen, the first Big City Classic - he always remembered back to that first trip to the place and the awe it inspired.
As TigerBlog stood Saturday in the press box of what for now is being called New Meadowlands Stadium, he looked out the windows in the back to Giants Stadium, which has been abandoned and is readying for the same fate that befell Texas Stadium over the weekend. There the old stadium loomed, overshadowed by the new kid in the neighborhood.
Giants Stadium was a simple place, with circular concourses on its three levels. From the lower tier you could come off the escalator and see the entire stadium in front of you. There were frills, especially in later years when the press box was moved up to somewhere near the approach to Newark Airport and luxury boxes popped up all over the mezzanine level.
But for the most part, it was built to maximize the number of good seats for football.
The new stadium? It was built to maximize revenues, like all new stadiums.
The first event for the new stadium was the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic Saturday, which began with two high school games and continued with three college games. The last was Syracuse's dominant 13-4 win over Princeton, which came after No. 1 Virginia defeated No. 2 North Carolina 7-5. The first of the college games was Hofstra's 12-11 win over Delaware.
The stadium itself had that new car smell, as it were. It also is a way more complex place than the old one, with concourses that are not continuous and areas that go from public to private and back.
TB entered the stadium from what was the media parking lot, which will probably change after the old stadium goes. For Saturday though, that meant a long walk most of the way around the stadium to find the press box elevator. Speaking of the press box, nobody working the stadium knew where it was, not in a "I'm not going to help you way" but rather in a "I've never been here before either" way.
As an aside, TB is fairly certain that media people aren't going to like the setup of having to take the elevator down to the concourse and then taking the long walk to the locker rooms. Just a hunch.
Oh, and the press box is located six floors up on level "SLC," which the woman elevator attendant said stood for "Service Level C," because "calling it '6' would have been too easy."
All of the stadium seats are shades of gray, which seems to be because nobody could agree on the blue of the Giants or the green of the Jets. The sight lines appear to be good, but getting from the concourse to the seating areas often requires going up the entry way for a section and then down into the section itself.
For those who've been to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, you're probably going to like that stadium better. And, if you're like TB, you're wondering why this new stadium was necessary in the first place, but that's another story.
As for the Princeton-Syracuse game, yes, Princeton got thumped. Syracuse is probably TB's second favorite team, largely because they are so much fun to watch play, especially when they get on a roll like they did on Saturday.
Simply put, the Orange were completely on top of their game Saturday, and Princeton was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes you have games like that, and you simply shake hands and move on from there.
Luckily for the Tigers, they get a chance tonight to play again instead of having to wait a whole week as Rutgers comes to town for the 89th meeting between the schools. After that, Princeton finishes the regular season with three Ivy League games (Dartmouth this Saturday, at Harvard and then Cornell at home) and the first Ivy League lacrosse tournament (TB isn't sure if Princeton has already clinched a spot, because he doesn't know how to figure that out).
The ultimate goal for men's lacrosse is to make it back to an NFL stadium, in this case M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, for the NCAA Final Four. Princeton has already played in three NFL venues this year, including Saturday in East Rutherford.
TB will never forget his first trip to Giants Stadium. Even though it came more than 30 years later, his first trip to the new one won't leave as lasting a memory.
Roy Marder had Giants' season tickets, which made him a unique figure in TB's childhood world, and he offered to take some of the kids to a game at Giants Stadium one week. As TigerBlog remembers it, the Giants were playing the Cardinals.
TB will never forget entering the stadium, which might have been a year or two old at the time. The long escalators went to the three different levels, in our case the lower tier, where Mr. Marder's tickets were. Actually, they were in the second row off the field, in the end zone to the right.
It's one of those memories that has never faded for TB, beginning with the roast beef sub with oil and vinegar that he got on route 9 and continuing with the trip to the stadium and ultimately the game. TB thought the stadium was the coolest place he'd ever been, especially from the second row.
Anytime TB went back to Giants Stadium through the years - to see the Giants, the Cosmos, college football, Springsteen, the first Big City Classic - he always remembered back to that first trip to the place and the awe it inspired.
As TigerBlog stood Saturday in the press box of what for now is being called New Meadowlands Stadium, he looked out the windows in the back to Giants Stadium, which has been abandoned and is readying for the same fate that befell Texas Stadium over the weekend. There the old stadium loomed, overshadowed by the new kid in the neighborhood.
Giants Stadium was a simple place, with circular concourses on its three levels. From the lower tier you could come off the escalator and see the entire stadium in front of you. There were frills, especially in later years when the press box was moved up to somewhere near the approach to Newark Airport and luxury boxes popped up all over the mezzanine level.
But for the most part, it was built to maximize the number of good seats for football.
The new stadium? It was built to maximize revenues, like all new stadiums.
The first event for the new stadium was the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic Saturday, which began with two high school games and continued with three college games. The last was Syracuse's dominant 13-4 win over Princeton, which came after No. 1 Virginia defeated No. 2 North Carolina 7-5. The first of the college games was Hofstra's 12-11 win over Delaware.
The stadium itself had that new car smell, as it were. It also is a way more complex place than the old one, with concourses that are not continuous and areas that go from public to private and back.
TB entered the stadium from what was the media parking lot, which will probably change after the old stadium goes. For Saturday though, that meant a long walk most of the way around the stadium to find the press box elevator. Speaking of the press box, nobody working the stadium knew where it was, not in a "I'm not going to help you way" but rather in a "I've never been here before either" way.
As an aside, TB is fairly certain that media people aren't going to like the setup of having to take the elevator down to the concourse and then taking the long walk to the locker rooms. Just a hunch.
Oh, and the press box is located six floors up on level "SLC," which the woman elevator attendant said stood for "Service Level C," because "calling it '6' would have been too easy."
All of the stadium seats are shades of gray, which seems to be because nobody could agree on the blue of the Giants or the green of the Jets. The sight lines appear to be good, but getting from the concourse to the seating areas often requires going up the entry way for a section and then down into the section itself.
For those who've been to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, you're probably going to like that stadium better. And, if you're like TB, you're wondering why this new stadium was necessary in the first place, but that's another story.
As for the Princeton-Syracuse game, yes, Princeton got thumped. Syracuse is probably TB's second favorite team, largely because they are so much fun to watch play, especially when they get on a roll like they did on Saturday.
Simply put, the Orange were completely on top of their game Saturday, and Princeton was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes you have games like that, and you simply shake hands and move on from there.
Luckily for the Tigers, they get a chance tonight to play again instead of having to wait a whole week as Rutgers comes to town for the 89th meeting between the schools. After that, Princeton finishes the regular season with three Ivy League games (Dartmouth this Saturday, at Harvard and then Cornell at home) and the first Ivy League lacrosse tournament (TB isn't sure if Princeton has already clinched a spot, because he doesn't know how to figure that out).
The ultimate goal for men's lacrosse is to make it back to an NFL stadium, in this case M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, for the NCAA Final Four. Princeton has already played in three NFL venues this year, including Saturday in East Rutherford.
TB will never forget his first trip to Giants Stadium. Even though it came more than 30 years later, his first trip to the new one won't leave as lasting a memory.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Tiger Update
TigerBlog knows people - TB-Baltimore comes to mind - who would rather be on a golf course than just about anywhere else. As for TB, he used to play a little, mostly at Springdale, where Princeton staff could go after 4 on weekdays and get a discounted rate.
For TB, golf would be more fun if it could be say, four or five holes, rather than 18. It takes too long, and it's way too expensive to play enough to become good at it.
As for watching it on TV, TB, like many, is a fan of the major tournaments, and the drama of watching a major late on a Sunday afternoon can usually rival any other sports events.
So what was TB watching late yesterday, as the Masters was ending? A replay of the St. Anthony's-Fairfield Prep boys' lacrosse game.
Why? He couldn't stomach the whole Tiger Woods thing.
TB's favorite professional athlete of all time is Michael Jordan, who single-handedly cost TB's favorite NBA team (the Knicks; there, TB admitted it) several championships. And, by all accounts, Jordan is hardly the nicest guy who ever came down the pike.
Still, TB was mesmerized by Jordan's greatness, mentally as well as physically. Jordan's ability to rise to the occasion, to bring out unrivaled clutch moments, to impose his will on his teammates and the other team was riveting to watch.
Tiger Woods has basically been a golf version of Jordan, and yet he never captured TB the way Jordan did. And now, it's just insufferable to watch the way television falls all over him.
TB wasn't even interested in the Masters, but he couldn't escape it. At the Big City Classic lacrosse event Saturday in the New Meadowlands Stadium, every one of the approximately one million televisions in the building was tuned to ESPNU for the lacrosse games.
As an aside, none of those TV's could be changed after the Princeton-Syracuse game ended, so instead of being able to switch to, say, the NCAA men's hockey championship game, everyone had watch the next program on ESPNU, which happened to be the NCAA women's bowling championship. For the record, Fairleigh Dickinson defeated Nebraska, and those two schools have now combined for five of the seven NCAA bowling titles. The other two went to Maryland-Eastern Shore and Vanderbilt.
Getting back to ESPNU, what was on the bottom line the whole time?
Something called "Tiger Update," which went shot-by-shot (and even updates between shots) about what Woods was doing. It was ridiculous, especially since he was never even in the lead.
Think Woods was going through a tough time? How about the winner, Phil Mickelson, whose wife recently was diagnosed with breast cancer? Maybe his time since Thanksgiving was a little more difficult - and less self-imposed?
In fairness to the print version of media, TB didn't read one story that fell all over Tiger. TV, though, was another story, largely because golf ratings clearly are tied to one player.
Anyway, if TB wants a "Tiger Update," it's usually about a Princeton team, not about professional golf.
With nine Ivy League championships in the bank this academic year through the winter, the goal is to win at least one in the spring to reach 10. Should Princeton be able to do so, it would be the 19th time Princeton would have reached double figures in Ivy titles in an academic year. For the rest of the league, Harvard has done it five times, and no other school has done it even once.
The first shot at No. 10 comes up this weekend, when the Ivy tennis champions will be crowned. Both Princeton teams would win by sweeping Columbia and Cornell this weekend, though the men will be a decided underdog against the Lions, who are currently 5-0 in the league and 16-3 overall while Princeton is 4-1 in the league. On the women's side, Princeton is 5-0, Cornell is 1-4 and Columbia is 0-5. One win by the women would clinch at least a share of the title, and the final weekend begins with Princeton undefeated and four teams (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale) at 3-1.
The lacrosse champions will be the teams that win the regular-season round robins, not the tournaments, which are to determine the automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. TB isn't quite sure how to figure out when teams clinch spots in the four-team tournaments, as there are so many head-to-head matchups remaining that make it a little complicated.
In fact, it's possible that both teams have already clinched spots in the tournaments.
On the women's side, Princeton is 3-1, behind undefeated Penn and Dartmouth, who meet this week in Hanover. Behind Princeton (home with Maryland Wednesday and then at Harvard Saturday) are three teams (Cornell, Yale, Brown) at 2-3.
On the men's side, Princeton is the lone unbeaten Ivy team at 3-0, with a game tomorrow night against Rutgers to be followed by league games against Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell to end the regular season. Cornell and Brown (who still play each other) have one league loss; Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale have two each. TB does know that 1) Princeton would definitely clinch a spot in the tournament with a win Saturday against Dartmouth and 2) wins in any two of the last three league games would clinch at least a share of the Ivy title.
Princeton is 3-5 in the Gehrig Division in baseball, with four against division leader Columbia (6-2) this weekend in New York. In softball, Princeton is six games back of division-leader Cornell.
The remaining spring sports - golf, rowing, track and field - are building to their Ivy League championship events later in the spring.
In non-Ivy sports, the men's volleyball team clinched second place in the EIVA, which means 1) playing at home to start the playoffs and 2) avoiding Penn State until the finals. And the women's water polo team is right in the thick of the league race as well after defeating first-place Bucknell.
And there's your Tiger update.
For TB, golf would be more fun if it could be say, four or five holes, rather than 18. It takes too long, and it's way too expensive to play enough to become good at it.
As for watching it on TV, TB, like many, is a fan of the major tournaments, and the drama of watching a major late on a Sunday afternoon can usually rival any other sports events.
So what was TB watching late yesterday, as the Masters was ending? A replay of the St. Anthony's-Fairfield Prep boys' lacrosse game.
Why? He couldn't stomach the whole Tiger Woods thing.
TB's favorite professional athlete of all time is Michael Jordan, who single-handedly cost TB's favorite NBA team (the Knicks; there, TB admitted it) several championships. And, by all accounts, Jordan is hardly the nicest guy who ever came down the pike.
Still, TB was mesmerized by Jordan's greatness, mentally as well as physically. Jordan's ability to rise to the occasion, to bring out unrivaled clutch moments, to impose his will on his teammates and the other team was riveting to watch.
Tiger Woods has basically been a golf version of Jordan, and yet he never captured TB the way Jordan did. And now, it's just insufferable to watch the way television falls all over him.
TB wasn't even interested in the Masters, but he couldn't escape it. At the Big City Classic lacrosse event Saturday in the New Meadowlands Stadium, every one of the approximately one million televisions in the building was tuned to ESPNU for the lacrosse games.
As an aside, none of those TV's could be changed after the Princeton-Syracuse game ended, so instead of being able to switch to, say, the NCAA men's hockey championship game, everyone had watch the next program on ESPNU, which happened to be the NCAA women's bowling championship. For the record, Fairleigh Dickinson defeated Nebraska, and those two schools have now combined for five of the seven NCAA bowling titles. The other two went to Maryland-Eastern Shore and Vanderbilt.
Getting back to ESPNU, what was on the bottom line the whole time?
Something called "Tiger Update," which went shot-by-shot (and even updates between shots) about what Woods was doing. It was ridiculous, especially since he was never even in the lead.
Think Woods was going through a tough time? How about the winner, Phil Mickelson, whose wife recently was diagnosed with breast cancer? Maybe his time since Thanksgiving was a little more difficult - and less self-imposed?
In fairness to the print version of media, TB didn't read one story that fell all over Tiger. TV, though, was another story, largely because golf ratings clearly are tied to one player.
Anyway, if TB wants a "Tiger Update," it's usually about a Princeton team, not about professional golf.
With nine Ivy League championships in the bank this academic year through the winter, the goal is to win at least one in the spring to reach 10. Should Princeton be able to do so, it would be the 19th time Princeton would have reached double figures in Ivy titles in an academic year. For the rest of the league, Harvard has done it five times, and no other school has done it even once.
The first shot at No. 10 comes up this weekend, when the Ivy tennis champions will be crowned. Both Princeton teams would win by sweeping Columbia and Cornell this weekend, though the men will be a decided underdog against the Lions, who are currently 5-0 in the league and 16-3 overall while Princeton is 4-1 in the league. On the women's side, Princeton is 5-0, Cornell is 1-4 and Columbia is 0-5. One win by the women would clinch at least a share of the title, and the final weekend begins with Princeton undefeated and four teams (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale) at 3-1.
The lacrosse champions will be the teams that win the regular-season round robins, not the tournaments, which are to determine the automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. TB isn't quite sure how to figure out when teams clinch spots in the four-team tournaments, as there are so many head-to-head matchups remaining that make it a little complicated.
In fact, it's possible that both teams have already clinched spots in the tournaments.
On the women's side, Princeton is 3-1, behind undefeated Penn and Dartmouth, who meet this week in Hanover. Behind Princeton (home with Maryland Wednesday and then at Harvard Saturday) are three teams (Cornell, Yale, Brown) at 2-3.
On the men's side, Princeton is the lone unbeaten Ivy team at 3-0, with a game tomorrow night against Rutgers to be followed by league games against Dartmouth, Harvard and Cornell to end the regular season. Cornell and Brown (who still play each other) have one league loss; Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale have two each. TB does know that 1) Princeton would definitely clinch a spot in the tournament with a win Saturday against Dartmouth and 2) wins in any two of the last three league games would clinch at least a share of the Ivy title.
Princeton is 3-5 in the Gehrig Division in baseball, with four against division leader Columbia (6-2) this weekend in New York. In softball, Princeton is six games back of division-leader Cornell.
The remaining spring sports - golf, rowing, track and field - are building to their Ivy League championship events later in the spring.
In non-Ivy sports, the men's volleyball team clinched second place in the EIVA, which means 1) playing at home to start the playoffs and 2) avoiding Penn State until the finals. And the women's water polo team is right in the thick of the league race as well after defeating first-place Bucknell.
And there's your Tiger update.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Orange And Black And Orange
TigerBlog was putting together the 2001 men's lacrosse prospectus, something that was a little more extensive than a release and less than a media guide, something that thankfully is obsolete.
Anyway, part of the prospectus obviously was the schedule, and TB entered all the regular-season games and then the dates for the NCAA tournament as "NCAA opening round - TBA" and "NCAA quarterfinals - TBA" and such.
When it came to the championship game, though, TB put down "NCAA final vs. Syracuse" as a joke. Only this time, he forgot to change it before he sent the first copy out, and only then did he realize he hadn't fixed it. Fortunately, only one copy was sent before it was corrected.
Of course, the 2001 season was pretty much pre-ordained to end with a Princeton-Syracuse final, which in fact it did. The Tigers defeated the Orange on B.J. Prager's fourth goal, which came more than three minutes into overtime.
The 2001 season was the middle one of three straight in which Princeton and Syracuse played for the NCAA title, as SU defeated Princeton in the 2000 and 2002 finals. Princeton and Syracuse have split four NCAA championship games, as Princeton's first came in 1992 on Andy Moe's goal that beat the Orange off the face-off for the second OT.
Syracuse beat Princeton in the 1993 semifinals, 1995 quarterfinals, 1999 opening round and 2003 quarterfinals. Princeton beat Syracuse in the 1996 and 1998 semifinals. The teams played twice a year - regular season and NCAA tournament - every year from 1999-2003 and played in the NCAA tournament every year except Princeton's perfect 1997 season from 1995-2003. And all that postseason history doesn't even include Princeton's 15-14 four-overtime win at the Carrier Dome in the 1999 regular season.
Between them, they've won 16 of the last 22 NCAA men's lacrosse championships.
TigerBlog's favorite Princeton rivalry is probably Princeton-Penn in men's basketball, but Princeton-Syracuse men's lacrosse is the only other one that could top it.
When the teams meet tomorrow, it'll be something a little special, even by the standards of this rivalry.
Princeton and Syracuse are the nightcap of the Konica Minolta Big City Classic, which begins at 1 with Delaware-Hofsra and continues at 4 with the only two remaining undefeated teams in Division I, No. 1 Virginia and No. 2 North Carolina. Syracuse, ranked third, and Princeton, ranked fourth in one poll and fifth in the other, play at 6:30.
Beyond just the quality of the games, there is the lure of the new Meadowlands Stadium, the 82,500-seat home for the NFL's Giants and Jets. The lacrosse games (it actually begins at 8 a.m. with the first of two high school games) are the first games played in the new stadium.
A year ago, the same tripleheader drew 22,208 fans to Giants Stadium on a raw day in which temperatures never made it much above 40. This time, the weather is for a high of 62 and zero percent chance of rain.
Add it all up and you have a great tripleheader with the curiosity factor of the new stadium on a perfect spring day. What will the attendance be? 40,000? More? Who knows.
TigerBlog mentioned a week ago that playing all of these games off-campus in NFL venues is nice, though there is a down side to it as well. Then the games last week at Gillette Stadium drew 6,408 fans, more than triple what they would have at Dartmouth and Brown.
And now there is the Big City Classic, where the attendance should be extraordinary.
As for the game itself, the prevailing wisdom to date in Division I lacrosse is that Virginia, North Carolina and Syracuse are a cut above the field. Princeton is 7-1, and that one is a one-goal loss at UNC (four of the wins are against Top 20 teams).
Last year, Princeton knocked off Syracuse 12-8 behind some great defense and goalie play from Tyler Fiorito, who made a career-high 15 saves. He tied that number last year against Harvard and two weeks ago against Yale and then bettered it against Brown with 17 last week.
SU is stocked with great lacrosse talent, veterans of the last two NCAA championships like longstick midfielder Joel White, attackman Stephen Keough, goalie John Galloway, shortstick defensive middie Jovan Miller and other stars, especially on defense. And that group doesn't even take into account Cody Jamieson, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime to defeat Cornell in last year's NCAA final, and the dynamic face-off man/middie with the long braided hair, Jeremy Thompson.
Princeton, of course, has a strong mix of veterans and newcomers, as well as the new coaching staff headed by Chris Bates. The Tigers have been impressive from Day 1, and they are not short on talent themselves.
TigerBlog has pretty much gone on the assumption that if Princeton can't win it all, then he'd like to see Syracuse do so. Why? Because then the stat of "Princeton and Syracuse have combined to win xx of the last xx NCAA championships" can be even more impressive.
But that won't carry over to tomorrow, when TB will be wearing black with his orange, and not just orange by itself.
Princeton-Syracuse men's lacrosse. For TB, it's as good as it gets.
Anyway, part of the prospectus obviously was the schedule, and TB entered all the regular-season games and then the dates for the NCAA tournament as "NCAA opening round - TBA" and "NCAA quarterfinals - TBA" and such.
When it came to the championship game, though, TB put down "NCAA final vs. Syracuse" as a joke. Only this time, he forgot to change it before he sent the first copy out, and only then did he realize he hadn't fixed it. Fortunately, only one copy was sent before it was corrected.
Of course, the 2001 season was pretty much pre-ordained to end with a Princeton-Syracuse final, which in fact it did. The Tigers defeated the Orange on B.J. Prager's fourth goal, which came more than three minutes into overtime.
The 2001 season was the middle one of three straight in which Princeton and Syracuse played for the NCAA title, as SU defeated Princeton in the 2000 and 2002 finals. Princeton and Syracuse have split four NCAA championship games, as Princeton's first came in 1992 on Andy Moe's goal that beat the Orange off the face-off for the second OT.
Syracuse beat Princeton in the 1993 semifinals, 1995 quarterfinals, 1999 opening round and 2003 quarterfinals. Princeton beat Syracuse in the 1996 and 1998 semifinals. The teams played twice a year - regular season and NCAA tournament - every year from 1999-2003 and played in the NCAA tournament every year except Princeton's perfect 1997 season from 1995-2003. And all that postseason history doesn't even include Princeton's 15-14 four-overtime win at the Carrier Dome in the 1999 regular season.
Between them, they've won 16 of the last 22 NCAA men's lacrosse championships.
TigerBlog's favorite Princeton rivalry is probably Princeton-Penn in men's basketball, but Princeton-Syracuse men's lacrosse is the only other one that could top it.
When the teams meet tomorrow, it'll be something a little special, even by the standards of this rivalry.
Princeton and Syracuse are the nightcap of the Konica Minolta Big City Classic, which begins at 1 with Delaware-Hofsra and continues at 4 with the only two remaining undefeated teams in Division I, No. 1 Virginia and No. 2 North Carolina. Syracuse, ranked third, and Princeton, ranked fourth in one poll and fifth in the other, play at 6:30.
Beyond just the quality of the games, there is the lure of the new Meadowlands Stadium, the 82,500-seat home for the NFL's Giants and Jets. The lacrosse games (it actually begins at 8 a.m. with the first of two high school games) are the first games played in the new stadium.
A year ago, the same tripleheader drew 22,208 fans to Giants Stadium on a raw day in which temperatures never made it much above 40. This time, the weather is for a high of 62 and zero percent chance of rain.
Add it all up and you have a great tripleheader with the curiosity factor of the new stadium on a perfect spring day. What will the attendance be? 40,000? More? Who knows.
TigerBlog mentioned a week ago that playing all of these games off-campus in NFL venues is nice, though there is a down side to it as well. Then the games last week at Gillette Stadium drew 6,408 fans, more than triple what they would have at Dartmouth and Brown.
And now there is the Big City Classic, where the attendance should be extraordinary.
As for the game itself, the prevailing wisdom to date in Division I lacrosse is that Virginia, North Carolina and Syracuse are a cut above the field. Princeton is 7-1, and that one is a one-goal loss at UNC (four of the wins are against Top 20 teams).
Last year, Princeton knocked off Syracuse 12-8 behind some great defense and goalie play from Tyler Fiorito, who made a career-high 15 saves. He tied that number last year against Harvard and two weeks ago against Yale and then bettered it against Brown with 17 last week.
SU is stocked with great lacrosse talent, veterans of the last two NCAA championships like longstick midfielder Joel White, attackman Stephen Keough, goalie John Galloway, shortstick defensive middie Jovan Miller and other stars, especially on defense. And that group doesn't even take into account Cody Jamieson, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime to defeat Cornell in last year's NCAA final, and the dynamic face-off man/middie with the long braided hair, Jeremy Thompson.
Princeton, of course, has a strong mix of veterans and newcomers, as well as the new coaching staff headed by Chris Bates. The Tigers have been impressive from Day 1, and they are not short on talent themselves.
TigerBlog has pretty much gone on the assumption that if Princeton can't win it all, then he'd like to see Syracuse do so. Why? Because then the stat of "Princeton and Syracuse have combined to win xx of the last xx NCAA championships" can be even more impressive.
But that won't carry over to tomorrow, when TB will be wearing black with his orange, and not just orange by itself.
Princeton-Syracuse men's lacrosse. For TB, it's as good as it gets.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Let's Meet
Did you watch the women's Final Four? What did you think of the floor?
Back when Jadwin Gym was being refloored, if such a word exists, TigerBlog was a fan of having the inside of the three-point area be orange and black tiger stripes. Still, he would have drawn the line at the overwhelming amounts of red on the court at the Alamodome.
Seeing it made TigerBlog think of, well, his new toothbrush. TB got a new toothbrush this weekend, and as he was taking it out of the package, he noticed that it said "easy to grip" on the label. What does this have to do with the floor at the Final Four?
They were both the products of meetings. Somebody had a meeting where it was decided that putting a lot of red on the court at the women's Final Four would look good. Somewhere else, there was another meeting where it was decided that "easy to grip" would separate one toothbrush from another.
As an aside, TB finds the new toothbrush no easier to grip than any he's ever had previously. And he never saw the "easy to grip" excitement until after he'd opened the package.
Back in the newspaper days, TigerBlog went to very few meetings. There was a daily meeting of the editors of the different sections, similar to the scenes from "All the President's Men" where the Washington Post editors would discuss that day's layout. This meeting would trigger when a short, stout, completely lovable man named Harry Blaze, who passed away in 2006, would walk into the giant newsroom and shriek "Let's meet."
Here at HQ, we have plenty of meetings from which plenty of decisions are made. Some of them are trivial; others have huge impacts on all kinds of issues that are important not only to the Department of Athletics but also to the way the general public is able to access and view Princeton athletics.
There are no shortage of topics up for discussion here. Even as TB writes this, he is under the gun to finish it in time to meet with the Director of Athletics to talk about Princeton and television, while downstairs there is a meeting of head coaches to talk about NCAA compliance and rules changes/interpretations.
Coaches meet all the time. They watch film, talk recruiting, plan practices. That's just part of how it works. Those meetings don't even begin to scratch the surface of what goes on around here.
There are regular meetings about upcoming events, with regular topics such as parking, TV, seating, promotions and anything else associated with Princeton home games. This meeting is not to be confused with the marketing/ticketing meeting, at which all kinds of other more specific items are on the agenda.
Or, for that matter, the non-ticketing marketing meetings, which touch on issues specific to that area. And then there are the communications/marketing meetings, something that occurs on a weekly basis (or at least in theory does).
Each of these meetings has its own groups and sub-groups, all trying to come up with what is the best way to move forward in terms of publicizing and running events.
Here at HQ, we talk about things that seem somewhat mundane, such as who is going to cover women's hockey when men's hockey is on the road or women's volleyball at 4 if football is at 1 or which game to put on the radio if the last football game and the first basketball game are at the exact same time.
These are all regularly scheduled, recurring meetings. Then there are the department staff meetings, which include the entire athletic department and are held once a month. These meetings, which often feature invited guests from other University areas outside of athletics, are important because of their ability to keep everyone informed on any number of areas and to have the department's larger values reinforced by the Director of Athletics.
Speaking of the AD, he also has several other meetings each year with administrative groups in the department and out that can be best described as strategic planning.
TigerBlog has been sitting through many of these meetings for years. Some of them have been hysterical; others have become quite heated.
Some areas are discussed over and over and over, and then the next time they come up, it's like the topic has never been raised before. Want an example? Basketball doubleheaders at Jadwin. When do we sell tickets for the women's game? The men's game? What if someone wants to come to the women's game but only has a men's ticket? What if someone goes to the women's game and stays for the men's? What if the men's game is first? Reverse all those questions.
TB is a big fan of having specific things to do after a meeting, of having specific decisions made and then acted on. Yes, talking things over is good, but eventually you need to come up with solutions and move forward.
It's not always clear if the decisions that are made are correct, and even the outcome of a certain event doesn't say whether or not the plans that came out of the meetings here worked or didn't work. TB always laughs when he hears people say or reads emails from people who seem to think that things around here happen randomly or without any thought to them.
If anything, they are overthought, all in the name of having Princeton events run as smoothly as possible and of having Princeton Athletics be the best collective unit it could possibly be, from top to bottom, internally and externally. We may not always seem to be there, but it's not for lack of effort.
TB could go on about this, but he has a meeting to get to.
Back when Jadwin Gym was being refloored, if such a word exists, TigerBlog was a fan of having the inside of the three-point area be orange and black tiger stripes. Still, he would have drawn the line at the overwhelming amounts of red on the court at the Alamodome.
Seeing it made TigerBlog think of, well, his new toothbrush. TB got a new toothbrush this weekend, and as he was taking it out of the package, he noticed that it said "easy to grip" on the label. What does this have to do with the floor at the Final Four?
They were both the products of meetings. Somebody had a meeting where it was decided that putting a lot of red on the court at the women's Final Four would look good. Somewhere else, there was another meeting where it was decided that "easy to grip" would separate one toothbrush from another.
As an aside, TB finds the new toothbrush no easier to grip than any he's ever had previously. And he never saw the "easy to grip" excitement until after he'd opened the package.
Back in the newspaper days, TigerBlog went to very few meetings. There was a daily meeting of the editors of the different sections, similar to the scenes from "All the President's Men" where the Washington Post editors would discuss that day's layout. This meeting would trigger when a short, stout, completely lovable man named Harry Blaze, who passed away in 2006, would walk into the giant newsroom and shriek "Let's meet."
Here at HQ, we have plenty of meetings from which plenty of decisions are made. Some of them are trivial; others have huge impacts on all kinds of issues that are important not only to the Department of Athletics but also to the way the general public is able to access and view Princeton athletics.
There are no shortage of topics up for discussion here. Even as TB writes this, he is under the gun to finish it in time to meet with the Director of Athletics to talk about Princeton and television, while downstairs there is a meeting of head coaches to talk about NCAA compliance and rules changes/interpretations.
Coaches meet all the time. They watch film, talk recruiting, plan practices. That's just part of how it works. Those meetings don't even begin to scratch the surface of what goes on around here.
There are regular meetings about upcoming events, with regular topics such as parking, TV, seating, promotions and anything else associated with Princeton home games. This meeting is not to be confused with the marketing/ticketing meeting, at which all kinds of other more specific items are on the agenda.
Or, for that matter, the non-ticketing marketing meetings, which touch on issues specific to that area. And then there are the communications/marketing meetings, something that occurs on a weekly basis (or at least in theory does).
Each of these meetings has its own groups and sub-groups, all trying to come up with what is the best way to move forward in terms of publicizing and running events.
Here at HQ, we talk about things that seem somewhat mundane, such as who is going to cover women's hockey when men's hockey is on the road or women's volleyball at 4 if football is at 1 or which game to put on the radio if the last football game and the first basketball game are at the exact same time.
These are all regularly scheduled, recurring meetings. Then there are the department staff meetings, which include the entire athletic department and are held once a month. These meetings, which often feature invited guests from other University areas outside of athletics, are important because of their ability to keep everyone informed on any number of areas and to have the department's larger values reinforced by the Director of Athletics.
Speaking of the AD, he also has several other meetings each year with administrative groups in the department and out that can be best described as strategic planning.
TigerBlog has been sitting through many of these meetings for years. Some of them have been hysterical; others have become quite heated.
Some areas are discussed over and over and over, and then the next time they come up, it's like the topic has never been raised before. Want an example? Basketball doubleheaders at Jadwin. When do we sell tickets for the women's game? The men's game? What if someone wants to come to the women's game but only has a men's ticket? What if someone goes to the women's game and stays for the men's? What if the men's game is first? Reverse all those questions.
TB is a big fan of having specific things to do after a meeting, of having specific decisions made and then acted on. Yes, talking things over is good, but eventually you need to come up with solutions and move forward.
It's not always clear if the decisions that are made are correct, and even the outcome of a certain event doesn't say whether or not the plans that came out of the meetings here worked or didn't work. TB always laughs when he hears people say or reads emails from people who seem to think that things around here happen randomly or without any thought to them.
If anything, they are overthought, all in the name of having Princeton events run as smoothly as possible and of having Princeton Athletics be the best collective unit it could possibly be, from top to bottom, internally and externally. We may not always seem to be there, but it's not for lack of effort.
TB could go on about this, but he has a meeting to get to.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Boys Of Summer
TigerBlog's first memories of watching sports on TV go back to the 1969 World Series, when the Mets defeated the Orioles in five games.
As an aside, when TB's friend Corey graduated from college, as he was standing there holding his diploma wearing his cap and gown, his brother Brad told him "it was the biggest miracle since the 1969 Mets."
Tom Seaver was TB's favorite player on the Mets back then. He was everybody's favorite. Everybody's second favorite was Bud Harrelson, the tiny shortstop who got into a fight with Pete Rose in the 1973 playoffs.
The Mets were TB's favorite baseball team from the time he could remember until 1990, when a series of factors led him to switch allegiances. Among those factors: the unavailability of SportsChannel where TB was living, the signing of some overpriced free agents, MotherBlog's move to Atlanta, TB's meeting with David Justice on an airplane, the presence of Braves' games on TBS.
The fact that this time also corresponded with the Braves' rise to perennial power didn't hurt. And so, with Justice, as well as Greg Maddox, John Smoltz and the rest as his new favorites, TigerBlog rooted for the Braves for the next 15 years or so.
Then, TBS went away from showing Braves' games in favor of shows that were "very funny," some of which actually are and others of which aren't.
And, TB began to get really fed up with 1) the economic structure that permits the Yankees to outspend the competition by overwhelming levels and 2) by the obvious performance enhancement that baseball became, and so his interest in Major League Baseball began to seriously dwindle.
And so, after more than 40 years of rooting for the Mets and Braves, TB's two new favorite teams are the San Diego Padres and the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you picked them to play in the NLCS this coming October, you're probably going to be wrong. Of course, the same would have been said about picking Butler to play for the NCAA men's basketball title.
As an aside, TB said: "How great would it have been if that shot went in" to a bunch of people yesterday, and the response of all of them was to grumble something about Duke.
Back at baseball, the obvious rooting interest in the Padres and Pirates is the presence of three Princeton alums on those two rosters.
The Pirates feature Ross Ohlendorf, who makes his 2010 debut this evening in Pittsburgh against the Dodgers. Ohlendorf, whose spring ERA was nearly 10.00, is a fascinating story in Major League Baseball these days, both for his potential as a durable starter for a team trying to turn around 17 straight losing seasons and for his off-field persona, which included an internship with the Department of Agriculture in the off-season.
The Padres feature Chris Young and Will Venable, both of whom contributed in big ways to San Diego's 6-3 win over Arizona last night.
Young, who had season-ending surgery last August, returned to allow just one hit in six innings, while Venable hit his first home run of the season.
Young and Venable, of course, were both basketball players at Princeton, and for TB's money they were better college basketball players than baseball players. Still, they have both found a home in San Diego, Young after getting traded from Texas and Venable after coming up through the minor league system.
TB has never met Ohlendorf, though by all accounts he's a tremendous young man. TB did see every basketball game Chris Young played and almost every basketball game Will Venable played at Princeton, and he knows from first-hand knowledge that they are as well.
Young, as TB has said before, is the most beloved Princeton athlete he's seen in his time here. Maybe it's because he's a larger-than-life gentle giant, with a touch of sadness that Tiger fans never got to see his junior and senior years in basketball and baseball.
It didn't take long for TB to realize that when he was watching Venable and Young that he was watching really, really special athletes, athletes with legitimate pro potential. Maybe he just didn't realize he was watching them in the wrong sport.
And now, a few years later, they are off to a good start to the 2010 baseball season. Hopefully Ohlendorf will start strong as well.
Hey, when you're a die-hard Padres/Pirates fan like TB, early April is the time for optimism.
As an aside, when TB's friend Corey graduated from college, as he was standing there holding his diploma wearing his cap and gown, his brother Brad told him "it was the biggest miracle since the 1969 Mets."
Tom Seaver was TB's favorite player on the Mets back then. He was everybody's favorite. Everybody's second favorite was Bud Harrelson, the tiny shortstop who got into a fight with Pete Rose in the 1973 playoffs.
The Mets were TB's favorite baseball team from the time he could remember until 1990, when a series of factors led him to switch allegiances. Among those factors: the unavailability of SportsChannel where TB was living, the signing of some overpriced free agents, MotherBlog's move to Atlanta, TB's meeting with David Justice on an airplane, the presence of Braves' games on TBS.
The fact that this time also corresponded with the Braves' rise to perennial power didn't hurt. And so, with Justice, as well as Greg Maddox, John Smoltz and the rest as his new favorites, TigerBlog rooted for the Braves for the next 15 years or so.
Then, TBS went away from showing Braves' games in favor of shows that were "very funny," some of which actually are and others of which aren't.
And, TB began to get really fed up with 1) the economic structure that permits the Yankees to outspend the competition by overwhelming levels and 2) by the obvious performance enhancement that baseball became, and so his interest in Major League Baseball began to seriously dwindle.
And so, after more than 40 years of rooting for the Mets and Braves, TB's two new favorite teams are the San Diego Padres and the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you picked them to play in the NLCS this coming October, you're probably going to be wrong. Of course, the same would have been said about picking Butler to play for the NCAA men's basketball title.
As an aside, TB said: "How great would it have been if that shot went in" to a bunch of people yesterday, and the response of all of them was to grumble something about Duke.
Back at baseball, the obvious rooting interest in the Padres and Pirates is the presence of three Princeton alums on those two rosters.
The Pirates feature Ross Ohlendorf, who makes his 2010 debut this evening in Pittsburgh against the Dodgers. Ohlendorf, whose spring ERA was nearly 10.00, is a fascinating story in Major League Baseball these days, both for his potential as a durable starter for a team trying to turn around 17 straight losing seasons and for his off-field persona, which included an internship with the Department of Agriculture in the off-season.
The Padres feature Chris Young and Will Venable, both of whom contributed in big ways to San Diego's 6-3 win over Arizona last night.
Young, who had season-ending surgery last August, returned to allow just one hit in six innings, while Venable hit his first home run of the season.
Young and Venable, of course, were both basketball players at Princeton, and for TB's money they were better college basketball players than baseball players. Still, they have both found a home in San Diego, Young after getting traded from Texas and Venable after coming up through the minor league system.
TB has never met Ohlendorf, though by all accounts he's a tremendous young man. TB did see every basketball game Chris Young played and almost every basketball game Will Venable played at Princeton, and he knows from first-hand knowledge that they are as well.
Young, as TB has said before, is the most beloved Princeton athlete he's seen in his time here. Maybe it's because he's a larger-than-life gentle giant, with a touch of sadness that Tiger fans never got to see his junior and senior years in basketball and baseball.
It didn't take long for TB to realize that when he was watching Venable and Young that he was watching really, really special athletes, athletes with legitimate pro potential. Maybe he just didn't realize he was watching them in the wrong sport.
And now, a few years later, they are off to a good start to the 2010 baseball season. Hopefully Ohlendorf will start strong as well.
Hey, when you're a die-hard Padres/Pirates fan like TB, early April is the time for optimism.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Hoosiers II - The Unhappy Ending
There are teams that TigerBlog roots for, and there are teams that TigerBlog roots against. And then there are the two teams that TigerBlog really, really roots against.
One of those two is the New York Yankees. The other is the Duke men's basketball team.
Of course, both are the current champion of their universes. Just as was the case in 2000-01, TB had to sit through a Yankees' World Series championship in the fall and then a Duke NCAA men's championship in the spring.
Last night's 61-59 Duke win over Butler was a great game. TigerBlog assumed it was going to be a blowout, and he kept switching over to one of his favorite movies, "Broadcast News," on a different channel. The game was so compelling, TB gave up on the movie after the scene where Aaron tells Jane that Tom is the devil, which is one of the 10 best scenes TB has ever seen in a movie.
As for the game, it was one in which neither team ever led by more than six and one in which Butler's Gordon Hayward came within millimeters of hitting a championship-winning shot from midcourt near the sideline.
By now, you've seen the shot and the replay, probably many times. Had Hayward's shot gone in, it would have been without question the single greatest play in sports history. As in, all-time, ever.
Now, perhaps the cynical side of TigerBlog wants to point out that to win the title, Duke had to defeat Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Cal (24-11), Purdue (minus its best player) and Baylor (finished four games back in the Big 12 regular-season) to get to the Final Four. Once there, the Devils beat West Virginia and Butler; had seeds held, that would have been Kentucky and either Kansas or Syracuse.
Still, a win is a win, and Duke and Butler certainly played a great, entertaining final, certainly more entertaining than last year's, when North Carolina blew out Michigan State before the first media timeout, and certainly more entertaining than tonight's women's final figures to be as UConn looks to be so much better than the field, in this case Stanford.
As an aside, perhaps UConn should play a combined team of the best players from the rest of women's basketball to see if it would be close.
Getting back to Butler's run to the championship game, consider that the school is a strong academic institution with an undergraduate population of just under 4,000.
The Bulldogs play in the Horizon League, a league in which TB dares you to name the second-place finisher or at least half of its 10 members without looking. And yet, despite that, and a coach who looks he should be the team manager, Butler managed to put together a team that went 33-5 and defeated Syracuse and Kansas State in the regional and then Michigan State in the Final Four before nearly knocking off Duke to win it all.
Does that give hope to an Ivy League school - say, the one in Central New Jersey, for starters - that it might someday be able to match that performance? The thing about basketball is that it doesn't take 20 players to be great. If a team could get a Hayward and build around him, that's a great start.
If you could get a Ryan Wittman-Louis Dale-Jeff Foote combination and have them play together for four years, as Cornell did, that's the way to get it done. Cornell, obviously, reached the Sweet 16 this year.
Princeton in 1997-98 had the pieces in place for a deep run in the tournament, only to run into the wrong team (Michigan State, with four starters who would start and win the NCAA final two years later) in the second round.
It takes luck, yes. You need the right guys to fall through the cracks to your team. Realistically, Duke could have recruited anyone it wanted on Butler's team and didn't.
Still, in basketball, you can win with a 6-5 forward who scores but doesn't attract offers from power conferences because he doesn't have the right body type or a 6-0 point guard (say, a Mitch Henderson type) who is fast and can pass and grows up in the heart of Big 10 country, only to have nobody notice him.
If nothing else, Butler's run has to give hope to non-power conference schools, just as George Mason did several years ago in reaching the Final Four from the CAA. It's not going to happen often, but it is going to happen. And why not another strong academic school with a young coach who put together a few strong classes consecutively and had them play together from Day 1? Why not Princeton? Is it realistic? Do the odds favor Princeton or any other Ivy or Patriot or Summit or MAAC or Southern or any other similar conference? Not in the least.
But they didn't favor Butler either, and look how that turned out? Why not hope?
Of course, had Butler won, it would have set off an endless number of "Hoosiers" comparisons. For those who've never seen "Hoosiers," please leave work right now and go watch it. And if you have seen it, maybe you should go watch it again.
The Final Four began when Princeton Director of Athletics Gary Walters emailed TB a picture of Walters and Bobby Plump (the picture above). For those who don't know, Plump was the hero of Milan High's 1952 Indiana state championship, and he was the inspiration for the Jimmy Chitwood character in "Hoosiers."
Walters, as a former chair of the men's basketball committee, goes every year to the Final Four. This year, he met up with Plump, who is also a Butler graduate.
A few days later, Plump's alma mater almost pulled off the same kind of miracle has his high school team had done.
Call it "Hoosiers II," only this one - like the World Series last fall- had an unhappy ending for TigerBlog.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Miles And Miles
When Pete Carril was the Princeton men's basketball coach, he drove a university car, a big blue Oldsmobile that TigerBlog assumes was part of his contract. When Carril retired in 1996, that car was moved to the Department of Athletics motor pool.
Through the years, TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in the old Olds, which was nicknamed "the Hall of Fame car." After that, there was a maroon minivan, as well as some Ford Tauruses and then some other cars before the department phased out its fleet of vehicles in favor of reimbursing for miles or renting as needed.
Ironically, TigerBlog used to ride on the bus for Princeton men's basketball during his newspaper days, largely because 1) Carril said it would be okay and 2) because TB could write his story while Carril spent his 45 minutes in the lockerroom after the game and just plug in the quotes afterward.
Princeton owned two buses back then and had at least one full-time bus driver, an amiable guy named Steve Gandy. TB remembers with great fondness traveling with those 1989-94 teams, especially the trip back from Dartmouth after the 1991 team finished its 14-0 Ivy regular season, a trip that ended in the Jadwin Gym parking lot with the entire team chanting "Steve is the man" to the bus driver. Among TB's other memories include seeing Carril violate all of the rules listed above the bus drivers head, all at the same time, including "standing in the stairwell" and "talking to the bus driver while the bus is in motion," while of course smoking his cigar (in violation of another).
When TB first came to work at Princeton, he began to drive, largely because the team would leave on Thursday night for Friday/Saturday weekends and TB didn't want to miss "Seinfeld." Eventually, it just became way more convenient to drive and not have to be dependent on the team's schedule.
Through the next few years, most of those trips were spent with Tom McCarthy, and often with Mark Eckel of the Trenton Times and radio man Ed Benkin. As they say, those were the days.
TigerBlog pulled out of the Gillette Stadium parking lot Saturday evening at 6:15, after Princeton's men's lacrosse win over Brown in the New England Lacrosse Classic. It was just TB and TigerBlog Jr., who had made the trip, and it would be nearly five hours before the two made it all the way back.
As long rides go, there are worse times to make them than when the NCAA men's basketball Final Four is just starting, as Butler-Michigan State and Duke-West Virginia would unfold on Westwood One during the trip. The only tough part was having to continually find a new station to listen to the games on as the car continued south and would find itself out of range of the ESPN affiliate in, say, Providence.
As an aside, TigerBlog, like 99.9% of the world, is rooting for Butler in tonight's game, though in TB's case, it's not just the whole underdog factor. TB did some research into Butler and found out that it was named for a 19th-century abolitionist named Ovid Butler, has fewer than 4,000 undergraduates and has plenty of on-campus housing.
Oh, and we all know who the only team to beat both Duke and Butler during the season was, right? Indeed, it was Georgetown. Speaking of the Hoyas, as the Butler-Michigan State game was starting, TigerBlog Jr. remarked that the man doing the color "sounded a lot like John Thompson." TB had to explain to TBJ that there actually was another John Thompson, the father of the John Thompson TBJ knows, and that the guy on the radio was the other John Thompson, who by the way had been a pretty good coach in his own right.
Somewhere along the way, TBJ asked TB how many miles he thought he'd driven going back and forth to Princeton sporting events, and it got TB to thinking. If you factor just the times driving, as opposed to going on the bus, it adds up something like this:
* probably 10 years worth of Ivy road trips, which according to mapquest is 705 miles to Harvard/Dartmouth and back and 466 to Yale/Brown. The Cornell/Columbia trip was usually made up and back to each, rather than Princeton to Cornell to Columbia and back. If you figure that, it's 50 miles to Columbia and 221 miles to Ithaca. Add those up, and it's 14,420 miles for those trips. In the last six or so years, TB hasn't made too many of those trips, but he's gone a few times. Let's add two more for each, so it's another 2,912 miles, or a total of 17,332 just to Ivy road trips. Add the 90 miles to Penn and back each time, and it's around 18,500. Non-Ivy trips? Let's say another 3,000, for a total of 21,500?
* football is probably around 15,000 miles.
* lacrosse is probably closer to 20,000.
* other sports are probably 2,000.
Added together, and that's around 58,500 miles driving to and from Princeton sports events. The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles, which means TB has basically driven twice around the Earth at the equator in his time traveling to Princeton events.
If you want to figure out how much time that is, take 58,500 miles and divide by, what, 70 miles per hour, to be safe? That's 835.7 hours, which translates into 34.8 days.
Much of that time has been spent in the middle of the night, riding past the same landmarks time after time, stopping at the same places to eat time after time. The favorite eatery, of course, is Rein's Deli, with its main location off exit 65 of I-84 in Vernon, Conn., just between Hartford and the Mass Pike, as well as its satellite location off I-91 in Springfield, Mass.
As for the other day, TigerBlog Jr. and TigerBlog talked about the usual stuff you'd imagine. What to eat. Which way to go. How long until we're in the next state.
The basketball games would be on for awhile and then a switch would be made to the Train CD, which consisted of the new album ("Save Me San Francisco") with some old favorites added, including "When I Look To The Sky," "Save the Day," "Meet Virginia," "Calling All Angels" and "Drops of Jupiter." TBJ does a pretty good falsetto on "Parachute" from the new album, and he could pretty much listen to "Hey Soul Sister" four or five times in a row without getting tired of it.
When not listening to the games or the music, the conversation went to areas like lacrosse - both Princeton and youth - school, family, how much driving through Connecticut stinks, friends, youtube, whether Subway is better than a local pizza place for subs, history, whether it would be fun to be a kid growing up in New York City, geography, anything.
TBJ would offer a line from "Family Guy" and start cracking up; TB would come back with a line from "The Godfather" or "The Odd Couple" or "Animal House" and crack up again.
The sun set early in the trip, and it was pretty late by the time the car rolled down the New Jersey Turnpike. Duke pulled away from West Virginia early, which meant a full-time switch to Train.
Eventually, the car reached its destination, getting there 10 minutes short of five hours. Hey, driving that far after it's been done so many times could get tedious, what with the never-changing routes and sights and such.
Looking back on this particular trip, driving back from Massachusetts with TigerBlog Jr., TigerBlog considers it among the best 4:50 of his life.
Through the years, TigerBlog spent a great deal of time in the old Olds, which was nicknamed "the Hall of Fame car." After that, there was a maroon minivan, as well as some Ford Tauruses and then some other cars before the department phased out its fleet of vehicles in favor of reimbursing for miles or renting as needed.
Ironically, TigerBlog used to ride on the bus for Princeton men's basketball during his newspaper days, largely because 1) Carril said it would be okay and 2) because TB could write his story while Carril spent his 45 minutes in the lockerroom after the game and just plug in the quotes afterward.
Princeton owned two buses back then and had at least one full-time bus driver, an amiable guy named Steve Gandy. TB remembers with great fondness traveling with those 1989-94 teams, especially the trip back from Dartmouth after the 1991 team finished its 14-0 Ivy regular season, a trip that ended in the Jadwin Gym parking lot with the entire team chanting "Steve is the man" to the bus driver. Among TB's other memories include seeing Carril violate all of the rules listed above the bus drivers head, all at the same time, including "standing in the stairwell" and "talking to the bus driver while the bus is in motion," while of course smoking his cigar (in violation of another).
When TB first came to work at Princeton, he began to drive, largely because the team would leave on Thursday night for Friday/Saturday weekends and TB didn't want to miss "Seinfeld." Eventually, it just became way more convenient to drive and not have to be dependent on the team's schedule.
Through the next few years, most of those trips were spent with Tom McCarthy, and often with Mark Eckel of the Trenton Times and radio man Ed Benkin. As they say, those were the days.
TigerBlog pulled out of the Gillette Stadium parking lot Saturday evening at 6:15, after Princeton's men's lacrosse win over Brown in the New England Lacrosse Classic. It was just TB and TigerBlog Jr., who had made the trip, and it would be nearly five hours before the two made it all the way back.
As long rides go, there are worse times to make them than when the NCAA men's basketball Final Four is just starting, as Butler-Michigan State and Duke-West Virginia would unfold on Westwood One during the trip. The only tough part was having to continually find a new station to listen to the games on as the car continued south and would find itself out of range of the ESPN affiliate in, say, Providence.
As an aside, TigerBlog, like 99.9% of the world, is rooting for Butler in tonight's game, though in TB's case, it's not just the whole underdog factor. TB did some research into Butler and found out that it was named for a 19th-century abolitionist named Ovid Butler, has fewer than 4,000 undergraduates and has plenty of on-campus housing.
Oh, and we all know who the only team to beat both Duke and Butler during the season was, right? Indeed, it was Georgetown. Speaking of the Hoyas, as the Butler-Michigan State game was starting, TigerBlog Jr. remarked that the man doing the color "sounded a lot like John Thompson." TB had to explain to TBJ that there actually was another John Thompson, the father of the John Thompson TBJ knows, and that the guy on the radio was the other John Thompson, who by the way had been a pretty good coach in his own right.
Somewhere along the way, TBJ asked TB how many miles he thought he'd driven going back and forth to Princeton sporting events, and it got TB to thinking. If you factor just the times driving, as opposed to going on the bus, it adds up something like this:
* probably 10 years worth of Ivy road trips, which according to mapquest is 705 miles to Harvard/Dartmouth and back and 466 to Yale/Brown. The Cornell/Columbia trip was usually made up and back to each, rather than Princeton to Cornell to Columbia and back. If you figure that, it's 50 miles to Columbia and 221 miles to Ithaca. Add those up, and it's 14,420 miles for those trips. In the last six or so years, TB hasn't made too many of those trips, but he's gone a few times. Let's add two more for each, so it's another 2,912 miles, or a total of 17,332 just to Ivy road trips. Add the 90 miles to Penn and back each time, and it's around 18,500. Non-Ivy trips? Let's say another 3,000, for a total of 21,500?
* football is probably around 15,000 miles.
* lacrosse is probably closer to 20,000.
* other sports are probably 2,000.
Added together, and that's around 58,500 miles driving to and from Princeton sports events. The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles, which means TB has basically driven twice around the Earth at the equator in his time traveling to Princeton events.
If you want to figure out how much time that is, take 58,500 miles and divide by, what, 70 miles per hour, to be safe? That's 835.7 hours, which translates into 34.8 days.
Much of that time has been spent in the middle of the night, riding past the same landmarks time after time, stopping at the same places to eat time after time. The favorite eatery, of course, is Rein's Deli, with its main location off exit 65 of I-84 in Vernon, Conn., just between Hartford and the Mass Pike, as well as its satellite location off I-91 in Springfield, Mass.
As for the other day, TigerBlog Jr. and TigerBlog talked about the usual stuff you'd imagine. What to eat. Which way to go. How long until we're in the next state.
The basketball games would be on for awhile and then a switch would be made to the Train CD, which consisted of the new album ("Save Me San Francisco") with some old favorites added, including "When I Look To The Sky," "Save the Day," "Meet Virginia," "Calling All Angels" and "Drops of Jupiter." TBJ does a pretty good falsetto on "Parachute" from the new album, and he could pretty much listen to "Hey Soul Sister" four or five times in a row without getting tired of it.
When not listening to the games or the music, the conversation went to areas like lacrosse - both Princeton and youth - school, family, how much driving through Connecticut stinks, friends, youtube, whether Subway is better than a local pizza place for subs, history, whether it would be fun to be a kid growing up in New York City, geography, anything.
TBJ would offer a line from "Family Guy" and start cracking up; TB would come back with a line from "The Godfather" or "The Odd Couple" or "Animal House" and crack up again.
The sun set early in the trip, and it was pretty late by the time the car rolled down the New Jersey Turnpike. Duke pulled away from West Virginia early, which meant a full-time switch to Train.
Eventually, the car reached its destination, getting there 10 minutes short of five hours. Hey, driving that far after it's been done so many times could get tedious, what with the never-changing routes and sights and such.
Looking back on this particular trip, driving back from Massachusetts with TigerBlog Jr., TigerBlog considers it among the best 4:50 of his life.
Friday, April 2, 2010
The Classics
Back on Nov. 22, the Jets lost 31-14 at New England. Then, a week later, the Jets defeated Carolina at home 17-6.
The win over Carolina sparked the Jets on a late-season surge that saw them get all the way to the AFC championship game.
The next team to play at Gillette Stadium one week and then at the Meadowlands the next will be none other than Princeton's men's lacrosse team. Princeton plays Brown tomorrow at Gillette Stadium, the home of the Patriots, at 2:30 in Game 2 of the New England Lacrosse Classic, which matches Cornell and Dartmouth in the first game at noon.
Next week, Princeton is part of a tripleheader at the new Meadowlands Stadium. The event on April 10 begins with Hofstra-Delaware and then continues with Virginia-North Carolina, which could be No. 1 vs. No. 2. If those two aren't in the top two, then it'll be because of Syracuse, whom Princeton plays at 6:30 in the last game of the day.
As an aside, those three games are the first events in the brand-new 82,500-seat building. If it's a nice day, not even a gorgeous day but a nice day, TigerBlog imagines that the three games coupled with the ability to get a look at the new building could mean a huge attendance.
For Princeton, it'll be back-to-back games in NFL stadiums, and it'll bring the number of games Princeton has played in NFL stadiums to three, the same as the number of games Princeton will have played at Class of 1952 Stadium.
Princeton is 1-0 this year in an NFL venue, having defeated Johns Hopkins in overtime back on March 6. That one was called the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic.
The official name of the event at the Meadowlands is the Konica Minolta Big City Classic. That's three classics for Princeton in its first nine games. Actually, breaking it down, it's three classics, three home games and three away games.
It's a tough balance for a Division I lacrosse team. On one hand, there's the opportunity to play games in NFL venues, which has been exciting for the game every time it's happened. On the other, it's moving great matchups off campuses. This isn't just a Princeton thing; games like UNC-Virginia or Army-Navy or Johns Hopkins-Maryland are being played as part of the Classics.
On the other hand, there's the idea of playing games on home or at the home field of your big rivals (Princeton's Class of 2010 is the first who didn't play a game at Hopkins' Homewood Field in something like 70 years), as well as the idea of playing in front of intimate crowds.
Of course, when you're playing in front of 20,000 at M&T Bank Stadium or probably more than twice that at the Meadowlands, that isn't as big as issue.
As for Princeton, the game against Brown is huge for more than just the location. Princeton and Cornell are 2-0 in the league, while Brown is 1-0.
The Tigers and Bears have both lost one-goal games in the Research Triangle in which they rallied after trailing by five only to lose in the end, Princeton at North Carolina and Brown at Duke. The Brown-Duke game was this past Tuesday.
The Princeton-Brown game traditionally has been low scoring, but this year the teams are among the more explosive offensive teams in the country. Of the 13 games they've played between them, nine have seen both teams in the game reach double figures.
Princeton's defense was bolstered by the return last week of Chad Wiedmaier, who missed the first six games after having off-season knee surgery. Without Wiedmaier, Princeton allowed nearly 10 goals per game; with him the Tigers held Yale to six. Any more than that and Princeton would have lost, as it was a 7-6 win.
Princeton has also had a flair for the dramatic, with the big rally against North Carolina followed by comeback from 7-1 down to defeat Penn 11-10 in overtime before the tight, tense win over Yale. Freshman Jeff Froccaro scored the game-winner against both Penn and Yale, and he and fellow freshman Mike Chanenchuk have combined for 25 goals through seven games, three more than senior All-Americas Mark Kovler and Rich Sgalardi had through seven games last year. The huge hole that Kovler and Sgalardi left in the midfield was the biggest concern for the Tigers in the preseason.
It's been an interesting and mostly exciting start to the Chris Bates era with Princeton lacrosse. Of course, the goal is to have an exciting April and May, not just an exciting March, and the stretch drive begins with the Brown game.
Ahead for Princeton is six more regular season games, including the other three highest ranked Ivy teams (Brown, Harvard, Cornell), No. 2/3 Syracuse and a Rutgers team that is off to a great start and is pushing the Top 20, as well as a Dartmouth team that has given the Tigers fits through the years.
Beyond that is the first Ivy League tournament, which will have the top four teams in the league meet at the site of the league champion, and ultimately if all goes well the NCAA tournament.
That's a minimum of a six games and a maximum of 12. Two are guaranteed to be "Classics." The goal is to have some of the others fit that description as well.
The win over Carolina sparked the Jets on a late-season surge that saw them get all the way to the AFC championship game.
The next team to play at Gillette Stadium one week and then at the Meadowlands the next will be none other than Princeton's men's lacrosse team. Princeton plays Brown tomorrow at Gillette Stadium, the home of the Patriots, at 2:30 in Game 2 of the New England Lacrosse Classic, which matches Cornell and Dartmouth in the first game at noon.
Next week, Princeton is part of a tripleheader at the new Meadowlands Stadium. The event on April 10 begins with Hofstra-Delaware and then continues with Virginia-North Carolina, which could be No. 1 vs. No. 2. If those two aren't in the top two, then it'll be because of Syracuse, whom Princeton plays at 6:30 in the last game of the day.
As an aside, those three games are the first events in the brand-new 82,500-seat building. If it's a nice day, not even a gorgeous day but a nice day, TigerBlog imagines that the three games coupled with the ability to get a look at the new building could mean a huge attendance.
For Princeton, it'll be back-to-back games in NFL stadiums, and it'll bring the number of games Princeton has played in NFL stadiums to three, the same as the number of games Princeton will have played at Class of 1952 Stadium.
Princeton is 1-0 this year in an NFL venue, having defeated Johns Hopkins in overtime back on March 6. That one was called the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic.
The official name of the event at the Meadowlands is the Konica Minolta Big City Classic. That's three classics for Princeton in its first nine games. Actually, breaking it down, it's three classics, three home games and three away games.
It's a tough balance for a Division I lacrosse team. On one hand, there's the opportunity to play games in NFL venues, which has been exciting for the game every time it's happened. On the other, it's moving great matchups off campuses. This isn't just a Princeton thing; games like UNC-Virginia or Army-Navy or Johns Hopkins-Maryland are being played as part of the Classics.
On the other hand, there's the idea of playing games on home or at the home field of your big rivals (Princeton's Class of 2010 is the first who didn't play a game at Hopkins' Homewood Field in something like 70 years), as well as the idea of playing in front of intimate crowds.
Of course, when you're playing in front of 20,000 at M&T Bank Stadium or probably more than twice that at the Meadowlands, that isn't as big as issue.
As for Princeton, the game against Brown is huge for more than just the location. Princeton and Cornell are 2-0 in the league, while Brown is 1-0.
The Tigers and Bears have both lost one-goal games in the Research Triangle in which they rallied after trailing by five only to lose in the end, Princeton at North Carolina and Brown at Duke. The Brown-Duke game was this past Tuesday.
The Princeton-Brown game traditionally has been low scoring, but this year the teams are among the more explosive offensive teams in the country. Of the 13 games they've played between them, nine have seen both teams in the game reach double figures.
Princeton's defense was bolstered by the return last week of Chad Wiedmaier, who missed the first six games after having off-season knee surgery. Without Wiedmaier, Princeton allowed nearly 10 goals per game; with him the Tigers held Yale to six. Any more than that and Princeton would have lost, as it was a 7-6 win.
Princeton has also had a flair for the dramatic, with the big rally against North Carolina followed by comeback from 7-1 down to defeat Penn 11-10 in overtime before the tight, tense win over Yale. Freshman Jeff Froccaro scored the game-winner against both Penn and Yale, and he and fellow freshman Mike Chanenchuk have combined for 25 goals through seven games, three more than senior All-Americas Mark Kovler and Rich Sgalardi had through seven games last year. The huge hole that Kovler and Sgalardi left in the midfield was the biggest concern for the Tigers in the preseason.
It's been an interesting and mostly exciting start to the Chris Bates era with Princeton lacrosse. Of course, the goal is to have an exciting April and May, not just an exciting March, and the stretch drive begins with the Brown game.
Ahead for Princeton is six more regular season games, including the other three highest ranked Ivy teams (Brown, Harvard, Cornell), No. 2/3 Syracuse and a Rutgers team that is off to a great start and is pushing the Top 20, as well as a Dartmouth team that has given the Tigers fits through the years.
Beyond that is the first Ivy League tournament, which will have the top four teams in the league meet at the site of the league champion, and ultimately if all goes well the NCAA tournament.
That's a minimum of a six games and a maximum of 12. Two are guaranteed to be "Classics." The goal is to have some of the others fit that description as well.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Signing Off
When TigerBlog was in college, he heard the story of how an entire dorm got together and played a practical joke on a guy who lived there.
Seems the guy had a huge exam on Monday morning first thing, so he was going to go out Saturday night and then study all day Sunday. When he woke up Sunday, the entire dorm was pretending it was already Monday and that he had slept all day Sunday. Every one in the dorm was going through the normal Monday morning routine, which freaked the guy out.
As for TigerBlog, the best practical joke he was ever part of came here at HQ. The women's basketball team was supposed to play in Hawaii, and the women's basketball contact at the time, a woman named Jenn from South Carolina, was fired up about the free trip to paradise.
The rest of the office came up with the idea of telling Jenn that the trip was off and that instead Princeton would be playing at Cleveland State in a fictional event called the "Snowball Classic." Someone even came up with the idea of getting the SID from Cleveland State to fax over a note that said that we were playing in their tournament and that they needed our women's basketball quick facts.
Jenn was crushed, and she spent a good hour or so snapping at everyone before she was told that it was all a joke. She then laughed, but not before pointing her finger at everyone there, saying something TB will never forget:
"I'm gonna get y'all, and y'all and y'all."
Back when TB was a senior in high school, BrotherBlog had a summer job with the Army Corps of Engineers. Through him, TB was able to get a piece of official U.S. Army stationery, which he then used to write a letter to his friend Chris Martin informing him that he had not yet registered for the Selective Service and that if he didn't do so by 14 days from the date of the letter, he'd be arrested.
The Selective Service had just started requiring 18-year-old males to register at the post office, not for a draft but just to be able to figure out how many eligible males there were. Of course, there was a segment of the 18-year-old group who thought they were back in the 1960s who said they wouldn't register, and Chris was one of them.
Anyway, BrotherBlog said TB could have the paper but couldn't mail it, so we slipped it into the rest of the Martin's mail, which included college catalogs. As Chris finally found the letter and started reading it, someone else picked up a catalog and said "Is Tulane a good school," which was greeted with "Shut up; I'm in big trouble." About 10 minutes later, Chris had registered.
TigerBlog brings these up because, obviously, it is April Fools' Day. A year ago, TigerBlog's April 1st post was about how TB has always wanted to put a great April Fools' story on goprincetontigers.com, but unfortunately TB came to the realization that in the world we live in today, there was nothing too outrageous not to be believed.
And so that brings us to April Fools Day 2010. If anything, the last 12 months have made the general public even more jaded to the point of believing anything. Tiger Woods. Sandra Bullock's situation. The show Jersey Shore. All of it.
TigerBlog thought about how nothing is stunning anymore yesterday, when he met with University officials who decided that TigerBlog would have to be shut down and that today's post would be the last one.
TigerBlog found the timing ironic.
TigerBlog started two years ago with the idea of doing in-game blogging and posting general announcements that didn't necessarily need to be on the main site. Eventually, when readership didn't respond to that, TB began to go in its current direction.
Unfortunately, it appears that there were two problems. First, it was thought that TB was taking up too much time. Second, it seems that it was a little too informal for an official part of the athletic department.
TigerBlog thought about continuing to do it anyway, but he didn't want to run afoul of the University administration. Clearly, TB disagrees with both points that were made.
And so, this is it. TB has had a great time doing this, and he wants to leave his readers with one more thing:
None of this was true. TB will be back tomorrow and next week and next month, and there was no meeting with the administration. But admit it. You believed TB, which proves the other main point of what TB wrote last year: People, TB included, believe what they read.
So, TigerBlog is signing off, but only until tomorrow.
Happy April Fools Day everyone. Go pull a great prank on your best friend.
Seems the guy had a huge exam on Monday morning first thing, so he was going to go out Saturday night and then study all day Sunday. When he woke up Sunday, the entire dorm was pretending it was already Monday and that he had slept all day Sunday. Every one in the dorm was going through the normal Monday morning routine, which freaked the guy out.
As for TigerBlog, the best practical joke he was ever part of came here at HQ. The women's basketball team was supposed to play in Hawaii, and the women's basketball contact at the time, a woman named Jenn from South Carolina, was fired up about the free trip to paradise.
The rest of the office came up with the idea of telling Jenn that the trip was off and that instead Princeton would be playing at Cleveland State in a fictional event called the "Snowball Classic." Someone even came up with the idea of getting the SID from Cleveland State to fax over a note that said that we were playing in their tournament and that they needed our women's basketball quick facts.
Jenn was crushed, and she spent a good hour or so snapping at everyone before she was told that it was all a joke. She then laughed, but not before pointing her finger at everyone there, saying something TB will never forget:
"I'm gonna get y'all, and y'all and y'all."
Back when TB was a senior in high school, BrotherBlog had a summer job with the Army Corps of Engineers. Through him, TB was able to get a piece of official U.S. Army stationery, which he then used to write a letter to his friend Chris Martin informing him that he had not yet registered for the Selective Service and that if he didn't do so by 14 days from the date of the letter, he'd be arrested.
The Selective Service had just started requiring 18-year-old males to register at the post office, not for a draft but just to be able to figure out how many eligible males there were. Of course, there was a segment of the 18-year-old group who thought they were back in the 1960s who said they wouldn't register, and Chris was one of them.
Anyway, BrotherBlog said TB could have the paper but couldn't mail it, so we slipped it into the rest of the Martin's mail, which included college catalogs. As Chris finally found the letter and started reading it, someone else picked up a catalog and said "Is Tulane a good school," which was greeted with "Shut up; I'm in big trouble." About 10 minutes later, Chris had registered.
TigerBlog brings these up because, obviously, it is April Fools' Day. A year ago, TigerBlog's April 1st post was about how TB has always wanted to put a great April Fools' story on goprincetontigers.com, but unfortunately TB came to the realization that in the world we live in today, there was nothing too outrageous not to be believed.
And so that brings us to April Fools Day 2010. If anything, the last 12 months have made the general public even more jaded to the point of believing anything. Tiger Woods. Sandra Bullock's situation. The show Jersey Shore. All of it.
TigerBlog thought about how nothing is stunning anymore yesterday, when he met with University officials who decided that TigerBlog would have to be shut down and that today's post would be the last one.
TigerBlog found the timing ironic.
TigerBlog started two years ago with the idea of doing in-game blogging and posting general announcements that didn't necessarily need to be on the main site. Eventually, when readership didn't respond to that, TB began to go in its current direction.
Unfortunately, it appears that there were two problems. First, it was thought that TB was taking up too much time. Second, it seems that it was a little too informal for an official part of the athletic department.
TigerBlog thought about continuing to do it anyway, but he didn't want to run afoul of the University administration. Clearly, TB disagrees with both points that were made.
And so, this is it. TB has had a great time doing this, and he wants to leave his readers with one more thing:
None of this was true. TB will be back tomorrow and next week and next month, and there was no meeting with the administration. But admit it. You believed TB, which proves the other main point of what TB wrote last year: People, TB included, believe what they read.
So, TigerBlog is signing off, but only until tomorrow.
Happy April Fools Day everyone. Go pull a great prank on your best friend.
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