When your first child is a baby, there are certain givens for any new parent.
A pacifier hits the floor? Off it goes to be boiled. Bottles need to be heated up or cleaned? Not in the microwave or dishwasher.
Each day, it's off to consult "What To Expect The First Year" to make sure that your kid is crawling or rolling over or supporting himself or whatever it is not at the time that the book says but earlier than that, so that you can eagerly - and casually - report this to the other new parents whose kids are still not there yet.
And playing with the little toys that hang down from the crib? The surest sign that you have created the next Einstein.
For the first birthday party - for which the child is completely unaware of the significance - it's upwards of 40, 50, 60 people - all of whom are there against their will and common sense.
Then there's your second baby.
For all of the above, none of them apply again. For instance, when the pacifier hits the ground, it gets wiped off on your shirt and shoved back into the kid's mouth.
When you have a second baby, especially one that comes more than two or three years after the first, it's easy to forget all of the little things, like how to put in the infant car seat and all that.
These days, when TigerBlog hears of people who have become new parents, he's thrilled for them and wishes them all the best - and then recoils in horror at the thought of having to go through that again.
Of course, one-week-old Mason Sachson isn't just the newborn of Craig Sachson, who works here in the OAC. Mason is also TigerBlog's partner in the destruction of his father's squash game.
TB figures that it'll be a good eight weeks or so before Craig has even passable energy, and during that time, TB intends to take advantage of that fact to punish Craig in squash three or four times a week.
He has no choice, since Craig is way ahead already in the yearly race to see who is going to win the OAC squash championship.
TB grew up playing tennis, and he only played squash once - in college - before he began to play regularly here about 10 years ago, when the Jadwin Gym courts were being redone and lunchtime basketball didn't exist for a few weeks.
His strength in squash is his ability to hit the ball. His weakness is just about everything else.
TB hits squash shots like he learned how to hit tennis shots, and that's not exactly how squash is supposed to be played. His backhand, while very successful, is a full windup as in tennis, which is contrary to how it's supposed to be hit.
TB hasn't played tennis in about 15 years or so, and if he tried now, he'd struggle to put racket on ball, since a tennis racket is huge compared to its squash counterpart.
The Princeton men's tennis team is currently tied for first place in the Ivy League at 3-0, along with Columbia.
If the Tigers are going to win the Ivy title, they're certainly going to earn it.
The next three league matches are Saturday at Dartmouth, Sunday at Harvard and the following Friday home with Columbia. Those three teams happened to be ranked 62nd, 24th and 37th in the country.
Princeton came oh-so-close to winning a year ago, when it finished second to Cornell in a match that could have gone either way.
This year, Columbia has already swept Harvard and Dartmouth, both by scores of 5-2. A year ago, it seemed like every Ivy match was 4-3.
In Princeton's case, that's how its' been this year as well, as that was the score in its wins over Penn, Yale and Brown.
Glenn Michibata is the head coach of the men's tennis team, and he and his program operate a bit far from the limelight around here.
Still, there aren't 25 people who've ever walked into Jadwin Gym who are nicer people than Michibata, who was a great professional player in his own right.
Tennis on the college level plays out through the fall and spring. For Princeton, it's really all about three matches in seven days, beginning Saturday at Dartmouth.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
A Mystery Of History
When he wasn't busy rooting against Pete Carril, TigerBlog was a history major back in his days as a Penn undergraduate.
TB isn't quite sure why he majored in history beyond just the most simplistic of "it is interesting."
And it was.
TB took some great classes at Penn, studying a wide range of historical eras, cultures, locations and such.
His focus was American history, and among his teachers were now-Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust (who taught in the American Studies department and with whom TB had two classes on the American South) and Walter Licht, who earned a Ph.D. from Princeton and who has through the years hit his old student up for tickets.
If he had to pick his single favorite class, he probably couldn't come up with just one. History of the 1960s was a good one. Anything about the Cold War. Or the Civil War. Or World War II. Or 19th century European history. Or the history of labor unions.
It was all pretty great stuff.
One of TB's professors was a man named Bruce Kuklick, who in addition to being a professor wrote a book on Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium that was pretty interesting.
In one of Professor Kuklick's classes, the subject turned to Alger Hiss, a member of the State Department in the 1940s who was accused of being a Communist spy and was subsequently convicted of perjury, for which he spent 44 months in prison.
Of course, the case against him was dubious, and it was one of the highest profile cases during the time of the fear of Communist infiltration of the U.S. government.
Anyway, Professor Kuklick told the class that years later he saw Alger Hiss in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and went up to him, introduced himself and said that he had been teaching a class involving his case for years at Penn and had one question for him: "Did you do it?"
Looking back on it, maybe TB should have gone down the path of getting a Ph.D. of his own and being a professor. Nah. That wouldn't have been his style.
In fact, he found a career that has a great blend of the historian to it, and that is the athletic history of Princeton University.
TigerBlog considers himself an expert on the history of Princeton athletics, and that is why he was so shocked to see a newspaper clip that was forwarded to him about the 1974 football game between Princeton and Rutgers.
According to the story from the Daily Princetonian of Sept. 30, 1974, Princeton and Rutgers tied at 6-6 because Princeton was unable to attempt an extra point after a late touchdown. And why?
Because the Rutgers students tore down both sets of goal posts at Palmer Stadium to prevent it.
Walt Snickenberger scored with 22 seconds remaining in the game, but there were no goalposts left on the field. Princeton suggested kicking without goal posts or putting up backup ones (which apparently would have taken five minutes), but the refs were a no-go on either idea.
Ultimately, Princeton was forced to go for two and was unable to convert.
At first, TB figured this had to have been from a joke issue, no? And even now, he's not 100% sure he's not being tricked.
But the article does have accompanying pictures of the goal posts being torn down and of an irate Princeton head coach Bob Casciola.
It also has this line from writer Peter Seldin: "The game's electrifying final minutes were a wholesale departure from the sleep-inducing events of the first 40 minutes of play."
TB was also taken by the visual Seldin creates of Casciola postagme: "It's an unfortunate thing, an unbelievable thing," said Casciola, resignation written all over his face as he slumped back in his chair in the Caldwell Field House lounge.
For that matter, TB is pretty sure the same chair is still in that lounge.
Anyway, Princeton apparently had no recourse and was somewhat robbed, something that Rutgers coach Frank Burns even admitted.
It's a fascinating story, one that TB had no idea ever happened. Assuming of course, it did happen, ad that he isn't being taken in by a joke.
It makes him wonder what else is out there in the Princeton annals that he's missed to this point.
TB isn't quite sure why he majored in history beyond just the most simplistic of "it is interesting."
And it was.
TB took some great classes at Penn, studying a wide range of historical eras, cultures, locations and such.
His focus was American history, and among his teachers were now-Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust (who taught in the American Studies department and with whom TB had two classes on the American South) and Walter Licht, who earned a Ph.D. from Princeton and who has through the years hit his old student up for tickets.
If he had to pick his single favorite class, he probably couldn't come up with just one. History of the 1960s was a good one. Anything about the Cold War. Or the Civil War. Or World War II. Or 19th century European history. Or the history of labor unions.
It was all pretty great stuff.
One of TB's professors was a man named Bruce Kuklick, who in addition to being a professor wrote a book on Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium that was pretty interesting.
In one of Professor Kuklick's classes, the subject turned to Alger Hiss, a member of the State Department in the 1940s who was accused of being a Communist spy and was subsequently convicted of perjury, for which he spent 44 months in prison.
Of course, the case against him was dubious, and it was one of the highest profile cases during the time of the fear of Communist infiltration of the U.S. government.
Anyway, Professor Kuklick told the class that years later he saw Alger Hiss in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and went up to him, introduced himself and said that he had been teaching a class involving his case for years at Penn and had one question for him: "Did you do it?"
Looking back on it, maybe TB should have gone down the path of getting a Ph.D. of his own and being a professor. Nah. That wouldn't have been his style.
In fact, he found a career that has a great blend of the historian to it, and that is the athletic history of Princeton University.
TigerBlog considers himself an expert on the history of Princeton athletics, and that is why he was so shocked to see a newspaper clip that was forwarded to him about the 1974 football game between Princeton and Rutgers.
According to the story from the Daily Princetonian of Sept. 30, 1974, Princeton and Rutgers tied at 6-6 because Princeton was unable to attempt an extra point after a late touchdown. And why?
Because the Rutgers students tore down both sets of goal posts at Palmer Stadium to prevent it.
Walt Snickenberger scored with 22 seconds remaining in the game, but there were no goalposts left on the field. Princeton suggested kicking without goal posts or putting up backup ones (which apparently would have taken five minutes), but the refs were a no-go on either idea.
Ultimately, Princeton was forced to go for two and was unable to convert.
At first, TB figured this had to have been from a joke issue, no? And even now, he's not 100% sure he's not being tricked.
But the article does have accompanying pictures of the goal posts being torn down and of an irate Princeton head coach Bob Casciola.
It also has this line from writer Peter Seldin: "The game's electrifying final minutes were a wholesale departure from the sleep-inducing events of the first 40 minutes of play."
TB was also taken by the visual Seldin creates of Casciola postagme: "It's an unfortunate thing, an unbelievable thing," said Casciola, resignation written all over his face as he slumped back in his chair in the Caldwell Field House lounge.
For that matter, TB is pretty sure the same chair is still in that lounge.
Anyway, Princeton apparently had no recourse and was somewhat robbed, something that Rutgers coach Frank Burns even admitted.
It's a fascinating story, one that TB had no idea ever happened. Assuming of course, it did happen, ad that he isn't being taken in by a joke.
It makes him wonder what else is out there in the Princeton annals that he's missed to this point.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Chocolate Ears
Halloween, of course, is the No. 1 candy day of them all. Except it's a bit misleading.
Halloween features the wide range of candy, where really nothing is off limits.
If, however, you're all about milk chocolate, as TigerBlog is, you really can't beat Easter. What's better than breaking off a piece of a chocolate bunny's ear?
And then there's the Dove chocolate eggs. They would be as perfect as any candy ever, were it not for how hard it is to peel off the wrappers.
Sometimes, you get the fold perfectly and it opens without issue, but that's only about 10% of the time. The other 90%, you have to fight your way through and end up with little scraps of wrapper and chocolate under your fingernails.
TB isn't sure why chocolate became such a big part of Easter, but he's fine with it.
Other than the fact that it involves the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter is as close to a Jewish holiday as there is in the Christian calendar.
How so? It's not on the same day every year. It's not like Christmas, which is always Dec. 25. Or, more secularly, Thanksgiving, which is not always the same exact day but is always on the same Thursday.
Easter is like Hanukkah, which can be anywhere from late November to late December. Or the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper and always seem to come "early" or "late" but never right on time.
This year, Easter and Passover fell on the same weekend, which is a rarity.
This year's Easter also fell on the Sunday of the first weekend of the baseball season.
If you look at the standings now, the Yankees are 0-3, while the Mets are 3-0. The Red Sox are 0-3, while the Orioles are 3-0.
What does it mean? Nothing. Though it did make for some good panicky phone calls on sports radio.
For a Yankee fan to panic now would be like a fan of an NFL team to panic if the team was down 7-0 at the end of the first quarter of the opener.
Meanwhile, Princeton has one active Major Leaguer - Will Venable of the Padres, who is 2 for 10 after going 1 for 4 yesterday. Venable had a very good spring for San Diego and a good start would be a nice carryover.
Ross Ohlendorf is at Triple-A Pawtucket for the Red Sox. Chris Young is in extended spring training for the Mets.
Back in the Ivy League, each baseball team has played eight games, all against the teams in the other division.
Right now, the four Gehrig teams are all over .500. In the Rolfe Division, no team is above .500.
TB has no way of checking this, but this has to be a rarity since the league started with two divisions around 2000 or so.
Princeton, at 6-2, is a game back of Cornell. Penn and Columbia are both 5-3. This weekend's schedule has Penn at Princeton and Columbia at Cornell for four games apiece.
On the softball side, the Gehrig Division (called the South Division in softball) is the stronger as well.
Cornell is 7-1, followed by Princeton and Penn at 5-3. Harvard is out to a 7-1 start in the other division, with no other team better than 3-5.
Each game is huge as the teams now play in their divisions in both baseball and softball.
TigerBlog is always amazed at the all-out sprint that is baseball and softball as the teams play their 20 league games in a span of 30 days, leading up to the Ivy League Championship Series.
Easter to Mothers' Day.
It goes pretty fast.
Halloween features the wide range of candy, where really nothing is off limits.
If, however, you're all about milk chocolate, as TigerBlog is, you really can't beat Easter. What's better than breaking off a piece of a chocolate bunny's ear?
And then there's the Dove chocolate eggs. They would be as perfect as any candy ever, were it not for how hard it is to peel off the wrappers.
Sometimes, you get the fold perfectly and it opens without issue, but that's only about 10% of the time. The other 90%, you have to fight your way through and end up with little scraps of wrapper and chocolate under your fingernails.
TB isn't sure why chocolate became such a big part of Easter, but he's fine with it.
Other than the fact that it involves the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter is as close to a Jewish holiday as there is in the Christian calendar.
How so? It's not on the same day every year. It's not like Christmas, which is always Dec. 25. Or, more secularly, Thanksgiving, which is not always the same exact day but is always on the same Thursday.
Easter is like Hanukkah, which can be anywhere from late November to late December. Or the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper and always seem to come "early" or "late" but never right on time.
This year, Easter and Passover fell on the same weekend, which is a rarity.
This year's Easter also fell on the Sunday of the first weekend of the baseball season.
If you look at the standings now, the Yankees are 0-3, while the Mets are 3-0. The Red Sox are 0-3, while the Orioles are 3-0.
What does it mean? Nothing. Though it did make for some good panicky phone calls on sports radio.
For a Yankee fan to panic now would be like a fan of an NFL team to panic if the team was down 7-0 at the end of the first quarter of the opener.
Meanwhile, Princeton has one active Major Leaguer - Will Venable of the Padres, who is 2 for 10 after going 1 for 4 yesterday. Venable had a very good spring for San Diego and a good start would be a nice carryover.
Ross Ohlendorf is at Triple-A Pawtucket for the Red Sox. Chris Young is in extended spring training for the Mets.
Back in the Ivy League, each baseball team has played eight games, all against the teams in the other division.
Right now, the four Gehrig teams are all over .500. In the Rolfe Division, no team is above .500.
TB has no way of checking this, but this has to be a rarity since the league started with two divisions around 2000 or so.
Princeton, at 6-2, is a game back of Cornell. Penn and Columbia are both 5-3. This weekend's schedule has Penn at Princeton and Columbia at Cornell for four games apiece.
On the softball side, the Gehrig Division (called the South Division in softball) is the stronger as well.
Cornell is 7-1, followed by Princeton and Penn at 5-3. Harvard is out to a 7-1 start in the other division, with no other team better than 3-5.
Each game is huge as the teams now play in their divisions in both baseball and softball.
TigerBlog is always amazed at the all-out sprint that is baseball and softball as the teams play their 20 league games in a span of 30 days, leading up to the Ivy League Championship Series.
Easter to Mothers' Day.
It goes pretty fast.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Dome Sweet Dome
If a big pickup truck filled with unlimited money was backed up to TigerBlog's office with a note that said "spend on one athletic facility here," then TigerBlog would build a Princeton version of the Carrier Dome.
If you've never been the building on the Syracuse campus, then you're missing out.
TigerBlog loves the Palestra, though some of that has to do with the fact that 1) he went to school at Penn and 2) some of the greatest athletic events he's seen have been Princeton-Penn basketball games.
TB loves M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. He's a huge fan of the Stan Sheriff Center, largely because 1) Princeton won three games in three days there, 2) the garlic french fries and most importantly 3) it's in Honolulu.
What other facilities does TB love?
He used to love the gym at Long Island University, mostly because it was on the stage of an old theater. He's a big man of the football stadium at Lehigh (great setting, especially the grass behind the end zone) and the basketball arena at Lehigh (Princeton beat Penn there in the 1996 Ivy playoff, plus it's a great building).
TB has been to basketball arenas all over the country. He has been to very few Major League Baseball or NFL stadiums.
As an aside, when Princeton Stadium was built for $45 million, John Cornell, then the OAC publications person and resident observer of all things in the human condition, suggested a $44 million stadium and a $1 million house somewhere near here and that anyone who worked in Princeton Athletics could use the house whenever they wanted.
Meanwhile, back at venues, it's possible that the Carrier Dome is TB's favorite.
He does know that he'd love to have one just like it here, to use for football, basketball and lacrosse.
How great would that be? It wouldn't have to be 50,000 seats, like the Carrier Dome. And it'd be perfect for Princeton.
Sadly, the dump truck with the money isn't backing up anytime soon, and the cost of building such a facility would probably require more than one dump truck anyway.
TB has never seen football in the Carrier Dome, but he has been there for basketball and lacrosse. Whoever designed it smartly configured the basketball part so that the overwhelming majority of the seats are close to the court.
And for lacrosse? It's a great place to see a game.
Princeton - and TigerBlog - will be in Syracuse tomorrow at 4 to take on the Orange in men's lacrosse. It'll be Princeton's first visit to the building since 2008, as the 2009 and 2010 games were played at the Meadowlands and the game last year was played here in the domeless Princeton Stadium.
Just as like a year ago, when Princeton played at Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field for the first time after four years in M&T Bank Stadium, it'll be a real thrill for the Princeton players to be on the Carrier Dome.
The rivalry between Princeton and Syracuse is a great one. The Orange lead 18-9, and 23 of those 27 games have been played since Princeton defeated Syracuse in the 1992 NCAA championship game.
While the Orange lead the series 2:1, Princeton has won some epics, including one-goal games in the Dome in 1999 and 2003. The teams have split four NCAA championship games, with the 1992 and 2001 games to Princeton in OT and the 2000 and 2002 games to Syracuse.
Princeton had an incredible 12-season stretch from 1992-2003 in which it either won the NCAA championship (six times) or lost to Syracuse in the NCAA tournament (six times).
Of course, when the opening face-off comes tomorrow (4), the reality of the importance of the game will set in, and the facility and history will take a back seat.
Syracuse comes into the game at 4-4 overall, losers of two straight (for the first time since 2007, apparently). The Orange lost for the first time ever in the Big East when they dropped an 11-10 game to Villanova (whom Princeton beat 14-8) two weeks ago and then fell to Duke in the Meadowlands last Sunday.
The schedule doesn't get any easier for the Orange, who take on two Top 10 teams (Princeton and Cornell) in four days.
Syracuse is used to playing deep into May, and the team is going to have start winning some games to get the chance this year.
Princeton, on the other hand, comes into the game playing the best its played in awhile, with four straight wins, including last week's 13-2 thumping of a Brown team that had lost by one to Duke four days earlier.
Still, the game tomorrow is hardly going to be easy for Princeton. Syracuse is never, ever, ever, ever to be taken for granted, especially in its own building and especially when it's desperate for a win. In that regard, Princeton would have been better off if the Orange had beaten Duke last week.
TB loves all Princeton lacrosse games, but there's something more special when the opponent is Syracuse and even more special after that when the venue is the Carrier Dome.
TB, for one, can't wait for tomorrow.
If you've never been the building on the Syracuse campus, then you're missing out.
TigerBlog loves the Palestra, though some of that has to do with the fact that 1) he went to school at Penn and 2) some of the greatest athletic events he's seen have been Princeton-Penn basketball games.
TB loves M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. He's a huge fan of the Stan Sheriff Center, largely because 1) Princeton won three games in three days there, 2) the garlic french fries and most importantly 3) it's in Honolulu.
What other facilities does TB love?
He used to love the gym at Long Island University, mostly because it was on the stage of an old theater. He's a big man of the football stadium at Lehigh (great setting, especially the grass behind the end zone) and the basketball arena at Lehigh (Princeton beat Penn there in the 1996 Ivy playoff, plus it's a great building).
TB has been to basketball arenas all over the country. He has been to very few Major League Baseball or NFL stadiums.
As an aside, when Princeton Stadium was built for $45 million, John Cornell, then the OAC publications person and resident observer of all things in the human condition, suggested a $44 million stadium and a $1 million house somewhere near here and that anyone who worked in Princeton Athletics could use the house whenever they wanted.
Meanwhile, back at venues, it's possible that the Carrier Dome is TB's favorite.
He does know that he'd love to have one just like it here, to use for football, basketball and lacrosse.
How great would that be? It wouldn't have to be 50,000 seats, like the Carrier Dome. And it'd be perfect for Princeton.
Sadly, the dump truck with the money isn't backing up anytime soon, and the cost of building such a facility would probably require more than one dump truck anyway.
TB has never seen football in the Carrier Dome, but he has been there for basketball and lacrosse. Whoever designed it smartly configured the basketball part so that the overwhelming majority of the seats are close to the court.
And for lacrosse? It's a great place to see a game.
Princeton - and TigerBlog - will be in Syracuse tomorrow at 4 to take on the Orange in men's lacrosse. It'll be Princeton's first visit to the building since 2008, as the 2009 and 2010 games were played at the Meadowlands and the game last year was played here in the domeless Princeton Stadium.
Just as like a year ago, when Princeton played at Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field for the first time after four years in M&T Bank Stadium, it'll be a real thrill for the Princeton players to be on the Carrier Dome.
The rivalry between Princeton and Syracuse is a great one. The Orange lead 18-9, and 23 of those 27 games have been played since Princeton defeated Syracuse in the 1992 NCAA championship game.
While the Orange lead the series 2:1, Princeton has won some epics, including one-goal games in the Dome in 1999 and 2003. The teams have split four NCAA championship games, with the 1992 and 2001 games to Princeton in OT and the 2000 and 2002 games to Syracuse.
Princeton had an incredible 12-season stretch from 1992-2003 in which it either won the NCAA championship (six times) or lost to Syracuse in the NCAA tournament (six times).
Of course, when the opening face-off comes tomorrow (4), the reality of the importance of the game will set in, and the facility and history will take a back seat.
Syracuse comes into the game at 4-4 overall, losers of two straight (for the first time since 2007, apparently). The Orange lost for the first time ever in the Big East when they dropped an 11-10 game to Villanova (whom Princeton beat 14-8) two weeks ago and then fell to Duke in the Meadowlands last Sunday.
The schedule doesn't get any easier for the Orange, who take on two Top 10 teams (Princeton and Cornell) in four days.
Syracuse is used to playing deep into May, and the team is going to have start winning some games to get the chance this year.
Princeton, on the other hand, comes into the game playing the best its played in awhile, with four straight wins, including last week's 13-2 thumping of a Brown team that had lost by one to Duke four days earlier.
Still, the game tomorrow is hardly going to be easy for Princeton. Syracuse is never, ever, ever, ever to be taken for granted, especially in its own building and especially when it's desperate for a win. In that regard, Princeton would have been better off if the Orange had beaten Duke last week.
TB loves all Princeton lacrosse games, but there's something more special when the opponent is Syracuse and even more special after that when the venue is the Carrier Dome.
TB, for one, can't wait for tomorrow.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Mason's Dad
Maddie Sachson is three years old.
She has a friend in playgroup named Jackson, so when she heard she was going to be a big sister, she suggested that Jackson would be a great name for the new baby.
So go ahead. Say it out loud.
Jackson Sachson.
Needless to say, when Craig and Jess Sachson had their second child yesterday, they did not name the newborn boy Jackson.
Instead, they went with Mason.
Welcome to the world, Mason. Hope the trip was smooth.
If you're reading TigerBlog, then chances are close to 100% that you've read something written by Mason's dad.
Craig Sachson is the contact here at Princeton for 12 sports, which TB thinks is more than any other athletic communications person in the Ivy League - and therefore probably more than any other athletic communications person anywhere in Division I.
If you've read anything on goprincetontigers.com about football, it was written by Craig Sachson. If you've gone to a football game here and picked up a game program, that's almost all a Craig Sachson publication.
Same goes for men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's lightweight rowing, men's heavyweight rowing, women's open rowing, wrestling and of course, men's and women's squash.
If you add it up, that's probably half of Princeton's 1,000 athletes. There can't be anyone else in athletic communications who deals directly with that quantity of athletes.
Hey, most schools in Division I don't have nearly that number of athletes in their programs combined.
It's quite a workload.
Way back when, before the web came along being the sport contact for football was all consuming, as was basketball, lacrosse and hockey. The other sports required little effort.
Now?
Every sport gets a pregame story, a postgame story. Features. Podcasts. Videos. Highlights. And on and on. And every sport has coaches, athletes, parents, alums and friends who have a steadily rising level of expectation.
TigerBlog knew Craig Sachson's name before he knew Craig Sachson, who was - like TB had before him - in the newspaper business. When an opening for an intern came up here circa 1998, TB called Sachson to see if he'd be interested.
As it turned out, Sachson hardly knew what athletic communications was. Still, he came up for an interview and took the position, staying for two years before spending two at Cornell and then returning 10 years ago.
The elimination of the internship program here at the OAC in favor of full-time positions has enabled Princeton to keep its athletic communications people in place. The result is that there is much greater familiarity with the teams by the people who work here, since they're not being replaced ever year or two.
In Sachson's case, he has brought stability to so many sports and their coaches, all of whom love the fact that they have someone there year after year who knows the history of the program and the people involved.
His impact on so many Princeton athletes, many of whom never met him or have no idea of his name, has been tremendous.
And now he has a new son.
Maybe, like TigerBlog Jr., Mason will spend hours and hours with his father at games here. Maybe like TBJ and Little Miss TigerBlog, the Princeton campus will become something of a second home.
Pretty soon, it'll be Craig who is calling up Mason at noon to make sure he's awake and ready to go wherever he has to go that day. It'll be Mason who is hiding the fact that he lost his retainer and making endless plans to go to the movies or to a friend's house or - egads - on a date and expecting Craig to be his at-a-moment's-notice driver.
It won't seem like all that long until Mason is eating at 2 am - no because he's an infant but because he's a teenager who's still awake.
In the meantime, it's all about diapers and sleepless nights for Craig and Jess.
And taking care of little Mason.
TigerBlog joins with everyone else at Princeton in welcoming Mason to the fold.
And letting him know how lucky he is that he has the dad he has.
She has a friend in playgroup named Jackson, so when she heard she was going to be a big sister, she suggested that Jackson would be a great name for the new baby.
So go ahead. Say it out loud.
Jackson Sachson.
Needless to say, when Craig and Jess Sachson had their second child yesterday, they did not name the newborn boy Jackson.
Instead, they went with Mason.
Welcome to the world, Mason. Hope the trip was smooth.
If you're reading TigerBlog, then chances are close to 100% that you've read something written by Mason's dad.
Craig Sachson is the contact here at Princeton for 12 sports, which TB thinks is more than any other athletic communications person in the Ivy League - and therefore probably more than any other athletic communications person anywhere in Division I.
If you've read anything on goprincetontigers.com about football, it was written by Craig Sachson. If you've gone to a football game here and picked up a game program, that's almost all a Craig Sachson publication.
Same goes for men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's lightweight rowing, men's heavyweight rowing, women's open rowing, wrestling and of course, men's and women's squash.
If you add it up, that's probably half of Princeton's 1,000 athletes. There can't be anyone else in athletic communications who deals directly with that quantity of athletes.
Hey, most schools in Division I don't have nearly that number of athletes in their programs combined.
It's quite a workload.
Way back when, before the web came along being the sport contact for football was all consuming, as was basketball, lacrosse and hockey. The other sports required little effort.
Now?
Every sport gets a pregame story, a postgame story. Features. Podcasts. Videos. Highlights. And on and on. And every sport has coaches, athletes, parents, alums and friends who have a steadily rising level of expectation.
TigerBlog knew Craig Sachson's name before he knew Craig Sachson, who was - like TB had before him - in the newspaper business. When an opening for an intern came up here circa 1998, TB called Sachson to see if he'd be interested.
As it turned out, Sachson hardly knew what athletic communications was. Still, he came up for an interview and took the position, staying for two years before spending two at Cornell and then returning 10 years ago.
The elimination of the internship program here at the OAC in favor of full-time positions has enabled Princeton to keep its athletic communications people in place. The result is that there is much greater familiarity with the teams by the people who work here, since they're not being replaced ever year or two.
In Sachson's case, he has brought stability to so many sports and their coaches, all of whom love the fact that they have someone there year after year who knows the history of the program and the people involved.
His impact on so many Princeton athletes, many of whom never met him or have no idea of his name, has been tremendous.
And now he has a new son.
Maybe, like TigerBlog Jr., Mason will spend hours and hours with his father at games here. Maybe like TBJ and Little Miss TigerBlog, the Princeton campus will become something of a second home.
Pretty soon, it'll be Craig who is calling up Mason at noon to make sure he's awake and ready to go wherever he has to go that day. It'll be Mason who is hiding the fact that he lost his retainer and making endless plans to go to the movies or to a friend's house or - egads - on a date and expecting Craig to be his at-a-moment's-notice driver.
It won't seem like all that long until Mason is eating at 2 am - no because he's an infant but because he's a teenager who's still awake.
In the meantime, it's all about diapers and sleepless nights for Craig and Jess.
And taking care of little Mason.
TigerBlog joins with everyone else at Princeton in welcoming Mason to the fold.
And letting him know how lucky he is that he has the dad he has.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Is it Next Year Yet?
So the Baylor women became the first college basketball team - male or female - to go 40-0 in a season?
TigerBlog is amazed. That the Bears played 40 games, that is.
The last men's basketball team to go unbeaten in Division I was the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, who went 32-0. Baylor's 40-0 season added a full 25% more of a season than the Hoosiers of Scott May, Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner did.
The NCAA women's tournament started in 1982, six years after the Hoosiers had their perfect run. Since then, no men's team has been undefeated, obviously.
The 2012 Baylor women became the sixth women's team to have a perfect season.
Oh, by the way, did you ever eat a Clif Bar? You know, those instant energy-type bars (TB thinks they're a tad bitter). Anyway, the court at the women's basketball tournament was decorated exactly like the wrapper for the Clif Bars. Didn't anyone notice that?
The NCAA women's tournament somewhat closely mirrored the men's tournament, in that the unquestioned prohibitive favorite cruised through the event.
It made for some March dullness.
The world of college basketball has some issues to deal with as it moves forward.
The one-and-done concept makes a mockery of the commercials that run that say "still think we're a bunch of dumb jocks?" The answer is, in big-time men's basketball, no, not dumb jocks, just mercenaries.
The officiating has become everything officiating isn't supposed to be. The refs are supposed to be invisible; instead, they have injected themselves into the forefront with their mind-numbing replay reviews over nothing and the propensity to make the wrong call in a big spot.
The way games end is tedious. There are way too many timeouts called. If there are going to be nine media timeouts per game, how about no team timeouts? Or at the very least how about three timeouts per game, and if you don't call one in the first half, you lose it?
And none of that even takes into account how conference realignment for football affects basketball.
For all of that, there are few things that match a great college basketball game.
TigerBlog, for one, is excited already about Princeton's chances in the 2012-13 season, for men and women.
Between the two programs, three 1,000-point scorers graduate - Douglas Davis (his 1,550 points are second all-time at Princeton) for the men and Lauren Edwards and Devona Allgood for the women.
Even with those losses, both teams will be in the hunt to the end next season.
The men were playing as well or maybe better than any team in the league by season's end this year. By next year, the team will have had the difficult transitional year under a new head coach out of the way, and Mitch Henderson clearly is a great young coach.
The women's team destroyed the league this year, and the distance between the Tigers and the other schools was significant. Losing Edwards and Allgood will hurt, but the rest of the league has a lot of catching up to do.
For Princeton fans, next year offers the last chance to see two all-time greats play for the Tigers.
On the men's side, there's Ian Hummer, who is likely to pass by Davis in points. Hummer is a threat to do something spectacular at any moment, and he will be as good as any player in the Ivy League next year (he will be the only returning unanimous first-team all-league pick from this year).
On the women's side, there's Niveen Rasheed, easily the best player in the Ivy League and as good as any player in Ivy women's history (along with Harvard grad Allison Feaster and Penn grad Diana Caramanico). Just like Hummer, Rasheed is a highlight waiting to happen every time the ball is in her hands.
The 2012-13 basketball seasons could both be pretty exciting around here.
Unlike the recently concluded NCAA tournaments.
TigerBlog is amazed. That the Bears played 40 games, that is.
The last men's basketball team to go unbeaten in Division I was the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, who went 32-0. Baylor's 40-0 season added a full 25% more of a season than the Hoosiers of Scott May, Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner did.
The NCAA women's tournament started in 1982, six years after the Hoosiers had their perfect run. Since then, no men's team has been undefeated, obviously.
The 2012 Baylor women became the sixth women's team to have a perfect season.
Oh, by the way, did you ever eat a Clif Bar? You know, those instant energy-type bars (TB thinks they're a tad bitter). Anyway, the court at the women's basketball tournament was decorated exactly like the wrapper for the Clif Bars. Didn't anyone notice that?
The NCAA women's tournament somewhat closely mirrored the men's tournament, in that the unquestioned prohibitive favorite cruised through the event.
It made for some March dullness.
The world of college basketball has some issues to deal with as it moves forward.
The one-and-done concept makes a mockery of the commercials that run that say "still think we're a bunch of dumb jocks?" The answer is, in big-time men's basketball, no, not dumb jocks, just mercenaries.
The officiating has become everything officiating isn't supposed to be. The refs are supposed to be invisible; instead, they have injected themselves into the forefront with their mind-numbing replay reviews over nothing and the propensity to make the wrong call in a big spot.
The way games end is tedious. There are way too many timeouts called. If there are going to be nine media timeouts per game, how about no team timeouts? Or at the very least how about three timeouts per game, and if you don't call one in the first half, you lose it?
And none of that even takes into account how conference realignment for football affects basketball.
For all of that, there are few things that match a great college basketball game.
TigerBlog, for one, is excited already about Princeton's chances in the 2012-13 season, for men and women.
Between the two programs, three 1,000-point scorers graduate - Douglas Davis (his 1,550 points are second all-time at Princeton) for the men and Lauren Edwards and Devona Allgood for the women.
Even with those losses, both teams will be in the hunt to the end next season.
The men were playing as well or maybe better than any team in the league by season's end this year. By next year, the team will have had the difficult transitional year under a new head coach out of the way, and Mitch Henderson clearly is a great young coach.
The women's team destroyed the league this year, and the distance between the Tigers and the other schools was significant. Losing Edwards and Allgood will hurt, but the rest of the league has a lot of catching up to do.
For Princeton fans, next year offers the last chance to see two all-time greats play for the Tigers.
On the men's side, there's Ian Hummer, who is likely to pass by Davis in points. Hummer is a threat to do something spectacular at any moment, and he will be as good as any player in the Ivy League next year (he will be the only returning unanimous first-team all-league pick from this year).
On the women's side, there's Niveen Rasheed, easily the best player in the Ivy League and as good as any player in Ivy women's history (along with Harvard grad Allison Feaster and Penn grad Diana Caramanico). Just like Hummer, Rasheed is a highlight waiting to happen every time the ball is in her hands.
The 2012-13 basketball seasons could both be pretty exciting around here.
Unlike the recently concluded NCAA tournaments.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Hey Abbott
TigerBlog gave up on "Mike and Mike in the Morning" long ago, choosing instead to split his morning commute between Imus and Boomer and Carton.
Usually, he'll linger more with Imus - unless he happens upon a pretty good guest on the Boomer and Carton show. When that happens, they're usually pretty good interviewers.
The Boomer and Carton show is at its best, by the way, when Carton is pretending that he was as good an athlete as Boomer and then Boomer dismisses him. That's a good dynamic.
Unfortunately, the show gets too silly sometimes, especially when women are the subject of some juvenile comments.
This morning, though, it was pretty good stuff.
TB was listening to a guest talk about the day he threw a no-hitter. As it was, the hosts didn't mention his name for awhile, which TB actually liked, since he was trying to figure out who it was.
The clues kept coming as he spoke and mentioned that he'd thrown:
* a no-hitter for the Yankees
* against the Indians
* not a perfect game
TB originally thought David Wells or David Cone, but it wasn't either of them.
Eventually, TB though he had the right guy, Dave Righetti. As it turned out, he had the wrong no-hitter.
Righetti threw a no-hitter against the Red Sox on July 4, 1983.
It was Jim Abbott who threw the no-hitter against the Indians, his on Sept. 4, 1993.
TB imagines that even the most ardent anti-Yankee fan still had root for Jim Abbott (TB-Baltimore, is this true?).
Abbott, for those who don't know, was born without a right hand. Despite that, he was a star high school athlete who went to the University of Michigan, helped the U.S. to the 1988 gold medal in baseball in the Olympics in Seoul and was a first-round draft choice in Major League Baseball.
He would tuck a glove under his arm when he pitched and then somehow get it on before the ball could be hit back to him. Teams that tried to bunt on him weren't usually successful.
Anyway, on the Boomer and Carton show this morning, Abbott was talking about the book he's written, about having only one hand, about his career. As when he had been a player, he came across as simply a nice guy.
And, when you're born without your hand, you never know any different, so to him, it was all very natural. Still, to reach the levels he did with only one hand is a tremendously inspiring achievement.
Abbott kept talking about trusting his catcher, and TB couldn't think who the Yankee catcher was in 1993. Eventually, Abbott said the name: Matt Nokes.
If throwing a no-hitter is a huge accomplishment, catching one is a huge thrill.
One person who knows the feeling is Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley, who caught a no-hitter by Randy Johnson for the Seattle Mariners on June 2, 1990.
As an aside, TB can't remember the context of the conversation that he had with Bradley the day that Bradley said something along the lines of "hey, I was once traded straight up for Ivan Calderon," but TB remembers that it was pretty funny.
Bradley coaches the defending Ivy League baseball champion, and the Tigers opened the 2012 season with a 3-1 weekend, splitting with Dartmouth in a rematch of last year's Ivy League Championship Series and then sweeping Harvard.
It's a good thing for the Tigers that they went 1-3, because the other three Gehrig Division schools (Columbia, Cornell, Penn) matched it, leaving a four-way tie after one weekend.
The format for Ivy baseball has two cross-over weekends, where the teams play two games against each of the four teams in the other division, and then three weekends where the teams plays four games against the other three teams in its own division.
At the end of the 20 games, the two division champs play best-of-three for the Ivy title and NCAA tournament berth.
The Gehrig Division champion has hosted the ILCS the last two years. Before that, you have to go back to 2003 to find the last time that the Gehrig Division team was the host.
If the first weekend is an indication, then this year's Gehrig Division race figures to be fascinating. Also, it's possible that the Gehrig teams, if they really are better, will beat up on each other to the point where one Rolfe team ends up with a better record.
In the meantime, Princeton heads to Yale and Brown this weekend, the final one of the cross-over games.
One of the great events of last year was the 2011 Ivy League Championship Series Game 3, when Princeton defeated Dartmouth to win the title. It was on a perfect May Sunday at Clarke Field.
It'd be okay with TB if there was a repeat of that this year.
After Weekend 1 of Ivy baseball, though, it's obvious that there's a long way to go.
Usually, he'll linger more with Imus - unless he happens upon a pretty good guest on the Boomer and Carton show. When that happens, they're usually pretty good interviewers.
The Boomer and Carton show is at its best, by the way, when Carton is pretending that he was as good an athlete as Boomer and then Boomer dismisses him. That's a good dynamic.
Unfortunately, the show gets too silly sometimes, especially when women are the subject of some juvenile comments.
This morning, though, it was pretty good stuff.
TB was listening to a guest talk about the day he threw a no-hitter. As it was, the hosts didn't mention his name for awhile, which TB actually liked, since he was trying to figure out who it was.
The clues kept coming as he spoke and mentioned that he'd thrown:
* a no-hitter for the Yankees
* against the Indians
* not a perfect game
TB originally thought David Wells or David Cone, but it wasn't either of them.
Eventually, TB though he had the right guy, Dave Righetti. As it turned out, he had the wrong no-hitter.
Righetti threw a no-hitter against the Red Sox on July 4, 1983.
It was Jim Abbott who threw the no-hitter against the Indians, his on Sept. 4, 1993.
TB imagines that even the most ardent anti-Yankee fan still had root for Jim Abbott (TB-Baltimore, is this true?).
Abbott, for those who don't know, was born without a right hand. Despite that, he was a star high school athlete who went to the University of Michigan, helped the U.S. to the 1988 gold medal in baseball in the Olympics in Seoul and was a first-round draft choice in Major League Baseball.
He would tuck a glove under his arm when he pitched and then somehow get it on before the ball could be hit back to him. Teams that tried to bunt on him weren't usually successful.
Anyway, on the Boomer and Carton show this morning, Abbott was talking about the book he's written, about having only one hand, about his career. As when he had been a player, he came across as simply a nice guy.
And, when you're born without your hand, you never know any different, so to him, it was all very natural. Still, to reach the levels he did with only one hand is a tremendously inspiring achievement.
Abbott kept talking about trusting his catcher, and TB couldn't think who the Yankee catcher was in 1993. Eventually, Abbott said the name: Matt Nokes.
If throwing a no-hitter is a huge accomplishment, catching one is a huge thrill.
One person who knows the feeling is Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley, who caught a no-hitter by Randy Johnson for the Seattle Mariners on June 2, 1990.
As an aside, TB can't remember the context of the conversation that he had with Bradley the day that Bradley said something along the lines of "hey, I was once traded straight up for Ivan Calderon," but TB remembers that it was pretty funny.
Bradley coaches the defending Ivy League baseball champion, and the Tigers opened the 2012 season with a 3-1 weekend, splitting with Dartmouth in a rematch of last year's Ivy League Championship Series and then sweeping Harvard.
It's a good thing for the Tigers that they went 1-3, because the other three Gehrig Division schools (Columbia, Cornell, Penn) matched it, leaving a four-way tie after one weekend.
The format for Ivy baseball has two cross-over weekends, where the teams play two games against each of the four teams in the other division, and then three weekends where the teams plays four games against the other three teams in its own division.
At the end of the 20 games, the two division champs play best-of-three for the Ivy title and NCAA tournament berth.
The Gehrig Division champion has hosted the ILCS the last two years. Before that, you have to go back to 2003 to find the last time that the Gehrig Division team was the host.
If the first weekend is an indication, then this year's Gehrig Division race figures to be fascinating. Also, it's possible that the Gehrig teams, if they really are better, will beat up on each other to the point where one Rolfe team ends up with a better record.
In the meantime, Princeton heads to Yale and Brown this weekend, the final one of the cross-over games.
One of the great events of last year was the 2011 Ivy League Championship Series Game 3, when Princeton defeated Dartmouth to win the title. It was on a perfect May Sunday at Clarke Field.
It'd be okay with TB if there was a repeat of that this year.
After Weekend 1 of Ivy baseball, though, it's obvious that there's a long way to go.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Today, No Segue
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament is a bizarre animal.
There's the whole impact of the one-and-done philosophy - especially at Kentucky - and the over-saturation of the event by the media, which is willing to discuss to no end a player's length or anoint a coach as a certifiable genius - as if winning at Kentucky and Kansas is somehow difficult - and yet not ask a single question on subjects like, say, if the one-and-done mentality is in any way consistent with what college athletics are intended to be.
For that matter, TigerBlog has heard and read a great deal about the last NCAA championship game meeting between Bill Self (who comes across as a pretty down-to-Earth, normal guy) and John Calipari (who doesn't.) What he hasn't heard and read a great deal about is how Memphis (Calipari's old team) had to vacate that game, which wasn't a first for Calipari.
The only reference to any of it that TB has heard came when Calipari suggested that Duke and Carolina are also "one-and-done" teams and sort of wondered if they were bad for college basketball too. It reminded TB of when MotherBlog used to say "if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?"
Oh, and then there's one of the parts of the tournament that TB loves. How many players on either team in the final can you name, and of that group, how many had you heard of two weeks ago?
For all that, though, the wildest part of the tournament is how it gets progressively duller.
The Selection Show is awesome. The first two rounds (not the play-in games, but the first two actual rounds) are even better.
The first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament are two of the best five sports days of the year.
The next two rounds? They're okay, but not as good, especially when the darlings of Thursday and Friday hit the reality of Saturday/Sunday - see Norfolk State and Lehigh this year and Princeton in 1996.
The Sweet 16 games are good, and the regional finals to see who gets to the Final Four are pressure-packed.
And then the Final Four? Eh. The semifinals are hardly memorable, and even the memorable championship games are few and far between.
Nope. This is the rare athletic event where the beginning far eclipses the end.
TB is going to say that tonight's championship game will be forgotten as well, something to the tune of Kentucky 81, Kansas 63.
Beyond that, TigerBlog offers no actual segue from the NCAA basketball tournament to what had to be the best event of a pretty good weekend for Princeton athletics.
It wasn't the men's lacrosse game, a 13-2 domination of Brown that gave the Tigers their fourth straight win as they head to the Carrier Dome to take on Syracuse.
It wasn't in baseball, where the Tigers opened the Ivy League season by winning three of four at home against Dartmouth and Harvard. In what might be a first, all four Gehrig Division teams have winning records on the Monday after the first weekend, though Penn and Brown haven't played yet and Cornell and Dartmouth only got one game in.
It wasn't in softball, where Princeton swept Dartmouth to open its season Friday before being swept Saturday by Harvard.
It wasn't in rowing, where the season is finally starting to get into full swing.
Nor was it in tennis, where the men and women are 1-0 in the Ivy after defeating Penn.
Nope. It was in men's volleyball. Even in a loss.
Princeton took on Eastern power Penn State, a perennial threat to win the NCAA championship.
Penn State had beaten Princeton 3-0 for seven straight years before Friday night's epic in Dillon Gym, where the Tigers actually had eight match balls before falling 37-35 in the fourth game and then 15-12 in the fifth and deciding game.
As TB said last week after his experiences at Yale for men's lacrosse, the beauty of working in college athletics is that you never know when you're going to stumble across an event like the Princeton-Penn State volleyball match.
TB wasn't there, but he's been in Dillon Gym for volleyball enough to know that the place had to have been completely rocking.
It's what intercollegiate athletics is supposed to be all about. Not one-and-dones with coaches who are made out to be above mere mortals.
Oh wait. Was that a segue?
There's the whole impact of the one-and-done philosophy - especially at Kentucky - and the over-saturation of the event by the media, which is willing to discuss to no end a player's length or anoint a coach as a certifiable genius - as if winning at Kentucky and Kansas is somehow difficult - and yet not ask a single question on subjects like, say, if the one-and-done mentality is in any way consistent with what college athletics are intended to be.
For that matter, TigerBlog has heard and read a great deal about the last NCAA championship game meeting between Bill Self (who comes across as a pretty down-to-Earth, normal guy) and John Calipari (who doesn't.) What he hasn't heard and read a great deal about is how Memphis (Calipari's old team) had to vacate that game, which wasn't a first for Calipari.
The only reference to any of it that TB has heard came when Calipari suggested that Duke and Carolina are also "one-and-done" teams and sort of wondered if they were bad for college basketball too. It reminded TB of when MotherBlog used to say "if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?"
Oh, and then there's one of the parts of the tournament that TB loves. How many players on either team in the final can you name, and of that group, how many had you heard of two weeks ago?
For all that, though, the wildest part of the tournament is how it gets progressively duller.
The Selection Show is awesome. The first two rounds (not the play-in games, but the first two actual rounds) are even better.
The first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament are two of the best five sports days of the year.
The next two rounds? They're okay, but not as good, especially when the darlings of Thursday and Friday hit the reality of Saturday/Sunday - see Norfolk State and Lehigh this year and Princeton in 1996.
The Sweet 16 games are good, and the regional finals to see who gets to the Final Four are pressure-packed.
And then the Final Four? Eh. The semifinals are hardly memorable, and even the memorable championship games are few and far between.
Nope. This is the rare athletic event where the beginning far eclipses the end.
TB is going to say that tonight's championship game will be forgotten as well, something to the tune of Kentucky 81, Kansas 63.
Beyond that, TigerBlog offers no actual segue from the NCAA basketball tournament to what had to be the best event of a pretty good weekend for Princeton athletics.
It wasn't the men's lacrosse game, a 13-2 domination of Brown that gave the Tigers their fourth straight win as they head to the Carrier Dome to take on Syracuse.
It wasn't in baseball, where the Tigers opened the Ivy League season by winning three of four at home against Dartmouth and Harvard. In what might be a first, all four Gehrig Division teams have winning records on the Monday after the first weekend, though Penn and Brown haven't played yet and Cornell and Dartmouth only got one game in.
It wasn't in softball, where Princeton swept Dartmouth to open its season Friday before being swept Saturday by Harvard.
It wasn't in rowing, where the season is finally starting to get into full swing.
Nor was it in tennis, where the men and women are 1-0 in the Ivy after defeating Penn.
Nope. It was in men's volleyball. Even in a loss.
Princeton took on Eastern power Penn State, a perennial threat to win the NCAA championship.
Penn State had beaten Princeton 3-0 for seven straight years before Friday night's epic in Dillon Gym, where the Tigers actually had eight match balls before falling 37-35 in the fourth game and then 15-12 in the fifth and deciding game.
As TB said last week after his experiences at Yale for men's lacrosse, the beauty of working in college athletics is that you never know when you're going to stumble across an event like the Princeton-Penn State volleyball match.
TB wasn't there, but he's been in Dillon Gym for volleyball enough to know that the place had to have been completely rocking.
It's what intercollegiate athletics is supposed to be all about. Not one-and-dones with coaches who are made out to be above mere mortals.
Oh wait. Was that a segue?
Friday, March 30, 2012
Mega Optimistic
One day back in 1991, when his Princeton men's basketball team was cruising along somewhere near the end of what became a 14-0 Ivy record and a national ranking, Pete Carril famously had this to say when asked about how it was going:
"These are tough times for a pessimist."
At the other end of the spectrum from Princeton's legendary basketball coach is TigerBlog's friend Corey, as optimistic a soul as it gets.
As a matter of fact, in the nearly 45 years that TB has know Corey, he can probably count on the fingers on one hand the number of times that Corey wasn't in a good mood and thinking that everything was just fine and that whatever was to come next would be even better.
Corey sent out an email this week inviting TB to join in on the Holy Grail that is the mega millions jackpot, which this week tops $500,000,000.
For $20, Corey would go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, and everyone who was in would split the winnings. There are probably thousands of such arrangements going on around the country, and it's likely that you'll see one of those groups on the news this coming week.
Eventually, Corey sent out a follow-up saying that he had 54 people who were in.
TB's advice was to make up some numbers for them and keep the $1,080.
TigerBlog is not sending his friend $20. Instead, Corey has agreed that if he wins - each individual's share would be $9.66 million - that Corey will pay the remaining 11 payments of TB's car.
Corey also sent back a correction - "when we win," he wrote, not "if we win."
TB is pretty sure that if Corey bought one ticket alone, he would have won the entire $500,000,000 - or that his odds would be 50-50 at the worst. With each partner he brought in, though, the odds went down.
The odds of winning are 1 in 176 million. You are apparently 50 times as likely to get hit by lightning as you are to win the mega millions, though as one college professor pointed out, if you buy 50 tickets, your chances of winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning are the same.
The big question of the lottery winner is always the same: Will you quit your job?
If TB won $500,000,000 - keep in mind his odds are even worse than 1 in 176 million since he didn't buy any lottery tickets - he'd probably still work here. What else would he do?
Maybe he'd buy lunch more than he'd bring it in - though there is something to be said for the convenience of having lunch already in the fridge in the office after squash.
And even if TB was part of Corey's group and had $9 million coming his way, he'd still go to Providence tomorrow for the men's lacrosse game.
TB knows he's in the right business because he still gets excited about the games.
What's the point of working in athletics if you don't like the games, right?
It's almost like there are two separate entities to working here.
There's all the regular during-the-week work stuff, the business of putting together a college athletic program with 38 varsity teams and 1,000 athletes.
Then there are the games.
TB has always been fascinated by the idea that he works in a building where people come to see teams play. He gets paid to be in a building that other people pay to get into.
It's the games - an extension of the athletes and coaches - that really secure the connection between those who work here and the institution itself. It's why there's such pride in working here, because of the fact that your work is part of something that directly represents the school.
There is a unique sense of pride in that.
TB's sense is that many jobs - even really good ones - are all about how the company can help the individual who works there. To the employee, it's about getting back from the company. Maybe there's a sense of pride in working for a well-known, well-respected company.
On the other hand, TB doesn't see too many of his friends who wear their company logo on their clothes seven days a week, like many of the people here do.
TB considers himself extremely lucky to be part of a place like Princeton Athletics and Princeton University.
And he's looking forward to going to Brown tomorrow.
And he feels like he probably saved himself $20 by not getting in with Corey's group on the mega millions.
On the other hand, maybe he's just a pessimist.
"These are tough times for a pessimist."
At the other end of the spectrum from Princeton's legendary basketball coach is TigerBlog's friend Corey, as optimistic a soul as it gets.
As a matter of fact, in the nearly 45 years that TB has know Corey, he can probably count on the fingers on one hand the number of times that Corey wasn't in a good mood and thinking that everything was just fine and that whatever was to come next would be even better.
Corey sent out an email this week inviting TB to join in on the Holy Grail that is the mega millions jackpot, which this week tops $500,000,000.
For $20, Corey would go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, and everyone who was in would split the winnings. There are probably thousands of such arrangements going on around the country, and it's likely that you'll see one of those groups on the news this coming week.
Eventually, Corey sent out a follow-up saying that he had 54 people who were in.
TB's advice was to make up some numbers for them and keep the $1,080.
TigerBlog is not sending his friend $20. Instead, Corey has agreed that if he wins - each individual's share would be $9.66 million - that Corey will pay the remaining 11 payments of TB's car.
Corey also sent back a correction - "when we win," he wrote, not "if we win."
TB is pretty sure that if Corey bought one ticket alone, he would have won the entire $500,000,000 - or that his odds would be 50-50 at the worst. With each partner he brought in, though, the odds went down.
The odds of winning are 1 in 176 million. You are apparently 50 times as likely to get hit by lightning as you are to win the mega millions, though as one college professor pointed out, if you buy 50 tickets, your chances of winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning are the same.
The big question of the lottery winner is always the same: Will you quit your job?
If TB won $500,000,000 - keep in mind his odds are even worse than 1 in 176 million since he didn't buy any lottery tickets - he'd probably still work here. What else would he do?
Maybe he'd buy lunch more than he'd bring it in - though there is something to be said for the convenience of having lunch already in the fridge in the office after squash.
And even if TB was part of Corey's group and had $9 million coming his way, he'd still go to Providence tomorrow for the men's lacrosse game.
TB knows he's in the right business because he still gets excited about the games.
What's the point of working in athletics if you don't like the games, right?
It's almost like there are two separate entities to working here.
There's all the regular during-the-week work stuff, the business of putting together a college athletic program with 38 varsity teams and 1,000 athletes.
Then there are the games.
TB has always been fascinated by the idea that he works in a building where people come to see teams play. He gets paid to be in a building that other people pay to get into.
It's the games - an extension of the athletes and coaches - that really secure the connection between those who work here and the institution itself. It's why there's such pride in working here, because of the fact that your work is part of something that directly represents the school.
There is a unique sense of pride in that.
TB's sense is that many jobs - even really good ones - are all about how the company can help the individual who works there. To the employee, it's about getting back from the company. Maybe there's a sense of pride in working for a well-known, well-respected company.
On the other hand, TB doesn't see too many of his friends who wear their company logo on their clothes seven days a week, like many of the people here do.
TB considers himself extremely lucky to be part of a place like Princeton Athletics and Princeton University.
And he's looking forward to going to Brown tomorrow.
And he feels like he probably saved himself $20 by not getting in with Corey's group on the mega millions.
On the other hand, maybe he's just a pessimist.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Here Come The Blues
Let's face it. If you saw the movie "Oxford Blues," you were entertained.
Okay, maybe it wasn't as good as "A Yank In Oxford," the 1938 original on which they 1980-something remake was based.
And maybe "A Yank In Oxford" had a starting lineup of Lionel Barrymore, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan, whereas the remake countered with Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and a bunch of English people.
Still, how could you go wrong?
Rob Lowe as the cocky American who ends up rowing at Oxford after being a dealer in a Las Vegas casino, all in the name of pursuing the cute English gentry woman who ended up married to Corbin Bernsen (in real life, that is).
The movie exploits every cliche there is, and the end isn't exactly up there with the end of "The Sting" in terms of being surprising.
As an aside, TigerBlog has never met anyone who saw "The Sting," the 1973 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and wasn't fooled by the end.
Meanwhile, back at "Oxford Blues," it wasn't quite an Oscar nominee. Still, you couldn't help but come away thinking that there'd be bigger wastes of time in your life than the two hours you spent on that movie.
Anyway, TB long ago filed "Oxford Blues" away along with the other movies that are not exactly showered with great critical reception and yet are fun to watch. At the top of that list, by the way, is the hard-to-beat "Point Break."
There's also another file of movies that do great critical reception that couldn't be duller and only got the reviews they got because critics like to show how much smarter they are than the people reading their reviews. How else can anyone explain movies like "The English Patient?"
TigerBlog thought back to "Oxford Blues" when he saw that the real Oxford Blues are on their way to Princeton for the weekend.
In what has to be one the great decisions for an out-of-season team, the Princeton men's soccer team hosts Oxford University Saturday at 5 at Roberts Stadium.
Oh, and if you weren't already rooting against Oxford as a Princeton fan, there's next week's Oxford-Cambridge regatta, the rather prestigious "Boat Race" as it's called. Princeton alum Jack Lindeman, the captain of last year's Tiger heavyweight boat, has been named to Cambridge first varsity 8 for the event.
Earlier this week, TigerBlog got an email from former Princeton marketing chief Scott Jurgens about a college football coach (Clemson's?) who wants the NCAA to allow schools to play other schools in their spring games. Sure, why not. College football's already out of control. Why not add to it, right?
Actually, it's not the worst idea TB has ever heard.
In soccer and most other sports, the rules already permit out-of-season competition against other schools. And apparently, it doesn't limit it U.S. schools.
Oxford has already tied Harvard and beaten Yale on their American tour, which has come at the end of their college season.
For more information on the Blues, go to Google, though you have to do a search for "Oxford Football," not "Oxford Soccer" to come up with anything.
For Princeton, the match comes at the beginning of spring practice.
And it's not just any game.
It's a chance to play an English team in its own game. There's also the backdrop of having it be between two of the top five or 10 academic universities in the world.
For an out-of-season game, it doesn't get much better than that.
Princeton-Oxford.
It has a real ring to it, no?
Okay, maybe it wasn't as good as "A Yank In Oxford," the 1938 original on which they 1980-something remake was based.
And maybe "A Yank In Oxford" had a starting lineup of Lionel Barrymore, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan, whereas the remake countered with Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and a bunch of English people.
Still, how could you go wrong?
Rob Lowe as the cocky American who ends up rowing at Oxford after being a dealer in a Las Vegas casino, all in the name of pursuing the cute English gentry woman who ended up married to Corbin Bernsen (in real life, that is).
The movie exploits every cliche there is, and the end isn't exactly up there with the end of "The Sting" in terms of being surprising.
As an aside, TigerBlog has never met anyone who saw "The Sting," the 1973 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and wasn't fooled by the end.
Meanwhile, back at "Oxford Blues," it wasn't quite an Oscar nominee. Still, you couldn't help but come away thinking that there'd be bigger wastes of time in your life than the two hours you spent on that movie.
Anyway, TB long ago filed "Oxford Blues" away along with the other movies that are not exactly showered with great critical reception and yet are fun to watch. At the top of that list, by the way, is the hard-to-beat "Point Break."
There's also another file of movies that do great critical reception that couldn't be duller and only got the reviews they got because critics like to show how much smarter they are than the people reading their reviews. How else can anyone explain movies like "The English Patient?"
TigerBlog thought back to "Oxford Blues" when he saw that the real Oxford Blues are on their way to Princeton for the weekend.
In what has to be one the great decisions for an out-of-season team, the Princeton men's soccer team hosts Oxford University Saturday at 5 at Roberts Stadium.
Oh, and if you weren't already rooting against Oxford as a Princeton fan, there's next week's Oxford-Cambridge regatta, the rather prestigious "Boat Race" as it's called. Princeton alum Jack Lindeman, the captain of last year's Tiger heavyweight boat, has been named to Cambridge first varsity 8 for the event.
Earlier this week, TigerBlog got an email from former Princeton marketing chief Scott Jurgens about a college football coach (Clemson's?) who wants the NCAA to allow schools to play other schools in their spring games. Sure, why not. College football's already out of control. Why not add to it, right?
Actually, it's not the worst idea TB has ever heard.
In soccer and most other sports, the rules already permit out-of-season competition against other schools. And apparently, it doesn't limit it U.S. schools.
Oxford has already tied Harvard and beaten Yale on their American tour, which has come at the end of their college season.
For more information on the Blues, go to Google, though you have to do a search for "Oxford Football," not "Oxford Soccer" to come up with anything.
For Princeton, the match comes at the beginning of spring practice.
And it's not just any game.
It's a chance to play an English team in its own game. There's also the backdrop of having it be between two of the top five or 10 academic universities in the world.
For an out-of-season game, it doesn't get much better than that.
Princeton-Oxford.
It has a real ring to it, no?
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