TigerBlog was on a few sports sites yesterday afternoon when he saw the news that Chris Young would be back on the mound for the San Diego Padres this weekend during a crucial series with the Cardinals.
Young has been out since making his only start of the year, back in early April. Since then, he's been on the DL with shoulder problems.
The Padres have to be the favorite Major League team of any real Princeton fan, what with Young and Will Venable, both Princeton grads who played basketball and baseball here. A few weeks ago it seemed like a lock that Venable, at least, would be in the postseason, back when the Padres had a lead of 6.5 games in the NL West.
Now the Padres could definitely use Young, as Padres are now in second place, a half-game back of the Giants, with the Rockies also in the mix. One of those three teams will win the West; the other two look like they will battle the Braves for the wild card.
The American League teams seem all set with the Rays, Yankees and Twins in a battle for the best overall record and those three ready to be joined by the Rangers in the postseason. As an aside, the Yankees-Rays game the other night that had C.C. Sabathia pitch against David Price was 0-0 after nine innings, by which time the teams had combined for no runs and six hits. Time to play nine scoreless innings? 2:50.
It's a busy time in sports, what with the regular season winding down in baseball and the NFL season heading into its second week. We're also four days away from the start of the NHL exhibition season.
College sports are in full gear, as well.
The college sport that outdoes them all, nationally at least, is football. For the most part, teams are getting ready to play their third games this weekend, and as always, the regular season in college football is proving to be the most significant of any sport.
Teams can play themselves into and out of national championship position as early as September, and losses this time of year can wipe out a team's chances. In other words, teams need to be ready to play every week on the FBS level, which makes it unique in a sports world where teams can lose repeatedly during the season, get hot at the end and steal the whole show.
Princeton, like the rest of the Ivy League teams, has not yet played a minute of football, a situation that changes this weekend when all eight teams kick off. For Princeton, it means a trip to Bethlehem to take on Lehigh tomorrow at 12:30.
As an aside, check out the gameday central page and the information central page on goprincetontigers.com
Steve Verbit, the longtime defensive coach for the Tigers, stopped by yesterday afternoon and laughed at how long it seems like his team has been practicing before it finally gets to play. For Ivy teams, the wait can seem to be excruciating, as practice starts in late August, just before most teams are starting their games.
In fact, pretty much every high school team (and Pop Warner team, for that matter) has already played.
TigerBlog actually likes the way it works in the Ivy League, as this week's games set up 10 games in 10 weeks, with no off-weeks (why are they called "bye weeks," when a bye is what you get to advance through a tournament without playing). It's a sprint from start to finish, and each season seems to fly by.
There are two main storylines for Princeton football in 2010.
The first - and most inspirational - is the return of Jordan Culbreath to the starting tailback position. Culbreath, as everyone by now knows, was the Ivy League's leading rusher in 2008 before missing almost all of 2009 with aplastic anemia, a life-threatening disease that he has overcome to return to the football field.
The other big story for Princeton football is the start of Bob Surace's tenure as head coach, with his new coaching staff firmly in place.
Surace, a 1990 Princeton grad and All-Ivy center on the 1989 Ivy championship team, was hired last winter. Since then, he has put together his staff, evaluated his team, implemented his system and done everything else that goes along with being the new head coach.
In fact, he's done everything except for coaching an actual game.
It always fascinates TigerBlog when new coaches are hired, because they almost always are hired shortly after the previous season has ended and therefore are months and months away from actually coaching games, just as Surace was.
Now it's almost gametime, and it'll be interesting to see what Princeton football looks like going forward, not in terms of wins and losses at first but instead in terms of style, philosophy, personality and approach.
All that changes tomorrow.
TigerBlog remembers the first game of Surace's predecessor, Roger Hughes, and the first game of Hughes' predecessor, Steve Tosches. Those two have been Princeton's head coaches for the last 22 years (Tosches for 12, Hughes for 10), so debuts of Princeton football coaches are something of a rarity of late.
So with Chris Young about to return and with the Giants trying to get to 2-0 with a game against the Colts, as well as everything else going on the sports world this weekend, TigerBlog is most excited about Princeton-Lehigh football.
The weather is supposed to be perfect, and Lehigh is 1) a short drive from here and 2) a great place to watch a game.
TB is excited to see Culbreath out there again, and what a Bob Surace-coached team will look like.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The TigerBlog Era
TigerBlog took four classes as a first-semester Penn freshman: a political science class that was largely about the history of the Supreme Court, Economics 1A, German 1 and Math 140 (calculus - TB was always a big fan of derivatives).
The political science class, taught by a man who spoke in complete monotones, was in the University Museum at Penn, which is across the street from Franklin Field towards where the Civic Center used to be. In other words, TB's first class faced into where he hoped he'd be graduating on time. German and Econ were both in Williams Hall, next to College Hall, where the statue of Ben Franklin is right in the heart of campus. Calculus was in the David Rittenhouse Lab, which faces the Palestra, the tennis courts and Franklin Field.
Nearly four years later, TB took his last college final in the David Rittenhouse Lab. He remembers walking out of the building on a warm May day and thinking to himself that, as long as he had passed the test (he did), he was a college grad.
In between, he took some pretty interesting classes on his way to a degree in American History. He took two on the American South of the 1800s that were taught by Drew Gilpen Faust, now the president of Harvard. He took a great astronomy course just because it was fun, and one on the history of the 1960s for the same reason.
One of his favorite classes was Jeffersonian and Jacksonian America, taught off campus at the American Philosophical Society building, at Fourth and Market. Sometimes, TB would make the 30-block walk from West Philadelphia with the rest of the people in the class. He also took some American labor history classes, one of which included seeing the movie "The Molly Maguires," which as it happened was on TV last night.
There were also some snoozers, like that political science class, an econ, and a few others. And there were some weird ones, like a philosophy class taught by a young man whose personality ran to the, uh, morbid and who stood in front of the small classroom and chainsmoked the whole time.
TB thought back to his college career this morning, when it dawned on him that it was the first day of classes here at Princeton.
And it also made him think of the word of the day: Era. As in, the days in between the David Rittenhouse Lab can be called "The TigerBlog Still Rooted For Penn Era."
TigerBlog got an email yesterday from a loyal reader who raised some good questions about the concept of eras as they relate to Princeton Athletics. They also raised some good questions about whether or not TB could use those questions here.
As part of his rehab from his knee surgery of last year, TigerBlog spent much of the winter riding the exercise bike on D level with John McPhee, the author and Academic-Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse team.
For 30-45 minutes three times per week, Mr. McPhee would tell his stories, one more fascinating than the last. TB wanted to write about them (especially the time McPhee met Dwight Eisenhower when Ike was president of Columbia), but he chose not to use any of them, because they weren't meant to be what used to be called "on the record."
As for Loyal Reader's email, TB has decided to use some of it:
"More specifically, the notion of a 'Surace Era' was nagging at me. He is supposed to be a very solid guy and we all have high hopes for the football program in the years to come, but in some distant, nostalgic land long ago, I recall that a program's identity seemed to be derived first from the school, second the sport (Princeton Basketball) and third the exceptional teams and players (The Hess-Hubbard-Massey lacrosse teams). I get the Bradley era, the Elias or Garrett brother years or the Kazmaier teams, etc., but when did we (not Princeton specifically) start referring to periods identified by coaches. Certainly there have been many exceptional coaches at Princeton who achieved a high level of visibility and prominence and the 'identities' of Pete Carill and Bill Tierney both make complete sense, especially *after* their many years of sustained success and excellence and I'm sure that in the future, great current coaches like Rob Orr, Bob Callahan and Julie Shackford will deserve some enhanced identity when the teams they coached are described in the future. So, question one goes to identity and prominence of coaches."
Actually, thinking about it, most of the eras are "post" eras, as in someone prominent left. In the case of Loyal Reader's email, he referred to the Surace Era, since Bob Surace is now the head football coach and is about to coach his first game. The story on goprincetontigers.com has this headline: Finally, Football; Princeton Opens Surace Era, 2010 Season At Lehigh.
For the most part, though, the use of the term "era" to relate a period of Princeton athletic history to a specific player or coach is rare, and it's usually something reserved for headlines or for people who like to speak in superlatives.
For the most part, it's used to define periods for purposes of time rather than achievement.
TigerBlog assumes the question really is this: Can Princeton Athletics produce someone who is larger than Princeton itself, to the point where they have their own "era?"
The answer is yes, but it too is rare and in the end, the program is always what's biggest. And that's one of the great things about Princeton Athletics.
Looking back in history, Princeton has its athletic icons - Hobey Baker, Dick Kazmaier, Bill Bradley, Pete Carril and Tierney leap to mind for TB. Speaking from a contemporary perspective, the only ones who have had somewhat mythical individual accomplishments are Elias and Hess-Hubbard-Massey, with apologies to all of the great players who did great things here.
When TB thinks back to those great athletes and their achievements - even teams like the 1998 men's basketball team - he thinks first of the bigger picture of Princeton, not of the individuals involved.
That's what it means to be part of programs that have such great traditions and history to them.
So yes, the word "era" can get thrown around a bit from time to time, and yes, there have been some people who left legacies that exceed the name Princeton alone.
But it is extremely, extremely rare.
The political science class, taught by a man who spoke in complete monotones, was in the University Museum at Penn, which is across the street from Franklin Field towards where the Civic Center used to be. In other words, TB's first class faced into where he hoped he'd be graduating on time. German and Econ were both in Williams Hall, next to College Hall, where the statue of Ben Franklin is right in the heart of campus. Calculus was in the David Rittenhouse Lab, which faces the Palestra, the tennis courts and Franklin Field.
Nearly four years later, TB took his last college final in the David Rittenhouse Lab. He remembers walking out of the building on a warm May day and thinking to himself that, as long as he had passed the test (he did), he was a college grad.
In between, he took some pretty interesting classes on his way to a degree in American History. He took two on the American South of the 1800s that were taught by Drew Gilpen Faust, now the president of Harvard. He took a great astronomy course just because it was fun, and one on the history of the 1960s for the same reason.
One of his favorite classes was Jeffersonian and Jacksonian America, taught off campus at the American Philosophical Society building, at Fourth and Market. Sometimes, TB would make the 30-block walk from West Philadelphia with the rest of the people in the class. He also took some American labor history classes, one of which included seeing the movie "The Molly Maguires," which as it happened was on TV last night.
There were also some snoozers, like that political science class, an econ, and a few others. And there were some weird ones, like a philosophy class taught by a young man whose personality ran to the, uh, morbid and who stood in front of the small classroom and chainsmoked the whole time.
TB thought back to his college career this morning, when it dawned on him that it was the first day of classes here at Princeton.
And it also made him think of the word of the day: Era. As in, the days in between the David Rittenhouse Lab can be called "The TigerBlog Still Rooted For Penn Era."
TigerBlog got an email yesterday from a loyal reader who raised some good questions about the concept of eras as they relate to Princeton Athletics. They also raised some good questions about whether or not TB could use those questions here.
As part of his rehab from his knee surgery of last year, TigerBlog spent much of the winter riding the exercise bike on D level with John McPhee, the author and Academic-Athletic Fellow for the men's lacrosse team.
For 30-45 minutes three times per week, Mr. McPhee would tell his stories, one more fascinating than the last. TB wanted to write about them (especially the time McPhee met Dwight Eisenhower when Ike was president of Columbia), but he chose not to use any of them, because they weren't meant to be what used to be called "on the record."
As for Loyal Reader's email, TB has decided to use some of it:
"More specifically, the notion of a 'Surace Era' was nagging at me. He is supposed to be a very solid guy and we all have high hopes for the football program in the years to come, but in some distant, nostalgic land long ago, I recall that a program's identity seemed to be derived first from the school, second the sport (Princeton Basketball) and third the exceptional teams and players (The Hess-Hubbard-Massey lacrosse teams). I get the Bradley era, the Elias or Garrett brother years or the Kazmaier teams, etc., but when did we (not Princeton specifically) start referring to periods identified by coaches. Certainly there have been many exceptional coaches at Princeton who achieved a high level of visibility and prominence and the 'identities' of Pete Carill and Bill Tierney both make complete sense, especially *after* their many years of sustained success and excellence and I'm sure that in the future, great current coaches like Rob Orr, Bob Callahan and Julie Shackford will deserve some enhanced identity when the teams they coached are described in the future. So, question one goes to identity and prominence of coaches."
Actually, thinking about it, most of the eras are "post" eras, as in someone prominent left. In the case of Loyal Reader's email, he referred to the Surace Era, since Bob Surace is now the head football coach and is about to coach his first game. The story on goprincetontigers.com has this headline: Finally, Football; Princeton Opens Surace Era, 2010 Season At Lehigh.
For the most part, though, the use of the term "era" to relate a period of Princeton athletic history to a specific player or coach is rare, and it's usually something reserved for headlines or for people who like to speak in superlatives.
For the most part, it's used to define periods for purposes of time rather than achievement.
TigerBlog assumes the question really is this: Can Princeton Athletics produce someone who is larger than Princeton itself, to the point where they have their own "era?"
The answer is yes, but it too is rare and in the end, the program is always what's biggest. And that's one of the great things about Princeton Athletics.
Looking back in history, Princeton has its athletic icons - Hobey Baker, Dick Kazmaier, Bill Bradley, Pete Carril and Tierney leap to mind for TB. Speaking from a contemporary perspective, the only ones who have had somewhat mythical individual accomplishments are Elias and Hess-Hubbard-Massey, with apologies to all of the great players who did great things here.
When TB thinks back to those great athletes and their achievements - even teams like the 1998 men's basketball team - he thinks first of the bigger picture of Princeton, not of the individuals involved.
That's what it means to be part of programs that have such great traditions and history to them.
So yes, the word "era" can get thrown around a bit from time to time, and yes, there have been some people who left legacies that exceed the name Princeton alone.
But it is extremely, extremely rare.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Getting Oriented
TigerBlog's Corn Flakes this morning were shared with a story about the 25th anniversary of Ewing High School's 1983 Central Jersey Group II football championship and how the members of the team are being saluted at the Blue Devils' game this weekend.
TB covered that championship game for the same newspaper he was reading this morning, and he remembered some of the key details of the game:
* it was cold
* it was at Colonia, who was heavily favored
* Ewing won 3-0
* the kid who kicked the field goal was also a defensive lineman (TB is pretty sure on this one)
* the game ended with 36 seconds remaining due to an altercation of some sort; according to this morning's paper, it was a brawl that the Colonia side started, which is sort of how TB remembers it
* the Notre Dame High School coaching staff sat in the stands behind the Ewing bench offering support - and a few plays; the ND head coach then is the ND head coach now (Chappy Moore)
Twenty-five years have gone by since that game? A quarter century? It doesn't seem that long ago. And how about going that far from now into the future? TigerBlog, 25 years from now, will be, uh, not young.
Put in some further context, the current Princeton freshman class (of 2014, by the way) was about seven years or so away from being born back when Ewing beat Colonia that day.
The Class of 2014 is completing a week of orientation activities in advance of tomorrow's first day of classes (which, by the way, could almost overlap with fall break at some other schools).
For those members of the class who are athletes, today offers Freshman Student-Athlete Orientation, a completely fascinating event for TigerBlog.
As he does every year, TB will sit in the event, look at the more than 200 faces there and think ahead 44 months to the 2014 Princeton Varsity Club senior-athlete award banquet, where a handful of those athletes will be honored with the major departmental awards, including the Roper Trophy and von Kienbusch Awards as the top male and female athletes.
And of course, not everyone will have an award-winning experience. Some will battle injuries. Others will decide not to continue with their athletic careers.
Still, if past performance is any indication of future whatever-those-commercials-say, then more than half of the kids in McCosh 50 today will win at least one Ivy League championship. Most will compete in NCAA or other national championship events, and some will even win them.
The overwhelming majority will have a great experience here. They will come away with great athletic memories of competing for Princeton University, and they will have lifelong friendships as a result, friendships that are just now starting out on a path that will last for decades and take them from where they are now through weddings, babies, careers, grandchildren and all the rest of it.
TigerBlog is lucky to see two completely different sides of the athletic world from such close proximity - the youth sports world and the Division I world.
It wasn't that long ago that the current 14ers were playing youth sports, among the hundreds of thousands who were doing the same thing at the time. And, those same 14ers were going through elementary school, middle school, eventually high school.
The freshmen are part of an extraordinarily lucky few, those who were good enough in their lives on both their athletic and academic plane to have the intersection of the two land them on this campus.
For every young athlete who wanted to play Division I, only a very, very, very few could. For everyone who wanted to attend Princeton University, only a very, very, very, very, very, very few could.
The athletes in the Class of 2014 have achieved both. They are to be congratulated - and cautioned not to waste this golden opportunity.
The woods are filled with those who will never have that chance.
TB covered that championship game for the same newspaper he was reading this morning, and he remembered some of the key details of the game:
* it was cold
* it was at Colonia, who was heavily favored
* Ewing won 3-0
* the kid who kicked the field goal was also a defensive lineman (TB is pretty sure on this one)
* the game ended with 36 seconds remaining due to an altercation of some sort; according to this morning's paper, it was a brawl that the Colonia side started, which is sort of how TB remembers it
* the Notre Dame High School coaching staff sat in the stands behind the Ewing bench offering support - and a few plays; the ND head coach then is the ND head coach now (Chappy Moore)
Twenty-five years have gone by since that game? A quarter century? It doesn't seem that long ago. And how about going that far from now into the future? TigerBlog, 25 years from now, will be, uh, not young.
Put in some further context, the current Princeton freshman class (of 2014, by the way) was about seven years or so away from being born back when Ewing beat Colonia that day.
The Class of 2014 is completing a week of orientation activities in advance of tomorrow's first day of classes (which, by the way, could almost overlap with fall break at some other schools).
For those members of the class who are athletes, today offers Freshman Student-Athlete Orientation, a completely fascinating event for TigerBlog.
As he does every year, TB will sit in the event, look at the more than 200 faces there and think ahead 44 months to the 2014 Princeton Varsity Club senior-athlete award banquet, where a handful of those athletes will be honored with the major departmental awards, including the Roper Trophy and von Kienbusch Awards as the top male and female athletes.
And of course, not everyone will have an award-winning experience. Some will battle injuries. Others will decide not to continue with their athletic careers.
Still, if past performance is any indication of future whatever-those-commercials-say, then more than half of the kids in McCosh 50 today will win at least one Ivy League championship. Most will compete in NCAA or other national championship events, and some will even win them.
The overwhelming majority will have a great experience here. They will come away with great athletic memories of competing for Princeton University, and they will have lifelong friendships as a result, friendships that are just now starting out on a path that will last for decades and take them from where they are now through weddings, babies, careers, grandchildren and all the rest of it.
TigerBlog is lucky to see two completely different sides of the athletic world from such close proximity - the youth sports world and the Division I world.
It wasn't that long ago that the current 14ers were playing youth sports, among the hundreds of thousands who were doing the same thing at the time. And, those same 14ers were going through elementary school, middle school, eventually high school.
The freshmen are part of an extraordinarily lucky few, those who were good enough in their lives on both their athletic and academic plane to have the intersection of the two land them on this campus.
For every young athlete who wanted to play Division I, only a very, very, very few could. For everyone who wanted to attend Princeton University, only a very, very, very, very, very, very few could.
The athletes in the Class of 2014 have achieved both. They are to be congratulated - and cautioned not to waste this golden opportunity.
The woods are filled with those who will never have that chance.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
15 For 16
Little Miss TigerBlog had her first soccer game in a long time this past Saturday. She's on the white team, and her team lost to the royal blue team.
Like basically every other kid in the country, LMTB's first organized sporting activity was in a co-ed soccer league for four year olds. Contrary to what anyone - TigerBlog included - may say about lacrosse, the fastest growing sport in terms of youth participation continues to be soccer.
Soccer, of course, is responsible for the current model that exists in the youth sports world, where it's all about making the travel team at whatever age so that eventually you can get a scholarship to a Division I school.
LMTB, and TigerBlog Jr., gave up on soccer after their four-year-old experience. Since then, she has played basketball and lacrosse, while he has played baseball (for one year), lacrosse, basketball and football. LMTB returned to soccer this year because her best friend, Wiki, also plays, though she is on a travel team.
Wiki also has competed in youth swimming and even synchronized swimming. Other kids that they know participate in among other sports baseball, softball, tennis, golf, wrestling, track and field and cross country.
One sport absent from that list is field hockey. For the first time, TigerBlog saw a youth field hockey program being advertised, though it is a half-hour away. Additionally, TBJ's middle school also has a field hockey team.
In many ways, field hockey is a mysterious sport to many, most of whom have either never seen it or don't understand the rules.
TigerBlog grew up near the Jersey Shore in a town that didn't have field hockey or lacrosse, and he first saw field hockey when started covering high school sports in his early newspaper days.
He learned most of what he knows about the rules and such from Lori Hussong, who was the West Windsor-Plainsboro High coach back then and now is the highly successful coach at Rider University, and from the Princeton coach when he started covering colleges, Beth Bozman.
Basically, you can't shield the ball from your opponent with your body and can't double-team the ball. You also have to hit the ball with the flat side of the stick.
Princeton went 156-83-4 against Ivy League schools a year ago in all sports combined. So far in 2010-11, Princeton is 1-0, with a win over Harvard in men's water polo last weekend.
As men's water polo is not a sport that will crown an Ivy champion, the field hockey team will play the first actual league game this Friday night, when Dartmouth comes to Class of 1952 Stadium in a matchup of teams that are undefeated on the young season and rank 1-2 in Division I in scoring offense.
The Princeton women have won 15 of the last 16 Ivy titles, including each of the last five.
How difficult is it to dominate a sport for that extended period of time? Very.
In Ivy League history, the only other time a school has won 15 titles in a 16-year span of the same sport has come in men's lacrosse, and TB will grudgingly give Cornell proper credit for its dominating run beginning in 1968. Princeton's best run in men's lacrosse, by the way, was 12 titles in 13 years.
Princeton field hockey dates back to 1971, when it was the second varsity women's sport at the school. The program has won more than 65% of its games all-time, and that number is higher when starting in 1988, the year Bozman became head coach.
Under Bozman, Princeton went 188-73-6, a .715 percentage, and reached four NCAA Final Fours and two NCAA finals.
It took Bozman eight years to reach her first Final Four; current head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn got there in seven. Holmes-Winn is 89-43 with the Tigers overall, and she is 36-6 since the start of the 2008 season.
This year, the Tigers are 3-0 and have outscored their three opponents by a combined 17-2. This weekend is big, with the game against Dartmouth Friday and then another home game Sunday against Syracuse, whom Princeton defeated to reach the Final Four a year ago.
The Tigers aren't exactly ducking anyone this season either.
Princeton is currently ranked fourth, and the regular-season schedule includes games against No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Virginia and No. 6 UConn, as well as Syracuse (No. 8), Louisville (No. 12), Penn State (No. 15) and American (No. 18).
Clearly, you don't put together a schedule like that if you don't think you can handle it. Even with a team that is still amazingly young, the Tigers clearly feel ready for such a challenging fall.
Challenge No. 1: An Ivy League title would make Princeton field hockey the first league school ever to win 16 in 17 years.
Challenge No. 2: Navigating a tough non-league schedule with an eye on another Final Four.
These are interesting times in the mysterious sport.
Like basically every other kid in the country, LMTB's first organized sporting activity was in a co-ed soccer league for four year olds. Contrary to what anyone - TigerBlog included - may say about lacrosse, the fastest growing sport in terms of youth participation continues to be soccer.
Soccer, of course, is responsible for the current model that exists in the youth sports world, where it's all about making the travel team at whatever age so that eventually you can get a scholarship to a Division I school.
LMTB, and TigerBlog Jr., gave up on soccer after their four-year-old experience. Since then, she has played basketball and lacrosse, while he has played baseball (for one year), lacrosse, basketball and football. LMTB returned to soccer this year because her best friend, Wiki, also plays, though she is on a travel team.
Wiki also has competed in youth swimming and even synchronized swimming. Other kids that they know participate in among other sports baseball, softball, tennis, golf, wrestling, track and field and cross country.
One sport absent from that list is field hockey. For the first time, TigerBlog saw a youth field hockey program being advertised, though it is a half-hour away. Additionally, TBJ's middle school also has a field hockey team.
In many ways, field hockey is a mysterious sport to many, most of whom have either never seen it or don't understand the rules.
TigerBlog grew up near the Jersey Shore in a town that didn't have field hockey or lacrosse, and he first saw field hockey when started covering high school sports in his early newspaper days.
He learned most of what he knows about the rules and such from Lori Hussong, who was the West Windsor-Plainsboro High coach back then and now is the highly successful coach at Rider University, and from the Princeton coach when he started covering colleges, Beth Bozman.
Basically, you can't shield the ball from your opponent with your body and can't double-team the ball. You also have to hit the ball with the flat side of the stick.
Princeton went 156-83-4 against Ivy League schools a year ago in all sports combined. So far in 2010-11, Princeton is 1-0, with a win over Harvard in men's water polo last weekend.
As men's water polo is not a sport that will crown an Ivy champion, the field hockey team will play the first actual league game this Friday night, when Dartmouth comes to Class of 1952 Stadium in a matchup of teams that are undefeated on the young season and rank 1-2 in Division I in scoring offense.
The Princeton women have won 15 of the last 16 Ivy titles, including each of the last five.
How difficult is it to dominate a sport for that extended period of time? Very.
In Ivy League history, the only other time a school has won 15 titles in a 16-year span of the same sport has come in men's lacrosse, and TB will grudgingly give Cornell proper credit for its dominating run beginning in 1968. Princeton's best run in men's lacrosse, by the way, was 12 titles in 13 years.
Princeton field hockey dates back to 1971, when it was the second varsity women's sport at the school. The program has won more than 65% of its games all-time, and that number is higher when starting in 1988, the year Bozman became head coach.
Under Bozman, Princeton went 188-73-6, a .715 percentage, and reached four NCAA Final Fours and two NCAA finals.
It took Bozman eight years to reach her first Final Four; current head coach Kristen Holmes-Winn got there in seven. Holmes-Winn is 89-43 with the Tigers overall, and she is 36-6 since the start of the 2008 season.
This year, the Tigers are 3-0 and have outscored their three opponents by a combined 17-2. This weekend is big, with the game against Dartmouth Friday and then another home game Sunday against Syracuse, whom Princeton defeated to reach the Final Four a year ago.
The Tigers aren't exactly ducking anyone this season either.
Princeton is currently ranked fourth, and the regular-season schedule includes games against No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Virginia and No. 6 UConn, as well as Syracuse (No. 8), Louisville (No. 12), Penn State (No. 15) and American (No. 18).
Clearly, you don't put together a schedule like that if you don't think you can handle it. Even with a team that is still amazingly young, the Tigers clearly feel ready for such a challenging fall.
Challenge No. 1: An Ivy League title would make Princeton field hockey the first league school ever to win 16 in 17 years.
Challenge No. 2: Navigating a tough non-league schedule with an eye on another Final Four.
These are interesting times in the mysterious sport.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Highly Offensive
The best show ever on Sunday nights was, of course, "The Sopranos." The second-best show ever for a Sunday night?
How about the English Premier League Review Show on Fox Soccer Channel? Each Sunday at 8, the top moments from the top games of the previous weekend are shown, complete with the commentary from the world's best announcers.
The big surprise of the early season is, of course, the fact that Blackpool currently sits in fourth place with seven points. Blackpool, a seaside resort town in northwest England, is in its first year in the EPL after a remarkable 3-2 win in which the team came from behind twice in the Championship League play-off to beat Cardiff City to advance.
As an aside, the whole concept of relegation in professional sports is tremendous. Imagine if American pro leagues split into a premier league and a championship league, and teams in the middle were constantly battling to move up or avoid moving down?
Anyway, back at the review show, it's basically all goals and big saves, with some near misses mixed in.
In other words, it's not too much different than yesterday's women's soccer game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, where Princeton defeated James Madison 6-3 in a wild up-and-down track meet of a game.
The game was remarkable in that the average soccer game doesn't have nearly that number of goals, and yet in this one, all of the scoring seemed like part of the normal flow of the game.
Princeton's offense was so efficient that it finished with six goals on just nine shots. Jen Hoy, a sophomore, had three goals on just three shots.
TigerBlog doesn't have any way to look up the last time a Princeton player had at least three goals without missing any shots. He could, on the other hand, look up some other stuff.
The game against James Madison marked just the sixth time in 489 Princeton women's soccer game that a team has scored three or more goals and not won. It was also the first time in the 266 games that Julie Shackford has been the Tigers' head coach that it has happened.
Of the six games in which the losing team reached three, four finished 4-3. The only other time besides yesterday where Princeton allowed at least three and scored more than four was in 1984, when the Tigers defeated Kean 6-4.
On the men's side, there have been 14 games in the 1,091 in program history where the losing team has scored at least three. Jim Barlow has been the current head coach 252 and has only had one game in which the losing team reached three - his team fell 7-4 to Yale in 1998.
There was also one 4-4 tie with Rutgers back in 1963.
Added together, there have been 1,580 games in Princeton soccer history, and only 21 of them (.013%) have seen a team score at least three goals and not win. It had been 12 years since the last one.
The Princeton women's team was shut out in its first game, a 2-0 loss to No. 24 Rutgers, but since then the Tigers have scored 10 goals in three games, all wins. Of the 10 goals, seven have been scored by sophomores, including four by Hoy, who had four all of last year.
Contrast that with a year ago, when Princeton, playing mostly freshmen, went 7-7-3. Of those 17 games, nine finished either 1-0 or 0-0, and a 10th was 1-1.
Against James Madison alone, Princeton scored three goals in less than 10 minutes in the first half and then in the second needed 62 seconds to answer a goal by the Dukes.
The Princeton men are 1-2 against a strong early season schedule following the NCAA tournament season a year ago. There is a soccer doubleheader at Roberts Stadium Friday, as the women take on LIU at 5 followed by the men's game against Georgetown.
The Ivy League season begins the following week for the women with a huge game at Yale and the week after for the men with another doubleheader against Dartmouth.
If you're expecting the losing team to score at least three goals every game, history suggests it's unlikely.
If you're looking for great soccer - for free, no less - than Roberts Stadium is a great place to start.
Well, that and the English Premiere League Review Show.
How about the English Premier League Review Show on Fox Soccer Channel? Each Sunday at 8, the top moments from the top games of the previous weekend are shown, complete with the commentary from the world's best announcers.
The big surprise of the early season is, of course, the fact that Blackpool currently sits in fourth place with seven points. Blackpool, a seaside resort town in northwest England, is in its first year in the EPL after a remarkable 3-2 win in which the team came from behind twice in the Championship League play-off to beat Cardiff City to advance.
As an aside, the whole concept of relegation in professional sports is tremendous. Imagine if American pro leagues split into a premier league and a championship league, and teams in the middle were constantly battling to move up or avoid moving down?
Anyway, back at the review show, it's basically all goals and big saves, with some near misses mixed in.
In other words, it's not too much different than yesterday's women's soccer game on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, where Princeton defeated James Madison 6-3 in a wild up-and-down track meet of a game.
The game was remarkable in that the average soccer game doesn't have nearly that number of goals, and yet in this one, all of the scoring seemed like part of the normal flow of the game.
Princeton's offense was so efficient that it finished with six goals on just nine shots. Jen Hoy, a sophomore, had three goals on just three shots.
TigerBlog doesn't have any way to look up the last time a Princeton player had at least three goals without missing any shots. He could, on the other hand, look up some other stuff.
The game against James Madison marked just the sixth time in 489 Princeton women's soccer game that a team has scored three or more goals and not won. It was also the first time in the 266 games that Julie Shackford has been the Tigers' head coach that it has happened.
Of the six games in which the losing team reached three, four finished 4-3. The only other time besides yesterday where Princeton allowed at least three and scored more than four was in 1984, when the Tigers defeated Kean 6-4.
On the men's side, there have been 14 games in the 1,091 in program history where the losing team has scored at least three. Jim Barlow has been the current head coach 252 and has only had one game in which the losing team reached three - his team fell 7-4 to Yale in 1998.
There was also one 4-4 tie with Rutgers back in 1963.
Added together, there have been 1,580 games in Princeton soccer history, and only 21 of them (.013%) have seen a team score at least three goals and not win. It had been 12 years since the last one.
The Princeton women's team was shut out in its first game, a 2-0 loss to No. 24 Rutgers, but since then the Tigers have scored 10 goals in three games, all wins. Of the 10 goals, seven have been scored by sophomores, including four by Hoy, who had four all of last year.
Contrast that with a year ago, when Princeton, playing mostly freshmen, went 7-7-3. Of those 17 games, nine finished either 1-0 or 0-0, and a 10th was 1-1.
Against James Madison alone, Princeton scored three goals in less than 10 minutes in the first half and then in the second needed 62 seconds to answer a goal by the Dukes.
The Princeton men are 1-2 against a strong early season schedule following the NCAA tournament season a year ago. There is a soccer doubleheader at Roberts Stadium Friday, as the women take on LIU at 5 followed by the men's game against Georgetown.
The Ivy League season begins the following week for the women with a huge game at Yale and the week after for the men with another doubleheader against Dartmouth.
If you're expecting the losing team to score at least three goals every game, history suggests it's unlikely.
If you're looking for great soccer - for free, no less - than Roberts Stadium is a great place to start.
Well, that and the English Premiere League Review Show.
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Dookie Is Correct
TigerBlog was right. It only took a few minutes of the first NFL game of the year for TB to miss the announcers from the World Cup.
And this was even more true when TB listed to Kevin Harlan shriek on every play on the radio. Who can listen to that guy for more than one or two plays and not change the station?
Yes, back in June, TB said it would come to this. Watching the World Cup and listening to the announcers - mostly English - pointed out exactly what was wrong with most American broadcasters, and TB knew that this would be most obvious when the NFL season began.
Sadly, it only took a few minutes of the Saints-Vikings game to prove TB correct.
As an aside, TB never used to mind the Vikings, going back to their days playing outdoor games in December at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where the Mall of America now stands, and he sort of liked Brett Favre, at least a little bit. This year, as with last, the Vikings are TB's least favorite team, and it's because of Favre. It's amazing, isn't it, how one player can destroy his legacy?
Anyway, going back to the World Cup, the American team was of course coached by a Princeton alum, Bob Bradley.
There has also been a Princeton alum coaching the at the basketball World Championships, currently nearing their conclusion in Turkey. In the quarterfinal round yesterday, the U.S. team defeated Russia 89-79; extra credit is given if you can identify without looking the other three teams in the FIBA final four (TB will let you think about it; quitters can click here).
As most should know by now, the Russians are coached by Dave Blatt, who was the captain of the 1981 Princeton team that won the Ivy League championship while going 13-1.
Blatt came from Framingham, Mass., to play for Pete Carril, and he was a steady contributor if not huge scorer for three varsity seasons. Princeton went 7-7 in the league in his sophomore year, and that included two one-point losses to Penn in the year that the Quakers reached the NCAA Final Four.
As a junior, Blatt was part of a Princeton team that tied Penn for the league title and then lost by one in the playoff for the NCAA spot in a game played at Lafayette.
Princeton also played in the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii that year and went 0-3, and Carril vowed never to play in Hawaii again. True to his word, Carril never took his team back to the 50th state, and it wasn't until the 1998-99 season, when Bill Carmody was head coach, that Princeton again played in the Rainbow Classic, defeating Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte to win the title as TB earned a free trip to Hawaii in what was clearly win-win.
Meanwhile, back at Blatt, he was the captain along with Randy Melville in 1980-81, when Princeton won the outright title before losing to BYU in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Blatt, who has dual citizenship with the U.S. and Israel, played in Israel for 10 years after graduating before embarking on a hugely successful coaching career that has taken him throughout Europe. Ultimately, he became the head coach of the Russian team and then won the 2007 European championship.
For these World Championships, he made his biggest impact with his claim that the Soviet Union rightfully was awarded the gold medal in basketball in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, though he also said that he cried at the time when the U.S. team didn't win.
This resulted in a back-and-forth with the U.S. coach, whose name escapes TB at the moment, who said this about the comments:
"He's Russian. He coaches the Russian team. So he probably has that viewpoint. His eyes are clearer now because there are no tears in them."
TigerBlog doesn't ordinarily side with a Dookie against a Princetonian, but in this case, the Dookie is correct. There is no objective way to say that the Soviets deserved to win that game.
For those who don't know much about the 1972 Olympics, there were all kinds of problems, including the murder of 11 members of the Israeli delegation by Arab terrorists and the subsequent decision to resume the Games after one day of mourning.
As far as the competition went, nothing topped the men's basketball final. The U.S. team was 63-0 all-time in Olympic basketball prior to the 1972 final against the Soviet Union, and if you're under 40 or so, you don't really have a feel for what any sporting event between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was all about back then anyway.
The Soviets led 49-48 when Doug Collins, now the Sixers coach, was fouled with three seconds to play. Collins made both foul shots (one of the more amazing pressure performances in sporting history by the way), and that left the Soviets three seconds to go the length of the floor.
The rest is pretty involved, but the bottom line is that the Soviets were given three different opportunities to inbound the ball. The first two resulted in an American win; the third resulted in a Soviet layup (after what was a clear offensive foul) that was allowed to stand.
The final thus became 50-49 in favor of the Soviets, who gleefully took their gold medals. The 12 members of the American team refused to accept the silver medals, and to this day, not one of them has one.
In the history of American sport, there has never been another time when a team has been so wronged out of such an important win. Nothing, actually, comes close.
It had to be that big for TB to agree with the Dookie. In this case, though, he's right.
And this was even more true when TB listed to Kevin Harlan shriek on every play on the radio. Who can listen to that guy for more than one or two plays and not change the station?
Yes, back in June, TB said it would come to this. Watching the World Cup and listening to the announcers - mostly English - pointed out exactly what was wrong with most American broadcasters, and TB knew that this would be most obvious when the NFL season began.
Sadly, it only took a few minutes of the Saints-Vikings game to prove TB correct.
As an aside, TB never used to mind the Vikings, going back to their days playing outdoor games in December at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where the Mall of America now stands, and he sort of liked Brett Favre, at least a little bit. This year, as with last, the Vikings are TB's least favorite team, and it's because of Favre. It's amazing, isn't it, how one player can destroy his legacy?
Anyway, going back to the World Cup, the American team was of course coached by a Princeton alum, Bob Bradley.
There has also been a Princeton alum coaching the at the basketball World Championships, currently nearing their conclusion in Turkey. In the quarterfinal round yesterday, the U.S. team defeated Russia 89-79; extra credit is given if you can identify without looking the other three teams in the FIBA final four (TB will let you think about it; quitters can click here).
As most should know by now, the Russians are coached by Dave Blatt, who was the captain of the 1981 Princeton team that won the Ivy League championship while going 13-1.
Blatt came from Framingham, Mass., to play for Pete Carril, and he was a steady contributor if not huge scorer for three varsity seasons. Princeton went 7-7 in the league in his sophomore year, and that included two one-point losses to Penn in the year that the Quakers reached the NCAA Final Four.
As a junior, Blatt was part of a Princeton team that tied Penn for the league title and then lost by one in the playoff for the NCAA spot in a game played at Lafayette.
Princeton also played in the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii that year and went 0-3, and Carril vowed never to play in Hawaii again. True to his word, Carril never took his team back to the 50th state, and it wasn't until the 1998-99 season, when Bill Carmody was head coach, that Princeton again played in the Rainbow Classic, defeating Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte to win the title as TB earned a free trip to Hawaii in what was clearly win-win.
Meanwhile, back at Blatt, he was the captain along with Randy Melville in 1980-81, when Princeton won the outright title before losing to BYU in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Blatt, who has dual citizenship with the U.S. and Israel, played in Israel for 10 years after graduating before embarking on a hugely successful coaching career that has taken him throughout Europe. Ultimately, he became the head coach of the Russian team and then won the 2007 European championship.
For these World Championships, he made his biggest impact with his claim that the Soviet Union rightfully was awarded the gold medal in basketball in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, though he also said that he cried at the time when the U.S. team didn't win.
This resulted in a back-and-forth with the U.S. coach, whose name escapes TB at the moment, who said this about the comments:
"He's Russian. He coaches the Russian team. So he probably has that viewpoint. His eyes are clearer now because there are no tears in them."
TigerBlog doesn't ordinarily side with a Dookie against a Princetonian, but in this case, the Dookie is correct. There is no objective way to say that the Soviets deserved to win that game.
For those who don't know much about the 1972 Olympics, there were all kinds of problems, including the murder of 11 members of the Israeli delegation by Arab terrorists and the subsequent decision to resume the Games after one day of mourning.
As far as the competition went, nothing topped the men's basketball final. The U.S. team was 63-0 all-time in Olympic basketball prior to the 1972 final against the Soviet Union, and if you're under 40 or so, you don't really have a feel for what any sporting event between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was all about back then anyway.
The Soviets led 49-48 when Doug Collins, now the Sixers coach, was fouled with three seconds to play. Collins made both foul shots (one of the more amazing pressure performances in sporting history by the way), and that left the Soviets three seconds to go the length of the floor.
The rest is pretty involved, but the bottom line is that the Soviets were given three different opportunities to inbound the ball. The first two resulted in an American win; the third resulted in a Soviet layup (after what was a clear offensive foul) that was allowed to stand.
The final thus became 50-49 in favor of the Soviets, who gleefully took their gold medals. The 12 members of the American team refused to accept the silver medals, and to this day, not one of them has one.
In the history of American sport, there has never been another time when a team has been so wronged out of such an important win. Nothing, actually, comes close.
It had to be that big for TB to agree with the Dookie. In this case, though, he's right.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Through The Record Book
TigerBlog remembers being at Rutgers one night for a men's lacrosse game. Chris Massey, who was part of the great attack unit along with Jesse Hubbard and Jon Hess that brought Princeton the NCAA title three straight times before they graduated in 1998, needed a goal in the game to break the Princeton record for consecutive games with at least one goal.
Massey didn't score in the first quarter, and then-assistant coach David Metzbower was getting a bit annoyed by how much it seemed everyone was pressing to get Massey his goal. TB, standing on the sideline, remembers how Metz told Massey to "get this over with." Within a few seconds, Massey had his goal.
TB has always been hugely interested in Princeton records and, by extension, the likelihood that current athletes will break them.
As an aside, when TB was in the newspaper business, he was taught that there's no such thing as a "new school record," since saying "so and so set a new school record" and "so and so set a school record" say the same thing. That's one of those style points that TB never bought into it.
Despite having seen hundreds of Princeton games, TB hasn't really seen too many Princeton career records set in person.
He was there when Esmeralda Negron set the school record for goals in a career in soccer. He was there when Hubbard broke Justin Tortolani's record for goals in a career in men's lacrosse, and for that matter when Tortolani broke Wick Sollers' record.
TB does not remember being there when Keith Elias broke the record for career rushing yards. He knows he was not there when Bill Bradley broke the previous record for points in a career.
As a matter of fact, how many games did it take Bradley to do so? The record when Bradley arrived at Princeton was 1,451, set by Pete Campbell before he graduated in 1962. Bradley, who was a freshman when Campbell was a senior, scored 682 points as a sophomore and 936 as a junior; he passed Campbell in against Columbia in his 49th career game.
Bradley destroyed the Princeton basketball record book, even without the three-point shot and a fourth year of varsity to play. It's unlikely anyone will ever come close to what he's accomplished here, and in fact, nobody has: Bradley has the 11 highest single-game scoring totals in Princeton history.
When TB wrote about Negron the other day, he mentioned how Negron had scored more goals (47) than any other male or female soccer player in school history. That got him thinking about where men and women stood when you compared similar records in similar sports.
If you do so, you find out some interesting things.
Start with basketball. Bradley is so far out in front of everyone else who has ever played with 2,503 points, but the four other players who ever scored at least 1,600 points were all women: Sandi Bittler (1,683), Meagan Cowher (1,671), C.B. Tomasiewicz (1,622) and Becky Brown (1,608). Niveen Rasheed, not to jinx her, would reach 1,788 points by repeating her freshman total of 447 points the next three years.
How about home runs? The Princeton baseball record is 26, set by Matt Evans; four softball players have more than 30 (Jamie Lettire with 38, Kelsey Quist and Melissa Finley with 37, Kat Welsh with 30).
John Cook's record for goals in a career in men's hockey (67) has stood since 1963, and John Messuri's record for points in a career (178) is 21 years old.
On the women's side, three women's hockey players scored more than 200 points: Kathy Issel (218), Mollie Marcoux (216) and Kelly O'Dell (207), while Cook's record would rank 13th for the women. O'Dell (121) and Marcoux (120) nearly doubled the men's record.
In lacrosse, Bill Tierney said nobody would ever break Tortolani's record when it was at 120. Since then, Hubbard (163), Massey (146) and Sean Hartofilis (126) have all done so.
Also beating Tortolani? The top 10 women listed in the record book, starting at No. 1 with Crista Samaras at 189.
Cassie Nichols is third all-time in Princeton women's water polo history with 255 goals - which is one more than the men's record of 254, held by John Stover. For the women, No. 1 is Adele McCarthy-Beauvais with 325, while No. 2 is Elyse Colgan with 272.
In other words, if you take the biggest career scoring record for the sports that are easily compared, you have men with the first spot in basketball (followed by four women) and then the women with the top spot in soccer, baseball/softball, lacrosse, hockey and water polo.
And, the women don't just have the top spot. They have the top few spots.
So why would that be? Why would women's records eclipse men's? For the most part, both teams are playing similar numbers of games, so that's not it.
At the risk of offending someone, is it possible that there are fewer great women's athletes, so the ones who do dominate are able to do so at a greater extent than the men?
Is it that Princeton has built in a short time (comparably, at least compared to the men) a great tradition of women's athletics, complete with some sure fire Hall of Fame coaches? That part is a huge factor as well.
Or is it another reason? TB isn't sure, but he does find it interesting.
Massey didn't score in the first quarter, and then-assistant coach David Metzbower was getting a bit annoyed by how much it seemed everyone was pressing to get Massey his goal. TB, standing on the sideline, remembers how Metz told Massey to "get this over with." Within a few seconds, Massey had his goal.
TB has always been hugely interested in Princeton records and, by extension, the likelihood that current athletes will break them.
As an aside, when TB was in the newspaper business, he was taught that there's no such thing as a "new school record," since saying "so and so set a new school record" and "so and so set a school record" say the same thing. That's one of those style points that TB never bought into it.
Despite having seen hundreds of Princeton games, TB hasn't really seen too many Princeton career records set in person.
He was there when Esmeralda Negron set the school record for goals in a career in soccer. He was there when Hubbard broke Justin Tortolani's record for goals in a career in men's lacrosse, and for that matter when Tortolani broke Wick Sollers' record.
TB does not remember being there when Keith Elias broke the record for career rushing yards. He knows he was not there when Bill Bradley broke the previous record for points in a career.
As a matter of fact, how many games did it take Bradley to do so? The record when Bradley arrived at Princeton was 1,451, set by Pete Campbell before he graduated in 1962. Bradley, who was a freshman when Campbell was a senior, scored 682 points as a sophomore and 936 as a junior; he passed Campbell in against Columbia in his 49th career game.
Bradley destroyed the Princeton basketball record book, even without the three-point shot and a fourth year of varsity to play. It's unlikely anyone will ever come close to what he's accomplished here, and in fact, nobody has: Bradley has the 11 highest single-game scoring totals in Princeton history.
When TB wrote about Negron the other day, he mentioned how Negron had scored more goals (47) than any other male or female soccer player in school history. That got him thinking about where men and women stood when you compared similar records in similar sports.
If you do so, you find out some interesting things.
Start with basketball. Bradley is so far out in front of everyone else who has ever played with 2,503 points, but the four other players who ever scored at least 1,600 points were all women: Sandi Bittler (1,683), Meagan Cowher (1,671), C.B. Tomasiewicz (1,622) and Becky Brown (1,608). Niveen Rasheed, not to jinx her, would reach 1,788 points by repeating her freshman total of 447 points the next three years.
How about home runs? The Princeton baseball record is 26, set by Matt Evans; four softball players have more than 30 (Jamie Lettire with 38, Kelsey Quist and Melissa Finley with 37, Kat Welsh with 30).
John Cook's record for goals in a career in men's hockey (67) has stood since 1963, and John Messuri's record for points in a career (178) is 21 years old.
On the women's side, three women's hockey players scored more than 200 points: Kathy Issel (218), Mollie Marcoux (216) and Kelly O'Dell (207), while Cook's record would rank 13th for the women. O'Dell (121) and Marcoux (120) nearly doubled the men's record.
In lacrosse, Bill Tierney said nobody would ever break Tortolani's record when it was at 120. Since then, Hubbard (163), Massey (146) and Sean Hartofilis (126) have all done so.
Also beating Tortolani? The top 10 women listed in the record book, starting at No. 1 with Crista Samaras at 189.
Cassie Nichols is third all-time in Princeton women's water polo history with 255 goals - which is one more than the men's record of 254, held by John Stover. For the women, No. 1 is Adele McCarthy-Beauvais with 325, while No. 2 is Elyse Colgan with 272.
In other words, if you take the biggest career scoring record for the sports that are easily compared, you have men with the first spot in basketball (followed by four women) and then the women with the top spot in soccer, baseball/softball, lacrosse, hockey and water polo.
And, the women don't just have the top spot. They have the top few spots.
So why would that be? Why would women's records eclipse men's? For the most part, both teams are playing similar numbers of games, so that's not it.
At the risk of offending someone, is it possible that there are fewer great women's athletes, so the ones who do dominate are able to do so at a greater extent than the men?
Is it that Princeton has built in a short time (comparably, at least compared to the men) a great tradition of women's athletics, complete with some sure fire Hall of Fame coaches? That part is a huge factor as well.
Or is it another reason? TB isn't sure, but he does find it interesting.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Swoosh
Back when TigerBlog was a student at Penn, the bookstore sold football jerseys with the various class years on them, making them a big sell. Among the various school stuff that TB had back then was a shirt with a Penn "P" that had Snoopy asleep on top of it, as if the "P" was the doghouse of the most famous dog of all-time as he was in his most-famous perch.
When TigerBlog was still in the newspaper business, Joan Kowalik was the women's basketball coach here at Princeton. One day, Kowalik gave TB a black sweatshirt with the words "Princeton Basketball" across the front in orange.
Sometime later, TB wrote a story on the Princeton crew. The women's coach at the time was Dan Roock, who sent TB a Princeton rowing hat.
Those two were TB's first pieces of apparel that had the word "Princeton" on it.
Today, TB could wear something that says "Princeton" on it for a month and never wear the same thing twice. It's one of the great benefits of working here.
As an aside, TB has nothing left that says "Penn" on it.
And, thanks to Princeton's deal with Nike, it's better than ever.
Yesterday was a big day around here, as the good people in the equipment room dropped off some new Nike stuff for the athletic staff to wear heading into the new academic year.
The effect off the Nike deal on all of Princeton Athletics has been nothing short of extraordinary. What started out as a bit of a perk has turned into the single best element of what TB calls "overt pride," something that stretches across every coach, athlete and staff member of the department.
Before the Nike deal, each team would have its own arrangement, and none of the gear that the teams wore matched any other team, or if it did, it was coincidence.
Now, when you walk around campus, you will see easily identifiable Princeton athletes, all in their matching Nike gear. There may be the distinguishing "Princeton Soccer" or "Princeton Squash" wording, but it's on identical shirts/jackets/shorts/hats/etc., all in the same colors, with the same font and with, of course, the swoosh.
As an aside, a Google search for "swoosh" brings back more than six million entries. According to the website that knows all: "The Nike Swoosh logo represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike."
Back in the pre-Nike days, back when TB was the contact for football and men's basketball in addition to men's lacrosse, normal game-day attire in the fall and winter was shirt and tie or, for the women, something that might be considered business casual (unless TB doesn't really know what business casual is, in which case what he's actually trying to say is "somewhat dressed up without going crazy").
Since Nike came on board, normal game-day attire for those sports is the Nike stuff, and this has had two effects on the athletic department staff.
First, everyone looks the same, which makes it clear to fans in attendance that the people in these shirts are affiliated with the University and department and are working at the event. Second, and more importantly, it gives off a sense of pride in being part of Princeton Athletics.
It's a simple idea, but it wasn't as "overt" as it was when everyone was dressed differently.
As for his favorites, TB is a big fan of the orange dri-fit shirt, the long-sleeve polo, the long-sleeve Ts and the two windbreakers from last year. Actually, he's a big fan of all of it.
Looking out his door, TB has been tracking the people who walk by on the balcony and putting them into groups of "those wearing Nike stuff" and "those dressed as civilians."
The Nike stuff people are up by about 2:1.
Why wouldn't they be?
We've spent a lot of time talking about overt pride here, and there are still a lot of ways to dress up the facilities. The people in them?
Thanks to Nike, they're dressed just fine.
When TigerBlog was still in the newspaper business, Joan Kowalik was the women's basketball coach here at Princeton. One day, Kowalik gave TB a black sweatshirt with the words "Princeton Basketball" across the front in orange.
Sometime later, TB wrote a story on the Princeton crew. The women's coach at the time was Dan Roock, who sent TB a Princeton rowing hat.
Those two were TB's first pieces of apparel that had the word "Princeton" on it.
Today, TB could wear something that says "Princeton" on it for a month and never wear the same thing twice. It's one of the great benefits of working here.
As an aside, TB has nothing left that says "Penn" on it.
And, thanks to Princeton's deal with Nike, it's better than ever.
Yesterday was a big day around here, as the good people in the equipment room dropped off some new Nike stuff for the athletic staff to wear heading into the new academic year.
The effect off the Nike deal on all of Princeton Athletics has been nothing short of extraordinary. What started out as a bit of a perk has turned into the single best element of what TB calls "overt pride," something that stretches across every coach, athlete and staff member of the department.
Before the Nike deal, each team would have its own arrangement, and none of the gear that the teams wore matched any other team, or if it did, it was coincidence.
Now, when you walk around campus, you will see easily identifiable Princeton athletes, all in their matching Nike gear. There may be the distinguishing "Princeton Soccer" or "Princeton Squash" wording, but it's on identical shirts/jackets/shorts/hats/etc., all in the same colors, with the same font and with, of course, the swoosh.
As an aside, a Google search for "swoosh" brings back more than six million entries. According to the website that knows all: "The Nike Swoosh logo represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike."
Back in the pre-Nike days, back when TB was the contact for football and men's basketball in addition to men's lacrosse, normal game-day attire in the fall and winter was shirt and tie or, for the women, something that might be considered business casual (unless TB doesn't really know what business casual is, in which case what he's actually trying to say is "somewhat dressed up without going crazy").
Since Nike came on board, normal game-day attire for those sports is the Nike stuff, and this has had two effects on the athletic department staff.
First, everyone looks the same, which makes it clear to fans in attendance that the people in these shirts are affiliated with the University and department and are working at the event. Second, and more importantly, it gives off a sense of pride in being part of Princeton Athletics.
It's a simple idea, but it wasn't as "overt" as it was when everyone was dressed differently.
As for his favorites, TB is a big fan of the orange dri-fit shirt, the long-sleeve polo, the long-sleeve Ts and the two windbreakers from last year. Actually, he's a big fan of all of it.
Looking out his door, TB has been tracking the people who walk by on the balcony and putting them into groups of "those wearing Nike stuff" and "those dressed as civilians."
The Nike stuff people are up by about 2:1.
Why wouldn't they be?
We've spent a lot of time talking about overt pride here, and there are still a lot of ways to dress up the facilities. The people in them?
Thanks to Nike, they're dressed just fine.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The House That Es Built
TigerBlog knows that he parks in Lot 21, and he knows the lots above the football stadium are 4 and 25. Lot 15 used to be where the new chemistry building is going.
Other than that, TB isn't 100% sure which lot is which. He's pretty sure, though, that the lot that used to be near Class of 1952 Stadium before construction of the new neuroscience building was Lot 20, and that it's possible that the lots across the circle are 16 and 23.
While he's not certain what lot he parked in the other day before the women's soccer and field hockey games that began the 2010-11 home season of Princeton Athletics, he is sure that it's only a short walk from there to Roberts Stadium or Class of 1952, so in that vein, he's not sure what all the fuss is about for having to take a few extra steps.
TB is sure that as he walked to the fields, the first car to come by him was driven by men's basketball coach Sydney Johnson, who was bringing his family to the games. When TB got to Roberts Stadium, he also saw head football coach Bob Surace and his family.
Having the head football and men's basketball coaches attend other sports is one of the great things about Princeton Athletics. To be sure, this is probably not unique to Princeton, but there are probably more Division I schools than not where the head football and men's basketball coaches would consider themselves to be way above something like that.
Someone else TB saw at Roberts Stadium Sunday was Esmeralda Negron, who according to goprincetontigers.com was the No. 2 female athlete at Princeton in the last decade. As a senior, Negron led Princeton to the 2004 NCAA Final Four in women's soccer, something no other Ivy League school has accomplished before or since.
These days, Negron is an assistant coach at Seton Hall, and her team fell to Princeton 3-1 Sunday.
TigerBlog tried to think of other Princeton alums who had gone on to coach against the Tigers and their former head coach, and he came up with two quickly: Armond Hill in basketball when he was the head coach at Columbia in 1995-96 and Pete Carril was still the Princeton head coach and Julie Shaner when she was an assistant coach at Penn in women's lacrosse and annually coached against Chris Sailer. There are probably lots of other examples, but TB couldn't think of them off the top of his head.
Negron scored 47 goals for Princeton, more than any other male or female ever to play for the school. Her 112 points are 18 more than any other male or female player ever has had at Princeton; her 52 points as a senior are 21 more than the next-highest total by a woman and eight more than the men's record.
She also had a knack for scoring big goals, including four in overtime. Her two biggest were probably the one that proved to be the game-winner in the NCAA quarterfinal win over Washington at Lourie-Love Field and one in OT against Harvard several weeks earlier, when Princeton scored to tie the game late in regulation and then won it in overtime, ending a huge jinx at home against the Crimson and propelling the Tigers to their big NCAA run.
She finished her career as a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and a first-team All-America, a rarity for an Ivy League women's soccer player.
Negron's new team plays its home soccer games on the outfield of the baseball field; Princeton's Roberts Stadium, on the other hand, continues to be a jewel of a soccer facility and a huge draw for the Tiger men and women.
With no ticket sales, it's difficult to say exactly how many people were in attendance, but it was a pretty good crowd for the Princeton-Seton Hall game. There aren't too many venues that can rival Roberts Stadium for college soccer or simply to watch a game, with all of the seats so close to the field, with the facility still in pristine shape and with the near perfect sight lines, especially behind the goals. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect.
One thought TB had when watching Negron leave Myslik Field was that in many ways, Roberts Stadium is somewhat The House That Es Built, or at least The House That Es Did A Lot To Help Get Built.
Lourie-Love was a "charming" place, with charming in this case meaning "historic and with a lot of memories but also with decaying wooden bleachers and no amenities." Princeton's runs to the 1993 men's Final Four and 2004 women's Final Four took place on that field, which will always make it a special place in school athletic history.
It was the women's run especially that helped convince the University administration, led by President Shirley Tilghman, that a new facility was warranted, and it was a huge reason why the momentum for a new facility was finally able to take hold.
On a team filled with stars, Negron was the most important player. Now, wearing the visiting blue of Seton Hall, she was walking off a field at a stadium in which she never got to play on the short end of the score.
"Losing stinks," she said.
Negron is one of TB's favorite Princeton athletes of all time, and her team senior year is one of his favorite teams (TB was the women's soccer contact back then). The senior class from that team has produced several lawyers, scientists, businesswomen - and one Division I assistant coach.
Their legacy is of one of the most successful teams Princeton has ever had, and there are pictures of them on the plaza and banners that hang recalling their biggest wins and accomplishments.
Included in that list has to be Roberts Stadium itself, which was in its all its glory on a perfect Sunday afternoon, when it welcomed home one of its greatest alums. She left unhappy at the score - but Esmeralda Negron can at least take some solace in seeing what she and her teammates helped achieve.
Other than that, TB isn't 100% sure which lot is which. He's pretty sure, though, that the lot that used to be near Class of 1952 Stadium before construction of the new neuroscience building was Lot 20, and that it's possible that the lots across the circle are 16 and 23.
While he's not certain what lot he parked in the other day before the women's soccer and field hockey games that began the 2010-11 home season of Princeton Athletics, he is sure that it's only a short walk from there to Roberts Stadium or Class of 1952, so in that vein, he's not sure what all the fuss is about for having to take a few extra steps.
TB is sure that as he walked to the fields, the first car to come by him was driven by men's basketball coach Sydney Johnson, who was bringing his family to the games. When TB got to Roberts Stadium, he also saw head football coach Bob Surace and his family.
Having the head football and men's basketball coaches attend other sports is one of the great things about Princeton Athletics. To be sure, this is probably not unique to Princeton, but there are probably more Division I schools than not where the head football and men's basketball coaches would consider themselves to be way above something like that.
Someone else TB saw at Roberts Stadium Sunday was Esmeralda Negron, who according to goprincetontigers.com was the No. 2 female athlete at Princeton in the last decade. As a senior, Negron led Princeton to the 2004 NCAA Final Four in women's soccer, something no other Ivy League school has accomplished before or since.
These days, Negron is an assistant coach at Seton Hall, and her team fell to Princeton 3-1 Sunday.
TigerBlog tried to think of other Princeton alums who had gone on to coach against the Tigers and their former head coach, and he came up with two quickly: Armond Hill in basketball when he was the head coach at Columbia in 1995-96 and Pete Carril was still the Princeton head coach and Julie Shaner when she was an assistant coach at Penn in women's lacrosse and annually coached against Chris Sailer. There are probably lots of other examples, but TB couldn't think of them off the top of his head.
Negron scored 47 goals for Princeton, more than any other male or female ever to play for the school. Her 112 points are 18 more than any other male or female player ever has had at Princeton; her 52 points as a senior are 21 more than the next-highest total by a woman and eight more than the men's record.
She also had a knack for scoring big goals, including four in overtime. Her two biggest were probably the one that proved to be the game-winner in the NCAA quarterfinal win over Washington at Lourie-Love Field and one in OT against Harvard several weeks earlier, when Princeton scored to tie the game late in regulation and then won it in overtime, ending a huge jinx at home against the Crimson and propelling the Tigers to their big NCAA run.
She finished her career as a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and a first-team All-America, a rarity for an Ivy League women's soccer player.
Negron's new team plays its home soccer games on the outfield of the baseball field; Princeton's Roberts Stadium, on the other hand, continues to be a jewel of a soccer facility and a huge draw for the Tiger men and women.
With no ticket sales, it's difficult to say exactly how many people were in attendance, but it was a pretty good crowd for the Princeton-Seton Hall game. There aren't too many venues that can rival Roberts Stadium for college soccer or simply to watch a game, with all of the seats so close to the field, with the facility still in pristine shape and with the near perfect sight lines, especially behind the goals. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect.
One thought TB had when watching Negron leave Myslik Field was that in many ways, Roberts Stadium is somewhat The House That Es Built, or at least The House That Es Did A Lot To Help Get Built.
Lourie-Love was a "charming" place, with charming in this case meaning "historic and with a lot of memories but also with decaying wooden bleachers and no amenities." Princeton's runs to the 1993 men's Final Four and 2004 women's Final Four took place on that field, which will always make it a special place in school athletic history.
It was the women's run especially that helped convince the University administration, led by President Shirley Tilghman, that a new facility was warranted, and it was a huge reason why the momentum for a new facility was finally able to take hold.
On a team filled with stars, Negron was the most important player. Now, wearing the visiting blue of Seton Hall, she was walking off a field at a stadium in which she never got to play on the short end of the score.
"Losing stinks," she said.
Negron is one of TB's favorite Princeton athletes of all time, and her team senior year is one of his favorite teams (TB was the women's soccer contact back then). The senior class from that team has produced several lawyers, scientists, businesswomen - and one Division I assistant coach.
Their legacy is of one of the most successful teams Princeton has ever had, and there are pictures of them on the plaza and banners that hang recalling their biggest wins and accomplishments.
Included in that list has to be Roberts Stadium itself, which was in its all its glory on a perfect Sunday afternoon, when it welcomed home one of its greatest alums. She left unhappy at the score - but Esmeralda Negron can at least take some solace in seeing what she and her teammates helped achieve.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Earl-y Games
Hurricane Earl, as TigerBlog sits down to write, is centered about 150 miles to the southeast. Looking out his window, TB can see from the trees that there isn't the slightest bit of wind right now in Princeton.
After a week or so of "bracing" for Earl, it appears that the storm is going to miss New Jersey. The forecast for heavy rain has been replaced by a 30% chance of rain this morning or early afternoon, with clear skies in Central Jersey tonight at 7.
As for the weekend, the forecast couldn't be better, with temperatures in the 70s Saturday and Sunday and the low 80s Monday with no chance of precipitation any of those days.
All of this is great news for those who make their livings at the Jersey Shore, who were probably figuring on a lost Labor Day weekend due to Earl. Though the stakes weren't quite as high for Princeton athletics, it is nice to know that the opening weekend of events for 2010-11 will be played in great weather.
Today is Opening Day for Princeton, with the women's soccer team at Rutgers at 7 and the women's volleyball team at Lafayette for the Leopard's tournament today and tomorrow. The men's soccer team plays tomorrow at 7 at FDU, and the first home events are Sunday, when the field hockey team hosts Bucknell and the women's soccer team hosts Seton Hall, both at 1 (and both free, for that matter).
As an aside, the Seton Hall women's soccer coaching staff includes Esmeralda Negron, the all-time leading scorer in Princeton soccer history (men's and women's).
As TB mentioned the other day, there are 60 athletic events for Princeton teams in the month of September alone and more than 600 for the coming year.
The start of the new year got TB to thinking about the summer that is ending.
TB is often asked if the people in the athletic department work in the summer, the answer to which is clearly yes. The pace may be slower because there are no games, but there is definitely work to be done.
The compliance staff, for instance, goes through the time-consuming NCAA clearinghouse procedure during the summer. There are all kinds of meetings, from strategic planning to ticketing/marketing to television and corporate sponsorship and other fundraising.
Here in the OAC, the pace certainly wasn't what it'll be now that games are starting, but the big fear at the beginning of the summer is always that the information on the website is going to get stale.
Instead, from June 1st until yesterday, there were 172 stories posted to goprincetontigers.com, an average of more than 2.5 stories per work day.
TB thought it'd be interesting to go back to some of those stories and see exactly what there was to write about all that time. Consider July 28-30, which had these fairly random headlines:
2010 Football Tickets Now Available To Be Ordered Online
Rachel Dawson Joins Princeton Field Hockey Staff
Men's Track Earns Five Places on All-Academic Team
Michibata to Receive Rogers Cup Hall of Fame Invite
Five Tigers Named to Track & Field All-Academic Team
One on One with Judson Wallace '05
Start Times For All 2010 Football Games Now Available Online
Kendrick Saunders Named Director of Men's Basketball Operations
Tiger Rowers Win Seven Medals At U23 World Championships
Women's Lacrosse Assistant Altig Takes Job at Penn State
As for TigerBlog, as was the case in the summer of 2009, every business day was accounted for with something.
This summer alone, TB subjects included:
* the World Cup (a lot)
* Lindsey Lohan
* LeBron James
* Abbott and Costello
* South Pacific
* youth lacrosse
* the guy who played the manager in Major League
* that marathon tennis match from Wimbledon
* the election of Tony Mack as mayor of Trenton
* Cash Cab
* the TV show "The White Shadow"
* Lou Pinella
* The Sure Thing
Of course, all of these topics (and many others) related back to Princeton athletics.
The point is that yes, Princeton athletics does work in the summer. Apparently, a lot of work.
But the main reason that people work in college athletics is to work with the athletes and, of course, for the games.
And they start today.
Hurricane Earl has chosen not to attend the opening weekend. You, on the other hand, are cordially invited.
After a week or so of "bracing" for Earl, it appears that the storm is going to miss New Jersey. The forecast for heavy rain has been replaced by a 30% chance of rain this morning or early afternoon, with clear skies in Central Jersey tonight at 7.
As for the weekend, the forecast couldn't be better, with temperatures in the 70s Saturday and Sunday and the low 80s Monday with no chance of precipitation any of those days.
All of this is great news for those who make their livings at the Jersey Shore, who were probably figuring on a lost Labor Day weekend due to Earl. Though the stakes weren't quite as high for Princeton athletics, it is nice to know that the opening weekend of events for 2010-11 will be played in great weather.
Today is Opening Day for Princeton, with the women's soccer team at Rutgers at 7 and the women's volleyball team at Lafayette for the Leopard's tournament today and tomorrow. The men's soccer team plays tomorrow at 7 at FDU, and the first home events are Sunday, when the field hockey team hosts Bucknell and the women's soccer team hosts Seton Hall, both at 1 (and both free, for that matter).
As an aside, the Seton Hall women's soccer coaching staff includes Esmeralda Negron, the all-time leading scorer in Princeton soccer history (men's and women's).
As TB mentioned the other day, there are 60 athletic events for Princeton teams in the month of September alone and more than 600 for the coming year.
The start of the new year got TB to thinking about the summer that is ending.
TB is often asked if the people in the athletic department work in the summer, the answer to which is clearly yes. The pace may be slower because there are no games, but there is definitely work to be done.
The compliance staff, for instance, goes through the time-consuming NCAA clearinghouse procedure during the summer. There are all kinds of meetings, from strategic planning to ticketing/marketing to television and corporate sponsorship and other fundraising.
Here in the OAC, the pace certainly wasn't what it'll be now that games are starting, but the big fear at the beginning of the summer is always that the information on the website is going to get stale.
Instead, from June 1st until yesterday, there were 172 stories posted to goprincetontigers.com, an average of more than 2.5 stories per work day.
TB thought it'd be interesting to go back to some of those stories and see exactly what there was to write about all that time. Consider July 28-30, which had these fairly random headlines:
2010 Football Tickets Now Available To Be Ordered Online
Rachel Dawson Joins Princeton Field Hockey Staff
Men's Track Earns Five Places on All-Academic Team
Michibata to Receive Rogers Cup Hall of Fame Invite
Five Tigers Named to Track & Field All-Academic Team
One on One with Judson Wallace '05
Start Times For All 2010 Football Games Now Available Online
Kendrick Saunders Named Director of Men's Basketball Operations
Tiger Rowers Win Seven Medals At U23 World Championships
Women's Lacrosse Assistant Altig Takes Job at Penn State
As for TigerBlog, as was the case in the summer of 2009, every business day was accounted for with something.
This summer alone, TB subjects included:
* the World Cup (a lot)
* Lindsey Lohan
* LeBron James
* Abbott and Costello
* South Pacific
* youth lacrosse
* the guy who played the manager in Major League
* that marathon tennis match from Wimbledon
* the election of Tony Mack as mayor of Trenton
* Cash Cab
* the TV show "The White Shadow"
* Lou Pinella
* The Sure Thing
Of course, all of these topics (and many others) related back to Princeton athletics.
The point is that yes, Princeton athletics does work in the summer. Apparently, a lot of work.
But the main reason that people work in college athletics is to work with the athletes and, of course, for the games.
And they start today.
Hurricane Earl has chosen not to attend the opening weekend. You, on the other hand, are cordially invited.
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