TigerBlog put on his best suit - actually, it's his only suit - yesterday and made the 20-minute drive to the Holiday Inn in Somerset.
The occasion was the College Athletic Administrators of New Jersey annual meeting/awards luncheon. TigerBlog is a vice president in the organization.
His role yesterday was to be something of a moderator for the discussion of the educational value of athletics of college campuses.
About 15 minutes before the event, though, TB noticed that the button on his suit pants was no longer there. It wasn't the button that held his pants on, since that was done by one of those metal clasps. No, the button in question was the kind that extends a little past the clasp.
Without the button, a piece of cloth on the end of the waist was therefore not attached. TB was pretty sure it was being obscured by the belt, which covered the whole waistline anyway, and he was fairly confident that nobody could notice the missing button.
Besides, he figured to be standing behind a lectern for most of the time anyway.
And the speakers were so good that there was no reason to notice TB.
There were two, actually.
One was Phil Felton, a molecular biology professor (who used to be a mechanical engineering professor) who serves as an Academic Athletic Fellow for the men's and women's cross country and track and field programs. Phil is a Wales native who attended Leeds for his undergraduate and doctorate work.
TB has known Phil for a long time, and he's seen him with the track programs on dozens of occasions. In fact, Phil's been a huge help with the Ivy League Heptagonal cross country championships, which will be held at Princeton in two weeks.
The other speaker was someone TB had never met before. Her name is Connee Zotos, and her background includes an undergraduate degree from Rowan and a Ph.D. from Texas, not to mention head coaching jobs in field hockey, soccer and softball and a 14-year run as the Director of Athletics at Drew University.
She is currently a sports management professor at New York University.
Together, with very little moderation necessary from TB, Connee and Phil spoke to an audience of administrators from New Jersey's college athletic departments, in all three NCAA divisions plus junior colleges.
One of the messages was this, and it was a great one:
There will always be people on campuses who are anti-athletics, and while there is only so much that can be done to combat that, all that can be done should be done.
Dr. Zotos talked of the value of having specific data on hand that would refute misconceptions - and also the value of having athletes not play into a "dumb jock" stereotype.
What does this mean specifically?
Well, much of athletic stereotyping is the result of misinformation, assumptions that the non-athletic community makes about the athletic culture. It's not enough to simply say "no, that's not correct;" it's necessary to site definitive numbers that disprove the statement. Otherwise, it's simply left out there.
At the same time, there are ways that athletes play into the stereotype. Dr. Zotos told the story of 6-5 basketball players who had to cram themselves into those little desk/chairs in her classes, but she told them not to slouch and recline, because it would just reinforce what people think of athletes.
Phil spoke about the need to engage the faculty to correct similar misconceptions, not only because of the larger view of athletics on a campus but also because of the impact it has on the education of specific, individual students.
He also talked about the Faculty Fellows program here at Princeton, which has 100 faculty members and administrators, all of whom by definition are on board with the value of athletics, and the impact it has on students and other faculty members.
Both spoke about the value of athletics on the undergraduate experience and the lessons that are taught by intercollegiate competition. Both cited very specific examples, which made their comments even more significant. Both talked about the need for athletes, coaches and administrators to be as proactive as possible in spreading the word about the athletic successes, more so in the area of personal development than in simply wins and losses.
And what is the point of it all? To give the athletes themselves the best possible experience. And to allow the athletic department as a whole to do its best to enhance the school's overall image.
The two-hour program wrapped up with a question that basically asked about the irony of spending all that time talking about the value of college athletics and yet having to constantly defend that to those who aren't buying in.
Dr. Zotos had a clear comeback to that, saying essentially yes, that's how it is. Now deal with it.
After that, it was over to a different room, for lunch and the awards ceremony, including honoring the Division I/II, Division III and junior college male and female student-athletes of the year for New Jersey.
Each of the athletes had an opportunity to say a few words - including Princeton fencer John Stogin, who did so via a video he'd made and sent from Cambridge, where he
is doing graduate work.
As each spoke, it was clear that they had been touched by their athletic experiences and that they had benefited so much from being able to compete in college.
They were shining examples of what the discussion in the next room had been about, and why administrators do so much to try to provide those opportunities.
It was a pretty vivid live-action reminder of what had been said in a theoretical sense earlier.
And it was a perfect ending to a pretty nice event.
It's a diverse group, New Jersey's athletic programs. And yet they're all facing some of the same issues.
As the questioner said, it's ironic that such a positive part of the educational process needs to be justified at all.
It should be emulated, not questioned.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
State Champs
Ever hear of Laura Barito? No? Neither had TigerBlog, not until he became the head of the awards committee for an organization he knew little about prior to last year, when he went to his first CAANJ annual meeting/awards luncheon.
Back then, TB knew that CAANJ stood for the College Athletic Administrators of New Jersey - and that was about it.
Today, TB goes to his second CAANJ meeting, this time with the title of vice president of the organization.
And that's how the remarkable story of Laura Barito came across his radar.
TB will get back to Barito later. First, there's the whole matter of how CAANJ became a bigger deal to him.
Last year, Princeton won the CAANJ Cup for Division I/II. The Cup is given each year to the program in each of three categories (Division I/II, Division III, Juco) that has the highest point total in the state of New Jersey, with points awarded based on conference finish and national championship participation.
When the luncheon ended and Gary Walters had accepted the trophy, CAANJ president Alexis Schug - Senior Woman Administrator at New Jersey Institute of Technology - asked if there were any volunteers who would like to help out with the organization, and TB volunteered to work as essentially the coordinator of the CAANJ awards.
In addition to the three cups, CAANJ also honors a male and female athlete of the year in each category, with the winners chosen by a committee with equal emphasis on athletics, academic and service.
There is also the Garden State Award, a lifetime achievement award for service to New Jersey's college athletes.
The CAANJ organization is an interesting one, since it has an incredibly diverse group of schools and conference offices that are brought together simply by the common bond of being in the state of New Jersey.
There are 43 colleges between all of the levels, with wildly different budgets, numbers of sports, institutional philosophies, student-body makeups and on and on. There are also five different conference offices - the Ivy League, the Northeast Conference, the MAAC, the New Jersey Athletic Conference and the Garden State Athletic Conference. And yet they're all in New Jersey.
This year's Division I/II Cup winner is, again, Princeton, which ran up 245 points, easily outdistancing second-place Rider. Princeton, for those who don't remember, won 15 Ivy League championships last year, among other accomplishments, but hey, why get into that now.
The junior college winner was Gloucester County College, whose teams won NJCAA national championships in softball and men’s tennis, had second-place national finishes in baseball and women’s tennis and had a third-place finish in men's cross country.
The Division III Cup winner was Stevens Tech, which had a year in the Empire 8 Conference similar to the one that Princeton had in the Ivy League.
The individual winners included Princeton's John Stogin, a fencer who helped Princeton to a fourth-place national finish and who couldn't accept his award in person because he's doing graduate work at Cambridge University in England.
In addition to fencing, Stogin also worked for the National Security Council, developing algorithms in the field of digital signals processing, spectrogram analysis, and feature recognition. He also analyzed proton and antiproton beams that were collided at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab, and his work led to a discovery that was original unknown by the staff there.
An Eagle Scout, he also organized and led a shoe drive that collected more than 1,000 pairs of shoes, which were then sent to Angola.
In his spare time, he also built a wireless device that enabled calculators to share text, as well as a single-person car that could reach 16 miles per hour on a battery or could run on solar power.
His senior thesis was entitled: Energy Estimates in Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations. He was honored by Princeton with the Art Lane Award, given for outstanding contribution by a senior athlete to sport and society.
Among the other winners was Dr. Connee Zotos, the Garden State Award winner who had a 34-year career that included 14 years as Director of Athletics at Drew.
Oh, and Barito, the Division III Female Athlete of the Year from Stevens? What did she do?
Well, how about this: She was the NCAA Division III champion in the 50 freestyle in the winter - and then the NCAA Division III champion in the 400 hurdles in the spring.
She won an individual national championship as a swimmer and then as a track athlete. Is that amazing or what? And that doesn't even take into account that she had a nearly perfect GPA in mechanical engineering and that she is one of nine finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
TigerBlog has known for years that Princeton athletes go remarkable things, athletically and off the field, as undergraduates.
His first year with CAANJ has reminded him that Princetonians are not the only college athletes doing so in the state of New Jersey.
Back then, TB knew that CAANJ stood for the College Athletic Administrators of New Jersey - and that was about it.
Today, TB goes to his second CAANJ meeting, this time with the title of vice president of the organization.
And that's how the remarkable story of Laura Barito came across his radar.
TB will get back to Barito later. First, there's the whole matter of how CAANJ became a bigger deal to him.
Last year, Princeton won the CAANJ Cup for Division I/II. The Cup is given each year to the program in each of three categories (Division I/II, Division III, Juco) that has the highest point total in the state of New Jersey, with points awarded based on conference finish and national championship participation.
When the luncheon ended and Gary Walters had accepted the trophy, CAANJ president Alexis Schug - Senior Woman Administrator at New Jersey Institute of Technology - asked if there were any volunteers who would like to help out with the organization, and TB volunteered to work as essentially the coordinator of the CAANJ awards.
In addition to the three cups, CAANJ also honors a male and female athlete of the year in each category, with the winners chosen by a committee with equal emphasis on athletics, academic and service.
There is also the Garden State Award, a lifetime achievement award for service to New Jersey's college athletes.
The CAANJ organization is an interesting one, since it has an incredibly diverse group of schools and conference offices that are brought together simply by the common bond of being in the state of New Jersey.
There are 43 colleges between all of the levels, with wildly different budgets, numbers of sports, institutional philosophies, student-body makeups and on and on. There are also five different conference offices - the Ivy League, the Northeast Conference, the MAAC, the New Jersey Athletic Conference and the Garden State Athletic Conference. And yet they're all in New Jersey.
This year's Division I/II Cup winner is, again, Princeton, which ran up 245 points, easily outdistancing second-place Rider. Princeton, for those who don't remember, won 15 Ivy League championships last year, among other accomplishments, but hey, why get into that now.
The junior college winner was Gloucester County College, whose teams won NJCAA national championships in softball and men’s tennis, had second-place national finishes in baseball and women’s tennis and had a third-place finish in men's cross country.
The Division III Cup winner was Stevens Tech, which had a year in the Empire 8 Conference similar to the one that Princeton had in the Ivy League.
The individual winners included Princeton's John Stogin, a fencer who helped Princeton to a fourth-place national finish and who couldn't accept his award in person because he's doing graduate work at Cambridge University in England.
In addition to fencing, Stogin also worked for the National Security Council, developing algorithms in the field of digital signals processing, spectrogram analysis, and feature recognition. He also analyzed proton and antiproton beams that were collided at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab, and his work led to a discovery that was original unknown by the staff there.
An Eagle Scout, he also organized and led a shoe drive that collected more than 1,000 pairs of shoes, which were then sent to Angola.
In his spare time, he also built a wireless device that enabled calculators to share text, as well as a single-person car that could reach 16 miles per hour on a battery or could run on solar power.
His senior thesis was entitled: Energy Estimates in Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations. He was honored by Princeton with the Art Lane Award, given for outstanding contribution by a senior athlete to sport and society.
Among the other winners was Dr. Connee Zotos, the Garden State Award winner who had a 34-year career that included 14 years as Director of Athletics at Drew.
Oh, and Barito, the Division III Female Athlete of the Year from Stevens? What did she do?
Well, how about this: She was the NCAA Division III champion in the 50 freestyle in the winter - and then the NCAA Division III champion in the 400 hurdles in the spring.
She won an individual national championship as a swimmer and then as a track athlete. Is that amazing or what? And that doesn't even take into account that she had a nearly perfect GPA in mechanical engineering and that she is one of nine finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
TigerBlog has known for years that Princeton athletes go remarkable things, athletically and off the field, as undergraduates.
His first year with CAANJ has reminded him that Princetonians are not the only college athletes doing so in the state of New Jersey.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Drive Time
TigerBlog was dropping TigerBlog Jr. off at a lacrosse practice this past summer, at a field that's 45 minutes or so away, when he saw something that made him extremely, extremely jealous.
As TB was pulling into the parking lot, he saw one of TBJ's teammates - and his older sister, who now had a driver's license and was therefore assigned the task of bringing her brother to the practice.
Imagine, TB thought, a world of self-reliant travel.
If you have kids, especially ones who are old enough to be involved in activities, then you understand the non-stop chauffeuring that goes into getting them from one place to another to the next and then home.
When there are multiple kids involved, well, then you can multiply it out exponentially.
They're all perfectly normal, healthy activities. Music lessons. Sports. School clubs. Parties. Movies. On and on and on it goes.
Of course, that doesn't even take into account such arcane concepts as "dinner" and "homework."
And, as a parent, the natural reaction is to say, at least inwardly, that it's better than having them sit on the couch playing video games or hanging out with a bad crowd on the "corner," if such corners still exist.
Gone, though, are the days of "go outside and play," apparently.
For TigerBlog, Tuesday nights are the biggest runaround nights he has now.
There are all kinds of things going on each Tuesday for TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog, and TB is actually somewhat proud of how he has managed to balance them as much as possible to the point of no overlap and pickups and drop-offs that are well-coordinated.
To the modern suburban family, it's nearly perfect choreography.
It doesn't leave much downtime, obviously, and it's amazing how such a schedule can quickly become very normal, with almost no thought given to the madness of it.
Yesterday was Tuesday of course, which meant TigerBlog had very little time to sit and watch Princeton soccer on ESPNU. What he did see, though, was what it always is when TV comes to Roberts Stadium: a Princeton soccer infomercial.
First of all, the facility again looked great, especially with the TV cameras on the bench side of the field, so they shot into the stands.
Second, Princeton won the game against Lafayette 2-1, with all three goals in the first 24 minutes.
And, of course, there is the whole idea of having a program showcased on a national network like ESPNU.
Yes, this hasn't been a great year for Princeton soccer, as both teams are unlikely to be able to make enough of a late-season run to get into the Ivy League race and ultimately the NCAA tournament.
Still, there it was yesterday, a shot of the banners that hang in one of the pavilions at the stadium, marking off Ivy League championships and NCAA tournament appearances for both teams.
And there were the ESPNU cameras, making a special point to stop at two particular banners, one recalling the men's 1993 NCAA Final Four appearance, the other for the women's 2004 NCAA Final Four appearance.
It's been a strange year for the two soccer teams.
The women through 11 games have outshot their opponents 170-103, for an average of 6.1 shots per game. In 2008, when the women went 12-3-2 and won the Ivy League, they outshot their opponents 186-159 for the year, or an average of 1.6 shots per game.
Clearly, the women are playing well enough for long stretches of games to have a better record; they've simply run into some tough luck.
The men are having a similar kind of year, this on the heels of back-to-back NCAA appearances and last year's perfect 7-0-0 Ivy record.
Like the women, the men have a huge edge in shots over their opponents - 161-129 through 11 games. Like the women, the men are below .500.
If anything, the 2011 season shows how fine the line can be in a sport like soccer, where one key scoring chance here or goal allowed there can mean the difference of a whole season.
Both teams have enough games left to finish strongly in 2011, and both are playing a bunch of young players.
And, of course, there is the stadium itself, which makes every game on campus a great event. Or every game on television look great.
At least for the few minutes here or there that TigerBlog got to see it.
As TB was pulling into the parking lot, he saw one of TBJ's teammates - and his older sister, who now had a driver's license and was therefore assigned the task of bringing her brother to the practice.
Imagine, TB thought, a world of self-reliant travel.
If you have kids, especially ones who are old enough to be involved in activities, then you understand the non-stop chauffeuring that goes into getting them from one place to another to the next and then home.
When there are multiple kids involved, well, then you can multiply it out exponentially.
They're all perfectly normal, healthy activities. Music lessons. Sports. School clubs. Parties. Movies. On and on and on it goes.
Of course, that doesn't even take into account such arcane concepts as "dinner" and "homework."
And, as a parent, the natural reaction is to say, at least inwardly, that it's better than having them sit on the couch playing video games or hanging out with a bad crowd on the "corner," if such corners still exist.
Gone, though, are the days of "go outside and play," apparently.
For TigerBlog, Tuesday nights are the biggest runaround nights he has now.
There are all kinds of things going on each Tuesday for TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog, and TB is actually somewhat proud of how he has managed to balance them as much as possible to the point of no overlap and pickups and drop-offs that are well-coordinated.
To the modern suburban family, it's nearly perfect choreography.
It doesn't leave much downtime, obviously, and it's amazing how such a schedule can quickly become very normal, with almost no thought given to the madness of it.
Yesterday was Tuesday of course, which meant TigerBlog had very little time to sit and watch Princeton soccer on ESPNU. What he did see, though, was what it always is when TV comes to Roberts Stadium: a Princeton soccer infomercial.
First of all, the facility again looked great, especially with the TV cameras on the bench side of the field, so they shot into the stands.
Second, Princeton won the game against Lafayette 2-1, with all three goals in the first 24 minutes.
And, of course, there is the whole idea of having a program showcased on a national network like ESPNU.
Yes, this hasn't been a great year for Princeton soccer, as both teams are unlikely to be able to make enough of a late-season run to get into the Ivy League race and ultimately the NCAA tournament.
Still, there it was yesterday, a shot of the banners that hang in one of the pavilions at the stadium, marking off Ivy League championships and NCAA tournament appearances for both teams.
And there were the ESPNU cameras, making a special point to stop at two particular banners, one recalling the men's 1993 NCAA Final Four appearance, the other for the women's 2004 NCAA Final Four appearance.
It's been a strange year for the two soccer teams.
The women through 11 games have outshot their opponents 170-103, for an average of 6.1 shots per game. In 2008, when the women went 12-3-2 and won the Ivy League, they outshot their opponents 186-159 for the year, or an average of 1.6 shots per game.
Clearly, the women are playing well enough for long stretches of games to have a better record; they've simply run into some tough luck.
The men are having a similar kind of year, this on the heels of back-to-back NCAA appearances and last year's perfect 7-0-0 Ivy record.
Like the women, the men have a huge edge in shots over their opponents - 161-129 through 11 games. Like the women, the men are below .500.
If anything, the 2011 season shows how fine the line can be in a sport like soccer, where one key scoring chance here or goal allowed there can mean the difference of a whole season.
Both teams have enough games left to finish strongly in 2011, and both are playing a bunch of young players.
And, of course, there is the stadium itself, which makes every game on campus a great event. Or every game on television look great.
At least for the few minutes here or there that TigerBlog got to see it.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Scapegoats And Marathon Men
TigerBlog finally got a chance to watch the ESPN documentary "Catching Hell," which centers mostly on the Steve Bartman incident in Chicago while also spending considerable time talking about (and with) Bill Buckner, a great player for nearly two decades who is remembered mostly for letting a ball get between his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
Bartman - and TigerBlog is pretty sure that everyone reading knows who he is - was the unfortunate Cubs fan who, also in a Game 6 (this one in 2003, in the National League Championship Series, against the Florida Marlins), tried to catch a foul ball at the same time that Moises Alou was leaping up to grab it as well.
At the time, it was 3-0 Cubs, and they were five outs away from the World Series, up three games to two and with Mark Prior in the later stages of a dominating performance.
After that now-infamous moment, the Cubs surrendered eight runs before getting out of the inning. They lost Game 6 8-3 and then lost Game 7 (despite a 5-3 lead) and still have not won a World Series since 1908.
The Wrigley Field crowd turned on Bartman quickly, throwing things like beer and death threats at him in a quite casual fashion. Eventually, he had to be led out of the stadium, and his life has never been the same since.
He has become a national joke, a symbol of futility, for one baseball franchise - and for any endeavor anywhere. His ability to walk down the streets in Chicago without fearing for his life vanished forever that night in 2003.
Of course, on a scale of one to 100, his impact on the outcome of the 2003 NLCS was a zero.
The Cubs were up three games to one at one point before losing Game 4 in Florida, and there was of course the little matter of coughing up the eight runs after the fact in Game 6, not to mention blowing Game 7.
And yet it's Bartman who takes all the blame. And, by the way, there was an army of fans around Bartman who went after the ball at the same time.
Buckner's story is fairly similar.
Think about it. If Buckner fielded the ball and beat Wilson to the bag, the inning ends and the game continues into the 11th inning (Buckner's error came in the 10th). What guarantee does Boston have of winning? None. It's not like without Buckner's error, Boston wins the series.
The documentary was very, very good, but it left unanswered one question: Why did these two become such lasting scapegoats?
Maybe it's because of their enduring images, Buckner as he lets the ball roll between his legs, Bartman as he sits stone-faced, green turtleneck, Cubs' hat, earphones.
They looked like such easy targets, and so that's who everyone attacked.
Alex Gonzalez of the Cubs booted a sure double-play ball that would have gotten the Cubs out of the inning up 3-1 and likely into the World Series. It's one of the biggest choke plays in baseball history, way worse than Buckner's, and yet no one ever mentions it.
Bartman to this day remains largely invisible, though Wayne Drehs of Sports Illustrated apparently was able to find him relatively easily. The documentary doesn't quite address how much Bartman shows his face in Chicago these days, but it's clearly not a lot.
Steve Dolan, Princeton's men's cross country coach and assistant track and field coach, and Chris Brock, Princeton's Associate Athletic Director who oversees, well, money, both ran down the streets of Chicago over the weekend in broad daylight, without any of the Bartman-esque worries.
Instead, they were there for the Chicago Marathon, chosen because it is the flattest of the marathons.
Both did extraordinarily well, as Dolan finished in 3:01 and Brock in 3:37.
Brock said something along the lines of how it was fun before, fun for the first 20 miles, hell for the lax six miles and fun afterwards. Dolan said he felt great, great, great and then horrible for the last few miles.
TigerBlog cannot imagine running a marathon. The training that goes into it has to be incredible, and to be able to sustain a pace for 26.2 miles is amazing.
To finish in 3:01? Or 3:37? That's even more absurd.
TB just saw Dolan as he walked down the balcony to the mailroom, and it was clear that he was a tad sore this morning.
He should be fine in a few days, he said. That means he'll be fine in two weeks, when the Ivy League Heptagonal championships come to Princeton's cross country course.
Heps cross country is one of TB's favorite annual Ivy League events, and this year it won't require the drive to New York City.
Princeton's men are favored to repeat their championship of last year, while the women are one of the favorites, along with Columbia and Yale, to win yet again as well.
It will be a great event, and it's right before the Princeton-Cornell football game, so there's no excuse to miss it.
TigerBlog is not a runner, but he appreciates what they go through to excel at it. Or in some cases just to finish in their best time ever.
And he certainly appreciates how much they have to push themselves to get across the line after a grueling cross country race.
Let alone a marathon.
Bartman - and TigerBlog is pretty sure that everyone reading knows who he is - was the unfortunate Cubs fan who, also in a Game 6 (this one in 2003, in the National League Championship Series, against the Florida Marlins), tried to catch a foul ball at the same time that Moises Alou was leaping up to grab it as well.
At the time, it was 3-0 Cubs, and they were five outs away from the World Series, up three games to two and with Mark Prior in the later stages of a dominating performance.
After that now-infamous moment, the Cubs surrendered eight runs before getting out of the inning. They lost Game 6 8-3 and then lost Game 7 (despite a 5-3 lead) and still have not won a World Series since 1908.
The Wrigley Field crowd turned on Bartman quickly, throwing things like beer and death threats at him in a quite casual fashion. Eventually, he had to be led out of the stadium, and his life has never been the same since.
He has become a national joke, a symbol of futility, for one baseball franchise - and for any endeavor anywhere. His ability to walk down the streets in Chicago without fearing for his life vanished forever that night in 2003.
Of course, on a scale of one to 100, his impact on the outcome of the 2003 NLCS was a zero.
The Cubs were up three games to one at one point before losing Game 4 in Florida, and there was of course the little matter of coughing up the eight runs after the fact in Game 6, not to mention blowing Game 7.
And yet it's Bartman who takes all the blame. And, by the way, there was an army of fans around Bartman who went after the ball at the same time.
Buckner's story is fairly similar.
Think about it. If Buckner fielded the ball and beat Wilson to the bag, the inning ends and the game continues into the 11th inning (Buckner's error came in the 10th). What guarantee does Boston have of winning? None. It's not like without Buckner's error, Boston wins the series.
The documentary was very, very good, but it left unanswered one question: Why did these two become such lasting scapegoats?
Maybe it's because of their enduring images, Buckner as he lets the ball roll between his legs, Bartman as he sits stone-faced, green turtleneck, Cubs' hat, earphones.
They looked like such easy targets, and so that's who everyone attacked.
Alex Gonzalez of the Cubs booted a sure double-play ball that would have gotten the Cubs out of the inning up 3-1 and likely into the World Series. It's one of the biggest choke plays in baseball history, way worse than Buckner's, and yet no one ever mentions it.
Bartman to this day remains largely invisible, though Wayne Drehs of Sports Illustrated apparently was able to find him relatively easily. The documentary doesn't quite address how much Bartman shows his face in Chicago these days, but it's clearly not a lot.
Steve Dolan, Princeton's men's cross country coach and assistant track and field coach, and Chris Brock, Princeton's Associate Athletic Director who oversees, well, money, both ran down the streets of Chicago over the weekend in broad daylight, without any of the Bartman-esque worries.
Instead, they were there for the Chicago Marathon, chosen because it is the flattest of the marathons.
Both did extraordinarily well, as Dolan finished in 3:01 and Brock in 3:37.
Brock said something along the lines of how it was fun before, fun for the first 20 miles, hell for the lax six miles and fun afterwards. Dolan said he felt great, great, great and then horrible for the last few miles.
TigerBlog cannot imagine running a marathon. The training that goes into it has to be incredible, and to be able to sustain a pace for 26.2 miles is amazing.
To finish in 3:01? Or 3:37? That's even more absurd.
TB just saw Dolan as he walked down the balcony to the mailroom, and it was clear that he was a tad sore this morning.
He should be fine in a few days, he said. That means he'll be fine in two weeks, when the Ivy League Heptagonal championships come to Princeton's cross country course.
Heps cross country is one of TB's favorite annual Ivy League events, and this year it won't require the drive to New York City.
Princeton's men are favored to repeat their championship of last year, while the women are one of the favorites, along with Columbia and Yale, to win yet again as well.
It will be a great event, and it's right before the Princeton-Cornell football game, so there's no excuse to miss it.
TigerBlog is not a runner, but he appreciates what they go through to excel at it. Or in some cases just to finish in their best time ever.
And he certainly appreciates how much they have to push themselves to get across the line after a grueling cross country race.
Let alone a marathon.
Monday, October 10, 2011
In Fourteen Hundred And Ninety Two
In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Of course, he did it in Spanish-owned ships. After shopping around his idea of of sailing west to try to reach Japan and ultimately India and China and having it rejected by the monarchs of Italy, Portugal and England, Columbus finally got King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to agree to a fairly one-sided contract in Columbus' favor, because, according to Wikipedia at least, they never expected him to come back.
As TigerBlog remembers learning about it, Columbus' first journey across the ocean came out of a plan to avoid a land route to India and China and to offer an alternate voyage from sailing around Africa.
The other part of the story, as TB remembers from when he was a kid, is that Columbus also was going to prove the world wasn't flat, or at least everyone thought that it was flat and that he'd sail off the edge of the world. TB believed this for version for awhile, until he learned that ancient astronomers knew centuries before Columbus that the Earth was round.
It took Columbus five weeks to sail from Spain to what is now the Bahamas in what would be the first of four trips across the Atlantic for him. He did not "discover" the Americas, per se, since there were already people there and because the Vikings had already done so 400 years earlier, but it was Columbus who more than any other single individual brought European culture to the lands he found.
In turn, this led to the colonization of the entire region, which ultimately led to things like, oh, the establishment of the United States of America.
Today is Columbus Day, a day like Labor Day or Memorial Day where it is easy to forget its actual significance in favor of the fact that it's just another Monday holiday. It's been years since TigerBlog thought enough to reread Columbus' story and to get a better sense of why this is a national holiday.
Columbus Day always falls on this Monday, which means it always falls between the week of Princeton's last non-league football game and the start of the a six-week run through the rest of the Ivy League season.
Princeton will head to Brown with a 1-3 record, but the Tigers are 1-0 in the Ivy League.
So how will the Tigers do over the next six weeks?
TigerBlog has no idea. Usually, it's pretty obvious where the season is going by this point, or at least relatively so.
This year? Who knows?
By the way, Princeton got to 23 points in its five-point loss to Hampton the other day on one touchdown, one extra point, four field goals and two safeties. It reminded TigerBlog of the game at Harvard in 1997, when the Crimson won 14-12. Princeton had 12 points on a touchdown, extra point, field goal and safety (sort of hitting for the cycle, as it were), while Harvard's 14 came on four field goals and a safety.
Meanwhile, back at the 2011 Tigers, it's so hard to say where they are.
The loss to Lehigh wasn't bad, considering that Lehigh is around 10th in the FCS. Bucknell is a much-improved team. Princeton beat Columbia and had a real chance against a very solid Hampton team.
With a 1-3 record, Princeton now plays six Ivy teams, all of whom beat the Tigers last year. Will this year be different?
Princeton is getting big contributions from freshmen like Chuck Dibilio (21 carries, 147 yards, 1 TD against Hampton; team-best 323 rushing yards and a 6.7 yards per carry average for the year), Matt Costello (second on the team with 14 receptions) and Khamal brown (18 tackles). More than any other sport, though, it's hard to rely on freshmen in football.
Princeton is definitely improved over last year - greatly improved, for that matter. That's obvious watching the team on the field.
The question over the next six weeks will be how much the final record will reflect that.
It could be significant. It could be that the rest of the league is improved as well and that Princeton had a lot of catching up to do.
On Columbus Day, it's hard to say.
Of course, he did it in Spanish-owned ships. After shopping around his idea of of sailing west to try to reach Japan and ultimately India and China and having it rejected by the monarchs of Italy, Portugal and England, Columbus finally got King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to agree to a fairly one-sided contract in Columbus' favor, because, according to Wikipedia at least, they never expected him to come back.
As TigerBlog remembers learning about it, Columbus' first journey across the ocean came out of a plan to avoid a land route to India and China and to offer an alternate voyage from sailing around Africa.
The other part of the story, as TB remembers from when he was a kid, is that Columbus also was going to prove the world wasn't flat, or at least everyone thought that it was flat and that he'd sail off the edge of the world. TB believed this for version for awhile, until he learned that ancient astronomers knew centuries before Columbus that the Earth was round.
It took Columbus five weeks to sail from Spain to what is now the Bahamas in what would be the first of four trips across the Atlantic for him. He did not "discover" the Americas, per se, since there were already people there and because the Vikings had already done so 400 years earlier, but it was Columbus who more than any other single individual brought European culture to the lands he found.
In turn, this led to the colonization of the entire region, which ultimately led to things like, oh, the establishment of the United States of America.
Today is Columbus Day, a day like Labor Day or Memorial Day where it is easy to forget its actual significance in favor of the fact that it's just another Monday holiday. It's been years since TigerBlog thought enough to reread Columbus' story and to get a better sense of why this is a national holiday.
Columbus Day always falls on this Monday, which means it always falls between the week of Princeton's last non-league football game and the start of the a six-week run through the rest of the Ivy League season.
Princeton will head to Brown with a 1-3 record, but the Tigers are 1-0 in the Ivy League.
So how will the Tigers do over the next six weeks?
TigerBlog has no idea. Usually, it's pretty obvious where the season is going by this point, or at least relatively so.
This year? Who knows?
By the way, Princeton got to 23 points in its five-point loss to Hampton the other day on one touchdown, one extra point, four field goals and two safeties. It reminded TigerBlog of the game at Harvard in 1997, when the Crimson won 14-12. Princeton had 12 points on a touchdown, extra point, field goal and safety (sort of hitting for the cycle, as it were), while Harvard's 14 came on four field goals and a safety.
Meanwhile, back at the 2011 Tigers, it's so hard to say where they are.
The loss to Lehigh wasn't bad, considering that Lehigh is around 10th in the FCS. Bucknell is a much-improved team. Princeton beat Columbia and had a real chance against a very solid Hampton team.
With a 1-3 record, Princeton now plays six Ivy teams, all of whom beat the Tigers last year. Will this year be different?
Princeton is getting big contributions from freshmen like Chuck Dibilio (21 carries, 147 yards, 1 TD against Hampton; team-best 323 rushing yards and a 6.7 yards per carry average for the year), Matt Costello (second on the team with 14 receptions) and Khamal brown (18 tackles). More than any other sport, though, it's hard to rely on freshmen in football.
Princeton is definitely improved over last year - greatly improved, for that matter. That's obvious watching the team on the field.
The question over the next six weeks will be how much the final record will reflect that.
It could be significant. It could be that the rest of the league is improved as well and that Princeton had a lot of catching up to do.
On Columbus Day, it's hard to say.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Strike Three
TigerBlog had no doubt that Alex Rodriguez was going to strike out when he came up with the bases loaded and one out, his team down by two in the seventh. And he had even less doubt that A-Rod would strike out to end the game, down 3-2, two out, nobody on in the ninth.
And TB was right both times.
TigerBlog is pretty sure that Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in the history of American team sports. At the very least, he is in baseball.
And yet here he was in a season-saving, game-changing moment - not once, but twice - and he failed miserably both times. And it wasn't very surprising.
Rodriguez' career will be remembered as one of huge talent, huge money and a huge history of failing in the clutch. Last night was just another example.
TigerBlog doesn't like the Yankees, simply because their blueprint for success is to outspend every other team, and by a ton. It's not debatable.
The Tigers used four starting pitchers in the series - Justin Verland, Rick Porcello, Doug Fister and Max Scherzer - who made a combined $15.5 million this year. That's one million less than A.J. Burnett of the Yankees made by himself (and $13 million of that $15.5 is Verlander's).
The two Detroit players who set the tone for the game by hitting back-to-back home runs in the first inning (Don Kelly, Delmon Young) make less than $6 million between them; seven of the nine Yankee position players last night make more by themselves.
The Yankee with the highest batting average in the series was Brett Gardner (TB is pretty sure about that). He made $529,500 this year; what must it be like for him to see his high-priced teammates come up so small?
Oh, and A-Rod made $32,000,000 this year. Maybe he could have put bat on ball in one of those two crucial situations for all that dough?
With the Yankee season now history, TigerBlog can focus his attention on the Princeton-Hampton football game.
Princeton enters the game having snapped its 10-game losing streak, and no matter what happens tomorrow in Virginia, Princeton will still be undefeated in the Ivy League when he heads to Brown next weekend.
In fact, the game at Hampton is the first of three straight on the road, followed by back-to-back rides to Brown and Harvard. Check back in three weeks, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the 2011 football season will be like for Princeton.
Every Princeton fan TB has spoken to this week has the same two memories of the 2007 Princeton-Hampton game in Princeton seared into the brain:
1) the astonishing performance of the Hampton marching band
2) the physical toll the game had on Princeton for the rest of the season
Princeton entered the game against Hampton at 2-1 and then grabbed a 27-14 lead, only to see the Pirates come storming back for a 48-27 win.
From that point, Princeton lost four of its next five and finished the year at 4-6.
This time, Hampton comes in off a week off, and with a record of 2-2. Hampton's wins have come against Alabama A&M and Florida A&M, followed by losses to Bethune-Cookman and Old Dominion. For what it's worth, Hampton scored 23 and 21 points in its two wins and 42 and 31 points in its two losses.
Old Dominion, by the way, is 4-1, with a win over UMass and only a close loss to Delaware.
Beyond the game itself, this will be Princeton’s second game ever against a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and third-ever by an Ivy League team, with the first Princeton-Hampton game and a 41-0 victory for Yale over Morgan State in 1984.
The amount of excitement that led to the game at Princeton hasn't been matched for a Princeton game since the 2006 Ivy League championship, and neither has the attendance - a crowd of 15,329 watched the 2007 game between the Tigers and Pirates, and it's the largest crowd at Princeton Stadium since the 2006 championship season.
This time, the game is on the road, and when Princeton's travel party rolled out yesterday afternoon, it was the first time this year that it had left town for a game.
After this weekend, there are only Ivy games remaining for the team.
This Saturday, the final non-league game of the year, is special in its own right.
And TB was right both times.
TigerBlog is pretty sure that Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in the history of American team sports. At the very least, he is in baseball.
And yet here he was in a season-saving, game-changing moment - not once, but twice - and he failed miserably both times. And it wasn't very surprising.
Rodriguez' career will be remembered as one of huge talent, huge money and a huge history of failing in the clutch. Last night was just another example.
TigerBlog doesn't like the Yankees, simply because their blueprint for success is to outspend every other team, and by a ton. It's not debatable.
The Tigers used four starting pitchers in the series - Justin Verland, Rick Porcello, Doug Fister and Max Scherzer - who made a combined $15.5 million this year. That's one million less than A.J. Burnett of the Yankees made by himself (and $13 million of that $15.5 is Verlander's).
The two Detroit players who set the tone for the game by hitting back-to-back home runs in the first inning (Don Kelly, Delmon Young) make less than $6 million between them; seven of the nine Yankee position players last night make more by themselves.
The Yankee with the highest batting average in the series was Brett Gardner (TB is pretty sure about that). He made $529,500 this year; what must it be like for him to see his high-priced teammates come up so small?
Oh, and A-Rod made $32,000,000 this year. Maybe he could have put bat on ball in one of those two crucial situations for all that dough?
With the Yankee season now history, TigerBlog can focus his attention on the Princeton-Hampton football game.
Princeton enters the game having snapped its 10-game losing streak, and no matter what happens tomorrow in Virginia, Princeton will still be undefeated in the Ivy League when he heads to Brown next weekend.
In fact, the game at Hampton is the first of three straight on the road, followed by back-to-back rides to Brown and Harvard. Check back in three weeks, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the 2011 football season will be like for Princeton.
Every Princeton fan TB has spoken to this week has the same two memories of the 2007 Princeton-Hampton game in Princeton seared into the brain:
1) the astonishing performance of the Hampton marching band
2) the physical toll the game had on Princeton for the rest of the season
Princeton entered the game against Hampton at 2-1 and then grabbed a 27-14 lead, only to see the Pirates come storming back for a 48-27 win.
From that point, Princeton lost four of its next five and finished the year at 4-6.
This time, Hampton comes in off a week off, and with a record of 2-2. Hampton's wins have come against Alabama A&M and Florida A&M, followed by losses to Bethune-Cookman and Old Dominion. For what it's worth, Hampton scored 23 and 21 points in its two wins and 42 and 31 points in its two losses.
Old Dominion, by the way, is 4-1, with a win over UMass and only a close loss to Delaware.
Beyond the game itself, this will be Princeton’s second game ever against a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and third-ever by an Ivy League team, with the first Princeton-Hampton game and a 41-0 victory for Yale over Morgan State in 1984.
The amount of excitement that led to the game at Princeton hasn't been matched for a Princeton game since the 2006 Ivy League championship, and neither has the attendance - a crowd of 15,329 watched the 2007 game between the Tigers and Pirates, and it's the largest crowd at Princeton Stadium since the 2006 championship season.
This time, the game is on the road, and when Princeton's travel party rolled out yesterday afternoon, it was the first time this year that it had left town for a game.
After this weekend, there are only Ivy games remaining for the team.
This Saturday, the final non-league game of the year, is special in its own right.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Steven Jobs - And Sabrina's Job
TigerBlog was going to write about women's volleyball this morning.
He was going to start out by talking about how he knows little about the sport of volleyball and how he's seen less volleyball than pretty much any sport in his time here.
He was going to go on about volleyball stat keeping, which is clearly the most difficult of any of the sports for which athletic communications types regular keep stats.
Then he was going to segue into the big women's volleyball weekend coming up.
He'll get back to the last part later. As for the background, you'll have to take his word for it that it would have been funny.
TB's plan changed when he heard the news that Steve Jobs - Apple's founder, not to mention the man who turned Pixar into what it became - had died last night.
Steve Jobs changed the world as much as anyone who has ever lived. His impact on the modern world cannot be overstated, and not only in terms of the entertainment value of i-Tunes or the convenience of faster computers.
Jobs' work has touched every aspect of society, leading to huge advancements in areas like health care, commerce, politics, international relations, all of it.
And his company made the "Toy Story" movies. And the greatest commercial ever made.
Back on Super Bowl Sunday 1984 - the Raiders thumped the Redskins - Apple trotted out a mesmerizing commercial announcing the launch of its new product, the MacIntosh computer. The commercial was stunning in its scope, at a time when "plop plop, fizz fizz" was considered cutting edge.
Back in early 1980s, TigerBlog had an electric typewriter - and that put him ahead of most people. Shortly after that, the world was flooded by the personal computer, and Mac became the most powerful tool in the industry.
And that was later followed up, after a rocky patch that saw him leave the company for awhile, with i-Tunes, the I-Pad and all kinds of other advancements in technology, all of which have made the world a much smaller, much more efficient place.
TigerBlog has always used Macs, and they have made arduous tasks simple over the years, with further advancements constantly emerging.
Jobs battled cancer in recent years, ultimately passing away yesterday at the age of 56.
And what about that?
Job was worth $100,000,000 by the time he was 25. He has left a mark on the world that few have ever matched.
But he only got a 56-year run. Would you make that choice? Or would you rather opt for the more mundane, but a much longer life?
Anyway, Jobs passed away yesterday after having a most remarkable life.
Meanwhile, back at the women's volleyball, Princeton under first-year coach Sabrina King is off to a great start.
The Tigers are currently 3-0 in the Ivy League, tied with Yale for first place, one game ahead of Columbia. Princeton is at Columbia Friday and Cornell Saturday and then home next weekend with Yale/Brown.
Princeton has won two of its first three league matches in five games, against both Penn and Dartmouth.
What TigerBlog does know about women's volleyball is that Dillon Gym is quite a venue when the team is playing. The crowds are loud and right on top of the action, and TB assumes the reverse is true now that Princeton takes to the road in the league for the first time.
King was a player and longtime assistant under venerable coach Glen Nelson.
Now in her first season as the head coach (TB was going to go with something like 'King Is The Queen,' but it sounded trite), she's off to a good start.
Of course, there are 11 matches to play, and the league is ultra-competitive.
Still, it's been a great start for the King era of Princeton volleyball.
So far, Sabrina King is doing a great job.
As for Steven Jobs, alav ha shalom.
He was going to start out by talking about how he knows little about the sport of volleyball and how he's seen less volleyball than pretty much any sport in his time here.
He was going to go on about volleyball stat keeping, which is clearly the most difficult of any of the sports for which athletic communications types regular keep stats.
Then he was going to segue into the big women's volleyball weekend coming up.
He'll get back to the last part later. As for the background, you'll have to take his word for it that it would have been funny.
TB's plan changed when he heard the news that Steve Jobs - Apple's founder, not to mention the man who turned Pixar into what it became - had died last night.
Steve Jobs changed the world as much as anyone who has ever lived. His impact on the modern world cannot be overstated, and not only in terms of the entertainment value of i-Tunes or the convenience of faster computers.
Jobs' work has touched every aspect of society, leading to huge advancements in areas like health care, commerce, politics, international relations, all of it.
And his company made the "Toy Story" movies. And the greatest commercial ever made.
Back on Super Bowl Sunday 1984 - the Raiders thumped the Redskins - Apple trotted out a mesmerizing commercial announcing the launch of its new product, the MacIntosh computer. The commercial was stunning in its scope, at a time when "plop plop, fizz fizz" was considered cutting edge.
Back in early 1980s, TigerBlog had an electric typewriter - and that put him ahead of most people. Shortly after that, the world was flooded by the personal computer, and Mac became the most powerful tool in the industry.
And that was later followed up, after a rocky patch that saw him leave the company for awhile, with i-Tunes, the I-Pad and all kinds of other advancements in technology, all of which have made the world a much smaller, much more efficient place.
TigerBlog has always used Macs, and they have made arduous tasks simple over the years, with further advancements constantly emerging.
Jobs battled cancer in recent years, ultimately passing away yesterday at the age of 56.
And what about that?
Job was worth $100,000,000 by the time he was 25. He has left a mark on the world that few have ever matched.
But he only got a 56-year run. Would you make that choice? Or would you rather opt for the more mundane, but a much longer life?
Anyway, Jobs passed away yesterday after having a most remarkable life.
Meanwhile, back at the women's volleyball, Princeton under first-year coach Sabrina King is off to a great start.
The Tigers are currently 3-0 in the Ivy League, tied with Yale for first place, one game ahead of Columbia. Princeton is at Columbia Friday and Cornell Saturday and then home next weekend with Yale/Brown.
Princeton has won two of its first three league matches in five games, against both Penn and Dartmouth.
What TigerBlog does know about women's volleyball is that Dillon Gym is quite a venue when the team is playing. The crowds are loud and right on top of the action, and TB assumes the reverse is true now that Princeton takes to the road in the league for the first time.
King was a player and longtime assistant under venerable coach Glen Nelson.
Now in her first season as the head coach (TB was going to go with something like 'King Is The Queen,' but it sounded trite), she's off to a good start.
Of course, there are 11 matches to play, and the league is ultra-competitive.
Still, it's been a great start for the King era of Princeton volleyball.
So far, Sabrina King is doing a great job.
As for Steven Jobs, alav ha shalom.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Still Kicking
So A.J. Burnett won a game in the postseason? Well, that's great, especially considering he's the 20th highest paid player in baseball (though only fourth on his team), with an annual salary of $16,500,000.
By the way, if you haven't looked lately, three of the top four highest paid players in baseball are on the Yankees - No. 1 Alex Rodriguez, No. 3 CC Sabathia and No. 4 Mark Texeira.
To hear the concern on the voices of Yankees fans, the idea of having to rely on someone as horrible as Burnett in Game 4 last night against the Tigers, an elimination game with the Yankees down 2-1 in the series, was too much to contemplate. It had to be the result of an organizational failure to come up with a better fourth starter, right?
Were it any other team, then Burnett's contract would be a crippling one, and the organization would have had no choice but to keep running him out there and hope for the best, like the Giants with Barry Zito.
In the Yankees' case, decisions aren't made with money in mind. To the Yankees, Burnett can be a $16,500,000/year inconvenience, and with the number of players who make more than he does (or close to what he does), then he doesn't stand out nearly as much, as it does with, say, Zito.
Of course, for as well as Burnett pitched, he might not have made it out of the first inning were it not for Curtis Granderson (who at $8.5 million is the 11th highest paid Yankee), who made two great catches on the night.
And so the Yankees are even in the series, even if their payroll is $100,000,000 more than the Tigers (and $110,000,000 more than the Rangers, who play the winner of tomorrow night's Game 5).
The only reason the Yankees are a dominant team is because they have a huge monetary edge over the rest of the sport. It's not close, and it's not debatable.
It frustrates TigerBlog, but it's not that much different in the English Premier League, TB supposes.
Speaking of soccer, the 10 runs the Yankees scored last night equaled the number of goals in the Princeton-Seton Hall men's soccer game.
The Tigers scored three times in the first 25 minutes and led 4-1 at halftime. David Dubow had a big night in his second game after returning from injury, with two goals. Antoine Hoppenot and Matt Sanner also scored twice each.
The Princeton-Seton Hall game is always special for Tiger coach Jim Barlow, who has a long-standing relationship with Pirates' coach Manny Schellscheidt, who TB believes coached Barlow when he was a club player. Barlow also played at Princeton with Schellscheidt's son Karl.
The 2011 soccer season at Princeton is at the midway point, and it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for either team to date.
A year after the men went a perfect 7-0-0 in the Ivy League and the women came heartbreakingly close to winning the league as well until a shot in OT against Penn in the season-finale was knocked off the line by Quaker defender, both teams have struggled.
And yet, it's a little early to write either one off.
The women are 0-2 in the league, but they also had a two-game stretch a year ago where they were outscored 6-0 in consecutive league games. It's unlikely any team will get through the league with a perfect record, and a record of 5-2-0 or even 4-2-1 could win the league.
Princeton has outshot its opponents 116-92 through nine games, including 26-16 in the two Ivy games. Also, Princeton has had some extraordinarily bad luck:
* lost 2-1 to Seton Hall on a goal with 1:52 left in OT
* outshot La Salle 13-5 and lost 1-0 on a goal with seven minutes left
* outshot Lafayette 29-3 in a 2-2 tie
* gave up two goals 36 seconds apart in a 2-0 loss to Yale
* allowed Dartmouth one second half shot - and it went in, with 1:53 to play - in a 1-0 loss
The women play at Brown Saturday at 4, against a team that is 6-3-1 overall and 1-1 in the league. It's a must-win for the Tigers, as are all of their remaining league games.
The men play at Brown at 7, after the women's game. The Princeton men opened the league season with a 4-1 loss at Dartmouth last weekend in a game that got away quickly after the Green scored three times early in the game.
Like the women, the men have had some brutal results:
* a 3-2 loss to St. John's on an overtime goal with 4.2 seconds left
* a 2-1 loss to FDU on a penalty kick in overtime
* a 13-6 edge in shots in a 1-0 loss to Furman
The men have an advantage over the women in that only one league game has been played. The Ivy League is so good in men's soccer that anything is possible as the league race unfolds.
September wasn't the best month for Princeton soccer, but October is off to a good start. Who knows what November will bring?
By the way, if you haven't looked lately, three of the top four highest paid players in baseball are on the Yankees - No. 1 Alex Rodriguez, No. 3 CC Sabathia and No. 4 Mark Texeira.
To hear the concern on the voices of Yankees fans, the idea of having to rely on someone as horrible as Burnett in Game 4 last night against the Tigers, an elimination game with the Yankees down 2-1 in the series, was too much to contemplate. It had to be the result of an organizational failure to come up with a better fourth starter, right?
Were it any other team, then Burnett's contract would be a crippling one, and the organization would have had no choice but to keep running him out there and hope for the best, like the Giants with Barry Zito.
In the Yankees' case, decisions aren't made with money in mind. To the Yankees, Burnett can be a $16,500,000/year inconvenience, and with the number of players who make more than he does (or close to what he does), then he doesn't stand out nearly as much, as it does with, say, Zito.
Of course, for as well as Burnett pitched, he might not have made it out of the first inning were it not for Curtis Granderson (who at $8.5 million is the 11th highest paid Yankee), who made two great catches on the night.
And so the Yankees are even in the series, even if their payroll is $100,000,000 more than the Tigers (and $110,000,000 more than the Rangers, who play the winner of tomorrow night's Game 5).
The only reason the Yankees are a dominant team is because they have a huge monetary edge over the rest of the sport. It's not close, and it's not debatable.
It frustrates TigerBlog, but it's not that much different in the English Premier League, TB supposes.
Speaking of soccer, the 10 runs the Yankees scored last night equaled the number of goals in the Princeton-Seton Hall men's soccer game.
The Tigers scored three times in the first 25 minutes and led 4-1 at halftime. David Dubow had a big night in his second game after returning from injury, with two goals. Antoine Hoppenot and Matt Sanner also scored twice each.
The Princeton-Seton Hall game is always special for Tiger coach Jim Barlow, who has a long-standing relationship with Pirates' coach Manny Schellscheidt, who TB believes coached Barlow when he was a club player. Barlow also played at Princeton with Schellscheidt's son Karl.
The 2011 soccer season at Princeton is at the midway point, and it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for either team to date.
A year after the men went a perfect 7-0-0 in the Ivy League and the women came heartbreakingly close to winning the league as well until a shot in OT against Penn in the season-finale was knocked off the line by Quaker defender, both teams have struggled.
And yet, it's a little early to write either one off.
The women are 0-2 in the league, but they also had a two-game stretch a year ago where they were outscored 6-0 in consecutive league games. It's unlikely any team will get through the league with a perfect record, and a record of 5-2-0 or even 4-2-1 could win the league.
Princeton has outshot its opponents 116-92 through nine games, including 26-16 in the two Ivy games. Also, Princeton has had some extraordinarily bad luck:
* lost 2-1 to Seton Hall on a goal with 1:52 left in OT
* outshot La Salle 13-5 and lost 1-0 on a goal with seven minutes left
* outshot Lafayette 29-3 in a 2-2 tie
* gave up two goals 36 seconds apart in a 2-0 loss to Yale
* allowed Dartmouth one second half shot - and it went in, with 1:53 to play - in a 1-0 loss
The women play at Brown Saturday at 4, against a team that is 6-3-1 overall and 1-1 in the league. It's a must-win for the Tigers, as are all of their remaining league games.
The men play at Brown at 7, after the women's game. The Princeton men opened the league season with a 4-1 loss at Dartmouth last weekend in a game that got away quickly after the Green scored three times early in the game.
Like the women, the men have had some brutal results:
* a 3-2 loss to St. John's on an overtime goal with 4.2 seconds left
* a 2-1 loss to FDU on a penalty kick in overtime
* a 13-6 edge in shots in a 1-0 loss to Furman
The men have an advantage over the women in that only one league game has been played. The Ivy League is so good in men's soccer that anything is possible as the league race unfolds.
September wasn't the best month for Princeton soccer, but October is off to a good start. Who knows what November will bring?
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Good Luck Scott Jurgens
Forgive TigerBlog if he's throwing out too much information this morning. For the last few years, he's had a small skin tag on the side of his tongue, and his dentist has been saying for just as long that he should go to an oral surgeon and get it removed.
For some reason, TB woke up yesterday and decided that it was time to go ahead and do it, so he dug out the referral that his dentist had given him and called to make an appointment, which turned out to be at 3:15.
TigerBlog was right on time, and he was in the oral surgeon's seat by 3:20 or so. And back in his car by 3:45 at the latest.
In the interim, TB had a fairly interesting half-hour or so. At one point, an endodontist came in to share an x-ray with the oral surgeon and get his opinion, just after the oral surgeon - a complete stranger to TigerBlog - had just injected whatever numbing agent he'd use into TB's tongue.
The endodontist, whose specialty is root canals, looked at TB, who was gushing blood from his tongue into the gauze that filled his mouth and made him talk like Vito Corleone, and said that TB looked familiar.
Turns out that said endodonist is also a sports reporter for a local religious station as well as a current Princeton basketball season-ticket holder. He asked TB if he could get credentials for basketball and hockey this year, and TB, given the state of his cheeks, though about answering: "Yes, but someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me."
Instead, TB just nodded yes.
Anyway, TB's tongue hurt pretty badly last night, after the numbing agent wore off, and it made talking difficult. It's a little better today, but TB is still not sure what to eat for lunch.
The oral surgeon said no Thai food, which meant stay away from spicy stuff. Still, the whole eating thing hasn't quite been easy since yesterday afternoon.
Besides, this afternoon, there is a small reception for the department, and the email says that refreshments will be served. Maybe there's no need for lunch today.
The reception, by the way, is to say goodbye to Scott Jurgens, whose title, TB believes, is Director of Marketing.
Scott is leaving Princeton tomorrow after four years here to take over the marketing duties at East Carolina.
TB could say most of the same things about Scott that he said about Steve Kanaby when he left a few weeks ago to become the director of championships for the Colonial Athletic Association.
Like Steve, Scott has been a very hard worker. Scott is another Princeton Athletics person who took on tasks that weren't specifically his responsibility. He went to a ton of events, including games obviously but also local civic events, all to get the word out about Princeton Athletics.
In all honesty, TB wasn't sure what to make of Scott when he first started here. Now TB knows that he is a difficult person to replace, and he made himself that simply by his work ethic and his willingness to do whatever was necessary for the good of the department.
Also, for someone in the position of constantly dealing with people who are making endless requests, Scott has another ingredient that is essential - a sense of humor.
As TB said, he wasn't sure about Scott and his future here when he started. TB also isn't sure if there was an exact day when he realized that he had turned 180 degrees on him, but it definitely happened. And it's not something that occurs often.
It's hard for a person to change other people's initial thoughts, and it takes time and effort. Scott managed to do so, largely because in the end, he turned out to be genuine, hard-working, team-oriented, friendly, funny - and valuable to what the department was doing.
Princeton Athletics is losing another key member of its staff, as Scott Jurgens leaves. TB wishes him luck at ECU, and TB will be rooting for the Pirates.
In the end, TigerBlog relied on Scott for a lot, and Scott never let TB down.
When TB thinks back about Scott and his time here at Princeton in the future, he'll remember an Idaho native who did a lot of growing up here. He'll remember someone always willing to help, someone who was always smiling - either because he was smiling or because that's how he dealt with the people around here who drove him nuts.
He'll remember that he had a healthy dose of sarcasm. He'll remember that he didn't get too mad when TB told him that Tony kills Christopher near the end of "The Sopranos," even though Scott had only gotten to Season 2.
Mostly, though, he'll remember moments like the one that just occurred, when Scott walked in, said something funny about nothing and turned and walked back down the balcony.
Tomorrow, he walks away from TB's office for good and heads south to East Carolina.
TB will miss his friend Scott Jurgens.
For some reason, TB woke up yesterday and decided that it was time to go ahead and do it, so he dug out the referral that his dentist had given him and called to make an appointment, which turned out to be at 3:15.
TigerBlog was right on time, and he was in the oral surgeon's seat by 3:20 or so. And back in his car by 3:45 at the latest.
In the interim, TB had a fairly interesting half-hour or so. At one point, an endodontist came in to share an x-ray with the oral surgeon and get his opinion, just after the oral surgeon - a complete stranger to TigerBlog - had just injected whatever numbing agent he'd use into TB's tongue.
The endodontist, whose specialty is root canals, looked at TB, who was gushing blood from his tongue into the gauze that filled his mouth and made him talk like Vito Corleone, and said that TB looked familiar.
Turns out that said endodonist is also a sports reporter for a local religious station as well as a current Princeton basketball season-ticket holder. He asked TB if he could get credentials for basketball and hockey this year, and TB, given the state of his cheeks, though about answering: "Yes, but someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me."
Instead, TB just nodded yes.
Anyway, TB's tongue hurt pretty badly last night, after the numbing agent wore off, and it made talking difficult. It's a little better today, but TB is still not sure what to eat for lunch.
The oral surgeon said no Thai food, which meant stay away from spicy stuff. Still, the whole eating thing hasn't quite been easy since yesterday afternoon.
Besides, this afternoon, there is a small reception for the department, and the email says that refreshments will be served. Maybe there's no need for lunch today.
The reception, by the way, is to say goodbye to Scott Jurgens, whose title, TB believes, is Director of Marketing.
Scott is leaving Princeton tomorrow after four years here to take over the marketing duties at East Carolina.
TB could say most of the same things about Scott that he said about Steve Kanaby when he left a few weeks ago to become the director of championships for the Colonial Athletic Association.
Like Steve, Scott has been a very hard worker. Scott is another Princeton Athletics person who took on tasks that weren't specifically his responsibility. He went to a ton of events, including games obviously but also local civic events, all to get the word out about Princeton Athletics.
In all honesty, TB wasn't sure what to make of Scott when he first started here. Now TB knows that he is a difficult person to replace, and he made himself that simply by his work ethic and his willingness to do whatever was necessary for the good of the department.
Also, for someone in the position of constantly dealing with people who are making endless requests, Scott has another ingredient that is essential - a sense of humor.
As TB said, he wasn't sure about Scott and his future here when he started. TB also isn't sure if there was an exact day when he realized that he had turned 180 degrees on him, but it definitely happened. And it's not something that occurs often.
It's hard for a person to change other people's initial thoughts, and it takes time and effort. Scott managed to do so, largely because in the end, he turned out to be genuine, hard-working, team-oriented, friendly, funny - and valuable to what the department was doing.
Princeton Athletics is losing another key member of its staff, as Scott Jurgens leaves. TB wishes him luck at ECU, and TB will be rooting for the Pirates.
In the end, TigerBlog relied on Scott for a lot, and Scott never let TB down.
When TB thinks back about Scott and his time here at Princeton in the future, he'll remember an Idaho native who did a lot of growing up here. He'll remember someone always willing to help, someone who was always smiling - either because he was smiling or because that's how he dealt with the people around here who drove him nuts.
He'll remember that he had a healthy dose of sarcasm. He'll remember that he didn't get too mad when TB told him that Tony kills Christopher near the end of "The Sopranos," even though Scott had only gotten to Season 2.
Mostly, though, he'll remember moments like the one that just occurred, when Scott walked in, said something funny about nothing and turned and walked back down the balcony.
Tomorrow, he walks away from TB's office for good and heads south to East Carolina.
TB will miss his friend Scott Jurgens.
Monday, October 3, 2011
"I Am Spartacus"
TigerBlog saw, on consecutive days last week, "Spartacus" and "Ben-Hur."
If you don't like the whole ancient Rome epic concept, then you can't watch more than two seconds of either. If you are a fan of the concept, then these two are among your favorite movies of all-time.
TigerBlog falls in to the second category.
As for the American Film Institute, it ranks these two movies second ("Ben-Hur") and fifth ("Spartacus") on its all-time list of epic movies. As the others in the top five are, in order, "Lawrence of Arabia" at No. 1, "Schindler's List" at No. 5 and "Gone With the Wind" at No. 5, then "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus" rank 1-2 among Roman epics.
"Spartacus," if you've never seen it, stars Kirk Douglas as the slave who escapes and organizes an army to rebel against the mighty Romans.
Before the movie ends, all kinds of people are dead in all kinds of different ways. Spartacus himself goes through some wild emotional swings there, all the way until the final credits, as TigerBlog doesn't want to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it.
What TB will say is that your skin will get the chills when Tony Curtis yells "I Am Spartacus," and those chills will persist in the few seconds that follow.
As for "Ben-Hur," the title character is Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston. Like Spartacus, Judah goes through a lot, all because he pissed off the Romans at one point.
Actually, it's hard to say which of the two has it worse, at least for most of their time going against the Romans.
In Judah's case, he spends three years as a galley slave, a time that includes TB's favorite scene in the movie and one of his all-time favorite lines: "In his eagerness to save you, your God has also saved the Roman fleet."
Of course, Ben-Hur also features the chariot race scene, one that took six months to film. That one, and the one with the battle that ultimately frees Judah from his slavery, alone make the movie phenomenal.
Between them, they won 15 Academy Awards. When either is on, TB goes out of his way to watch them, even though they combined are 396 minutes (or 6.6 hours).
They're in the handful of movies that cause all channel changing to stop immediately.
TigerBlog isn't sure how many times he's seen each, though he's pretty sure he's seen "Ben-Hur" more than "Spartacus."
It has never bothered TB to watch the same movie - or TV episode - over and over and over; in fact, it's one of his favorite things. He's seen some movies so many times that he practically has them memorized.
It was something he thought about the other night, as he walked in Princeton Stadium for the Princeton-Columbia football game.
In some ways, it's similar to watching the same movie over and over again, to go to the same sporting events year after year.
On the other hand, they're vastly different animals, since each game is its own entity and the ending is never going to be exactly the same.
So which is it?
Does TB like doing to these games for the same reason he likes watching "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus" over and over? Because of the sense of familiarity?
Or do they have absolutely nothing in common?
TB has always thought they were related, but he's not quite sure how.
As for the Princeton-Columbia game, Princeton got big performances from Brian Mills (26 carries, 117 yards) and Chuck Dibilio (six carries, 70 yards, 11.7 average), which helped Princeton to 227 rushing yards on the night and a resulting 10-minute edge in possession time in the 24-21 win.
Tom Moak and Mark Hayes caught their first career touchdowns, and freshman Matt Costello averaged 22 yards per catch - with a long touchdown reception wiped out by a penalty.
Another freshman, Khamal Brown, had eight tackles, one off Andrew Starks' team-high nine.
In all, it was a good night for the Tigers, who snapped a 10-game losing streak.
And so a very odd Princeton football season - from a scheduling standpoint - is 30 percent over, and there are still all kinds of questions to be asked, with the main one this: Princeton is tied for first now in the Ivy League, but will this team play meaningful games next month?
The schedule is odd in that it's Oct. 3 and Princeton has just two more home games, with five road games to go with them.
Princeton is on the road the next three weeks, at Hampton, Brown and Harvard, before returning home on Oct. 29 against Cornell.
By then, much of the season's script will have been written, and with four games remaining, a lot more will be known about the 2011 Tigers.
For now, they head on the road on a winning note, after getting one the team desperately needed Saturday night.
If you don't like the whole ancient Rome epic concept, then you can't watch more than two seconds of either. If you are a fan of the concept, then these two are among your favorite movies of all-time.
TigerBlog falls in to the second category.
As for the American Film Institute, it ranks these two movies second ("Ben-Hur") and fifth ("Spartacus") on its all-time list of epic movies. As the others in the top five are, in order, "Lawrence of Arabia" at No. 1, "Schindler's List" at No. 5 and "Gone With the Wind" at No. 5, then "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus" rank 1-2 among Roman epics.
"Spartacus," if you've never seen it, stars Kirk Douglas as the slave who escapes and organizes an army to rebel against the mighty Romans.
Before the movie ends, all kinds of people are dead in all kinds of different ways. Spartacus himself goes through some wild emotional swings there, all the way until the final credits, as TigerBlog doesn't want to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it.
What TB will say is that your skin will get the chills when Tony Curtis yells "I Am Spartacus," and those chills will persist in the few seconds that follow.
As for "Ben-Hur," the title character is Judah Ben-Hur, played by Charlton Heston. Like Spartacus, Judah goes through a lot, all because he pissed off the Romans at one point.
Actually, it's hard to say which of the two has it worse, at least for most of their time going against the Romans.
In Judah's case, he spends three years as a galley slave, a time that includes TB's favorite scene in the movie and one of his all-time favorite lines: "In his eagerness to save you, your God has also saved the Roman fleet."
Of course, Ben-Hur also features the chariot race scene, one that took six months to film. That one, and the one with the battle that ultimately frees Judah from his slavery, alone make the movie phenomenal.
Between them, they won 15 Academy Awards. When either is on, TB goes out of his way to watch them, even though they combined are 396 minutes (or 6.6 hours).
They're in the handful of movies that cause all channel changing to stop immediately.
TigerBlog isn't sure how many times he's seen each, though he's pretty sure he's seen "Ben-Hur" more than "Spartacus."
It has never bothered TB to watch the same movie - or TV episode - over and over and over; in fact, it's one of his favorite things. He's seen some movies so many times that he practically has them memorized.
It was something he thought about the other night, as he walked in Princeton Stadium for the Princeton-Columbia football game.
In some ways, it's similar to watching the same movie over and over again, to go to the same sporting events year after year.
On the other hand, they're vastly different animals, since each game is its own entity and the ending is never going to be exactly the same.
So which is it?
Does TB like doing to these games for the same reason he likes watching "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus" over and over? Because of the sense of familiarity?
Or do they have absolutely nothing in common?
TB has always thought they were related, but he's not quite sure how.
As for the Princeton-Columbia game, Princeton got big performances from Brian Mills (26 carries, 117 yards) and Chuck Dibilio (six carries, 70 yards, 11.7 average), which helped Princeton to 227 rushing yards on the night and a resulting 10-minute edge in possession time in the 24-21 win.
Tom Moak and Mark Hayes caught their first career touchdowns, and freshman Matt Costello averaged 22 yards per catch - with a long touchdown reception wiped out by a penalty.
Another freshman, Khamal Brown, had eight tackles, one off Andrew Starks' team-high nine.
In all, it was a good night for the Tigers, who snapped a 10-game losing streak.
And so a very odd Princeton football season - from a scheduling standpoint - is 30 percent over, and there are still all kinds of questions to be asked, with the main one this: Princeton is tied for first now in the Ivy League, but will this team play meaningful games next month?
The schedule is odd in that it's Oct. 3 and Princeton has just two more home games, with five road games to go with them.
Princeton is on the road the next three weeks, at Hampton, Brown and Harvard, before returning home on Oct. 29 against Cornell.
By then, much of the season's script will have been written, and with four games remaining, a lot more will be known about the 2011 Tigers.
For now, they head on the road on a winning note, after getting one the team desperately needed Saturday night.
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