William Anderson was on his fourth bagel when Chuck Dibilio reached the 100-yard mark against Yale Saturday afternoon.
By that point, William had also had more than his share of those little brownie/mini-cake/cookie things, the chocolate ones with the sprinkles on top. Of course, TigerBlog had had his share as well.
TB's Saturday was spent first at the football game and then later at men's soccer and finally men's basketball. And William - age 9 - was with TB for all of it.
William is TigerBlog Jr's friend Matthew's younger brother. Since TBJ and Matthew have moved onto the high school ranks, they are no longer interested in - or eligible to be, for that matter - doing what they've done for the last six years or so, and that's be the ball boys at Princeton men's basketball.
William, a fourth-grader, was interested in being the next generation, and he had his debut Saturday night, when the new group really took over in force.
The only way for William to get to the basketball game on time, though, was for him to come with TB earlier in the day, since William's parents were tied up at a fall lacrosse tournament with TBJ and Matthew.
And so, the rather unlikely partnership for the day of TigerBlog and William was born.
TB is usually the public address announcer for football games here, but because the OAC is operating one person short for a few weeks, TB had to cover the men's soccer game at 3, or before the football game ended. As such, he pressed Bill Bromberg, the basketball PA announcer, into service for the football game as well.
As an aside, TB is pretty sure that Bromberg became the fifth public address announcer for a football game at Princeton Stadium, joining TB, the late (and better than great) John McAdams, Wendy Herm (that's right, a woman) and Ian Auzenne.
Anyway, TB arrived shortly after kickoff, with William in tow, of course, and stayed at football until just after halftime.
In that time, William was able to make a successful assault on the food at the Princeton Varsity Club reception, being held in the Class of 1956 lounge. TB did, as well.
William didn't watch much of the football game, instead choosing to sit at the tables in the press box from where the field isn't visible.
TB had warned William, like he does all people - kids or adults - who venture into the press box that cheering is not permitted there. In William's case, TB needn't have worried.
William is as stoic as any nine-year-old out there. He likes to laugh and he smiles a lot, but his smile and frown aren't much different. In short, he has the perfect poker face.
Perhaps the highlight of the day wasn't any of the three games but instead the walk from the football stadium to the soccer field, during which time William asked questions about what went on in each building.
Like his older brother Matthew, William has spent a good deal of time on the Princeton campus, but almost all of it has been in athletic venues. This time, walking around the campus on a perfect fall day, William was being quite inquisitive.
TB told William that Fine Hall is where math is taught, which led to this exchange:
William: "Math is my best subject."
TB: "Go in there and tell them to give you a problem."
William: "I don't know college math. I only know elementary school math."
William was intrigued by the appearance of the new chemistry building and wondered why there was the need to build another "science" building (neurosciences) when there are so many others.
He liked the concept of the dorms, so that the students who "don't live around here don't have to go back and forth every day."
He made fun of TigerBlog for not knowing what went on in a particular building, even though TB has worked here, in William's word, "forever."
To get William from soccer to basketball, TB enlisted women's soccer goalkeeper Kristin Watson, a student worker at football who came to Roberts Stadium and took William to Jadwin Gym, where he met up with the other ballboys and "a very nice lady," whom TB surmises was either event operations director Karen Malec or ticket manager Stephanie Sutton.
TB came to basketball after the soccer game, which would have had one of the most improbable storylines ever had Paola Iaccarino's header in the final two minutes not been snagged by Yale goalkeeper Bobby Thalman at the last second.
Iaccarino, a senior, scored his first career goal early in the game (the final one of his career), and he came torturously close to tying it at 2-2 late. Instead, it was a 2-1 Yale win.
Then it was off to Jadwin to watch the men's basketball opener and see William's ballboy debut, which included one time when William danced to the house music as he swept the floor.
William sat at one end of the floor with another ballboy, and a group of three - including Nick Bates, son of men's lacrosse coach Chris Bates - sat at the other.
TB thought back to Bobby Davidson, who was a ballboy long before he went on to play at the College of New Jersey. And to Zach DiGregorio and Lior Levy, who were the ballboys who got TBJ involved. And TBJ and Matthew, whose ballboy careers ended a year ago.
Eventually, William, Nick and the new generation will outgrow being ballboys also. For now, they're in their ballboy prime, and it's hard to imagine how kids in their age range can have more fun than to be part of a game the way they are.
When it was over, William said two words to TB that weren't exactly surprising - "I'm hungry." All TB had to offer at that point where Pop Tarts, which William happily snagged, even though he said he didn't like the S'Mores kind, which really meant he'd never had them before and was sold on his first bite.
With that, TB's eight hours or so with William came to end. He asked if he could have a pass to come back to the press box next year for football, because "the food is so good."
When it was over, TB was struck by the fact that he takes it for granted that he walks around the Princeton campus every day, which is something he shouldn't do.
It's an extraordinary place to be, whether it's one of the busiest athletic Saturdays in recent memory or just a quiet weekday in the summer.
It becomes even more remarkable when viewed through the eyes of a nine-year-old.
Wide eyes, indeed. Inquisitive ones. Innocent ones.
TB is pretty sure William had a good time.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Veterans' Day, Opening Day
Today is 11/11/11.
TigerBlog isn't sure what the significance of that is supposed to be. It's not that the world is ending, is it?
To find out, TB went to google, which took him to a website that had all the answers. He was especially impressed with the fact that the number 11, when multiplied against itself, yields a palindrome, as in:
(2 digits) 11 x 11 = 121
(6 digits) 111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
(9 digits) 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Still, that site proved what TB already knew, that today is nothing special numerically.
As far as today's real significance, it's that it's Veterans' Day.
TB wrote this two years ago and repeated it last year, and nothing has changed since:
Take a minute to think about what the significance of today is. Veterans' Day lacks the family feel of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It doesn't conjure up the start of summer like Memorial Day or make you think of a barbecue in the backyard and watching fireworks like the Fourth of July.
Mostly, it's just another day for many people, a day to go about business as usual. Except that we do it in a country that is free, and because today salutes those who made it that way and continue to make it that way, it's nothing short of the most important day of the year.
TB saw a group of young men and women in Navy uniforms last week, and he was completely awe-struck at the sheer courage and dedication and commitment that it takes to do what they do every day, all so the rest of us don't have to, all so the rest of us can play squash and go to the movies and watch Princeton play sports and take kids to activities and anything else that people in a free country do every day and take for granted.
TB cannot overstate how much this country owes to its military people, its veterans and especially those who have given their bodies to the defense of this country.
MotherBlog, at one point, worked for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, at a time when each wheelchair was home to someone who left part of himself in Vietnam. She was involved in a tangential way with the construction of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and if you've ever been there and haven't shed a tear, well, then you're as much made of stone as the monument itself.
There was a time when basketball season started here after Thanksgiving (actually Dec. 1, used to be the first day games could be played), but this year, it begins on Veterans' Day, with the women's game against St. Joe's tonight at 7 and the men's game tomorrow at 5 against Wagner.
It's a huge weekend of home events here, with football against Yale (tomorrow at 1), men's hockey vs. St. Lawrence tonight and Clarkson tomorrow, women's volleyball with Columbia/Cornell tonight and tomorrow and men's soccer against Yale tomorrow.
And of course, the basketball openers.
For the first time in the great history of Princeton basketball, both the men and women enter the season coming off Ivy titles and NCAA tournament appearances.
For the men, it was the 24th NCAA tournament trip a year ago, as well as the 26th league title. For the women, it was the second NCAA appearance ever - and second straight.
This year, the men are led by Mitch Henderson, whose career record as a head coach is 0-0. TB isn't sure he's ever rooted harder for anyone to do well than he is for Henderson, who is one of TB's all-time favorite Princeton athletes and who has only enhanced what TB thought of him as he has prepared for his first season.
As an aside, Henderson's improvement as a squash player has been remarkable, though not startling, considering how good of an athlete he is.
On the women's side, Courtney Banghart enters her fifth season after going 50-8 the last two years, 27-1 in the Ivy League.
The lure of opening night is to see 1) the return of Niveen Rasheed, who tore her ACL last December and had her sophomore year limited to 12 games, 2) to see if Lauren Edwards gets the 18 points she needs to 1,000 and 3) to see if Princeton can beat St. Joe's for the first time in program history after losing the first nine.
The big moments in basketball season are still three or four months away, but this weekend provides the first glimpses of what's in store.
If it seems early, it is, as it's only 11/11/11.
Opening day for Princeton basketball. In a free country.
TigerBlog provided the game program. The United States military provided the freedom.
Make sure you take a few minutes today - Veterans Day - and remember that.
TigerBlog isn't sure what the significance of that is supposed to be. It's not that the world is ending, is it?
To find out, TB went to google, which took him to a website that had all the answers. He was especially impressed with the fact that the number 11, when multiplied against itself, yields a palindrome, as in:
(2 digits) 11 x 11 = 121
(6 digits) 111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
(9 digits) 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Still, that site proved what TB already knew, that today is nothing special numerically.
As far as today's real significance, it's that it's Veterans' Day.
TB wrote this two years ago and repeated it last year, and nothing has changed since:
Take a minute to think about what the significance of today is. Veterans' Day lacks the family feel of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It doesn't conjure up the start of summer like Memorial Day or make you think of a barbecue in the backyard and watching fireworks like the Fourth of July.
Mostly, it's just another day for many people, a day to go about business as usual. Except that we do it in a country that is free, and because today salutes those who made it that way and continue to make it that way, it's nothing short of the most important day of the year.
TB saw a group of young men and women in Navy uniforms last week, and he was completely awe-struck at the sheer courage and dedication and commitment that it takes to do what they do every day, all so the rest of us don't have to, all so the rest of us can play squash and go to the movies and watch Princeton play sports and take kids to activities and anything else that people in a free country do every day and take for granted.
TB cannot overstate how much this country owes to its military people, its veterans and especially those who have given their bodies to the defense of this country.
MotherBlog, at one point, worked for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, at a time when each wheelchair was home to someone who left part of himself in Vietnam. She was involved in a tangential way with the construction of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and if you've ever been there and haven't shed a tear, well, then you're as much made of stone as the monument itself.
There was a time when basketball season started here after Thanksgiving (actually Dec. 1, used to be the first day games could be played), but this year, it begins on Veterans' Day, with the women's game against St. Joe's tonight at 7 and the men's game tomorrow at 5 against Wagner.
It's a huge weekend of home events here, with football against Yale (tomorrow at 1), men's hockey vs. St. Lawrence tonight and Clarkson tomorrow, women's volleyball with Columbia/Cornell tonight and tomorrow and men's soccer against Yale tomorrow.
And of course, the basketball openers.
For the first time in the great history of Princeton basketball, both the men and women enter the season coming off Ivy titles and NCAA tournament appearances.
For the men, it was the 24th NCAA tournament trip a year ago, as well as the 26th league title. For the women, it was the second NCAA appearance ever - and second straight.
This year, the men are led by Mitch Henderson, whose career record as a head coach is 0-0. TB isn't sure he's ever rooted harder for anyone to do well than he is for Henderson, who is one of TB's all-time favorite Princeton athletes and who has only enhanced what TB thought of him as he has prepared for his first season.
As an aside, Henderson's improvement as a squash player has been remarkable, though not startling, considering how good of an athlete he is.
On the women's side, Courtney Banghart enters her fifth season after going 50-8 the last two years, 27-1 in the Ivy League.
The lure of opening night is to see 1) the return of Niveen Rasheed, who tore her ACL last December and had her sophomore year limited to 12 games, 2) to see if Lauren Edwards gets the 18 points she needs to 1,000 and 3) to see if Princeton can beat St. Joe's for the first time in program history after losing the first nine.
The big moments in basketball season are still three or four months away, but this weekend provides the first glimpses of what's in store.
If it seems early, it is, as it's only 11/11/11.
Opening day for Princeton basketball. In a free country.
TigerBlog provided the game program. The United States military provided the freedom.
Make sure you take a few minutes today - Veterans Day - and remember that.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Growing Pains
TigerBlog stood near the pylon at Franklin Field for much of the third quarter of last weekend's Princeton-Penn football game.
At one point, No. 4 for Penn intercepted a pass and started down the other sideline before cutting all the way back across the field, to the point where he was sprinting directly at TB, whose instinct was to take a step or two backwards.
TigerBlog loves to watch games from the sideline, and that's where he would stand to cover high school football back in the day. Through that experience, TB developed the sense to back away when the play gets too close, though he knows of others who have paid the price - such as longtime local writer Rich Fisher, who torn his patella tendon one day at a high school game.
Anyway, No. 4 was going to have a tough time of it in terms of getting to the end zone, since offensive lineman Matt Allen appeared to have an angle on him. Then, out of the corner of TB's eye, he saw No. 2 from Penn, flying to get in front of No. 4 and to put a block on Allen, which he did, freeing No. 4 for the touchdown.
After the extra point, the official who had been in front of TB came back to the pylon for the kickoff, which led to this conversation:
TB: "That was quite a block."
Official: "I had my hand on my flag, because I didn't think he was going to get in front of him. I mean, I don't like taking touchdowns away, but I will if I have to."
The game had been 17-9 a few minutes earlier, but two big plays for the Quakers broke it open, and it ultimately became a 37-9 Penn win.
For TB, he left with the same thought he has from most of the games he's watched this year - the young Princeton players will have something of a chip on their shoulders the next time they're in that stadium.
Of every sport in college, the hardest one for freshmen to come in and make an immediate impact in is without a doubt football. It's the physical nature of the sport, of course, and it's a huge advantage for 21-, 22-year-olds to play against 18- or 19-year-olds.
The Princeton team this year is dripping with young players.
Khamal Brown, the freshman safety, just turned 19. Matt Costello, freshman wide receiver, is also 19.
Seth DeValve, who blocked a punt against Penn, is 18, more than two months away from turning 19. Quarterback Quinn Epperly is even younger, 18 years old and five months away from turning 19.
On and on the list goes. Freshmen are playing huge roles for Princeton, and they're doing so at a physical disadvantage.
Think back to when you were 18. Then think to when you were 22. Big difference, right?
Chuck Dibilio is a 19-year-old freshman, one who by the way is doing something completely remarkable - almost unbelievably so - in his first year with the Tigers.
Dibilio, with two games left, has 824 yards for the season, leaving him 174 away from reaching 1,000. He's gotten to 824 by averaging 5.6 yards per carry.
Want some historical perspective?
Nobody at Princeton has ever come close to rushing for that many yards as a freshman - or more than even 300, for that matter.
And the 5.6 yards per carry? The Princeton career record is 5.7, held by Keith Elias, the top running back in school history. Elias as a sophomore average 4.85 yards per carry - on a team that went 8-2 and had multiple offensive options, including wide receiver Michael Lerch.
Dibilio went into Franklin Field and put up 130 rushing yards against the Quakers, and after the game, Tiger head coach Bob Surace was asked why Dibilio had been shut down in the second half, when he rushed for 37 after having 83 at halftime.
Shut down? Let's see, 37 yards in a half would be 74 in a game would be 740 for a season. Shut down? At Franklin Field, against a program that prides itself traditionally on its ability to stuff the run.
When TB would watch Elias, he would be amazed at how routinely he could put up numbers that would be career bests for just about anyone else. Dibilio, in a short time, has put himself into that category.
If you think that just any back can walk into that stadium and go for 130 yards, then you're wrong. It's an amazing performance for anyone - let alone a freshman.
Princeton is 1-7 this year, with games against Yale Saturday and at Dartmouth next Saturday.
For TB's money, it doesn't matter if Princeton loses both, because the point isn't whether the Tigers are 1-9 or 3-7 this year. It's to win a championship down the road.
If you're a Princeton football fan, you can be pretty optimistic about that future, because there are legitimate championship pieces in place.
It's just that it's nearly impossible to plug those pieces in when they're freshman and have the wins begin to pile up.
Enjoy what you're seeing from the young players now, and give credit to the older players who are ending their careers and doing so with great class, giving, as Pete Carril would say, a good account of themselves.
And know this about Princeton football - better days are coming.
At one point, No. 4 for Penn intercepted a pass and started down the other sideline before cutting all the way back across the field, to the point where he was sprinting directly at TB, whose instinct was to take a step or two backwards.
TigerBlog loves to watch games from the sideline, and that's where he would stand to cover high school football back in the day. Through that experience, TB developed the sense to back away when the play gets too close, though he knows of others who have paid the price - such as longtime local writer Rich Fisher, who torn his patella tendon one day at a high school game.
Anyway, No. 4 was going to have a tough time of it in terms of getting to the end zone, since offensive lineman Matt Allen appeared to have an angle on him. Then, out of the corner of TB's eye, he saw No. 2 from Penn, flying to get in front of No. 4 and to put a block on Allen, which he did, freeing No. 4 for the touchdown.
After the extra point, the official who had been in front of TB came back to the pylon for the kickoff, which led to this conversation:
TB: "That was quite a block."
Official: "I had my hand on my flag, because I didn't think he was going to get in front of him. I mean, I don't like taking touchdowns away, but I will if I have to."
The game had been 17-9 a few minutes earlier, but two big plays for the Quakers broke it open, and it ultimately became a 37-9 Penn win.
For TB, he left with the same thought he has from most of the games he's watched this year - the young Princeton players will have something of a chip on their shoulders the next time they're in that stadium.
Of every sport in college, the hardest one for freshmen to come in and make an immediate impact in is without a doubt football. It's the physical nature of the sport, of course, and it's a huge advantage for 21-, 22-year-olds to play against 18- or 19-year-olds.
The Princeton team this year is dripping with young players.
Khamal Brown, the freshman safety, just turned 19. Matt Costello, freshman wide receiver, is also 19.
Seth DeValve, who blocked a punt against Penn, is 18, more than two months away from turning 19. Quarterback Quinn Epperly is even younger, 18 years old and five months away from turning 19.
On and on the list goes. Freshmen are playing huge roles for Princeton, and they're doing so at a physical disadvantage.
Think back to when you were 18. Then think to when you were 22. Big difference, right?
Chuck Dibilio is a 19-year-old freshman, one who by the way is doing something completely remarkable - almost unbelievably so - in his first year with the Tigers.
Dibilio, with two games left, has 824 yards for the season, leaving him 174 away from reaching 1,000. He's gotten to 824 by averaging 5.6 yards per carry.
Want some historical perspective?
Nobody at Princeton has ever come close to rushing for that many yards as a freshman - or more than even 300, for that matter.
And the 5.6 yards per carry? The Princeton career record is 5.7, held by Keith Elias, the top running back in school history. Elias as a sophomore average 4.85 yards per carry - on a team that went 8-2 and had multiple offensive options, including wide receiver Michael Lerch.
Dibilio went into Franklin Field and put up 130 rushing yards against the Quakers, and after the game, Tiger head coach Bob Surace was asked why Dibilio had been shut down in the second half, when he rushed for 37 after having 83 at halftime.
Shut down? Let's see, 37 yards in a half would be 74 in a game would be 740 for a season. Shut down? At Franklin Field, against a program that prides itself traditionally on its ability to stuff the run.
When TB would watch Elias, he would be amazed at how routinely he could put up numbers that would be career bests for just about anyone else. Dibilio, in a short time, has put himself into that category.
If you think that just any back can walk into that stadium and go for 130 yards, then you're wrong. It's an amazing performance for anyone - let alone a freshman.
Princeton is 1-7 this year, with games against Yale Saturday and at Dartmouth next Saturday.
For TB's money, it doesn't matter if Princeton loses both, because the point isn't whether the Tigers are 1-9 or 3-7 this year. It's to win a championship down the road.
If you're a Princeton football fan, you can be pretty optimistic about that future, because there are legitimate championship pieces in place.
It's just that it's nearly impossible to plug those pieces in when they're freshman and have the wins begin to pile up.
Enjoy what you're seeing from the young players now, and give credit to the older players who are ending their careers and doing so with great class, giving, as Pete Carril would say, a good account of themselves.
And know this about Princeton football - better days are coming.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Sadness In The Valley
TigerBlog wanted to write about the whole Penn State situation, except he wasn't sure that Princeton's athletic blog was the right forum for that.
Then he read about the students at Penn State and their rally in support of Joe Paterno, and that was too much.
If you missed this part of it, there was a rally last night - word spread on Facebook - in front of Paterno's house. The students chanted "We Are ... Penn State" and "Joepa Terno, Joepa Terno" while the 84-year-old football coach gushed.
Sorry, but now is not the time to support Paterno. Now is not the time to talk about the great feelings that exist between the students and the venerable coach.
Not when what obviously happened is coming to light.
The bottom line is that even if Paterno acted within the letter of the law, he had a moral obligation to do so much more than he did. And if he'd followed his moral obligation, then, what, 90% or so of what is alleged to have happened never would have?
Do the students who chanted his name realize that? Do they know the names of little boys who have had their lives irreparably ruined? Did they want to chant those names? Or did those little boys not matter, because hey, just two weeks ago, Paterno set an important record with his 409th career win, the most in Division I history?
TigerBlog has no idea how Paterno slept at night all these years, knowing what he was covering up. And why? So he could continue to be the football coach?
Really, it's been that way for years with him. Once seen as a model citizen and the total personification of what Gary Walters calls "Education Through Athletics," Paterno's legacy was already tarnished by his staunch refusal to admit that his time to retire had long since passed.
As it turned out, the reason everyone thought - that he was too old - wasn't the real reason he shouldn't have still been the coach.
TigerBlog has always rooted for Penn State. He liked the plain uniforms, the way the teams played, the way the community embraced it all.
He's been to Happy Valley - it's called Happy Valley, of all things - a few times and really enjoyed it, especially this past summer, when he was there for three days and really got a chance to see the area.
Mostly he liked Paterno, who seemed like just another guy, like the high school coach that everyone in town knew rather than one of the two most legendary college football coaches of all time, along with Bear Bryant.
In contrast to the average big-time college football coach - consumed with self-promotion and cutting every corner necessary to maintain what he has - Paterno seemed to be an educator, a simple man with a big heart.
And in truth, maybe he was all this time with everything other than his handling of the situation with his former defensive coordinator. The point is that because of that, nothing else matters.
TB has been trying to figure out what he would do if he had been in the same situation, where allegations of child molestation involving someone close to him, or someone for whom he had the greatest amount of respect, came to his desk. Would he have done the right thing?
Maybe at first, on the first night, his reaction would have been "no way, not him, TB has known him all these years, no way, no chance." But by Day 2, he wouldn't be able to live with the "what if?" and know that there was even a small chance that by not doing more, TB was opening the door for one more child to be harmed.
Still, all of this takes TB back to his original premise, that this is Princeton's athletic blog.
So what does this have to do with Princeton?
A lot.
The other question that TB has been asking is could this have happened here? Of course it could. It could happen anywhere, in any profession, with anyone.
You never really know anyone. Never know what's lurking under the surface.
If it could be Jerry Sandusky, it could be anyone.
The issue isn't whether it could happen, it's what would happen next.
TB guarantees that there is no chance that everyone at Princeton wouldn't immediately do the right thing, legally, morally and otherwise. There simply is no chance that any other outcome would happen.
And the reason is that nobody is bigger than the institution.
At Penn State, Paterno became bigger than the school. Think of Penn State, and you think of the head football coach first. That's just how it is.
Here, nobody is bigger than Princeton itself. Not any coach, not any professor, not any administrator.
On a normal day, it's one of TB's favorite things about Princeton. The football coach or the basketball coach can't simply say "give me this" and know that within seconds, 10 people will be jumping to make it happen.
At a time when something like this is enveloping a great school with great people, it's even more acute.
Beyond that, it's a matter of right or wrong. It's not a legal thing. It's a right or wrong thing.
And TB can't imagine the people here would be so morally skewed.
Anyway, TB probably shouldn't have written any of this, but he felt like he had to.
He's a bit outraged by it all.
Then he read about the students at Penn State and their rally in support of Joe Paterno, and that was too much.
If you missed this part of it, there was a rally last night - word spread on Facebook - in front of Paterno's house. The students chanted "We Are ... Penn State" and "Joepa Terno, Joepa Terno" while the 84-year-old football coach gushed.
Sorry, but now is not the time to support Paterno. Now is not the time to talk about the great feelings that exist between the students and the venerable coach.
Not when what obviously happened is coming to light.
The bottom line is that even if Paterno acted within the letter of the law, he had a moral obligation to do so much more than he did. And if he'd followed his moral obligation, then, what, 90% or so of what is alleged to have happened never would have?
Do the students who chanted his name realize that? Do they know the names of little boys who have had their lives irreparably ruined? Did they want to chant those names? Or did those little boys not matter, because hey, just two weeks ago, Paterno set an important record with his 409th career win, the most in Division I history?
TigerBlog has no idea how Paterno slept at night all these years, knowing what he was covering up. And why? So he could continue to be the football coach?
Really, it's been that way for years with him. Once seen as a model citizen and the total personification of what Gary Walters calls "Education Through Athletics," Paterno's legacy was already tarnished by his staunch refusal to admit that his time to retire had long since passed.
As it turned out, the reason everyone thought - that he was too old - wasn't the real reason he shouldn't have still been the coach.
TigerBlog has always rooted for Penn State. He liked the plain uniforms, the way the teams played, the way the community embraced it all.
He's been to Happy Valley - it's called Happy Valley, of all things - a few times and really enjoyed it, especially this past summer, when he was there for three days and really got a chance to see the area.
Mostly he liked Paterno, who seemed like just another guy, like the high school coach that everyone in town knew rather than one of the two most legendary college football coaches of all time, along with Bear Bryant.
In contrast to the average big-time college football coach - consumed with self-promotion and cutting every corner necessary to maintain what he has - Paterno seemed to be an educator, a simple man with a big heart.
And in truth, maybe he was all this time with everything other than his handling of the situation with his former defensive coordinator. The point is that because of that, nothing else matters.
TB has been trying to figure out what he would do if he had been in the same situation, where allegations of child molestation involving someone close to him, or someone for whom he had the greatest amount of respect, came to his desk. Would he have done the right thing?
Maybe at first, on the first night, his reaction would have been "no way, not him, TB has known him all these years, no way, no chance." But by Day 2, he wouldn't be able to live with the "what if?" and know that there was even a small chance that by not doing more, TB was opening the door for one more child to be harmed.
Still, all of this takes TB back to his original premise, that this is Princeton's athletic blog.
So what does this have to do with Princeton?
A lot.
The other question that TB has been asking is could this have happened here? Of course it could. It could happen anywhere, in any profession, with anyone.
You never really know anyone. Never know what's lurking under the surface.
If it could be Jerry Sandusky, it could be anyone.
The issue isn't whether it could happen, it's what would happen next.
TB guarantees that there is no chance that everyone at Princeton wouldn't immediately do the right thing, legally, morally and otherwise. There simply is no chance that any other outcome would happen.
And the reason is that nobody is bigger than the institution.
At Penn State, Paterno became bigger than the school. Think of Penn State, and you think of the head football coach first. That's just how it is.
Here, nobody is bigger than Princeton itself. Not any coach, not any professor, not any administrator.
On a normal day, it's one of TB's favorite things about Princeton. The football coach or the basketball coach can't simply say "give me this" and know that within seconds, 10 people will be jumping to make it happen.
At a time when something like this is enveloping a great school with great people, it's even more acute.
Beyond that, it's a matter of right or wrong. It's not a legal thing. It's a right or wrong thing.
And TB can't imagine the people here would be so morally skewed.
Anyway, TB probably shouldn't have written any of this, but he felt like he had to.
He's a bit outraged by it all.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Red And Blue To Orange And Black
TigerBlog recommends the brisket and potato pancake dinner at Fred & Murry's Deli in Manalapan.
And of course the matzoh ball soup. Actually, everything on the menu is good.
From the time you walk in and are hit with the kosher pickles until you're paying the bill and grab a black & white cookie for the road, you cannot go wrong there.
The "Murry" part of Fred & Murry is Murry Chalnick, whose son Andrew was a year behind TigerBlog at Penn.
Andrew's best friend was a guy named Darren Litsky, who also went to Penn. Together, Andrew and Darren didn't exactly talk or act like geniuses - but that's exactly what they were (and are).
In fact, there was a class - Accounting 1A, TigerBlog thinks - that was a requirement for all Wharton students, and when the grades were posted after the first exam, the professors waited to see which two students were the ones who had gotten perfect scores. Back then, scores were sometimes posted on a wall outside the classroom, using either a student ID number or even as TB recalls, social security numbers, something that wouldn't remotely fly today.
Anyway, Andrew and Darren played intramural softball with TB and some of TB's other friends, including Charlie Frohman. Intramural softball was played on Franklin Field, and apparently Andrew had never actually played baseball/softball before, because after he smashed one off the far wall of the field, he stood at home plate and yelled "hey, Charlie, what do I do now?"
As TB stood on the field at Franklin Field Saturday for the Princeton-Penn football game, he thought back to his intramural days on that field, in softball and football. Back then, TB wouldn't have dreamed that when he came back to homecoming in 2011, he'd be dressed all in orange and black and have a much stronger affiliation with Princeton than Penn.
TigerBlog has great memories of his time as an undergrad. He met some great people there, and he's stayed friends with some of them for the 30 years or so since.
There are others he sees randomly here and there and still others who pop up after not seeing them since the 1980s, and such little reunions always take TB back to a special time.
When he thinks back to his days at Penn, he thinks of time spent in various classrooms, with various classes, in various activities and of course rooting for Penn teams. Penn was horrible at football just prior to the time TB got there; the Quakers were an Ivy powerhouse by the time he left.
In men's basketball, Penn won two Ivy titles in TB's four years - while Princeton won the other two.
TB saw some other sports there as well, including the first lacrosse game he'd ever see. Whatever the game, TB always was rooting for hard for Penn, like any student would.
TB has some great pictures from graduation day, and he was pretty proud of himself for getting through such a good school on time, in four years, with reasonably good grades. And with really no idea of what he was going to do professionally.
In fact, he had stumbled into the newspaper business his junior year, but that was something he thought he would do for fun and a little side money until he graduated and figured out what was next. Only nothing was next, because he loved the newspaper business, and so he stayed in it, vowing to himself that each year would be his last.
Even when he tried some other things (brief runs at sales or corporate public relations or job interviews in other areas), he knew they weren't for him - and he always ended up right back where he belonged, at the newspaper.
Gradually, he began to be introduced to the local Ivy team, Princeton, who just happened to be Penn's biggest rival.
The fact that TB was a Penn alum wasn't lost on the Princeton people he met, who all looked at him with a bit of skepticism and mistrust at the idea of a Quaker in their midst.
The one person who gave him the hardest time about this was Pete Carril, by the way, in an 80% teasing and 20% "I really don't like those guys" way.
TigerBlog isn't completely sure when his allegiance really shifted from his alma mater to the school where he was spending more and more time, though he knows it was before he actually started working here.
He does remember meeting with Gary Walters when Gary became the Director of Athletics and having Gary ask where TB went to college, only to be given a "I probably wouldn't have hired you" look when he found out the answer was Penn.
The whole experience has left TigerBlog in an odd place.
When he was at Penn the other day, he knew all the words to "Hurrah for the Red And The Blue" and was able to explain why toast was raining down onto the field during the singing of "Drink a Highball." At the same time, he also knew all the words to "Going Back to Nassau Hall" when the Princeton band played that song.
Prior to the game, TB was inundated with emails from the local alumni association, reminding him that his chance to purchase tickets to the game was almost passing him by. He gets both alumni magazines in the mail.
TB used the Penn online alumni directory to find out how many alums work at Princeton. The number is 76, including only one other athletic department employee - men's track and field coach Fred Samara.
Last night, TB got a voicemail from Charlie, asking him which school he roots for when they play each other. "I assume Penn," Charlie said.
He assumes wrong.
TB roots for Princeton over Penn, all the time, every time - despite how much fondness he has for his alma mater and his time there.
It's just that all that is history.
These days, it's all Orange & Black.
And of course the matzoh ball soup. Actually, everything on the menu is good.
From the time you walk in and are hit with the kosher pickles until you're paying the bill and grab a black & white cookie for the road, you cannot go wrong there.
The "Murry" part of Fred & Murry is Murry Chalnick, whose son Andrew was a year behind TigerBlog at Penn.
Andrew's best friend was a guy named Darren Litsky, who also went to Penn. Together, Andrew and Darren didn't exactly talk or act like geniuses - but that's exactly what they were (and are).
In fact, there was a class - Accounting 1A, TigerBlog thinks - that was a requirement for all Wharton students, and when the grades were posted after the first exam, the professors waited to see which two students were the ones who had gotten perfect scores. Back then, scores were sometimes posted on a wall outside the classroom, using either a student ID number or even as TB recalls, social security numbers, something that wouldn't remotely fly today.
Anyway, Andrew and Darren played intramural softball with TB and some of TB's other friends, including Charlie Frohman. Intramural softball was played on Franklin Field, and apparently Andrew had never actually played baseball/softball before, because after he smashed one off the far wall of the field, he stood at home plate and yelled "hey, Charlie, what do I do now?"
As TB stood on the field at Franklin Field Saturday for the Princeton-Penn football game, he thought back to his intramural days on that field, in softball and football. Back then, TB wouldn't have dreamed that when he came back to homecoming in 2011, he'd be dressed all in orange and black and have a much stronger affiliation with Princeton than Penn.
TigerBlog has great memories of his time as an undergrad. He met some great people there, and he's stayed friends with some of them for the 30 years or so since.
There are others he sees randomly here and there and still others who pop up after not seeing them since the 1980s, and such little reunions always take TB back to a special time.
When he thinks back to his days at Penn, he thinks of time spent in various classrooms, with various classes, in various activities and of course rooting for Penn teams. Penn was horrible at football just prior to the time TB got there; the Quakers were an Ivy powerhouse by the time he left.
In men's basketball, Penn won two Ivy titles in TB's four years - while Princeton won the other two.
TB saw some other sports there as well, including the first lacrosse game he'd ever see. Whatever the game, TB always was rooting for hard for Penn, like any student would.
TB has some great pictures from graduation day, and he was pretty proud of himself for getting through such a good school on time, in four years, with reasonably good grades. And with really no idea of what he was going to do professionally.
In fact, he had stumbled into the newspaper business his junior year, but that was something he thought he would do for fun and a little side money until he graduated and figured out what was next. Only nothing was next, because he loved the newspaper business, and so he stayed in it, vowing to himself that each year would be his last.
Even when he tried some other things (brief runs at sales or corporate public relations or job interviews in other areas), he knew they weren't for him - and he always ended up right back where he belonged, at the newspaper.
Gradually, he began to be introduced to the local Ivy team, Princeton, who just happened to be Penn's biggest rival.
The fact that TB was a Penn alum wasn't lost on the Princeton people he met, who all looked at him with a bit of skepticism and mistrust at the idea of a Quaker in their midst.
The one person who gave him the hardest time about this was Pete Carril, by the way, in an 80% teasing and 20% "I really don't like those guys" way.
TigerBlog isn't completely sure when his allegiance really shifted from his alma mater to the school where he was spending more and more time, though he knows it was before he actually started working here.
He does remember meeting with Gary Walters when Gary became the Director of Athletics and having Gary ask where TB went to college, only to be given a "I probably wouldn't have hired you" look when he found out the answer was Penn.
The whole experience has left TigerBlog in an odd place.
When he was at Penn the other day, he knew all the words to "Hurrah for the Red And The Blue" and was able to explain why toast was raining down onto the field during the singing of "Drink a Highball." At the same time, he also knew all the words to "Going Back to Nassau Hall" when the Princeton band played that song.
Prior to the game, TB was inundated with emails from the local alumni association, reminding him that his chance to purchase tickets to the game was almost passing him by. He gets both alumni magazines in the mail.
TB used the Penn online alumni directory to find out how many alums work at Princeton. The number is 76, including only one other athletic department employee - men's track and field coach Fred Samara.
Last night, TB got a voicemail from Charlie, asking him which school he roots for when they play each other. "I assume Penn," Charlie said.
He assumes wrong.
TB roots for Princeton over Penn, all the time, every time - despite how much fondness he has for his alma mater and his time there.
It's just that all that is history.
These days, it's all Orange & Black.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Fall Back
As TigerBlog was driving along yesterday, he couldn't help but notice that there was an amazing sunset over the highway.
Unfortunately, it was at 5:00 or so.
There are few days that are more generally depressing than the "fall back" day, where clocks are set back an hour and Daylight Savings Time morphs into Standard Time. Even before the clocks are actually set back an hour, it starts to get dark out earlier and earlier, so that it's pretty much pitch-black by 6:15 or so.
The setting back of the clock only rubs it in even more.
One of TigerBlog's favorite people who ever walked into Jadwin Gym is Louise Gengler, the longtime women's tennis coach who was a tad, uh, absent-minded. Once, after the clocks were set back, Louise and TB had this conversation:
LG: What time is it?
TB: Two o'clock.
LG: Good. I have an appointment at 3, and I couldn't remember if I set my clock back or not.
The whole idea of getting an extra hour of sleep is a bit misleading as well. Unless you have to do something on Sunday morning, you're going to get up at the same point you would anyway, only it'll be an hour earlier.
Plus, your whole sleep is thrown off the night before, because you have no idea what time it really is, especially if the clock in your room automatically changes (like the cable box or something like that).
If you have little, little kids - babies, toddlers - then the worst day of the year by far is the day you set the clock back, because their little schedules aren't quite adjustable to a simple time change.
Still, for all of that, the worst part is still Sunday late afternoon, when it's so nice out and the sun is shining and all at 3 or 3:30 and then a hour later it's already starting to set.
It's a harsh reminder that winter is almost here.
Of course, there are other reminders.
First, there's the fact that the fall season is winding down here at Princeton, even when it seems like it just started.
Women's soccer and sprint football have finished their seasons, and women's volleyball (barring a Yale collapse that would force a playoff game) and men's soccer will be finished this coming weekend.
Football has two games remaining. Field hockey emerged from a crowded field to win the Ivy title and take the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, which begins with a play-in game against Rider here tomorrow at 1.
As an aside, anything TB writes about field hockey for the rest of this season will make the assumption that everyone knows by now that Princeton is without its top four players, who have helped the U.S. qualify for the Olympics.
Cross country has NCAA regional competition this weekend in Maryland, and men's water polo has the Eastern championships in two weekends. All three of those teams - or none - could emerge from that round to reach the NCAA championships.
And that's it for your fall.
Of course, winter has already started, what with both hockey teams having combined to play 11 games already.
In what can be termed hard to believe, basketball season starts this weekend. The women's team hosts St. Joe's Friday night at 7, while the men play Wagner Saturday at 5.
Wrestling begins this coming weekend, and squash, fencing and swimming and diving all jump into it the following weekend.
This Saturday's schedule is pretty jam-packed and makes for a pretty good Saturday of sports here.
The football team plays Yale at noon, followed by men's soccer against Yale at 3, men's hockey against Clarkson at 4, women's volleyball against Columbia at 5 and the men's basketball game against Wagner also at 5.
And if that's not enough, then the men's lacrosse opener is only 3.5 months away.
And Daylight Savings starts on March 11, 2012.
Unfortunately, it was at 5:00 or so.
There are few days that are more generally depressing than the "fall back" day, where clocks are set back an hour and Daylight Savings Time morphs into Standard Time. Even before the clocks are actually set back an hour, it starts to get dark out earlier and earlier, so that it's pretty much pitch-black by 6:15 or so.
The setting back of the clock only rubs it in even more.
One of TigerBlog's favorite people who ever walked into Jadwin Gym is Louise Gengler, the longtime women's tennis coach who was a tad, uh, absent-minded. Once, after the clocks were set back, Louise and TB had this conversation:
LG: What time is it?
TB: Two o'clock.
LG: Good. I have an appointment at 3, and I couldn't remember if I set my clock back or not.
The whole idea of getting an extra hour of sleep is a bit misleading as well. Unless you have to do something on Sunday morning, you're going to get up at the same point you would anyway, only it'll be an hour earlier.
Plus, your whole sleep is thrown off the night before, because you have no idea what time it really is, especially if the clock in your room automatically changes (like the cable box or something like that).
If you have little, little kids - babies, toddlers - then the worst day of the year by far is the day you set the clock back, because their little schedules aren't quite adjustable to a simple time change.
Still, for all of that, the worst part is still Sunday late afternoon, when it's so nice out and the sun is shining and all at 3 or 3:30 and then a hour later it's already starting to set.
It's a harsh reminder that winter is almost here.
Of course, there are other reminders.
First, there's the fact that the fall season is winding down here at Princeton, even when it seems like it just started.
Women's soccer and sprint football have finished their seasons, and women's volleyball (barring a Yale collapse that would force a playoff game) and men's soccer will be finished this coming weekend.
Football has two games remaining. Field hockey emerged from a crowded field to win the Ivy title and take the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, which begins with a play-in game against Rider here tomorrow at 1.
As an aside, anything TB writes about field hockey for the rest of this season will make the assumption that everyone knows by now that Princeton is without its top four players, who have helped the U.S. qualify for the Olympics.
Cross country has NCAA regional competition this weekend in Maryland, and men's water polo has the Eastern championships in two weekends. All three of those teams - or none - could emerge from that round to reach the NCAA championships.
And that's it for your fall.
Of course, winter has already started, what with both hockey teams having combined to play 11 games already.
In what can be termed hard to believe, basketball season starts this weekend. The women's team hosts St. Joe's Friday night at 7, while the men play Wagner Saturday at 5.
Wrestling begins this coming weekend, and squash, fencing and swimming and diving all jump into it the following weekend.
This Saturday's schedule is pretty jam-packed and makes for a pretty good Saturday of sports here.
The football team plays Yale at noon, followed by men's soccer against Yale at 3, men's hockey against Clarkson at 4, women's volleyball against Columbia at 5 and the men's basketball game against Wagner also at 5.
And if that's not enough, then the men's lacrosse opener is only 3.5 months away.
And Daylight Savings starts on March 11, 2012.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Lane Change
TigerBlog was driving on 95 the other night when he noticed a car at a weird angle on the grass between the north and south sides.
TB was in the middle lane, heading north. As he glanced away from the first car and looked ahead, the car in front of him was swerving into the left lane, rather frantically.
In a split second, TB saw why - there was another car stopped in the middle lane just ahead. With its lights off, it was hardly visible.
Like the driver in front of him, TB had to quickly move away from the middle lane, or else he would have plowed directly into the stopped car. Plus, he was texting and eating and reading the newspaper at the same time (well, not really).
TB, like the other car, went left instead of right (not TB's usual reaction) and for a brief second, he thought he turned away too quickly and might lose control. Instead, everything leveled out.
For the next few seconds, TB had the usual near-miss racing heartbeat situation. And he wondered how many more cars would be able to get away from the stuck car in the middle before one didn't.
TB never saw a story in the local papers about a big accident on 95, so he'll assume that nothing came of it.
Eventually, when his heart settled down, he began to chuckle a little as he thought back to an episode from the TV show "Cheers," from season 6, in 1988, called "I On Sports."
In the episode, Sam fills in doing the sports on the local news station in Boston. In a near-perfect spoof of TV newscasters, there is this exchange:
Reporter 1 - "... and with his appeals exhausted, the execution will go on as scheduled Friday."
Ditzy newswoman - "so he won't be around for that great weekend weather we're going to have."
Had TB smashed into the car, well, then of course he wouldn't be around for this weekend's schedule.
The schedule for this weekend in Princeton athletics isn't quite what it is next weekend, which is one of the busiest TB can ever remember.
Still, there are some good events, including two of what TB's old buddy Harvey Yavener would have given five stars.
The field hockey team is at Penn tonight as the final weekend of begins, with two games tonight, one tomorrow and one Sunday.
Heading into the final weekend, there could mathematically be an outright champ or a two-, three- or four-way tie for the Ivy title. Realistically, though, any scenario for more than a co-championship would involve a Yale loss to Brown, which is 0-6 in the league.
Right now, Princeton and Yale are 5-1, while Dartmouth and Columbia are 4-2. All four play the other four schools, and wins by Dartmouth and Columbia and losses by Yale and Princeton makes it a four-way tie.
Princeton is in a win-win situation, as in a win over Penn brings at least a share of the Ivy title and the league's bid to the NCAA play-in game. The Ivy winner will host the NEC champ - already Rider, which is in the MAAC for most sports but the NEC for field hockey - in an NCAA play-in game Tuesday at 1.
Assuming Yale will beat Brown, the a Princeton loss to Penn would take away both of those prizes. Princeton does hold the tiebreakers in the four-way tie scenario, but it's really unlikely to come to that.
Keep in mind that Princeton is playing this year without its top four players - Julia and Katie Reinprecht, Kathleen Sharkey, Michele Cesan - who helped the U.S. earn an Olympic bid by winning the Pan Am Games title.
Meanwhile, the women's volleyball race is essentially a three-team contest with two league weekends left.
Yale is currently 9-1, followed by 8-2 Princeton and 7-3 Columbia. This weekend should shake things up a bit, as Princeton is at last-place Brown (2-8) tonight before what figures to be the big showdown at Yale tomorrow.
Should Yale (against 3-7 Penn) and Princeton both win tonight, then the match tomorrow is a must. A Princeton win would then tie the two for first; a Yale win would clinch at least a tie for the league title.
Princeton hosts Cornell and Columbia next weekend; Yale is at Harvard/Dartmouth.
Women's volleyball, like basketball, is a double round-robin format, and there would be a one-match playoff for the NCAA bid should there be a co-championship.
Also this weekend is obviously a football game at Penn, as well as men's and women's soccer at Penn.
There isn't much at home this weekend, other than sprint football tonight against Penn, women's hockey against Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow afternoon (Skate With the Tigers) and men's water polo in the Southern championships.
Next weekend? How about home women's basketball, women's volleyball and men's hockey Friday night and then football, men's basketball, men's soccer, women's volleyball and men's hockey Saturday.
TB was in the middle lane, heading north. As he glanced away from the first car and looked ahead, the car in front of him was swerving into the left lane, rather frantically.
In a split second, TB saw why - there was another car stopped in the middle lane just ahead. With its lights off, it was hardly visible.
Like the driver in front of him, TB had to quickly move away from the middle lane, or else he would have plowed directly into the stopped car. Plus, he was texting and eating and reading the newspaper at the same time (well, not really).
TB, like the other car, went left instead of right (not TB's usual reaction) and for a brief second, he thought he turned away too quickly and might lose control. Instead, everything leveled out.
For the next few seconds, TB had the usual near-miss racing heartbeat situation. And he wondered how many more cars would be able to get away from the stuck car in the middle before one didn't.
TB never saw a story in the local papers about a big accident on 95, so he'll assume that nothing came of it.
Eventually, when his heart settled down, he began to chuckle a little as he thought back to an episode from the TV show "Cheers," from season 6, in 1988, called "I On Sports."
In the episode, Sam fills in doing the sports on the local news station in Boston. In a near-perfect spoof of TV newscasters, there is this exchange:
Reporter 1 - "... and with his appeals exhausted, the execution will go on as scheduled Friday."
Ditzy newswoman - "so he won't be around for that great weekend weather we're going to have."
Had TB smashed into the car, well, then of course he wouldn't be around for this weekend's schedule.
The schedule for this weekend in Princeton athletics isn't quite what it is next weekend, which is one of the busiest TB can ever remember.
Still, there are some good events, including two of what TB's old buddy Harvey Yavener would have given five stars.
The field hockey team is at Penn tonight as the final weekend of begins, with two games tonight, one tomorrow and one Sunday.
Heading into the final weekend, there could mathematically be an outright champ or a two-, three- or four-way tie for the Ivy title. Realistically, though, any scenario for more than a co-championship would involve a Yale loss to Brown, which is 0-6 in the league.
Right now, Princeton and Yale are 5-1, while Dartmouth and Columbia are 4-2. All four play the other four schools, and wins by Dartmouth and Columbia and losses by Yale and Princeton makes it a four-way tie.
Princeton is in a win-win situation, as in a win over Penn brings at least a share of the Ivy title and the league's bid to the NCAA play-in game. The Ivy winner will host the NEC champ - already Rider, which is in the MAAC for most sports but the NEC for field hockey - in an NCAA play-in game Tuesday at 1.
Assuming Yale will beat Brown, the a Princeton loss to Penn would take away both of those prizes. Princeton does hold the tiebreakers in the four-way tie scenario, but it's really unlikely to come to that.
Keep in mind that Princeton is playing this year without its top four players - Julia and Katie Reinprecht, Kathleen Sharkey, Michele Cesan - who helped the U.S. earn an Olympic bid by winning the Pan Am Games title.
Meanwhile, the women's volleyball race is essentially a three-team contest with two league weekends left.
Yale is currently 9-1, followed by 8-2 Princeton and 7-3 Columbia. This weekend should shake things up a bit, as Princeton is at last-place Brown (2-8) tonight before what figures to be the big showdown at Yale tomorrow.
Should Yale (against 3-7 Penn) and Princeton both win tonight, then the match tomorrow is a must. A Princeton win would then tie the two for first; a Yale win would clinch at least a tie for the league title.
Princeton hosts Cornell and Columbia next weekend; Yale is at Harvard/Dartmouth.
Women's volleyball, like basketball, is a double round-robin format, and there would be a one-match playoff for the NCAA bid should there be a co-championship.
Also this weekend is obviously a football game at Penn, as well as men's and women's soccer at Penn.
There isn't much at home this weekend, other than sprint football tonight against Penn, women's hockey against Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow afternoon (Skate With the Tigers) and men's water polo in the Southern championships.
Next weekend? How about home women's basketball, women's volleyball and men's hockey Friday night and then football, men's basketball, men's soccer, women's volleyball and men's hockey Saturday.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Media Day
Ah, the press conference. In the world of sports communications, it's supposed to be a fairly big deal.
Here at Princeton, it used to be, at least.
TigerBlog remembers being at one in 1992, the night Princeton clinched its fourth straight Ivy men's basketball title. There, in the Caldwell Field House lounge, came this exchange:
Writer - So, you're a senior, and you won, and that's four in a row, and you've never not won, and now you're going to the tournament and you were the favorite and now you go out with another title.
Sean Jackson - I'm sorry. Did you ask me a question?
That's one situation that comes up often in the press conference/interview situation. The non-question question.
Basically, the interviewer makes a declarative statement, leaving it up to the person being interviewed to nod their head, say "yeah" or "well" and then elaborate.
TigerBlog has been in a zillion press conferences, and he find them an odd setting. In the front of the room is a player or coach, and then there are a bunch of people who furiously scribble down every word that is said, even though 99% of the time nothing is said.
One of TB's favorite press conference moments came when Princeton was in Hawaii for the 1998 Rainbow Classic. There was this exchange:
Hawaiian writer - Coach, it seems like everyone on your team can shoot the three-pointer.
Bill Carmody - That's how we play. Everyone has to be able to shoot. Our center can shoot threes. [pausing to look to his right and pointing at TigerBlog]. Our SID can shoot threes.
Pete Carril could turn press conferences into standup comedy routines, sermons, eulogies, sociology lectures or anything else.
Bill Tierney could talk for 100 years at a press conference and never once say anything bad about any player, official, spectator, event, world leader or anything - other than himself, for whom he blamed for anything that ever went wrong.
Your average run-of-the-mill press conference features someone who walks in while distributing stats or something and without stopping says "up front we have coach so-and-so and the following players." Usually, the coach will make an opening statement, something along the lines of "it was a great game."
For bigger-time press conferences, there will be place-cards with the attendees' names on them, as well as a moderator. If you're looking for the Hall-of-Fame greatest moderator of all time, it's TB-Baltimore, who simply owns the room when he does it.
When TB was a sportswriter, he hardly paid attention during press conferences and he almost never asked a question. Why go down a specific path of questions with everyone there if you want to write about a topic that you don't want to give away at the time?
Instead, TB would until after and then go for the one-on-one interview, even the brief one on the walk back to the locker room.
When TB was the men's basketball contact, he decided that the formal structure of the postgame press conference was too much, so he used to bring the coach into the Zanfrini Room first and then bring in two or three players and spread them around the room and let people talk to them one-on-one.
The first few times he did this, nobody realized that TB's point was to simulate an informal locker room setting and that he wanted the writers to get up and walk around to the player they wanted.
Today is basketball media day here at Princeton. These days, TigerBlog is the interim women's basketball contact, until the OAC fills its current opening.
It is Mitch Henderson's first as the head coach, while Courtney Banghart will be entering season No. 5. Both teams begin the 2011-12 season next week, with the women home against St. Joe's Friday night, Nov. 11, and the men home Saturday, Nov. 12, at 5 against Wagner.
Way back when, the goal for media day was to have a few local TV stations here, because TV cameras made it look like a bigger deal.
Media day was also big because the players would be in uniforms for team pictures and because the media guides would be there, so all the players would be browsing. Every year, the local papers would have a picture of three players in uniforms with their shirts out, reading a media guide.
Every year, like clockwork.
This year figures to be way more informal.
Still, as long as there are media people, there will be press conferences, formal and informal.
TB can't remember most of the ones he's been to; the ones he can remember mostly make him laugh out loud.
Here at Princeton, it used to be, at least.
TigerBlog remembers being at one in 1992, the night Princeton clinched its fourth straight Ivy men's basketball title. There, in the Caldwell Field House lounge, came this exchange:
Writer - So, you're a senior, and you won, and that's four in a row, and you've never not won, and now you're going to the tournament and you were the favorite and now you go out with another title.
Sean Jackson - I'm sorry. Did you ask me a question?
That's one situation that comes up often in the press conference/interview situation. The non-question question.
Basically, the interviewer makes a declarative statement, leaving it up to the person being interviewed to nod their head, say "yeah" or "well" and then elaborate.
TigerBlog has been in a zillion press conferences, and he find them an odd setting. In the front of the room is a player or coach, and then there are a bunch of people who furiously scribble down every word that is said, even though 99% of the time nothing is said.
One of TB's favorite press conference moments came when Princeton was in Hawaii for the 1998 Rainbow Classic. There was this exchange:
Hawaiian writer - Coach, it seems like everyone on your team can shoot the three-pointer.
Bill Carmody - That's how we play. Everyone has to be able to shoot. Our center can shoot threes. [pausing to look to his right and pointing at TigerBlog]. Our SID can shoot threes.
Pete Carril could turn press conferences into standup comedy routines, sermons, eulogies, sociology lectures or anything else.
Bill Tierney could talk for 100 years at a press conference and never once say anything bad about any player, official, spectator, event, world leader or anything - other than himself, for whom he blamed for anything that ever went wrong.
Your average run-of-the-mill press conference features someone who walks in while distributing stats or something and without stopping says "up front we have coach so-and-so and the following players." Usually, the coach will make an opening statement, something along the lines of "it was a great game."
For bigger-time press conferences, there will be place-cards with the attendees' names on them, as well as a moderator. If you're looking for the Hall-of-Fame greatest moderator of all time, it's TB-Baltimore, who simply owns the room when he does it.
When TB was a sportswriter, he hardly paid attention during press conferences and he almost never asked a question. Why go down a specific path of questions with everyone there if you want to write about a topic that you don't want to give away at the time?
Instead, TB would until after and then go for the one-on-one interview, even the brief one on the walk back to the locker room.
When TB was the men's basketball contact, he decided that the formal structure of the postgame press conference was too much, so he used to bring the coach into the Zanfrini Room first and then bring in two or three players and spread them around the room and let people talk to them one-on-one.
The first few times he did this, nobody realized that TB's point was to simulate an informal locker room setting and that he wanted the writers to get up and walk around to the player they wanted.
Today is basketball media day here at Princeton. These days, TigerBlog is the interim women's basketball contact, until the OAC fills its current opening.
It is Mitch Henderson's first as the head coach, while Courtney Banghart will be entering season No. 5. Both teams begin the 2011-12 season next week, with the women home against St. Joe's Friday night, Nov. 11, and the men home Saturday, Nov. 12, at 5 against Wagner.
Way back when, the goal for media day was to have a few local TV stations here, because TV cameras made it look like a bigger deal.
Media day was also big because the players would be in uniforms for team pictures and because the media guides would be there, so all the players would be browsing. Every year, the local papers would have a picture of three players in uniforms with their shirts out, reading a media guide.
Every year, like clockwork.
This year figures to be way more informal.
Still, as long as there are media people, there will be press conferences, formal and informal.
TB can't remember most of the ones he's been to; the ones he can remember mostly make him laugh out loud.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Who Needs Tickets?
Back when TigerBlog first started working here, Kurt Kehl - then the Director of Athletic Communications and now a vice president with the Washington Capitals - used to design the world's nicest looking tickets.
They were tremendous to look at, especially if you had a season ticket sheet. They had action pictures of Princeton's best players, and so your ticket for the first game looked different than the second and so on.
It was like one of those sheet cakes with a picture on it that people get for anniversaries and birthday parties.
TB especially remembers the picture he used for the tickets with Gabe Lewullis' picture on them. They were like genuine art.
TigerBlog thought they were the best looking tickets that he'd ever seen, and he had a pretty good appreciation for the effort that went into them.
At the same time, he was a little taken aback by it, because ultimately they were tickets. You hand them to the ticket taker, and what happens next? They get ripped.
Of course, you could make the same case with the game programs.
TigerBlog has been walking to the parking lot many times when he's seen programs for football or basketball or lacrosse or anything else thrown around, discarded, sitting in water and mud and garbage.
And after all the work that went into them? All the time putting them together, writing the stories and everything else? And then they're old news, in a matter of hours.
TB's background is in newspapers, and that's the whole premise of that business. What you work so hard to put together today will be used to wrap fish tomorrow.
TB remembers one time walking into a bagel/deli in Hamilton back when he was writing for the paper, and what did he see? The column he wrote in the paper the day before, sticking out of a garbage can, with, as TB will never forget, scallion cream cheese on his picture.
Speaking of pictures on newspaper columns, TB first had one on a high school tennis column he wrote weekly, 30 years ago. During his time at the paper, he had maybe two or three pictures taken for his column, and that was it.
Other people changed their pictures what appeared to be weekly. Mark Eckel had a great picture of his old 'fro; Harvey Yavener had a great picture with a jacket, tie and shirt, of which no two matched.
Anyway, where was TB?
Oh yeah, tickets.
It became apparent early on Saturday that the weather forecast of snow starting in the late afternoon or evening and not amounting to anything was way off. In fact, it was a snowfest at the Princeton football game from well before kickoff.
As a result, almost nobody came.
Those who were at the game were given a voucher for free tickets to one of the four November men's basketball games, as a sign of appreciation for coming out in such bad weather.
And what about those who bought tickets but didn't come?
At the marketing meeting yesterday, the decision was made to allow people to use their unused Cornell tickets to get into the football game on Nov. 12 against Yale.
All you have to do is bring your unused Cornell ticket to the special promotions window at the stadium on the day of the Yale game, and it will be exchanged for a ticket to the Yale game. If you had your ticket waiting at will call, then those names will be pulled and you can do the exchange that way.
TigerBlog isn't ready to make it a hard and fast rule, but he's pretty sure that any future football games played in October blizzards would be handled similarly.
The Yale game is 10 days away, and the extended forecast is for 63 degrees that day. Even if that doesn't play out, TB is going to go out on a limb and say the weather will be better than it was for the Cornell game.
So bring out the unused ticket, and come to the game.
And then stay for hockey, soccer and basketball.
They were tremendous to look at, especially if you had a season ticket sheet. They had action pictures of Princeton's best players, and so your ticket for the first game looked different than the second and so on.
It was like one of those sheet cakes with a picture on it that people get for anniversaries and birthday parties.
TB especially remembers the picture he used for the tickets with Gabe Lewullis' picture on them. They were like genuine art.
TigerBlog thought they were the best looking tickets that he'd ever seen, and he had a pretty good appreciation for the effort that went into them.
At the same time, he was a little taken aback by it, because ultimately they were tickets. You hand them to the ticket taker, and what happens next? They get ripped.
Of course, you could make the same case with the game programs.
TigerBlog has been walking to the parking lot many times when he's seen programs for football or basketball or lacrosse or anything else thrown around, discarded, sitting in water and mud and garbage.
And after all the work that went into them? All the time putting them together, writing the stories and everything else? And then they're old news, in a matter of hours.
TB's background is in newspapers, and that's the whole premise of that business. What you work so hard to put together today will be used to wrap fish tomorrow.
TB remembers one time walking into a bagel/deli in Hamilton back when he was writing for the paper, and what did he see? The column he wrote in the paper the day before, sticking out of a garbage can, with, as TB will never forget, scallion cream cheese on his picture.
Speaking of pictures on newspaper columns, TB first had one on a high school tennis column he wrote weekly, 30 years ago. During his time at the paper, he had maybe two or three pictures taken for his column, and that was it.
Other people changed their pictures what appeared to be weekly. Mark Eckel had a great picture of his old 'fro; Harvey Yavener had a great picture with a jacket, tie and shirt, of which no two matched.
Anyway, where was TB?
Oh yeah, tickets.
It became apparent early on Saturday that the weather forecast of snow starting in the late afternoon or evening and not amounting to anything was way off. In fact, it was a snowfest at the Princeton football game from well before kickoff.
As a result, almost nobody came.
Those who were at the game were given a voucher for free tickets to one of the four November men's basketball games, as a sign of appreciation for coming out in such bad weather.
And what about those who bought tickets but didn't come?
At the marketing meeting yesterday, the decision was made to allow people to use their unused Cornell tickets to get into the football game on Nov. 12 against Yale.
All you have to do is bring your unused Cornell ticket to the special promotions window at the stadium on the day of the Yale game, and it will be exchanged for a ticket to the Yale game. If you had your ticket waiting at will call, then those names will be pulled and you can do the exchange that way.
TigerBlog isn't ready to make it a hard and fast rule, but he's pretty sure that any future football games played in October blizzards would be handled similarly.
The Yale game is 10 days away, and the extended forecast is for 63 degrees that day. Even if that doesn't play out, TB is going to go out on a limb and say the weather will be better than it was for the Cornell game.
So bring out the unused ticket, and come to the game.
And then stay for hockey, soccer and basketball.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
White Out
The nervousness began to appear at about, oh, 7:30 or so, when TigerBlog realized that the trick-or-treaters were coming in larger than normal numbers and he was running out of candy.
He had visions of having to turn all the lights out and hide in the dark, like he did the one time he did run out of candy, back when he lived in South Trenton.
Trick-or-treaters are so hard to predict. Some years, almost nobody shows up. This yer, it was a record turnout.
They came in all kinds of costumes, or no costumes at all. They were little kids and teenagers, way more than TB usually sees.
In the end, he had enough candy to make it through, and he didn't come quite as close to running out as, say, George Bailey did in "Its A Wonderful Life."
And the candy issue wouldn't have been as big had it not been for the fact that TB, in the beginning at least, was pushing the Almond Joys on the kids while helping himself to the Kit Kats and Peanut Butter Cups.
The chocolate didn't make TigerBlog sick.
CC Sabathia did, though.
In case you didn't hear, Sabathia used his opt-out clause to earn (extort?) a new contract extension from the Yankees, which means he now starts a five-year, $122 million deal with the team that is operating in its own economic stratosphere and therefore can afford to do what it just did.
Hey, more power to the Yanks and to Sabathia. They're playing within the rules, right?
What made TB sick was Sabathia's comment that it was "never about the money." Please. Never about the money? It was all about the freaking money. That's all it ever was about, all it ever is about.
In his case, he had four years and $92 million owed to him had he done nothing. Were it not about the money, then he would simply have gone about his business.
Because he sensed that the time was right, Sabathia used his leverage to get an extra year and another $30 million. Great. That's what America is supposed to be about.
But can we one time have someone be honest about it? Never about the money? Hah, what a fraud.
TigerBlog would have respected him if he said "I always wanted to stay with the Yankees and I'm glad we were able to work it out so I can" and left it at that.
Never about the money? When there are so many people out there these days who don't have two nickels?
Almost as annoying as Sabathia is the lingering presence of snow on the ground, even as temperatures climb through the 50s (to reach the 60s for the foreseeable future).
As someone told TB, this was the first four-day stretch in memory that included moving the lawn, raking leaves and shoveling snow.
One thing the snow did was give all eight Ivy League football teams some pretty good pictures. Each website has a shot the field and players covered in snow.
Columbia-Yale actually made it onto SportsCenter with its snow footage.
There's nothing like playing football in the snow. From the time kids are little, they love to be out in the snow, and, not to offend any of the women out there, boys love to play football in the snow.
NFL games that are played in horrible snowy conditions often get the best ratings, as people love to watch whited-out fields and players who are battling the elements. That's why TV schedules so many late-season outdoor night games in cities with the worst weather.
For the Ivy League, though, the undeniable fact is that the snow killed attendance.
The four games combined (at Princeton, Harvard, Brown and Columbia) drew a total announced crowd of around 15,000. If one-third that number were actually in the building, it would have been a lot.
For those keeping score, Princeton has now had four home football games. The first three were played on consecutive Saturday evenings to start the season, when the weather forecast was for rain each time.
The fact that it stopped raining twice before kickoff didn't really help the situation. When you're relying so heavily on a walk-up crowd, the weather forecast is crucial.
Maybe the solution would be for Princeton to make season tickets as inexpensive as they've always been but jack up single-game ticket prices to drive people to season tickets.
Or simply to get better weather for the home games?
After all, it's not about the money.
He had visions of having to turn all the lights out and hide in the dark, like he did the one time he did run out of candy, back when he lived in South Trenton.
Trick-or-treaters are so hard to predict. Some years, almost nobody shows up. This yer, it was a record turnout.
They came in all kinds of costumes, or no costumes at all. They were little kids and teenagers, way more than TB usually sees.
In the end, he had enough candy to make it through, and he didn't come quite as close to running out as, say, George Bailey did in "Its A Wonderful Life."
And the candy issue wouldn't have been as big had it not been for the fact that TB, in the beginning at least, was pushing the Almond Joys on the kids while helping himself to the Kit Kats and Peanut Butter Cups.
The chocolate didn't make TigerBlog sick.
CC Sabathia did, though.
In case you didn't hear, Sabathia used his opt-out clause to earn (extort?) a new contract extension from the Yankees, which means he now starts a five-year, $122 million deal with the team that is operating in its own economic stratosphere and therefore can afford to do what it just did.
Hey, more power to the Yanks and to Sabathia. They're playing within the rules, right?
What made TB sick was Sabathia's comment that it was "never about the money." Please. Never about the money? It was all about the freaking money. That's all it ever was about, all it ever is about.
In his case, he had four years and $92 million owed to him had he done nothing. Were it not about the money, then he would simply have gone about his business.
Because he sensed that the time was right, Sabathia used his leverage to get an extra year and another $30 million. Great. That's what America is supposed to be about.
But can we one time have someone be honest about it? Never about the money? Hah, what a fraud.
TigerBlog would have respected him if he said "I always wanted to stay with the Yankees and I'm glad we were able to work it out so I can" and left it at that.
Never about the money? When there are so many people out there these days who don't have two nickels?
Almost as annoying as Sabathia is the lingering presence of snow on the ground, even as temperatures climb through the 50s (to reach the 60s for the foreseeable future).
As someone told TB, this was the first four-day stretch in memory that included moving the lawn, raking leaves and shoveling snow.
One thing the snow did was give all eight Ivy League football teams some pretty good pictures. Each website has a shot the field and players covered in snow.
Columbia-Yale actually made it onto SportsCenter with its snow footage.
There's nothing like playing football in the snow. From the time kids are little, they love to be out in the snow, and, not to offend any of the women out there, boys love to play football in the snow.
NFL games that are played in horrible snowy conditions often get the best ratings, as people love to watch whited-out fields and players who are battling the elements. That's why TV schedules so many late-season outdoor night games in cities with the worst weather.
For the Ivy League, though, the undeniable fact is that the snow killed attendance.
The four games combined (at Princeton, Harvard, Brown and Columbia) drew a total announced crowd of around 15,000. If one-third that number were actually in the building, it would have been a lot.
For those keeping score, Princeton has now had four home football games. The first three were played on consecutive Saturday evenings to start the season, when the weather forecast was for rain each time.
The fact that it stopped raining twice before kickoff didn't really help the situation. When you're relying so heavily on a walk-up crowd, the weather forecast is crucial.
Maybe the solution would be for Princeton to make season tickets as inexpensive as they've always been but jack up single-game ticket prices to drive people to season tickets.
Or simply to get better weather for the home games?
After all, it's not about the money.
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