Half Full And Half Empty

TigerBlog is more fascinated by the idea that the small, wide glass can hold as much as the clearly taller but thinner glass than he is in trying to figure out if either glass is half full or half empty.

Pete Carril famously said "these are tough times for a pessimist," and he said back in the 1991 season, when the Princeton men's basketball was on its way to a 14-0 Ivy League season.

He also once said that he thinks like a pessimist and works like an optimist.

TB doesn't view the glass as half full or half empty. He sort of views it as both.

In TB's mind, there's room for both optimism and pessimism. Why wouldn't there be? It's not a world of absolutes.

There certainly was room for both Saturday afternoon as he stood on the sidelines at Goodman Stadium and watched Princeton open its football season at Lehigh with a 17-14 loss.

On the one hand, Princeton fell behind 17-0 at the half. On the other hand, the Tigers wiped out Lehigh in the second half and almost came all the way back.

Let's start with the pessimistic side.

Princeton fell behind and never had the lead. The Tigers struggled offensively through the first half. The defense was hurt by a few big plays that led to the 17 points.

Then there's the optimistic side.

Princeton could have given up but didn't. Lehigh could have sprinted away from Princeton in the third quarter, but the defense didn't permit that. Not in the least.

Princeton held Lehigh to 17 points this year after allowing 35 and 34 to the Mountain Hawks the last two years. Lehigh averaged 3.1 yards per rush in this game after going for 4.6 per carry last year against Princeton.

Stats aside, watching Princeton defend in the second half, TB was impressed by how physical the Tigers were - and especially by how emotional they were. It was as if they were taking it all personally.

And then, after three scoreless quarters, Princeton put up two touchdowns, got a stop and had a chance to drive for a tying field goal or winning touchdown.

Princeton did all this without Chuck Dibilio, last year's Ivy League Rookie of the Year, who is out this year after suffering his stroke. Quarterback Connor Michelsen made his first career start, as did many other players.

In fact, TB could make the case that the biggest difference between Princeton and Lehigh Saturday was that it was Lehigh's third game and Princeton's first. Maybe it would have been different had it been Princeton's third and Lehigh's first.

So where are the Tigers now?

Well, they're home Friday night, in the first meeting ever between Princeton and Georgetown. The game kicks at 7 pm and can be seen on ESPNU, as an aside.

The Hoyas are 2-1, with wins over Davidson and Wagner and a loss to Yale Saturday. Clearly, this will be a good test for Princeton and an aid in the barometer of where the Tigers are as the season starts to gain some steam.

Princeton will be at Columbia in the Ivy opener the week after the Georgetown game. Then there is a game at Lafayette, followed by six more Ivy games.

Can Princeton look at its performance against Lehigh and look at it as a positive, with much to build on? Clearly Lehigh has one of the top programs in Division I-AA, and Princeton was right there with the Mountain Hawks the whole way.

Still, it's important to measure success in wins and losses as well. It's one thing to say "hey, we're getting better," but for the players, there is so much more meaning in seeing the results in wins vs. losses.

So where are the Tigers?

Depends on whether your glass is half full or half empty.

TB's glass is both - but he's really hoping that it gets fuller and fuller as the year goes by.

If ever a team deserved it, the Princeton football team does.

Sprinting To Start The Weekend

Today is Orange and Black Friday.

Well, every Friday here is Orange and Black Friday, at least going back as far as Phyllis Chase used to wear orange and black to work every Friday.

This is Year 1 of the post-Phyllis Chase era, as she retired at the end of the last academic year after a long career as the travel coordinator for the athletic department.

Walking into the business office these days is a different dynamic, with the new faces of Brendan Van Ackeren and Jessica Guerriero now on board. Jon Kurian and his old face are still there as well.

As an aside, Jon Kurian was nicknamed "the new guy" when he first started here, and it stuck long after he wasn't the new guy, though very few people here remember when Kurian was called that. One of Phyllis' hobbies was making collages of pictures from each year's Christmas party, and the amount of turnover from one year or even a few years is drastic when looking at those pictures.

Meanwhile, Van Ackeren, the brother of former Princeton distance runner Trevor Van Ackeren, played football at Lehigh. Guerriero is a Seton Hall graduate.

As Princeton is opening the football season at Lehigh tomorrow, TigerBlog asked the natural question of Van Ackeren: Which team is he rooting for in the game?

TB has a long history of rooting against his alma mater, fond of it as he may be.

Will Van Ackeren root for Princeton or Lehigh tomorrow? He won't know until kickoff.

TigerBlog will be rooting for Princeton, though it's a tough task for the opener.

Lehigh is one of the top teams in Division IAA, and the Mountain Hawks are playing Game 3. Lehigh has defeated Monmouth and Central Connecticut, jumping out to 14-0 first quarter leads in both games.

Before that game kicks off tomorrow at 12:30 (at one of the great places to watch a game, Lehigh's Goodman Stadium), there's the matter of a few events on campus.

The Farnsworth/Princeton Invitational for men's tennis starts today and runs all weekend.

The men's soccer team hosts No. 12 Georgetown tonight in Game 4 of the team's five-game run through the Big East to start the season. Game 5 will be Sunday at Villanova.

The women's team, by the way, is at No. 3 UCLA for the first of its two games in California. And there are two home field hockey games this weekend, including the first Ivy event for Princeton this year, tomorrow's game against Dartmouth.

And then there's the start of sprint football season.

TigerBlog watched head coach Steve Everette's video on goprincetontigers.tv, and you have to give him credit for being an optimist.

Princeton hasn't won a CSFL game in 14 years, but Everette is encouraged by his team this preseason. Mansfield is one of the three newer teams in the league, along with Post and this year's addition, Franklin Pierce.

Each year brings with it the hope that the team will finally be able to break that losing streak, and yet it hasn't happened to date.

Who knows? Maybe it'll be tonight.

TB understands Everette's optimism. He's always wanted to be there for the one night that the team does win, and any game he's gone to, he's always thought that it was going to be the one.

Hey, those guys definitely deserve at least one.

Getting Oriented

TigerBlog was on his way to McCosh 50 when he saw two athletic-looking young men with confused looks on their faces.

Seeing that TB was wearing a "Princeton lacrosse" shirt, the two figured out that they were headed to the same place. One of them began to ask where McCosh was, though this was after TB figured out what was going on and simply said "yes, this way."

TB and one of the young men walked together for the last 50 yards or so. As it turned out, his name was Chris, Chris Bodurian, a freshman on the Princeton baseball team, fresh out of St. Alban's.

As TB spoke to Bodurian, it was immediately obvious how excited he was.

And why wouldn't he be?

Here he was, a freshman at Princeton, one day removed from the start of classes, ready to embark on his career as a college student and college athlete at one of the top universities in the world.

As an aside, that'd be the fifth-, seventh- or ninth-best university in the world, depending on which ranking you believe in. TB's alma mater came in 12th in the world in the same ranking where Princeton was ninth, a fact for which TB is willing to take none of the credit.

TB, Bodurian and enough others to essentially fill the giant lecture hall in McCosh were all headed to freshman student-athlete orientation.

It is, as TB has said before, one of the most fascinating events of each year.

The messages that come from the athletic administration, the Office of the Dean of the College, athletic medicine and the McGraw Learning Center are all basically the same. It's a message that can't be repeated often enough, and hopefully the new athletes are paying attention.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Study what you really want to study, not what you think you should study to get a specific job some day. Be prepared for the challenge. It's different than high school. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

To be a freshman athlete at Princeton, it goes without saying that it's been 18 years of overwhelming athletic and academic success. Perhaps in many cases it's been easy to use the natural gifts that each has been given.

Now, the bar has been raised substantially in both arenas. It can be intimidating, TB supposes, and it's probably reassuring for the freshmen to hear the messages and realize that they are not in it alone.

TB's contribution is a small video that is intended to give a sense of the athletic department, its historical successes and its desire to afford each athlete the best possible experience. It's also intended to make each kid sitting there think "I'm part of something cool now."

None of this, though, is the fascinating part for TigerBlog.

For starters, there's the idea that these people have come from such wildly different backgrounds and have played such varying sports, and now they've been thrown together somewhat randomly on a college campus. At the same time, they also have the immediate benefit of being teammates, not only with those on their actual teams but also under the larger umbrella of Princeton Athletics.

And then there's the chance to look around the room and see their faces and wonder who is going to be All-Ivy League, All-America, win the Roper Trophy or von Kienbusch Award as seniors.

Not all of them will still be athletes when they graduate, as every class has a normal level of attrition. Some will struggle through four years fighting injuries; others will start every game and never have even a minor strain.

The entire athletic class is hardly ever in the same place at the same time. There is freshman athlete orientation. There is a barbeque for freshmen and sophomore athletes. And there is the Princeton Varsity Club senior-athlete banquet.

When the orientation was over, TB met three men's lacrosse players, all of whose names he'd heard a million times during the recruiting process. If the next four years (hopefully) are the same as the last four, then TB will see every game they play in their Princeton careers.

And then it'll be late May of 2016, under the big tent at the grad college, for the senior banquet. And this current group will be together for the last time.

TB told Bodurian that it would fly by, and Bodurian laughed and agreed.

Then TB told him to make sure he took full advantage of his time here.

There are so many people who would love to trade places with him.

Scramble Words And Field Hockey Talk

TigerBlog was in one room, and in the next room were two high school boys - TigerBlog Jr. and his friend Matthew - and one middle school girl - Miss TigerBlog.

From his spot about 15 feet away, TB heard not a sound coming from the other room.

When he ducked his head in, he saw all three on smartphones, playing Scramble With Friends.

It's a rather addicting game, one with four rows of four letters, seemingly set up randomly, and the game is to drag your finger across the letter to form as many words as possible. There are three rounds of two minutes in each game, and the point values go up with double letters and a double word letter in Round 2 and then triple letters and a triple word letter in Round 3.

TigerBlog usually plays with two different opponents.

The first is Stephanie Sutton, the Princeton athletics ticket manager.  TB and Stephanie are about 50-50 on who wins.

The other is someone whom TB originally connected with randomly and has now played several hundred times, though he has no idea who his opponent is. He has no idea if it's a male or female, adult or child, American or foreign - none of it. For that matter, TB isn't sure if it's a human being or computer that has been matched to basic scores that TB puts up, since these games are around 50-50 as well.

The game allows the opportunity to converse, but TB prefers the mystery of it.

As for TBJ, MTB and Matthew, obviously MTB was the one winning, so much so that the two boys bailed and went outside.

As any parent with middle school to high school kids knows, there's a delicate balance between allowing them the freedom to use electronics and the worry that 1) they're overdoing it and 2) they're going to get in trouble via electronic freedom. And you don't want to see the bill, and see how many texts these kids are sending and receiving.

Of course, the argument is that kids need phones now to use in case of trouble or to allow parents to know where they are. TB was in his 30s before he ever got a cell phone, and he managed to navigate his teenage years even without such devices.

In the case of TBJ, MTB and Matthew (not techincally TB's responsibility, but around enough), they are active enough and outside enough so that they are not constantly on their phones/computers/iPods/etc.

MTB is currently trying out for middle school field hockey, with a week-long audition for 45 girls for the 20 spots on the team. Unfortunately, more than half won't make it, and given that they're 7th and 8th graders, TB hopes they don't give up on playing that sport or any other.

MTB also plays with the club program in Princeton, the one run by Princeton coach Kristen Holmes-Winn.

Whereas there is soccer for little girls as young as 3 or 4, there aren't nearly as many field hockey clubs around. In the case of the one in Princeton, the girls get to play on Bedford Field, which offers them a chance to play on perfect turf.

As for the main tenant of Bedford Field, the Princeton women are currently ranked second nationally in the poll that came out yesterday.

 Actually, the Tigers are tied for second, with Syracuse, 23 points behind No. 1 North Carolina.

The poll features five teams that received No. 1 votes, including 18 of the 43 for the Tigers. For the second straight week, Princeton has the most No. 1 votes.

This week's schedule sees Princeton at home Saturday against Dartmouth in its Ivy League opener and then unranked Delaware Sunday.

The rest of the schedule includes Syracuse, No. 4 Maryland, No. 5 UConn and No. 9 Virginia, among others. And then there's the NCAA tournament looming in November.

Princeton has twice advanced to the NCAA final, and the Tigers have won 17 of 18 Ivy League titles. With the return of the four national team members, this could be Princeton's best chance at going the distance.

Still, as the poll with five teams who received first-place votes suggests, there are plenty of schools out there who are thinking big.

In the meantime, Bedford Field is a place to be this fall, to see how good this team can be.

Bring the kids. Admission is free.

And tell them to turn off their cell phones during the game.

Never Forget

In the days before TigerBlog's senior year of college, his friend and soon-to-be roommate Charlie volunteered him to help coordinate during student move-in period.

There were two reasons for this. First, TB and Charlie got to move into their own room a few days early, thereby avoiding the crush when everyone showed up. Given that TB and Charlie were living on the 24th floor of a 24-story dorm, that was a huge advantage.

Second, there was the opportunity to meet women during move-in.

As it turned out, TB got to avoid the rush at the elevators and that was about it.

This past weekend was move-in at Princeton, where classes begin later this week.

Actually, Princeton's academic calendar begins later than most, and TB has seen the effect of taking their first-borns off to college on some of his own friends in recent weeks. It appears to be a tad, uh, emotional, for both mothers and fathers.

TB has thought back to his own collegiate move-in experiences recently, with the start of another school year.

He thought back to the days of the 1980s, to the world that existed when he was a student and in the years that followed.

And how any semblance of that world vanished 11 years ago today.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, was very much like this morning or yesterday morning, at least in terms of the weather. It was crystal-clear that morning, the kind of late-summer morning where the sky is at its absolute bluest and the world appears to be at its calmest.

TigerBlog was at the preschool across the street from the Jadwin parking lot, taking TigerBlog Jr. into the building, when he first heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

If TB lives to be a million years old, he'll never forget the feeling he had after walking out of that building, looking up to the perfect blue sky and realizing that there was no way that a plane could accidentally have crashed into the tower.

At that point, TB was confused, and expecting the worst.

By the time he reached Jadwin, the worst got even worse.

In almost no time, four planes had been hijacked, three of them crashing into high profile targets at the World Trade Center and Pentagon and a fourth headed to either the White House or Capitol before the passengers took over, only to crash into a Pennsylvania field.

In all, more than 3,000 people were dead - and the world was changed. Forever.

TBJ was too young to have any idea what was going on.

The students who just moved into Princeton were for the most part between 7 and 11 years old on 9/11, old enough to remember and not really old enough to remember what the pre-9/11 world was like.

Whatever your politics, any American owes a huge debt to the administrations of President Bush and President Obama - and to the American military and intelligence communities - that have prevented a repeat of such a large-scale attack in this country in the years since.

The result, TB suspects, is a lowered sense of the urgency of the situation, a fading over time of just exactly what could happen in this country if those who are charged with protecting it fail.

A few days ago, TigerBlog began to watch Season 1 of "Homeland," the Showtime series about an intelligence agent and her never-ending quest to prevent a terrorist attack. After never even heard of the show less than a week ago, TB has now watched all 12 episodes of Season 1, and it's vaulted near the top of the list of any show he's ever seen.

As Carrie and her colleagues go about their business, she is surrounded by a world going about its business, which is the way it's supposed to be in this country. It's just that this can't be at the expense of forgetting what happened 11 years ago.

There are so many people whom TB knows or has met - many of them former Princeton athletes - who were in the middle of Ground Zero at it all was happening.

A former Princeton men's lacrosse player and member of the 1992 NCAA championship team, John Schroeder, was killed that day.

It was a very real, very frightening day, and the passing of time shouldn't dim that or soften that or make anyone forget the very real threat that apparently will always exist.

TB remembers looking up at the sky that night, 11 years ago, and seeing nothing but darkness and stars, nothing moving, no airplanes flying after they'd all been grounded.

Again, he remembers clearly the moment, knowing that the world had been changed forever. He was positive that the next attack was coming, maybe even as he was standing there.

Now 11 years have gone by, and nothing close to that has been repeated in this country. The cost has of protecting America has been huge, and many have sacrificed their very lives to make it so.

With every year that passes, the reality of what happened that day gets a little further in the rearview mirror.

It's important that it not fade completely. Ever.

As TB's people say about the Holocaust - never forget.

Too many people are owed that for what they did to keep you safe.

Game Week

The biggest non-story in sports right now is the referee situation in the NFL.

Basically, the regular NFL refs are either striking or locked out. TigerBlog isn't sure and doesn't care.

NFL refs make about $140,000/year for what is a part time job. They apparently want $180,000, and benefits.

On the one hand, the refs are contemptible greedhounds because they make $140,000 for a part time job. On the other hand, the owners are contemptible greedhounds because it's a billion dollar industry, so why bicker over a few hundred thousand dollars here and there.

Because the two can't reach an agreement, the season has started with replacement officials, which was supposed to signal the end of the world as we know it. Mistakes were going to destroy the games. Nobody was going to know the rules. Chaos was to ensue.

What has actually happened is that the replacement refs have been subjected to scrutiny for every false start, every spot of the ball. And you know what?

The games didn't look any different than any other games in any other year. Mostly, the officials were invisible, except when the coaches yelled. And they didn't decide the outcome of any games.

The replacement refs have been subjected to gratuitous shots from TV people, who disparagingly talk about their real jobs in a mocking tone, as with the ref in the Giants-Cowboys game who is also a middle school geography teacher. Guess what? The guy did a great job.

And the labor situation has enabled the NFL to do something that it had never done before, and that was allow a woman to officiate an NFL game, as Shannon Eastin was part of the crew for the Vikings-Rams game.

Week 1 of the NFL season ends tonight, and by then, basically every football team everywhere will have played at least one game. Except for the Ivy League, of course, which famously begins later than everyone every year.

If you're an Ivy football fan, you can't help but wonder why it is that the league only plays 10 games and why it is that the league champ doesn't go to the NCAA playoffs.

TB understands. For now, at least, it is, how they say, what it is.

Princeton opens the season this Saturday at Lehigh before its home opener Friday night, Sept. 21, against Georgetown.

After that, it's seven Ivy games in eight weeks.

There are 10 games in 10 weeks, with no off weeks to rest up from the inevitable injuries. It runs from this weekend through the Saturday before Thanksgiving, one game into the next.

Princeton, as everyone knows, enters the 2012 season off of back-to-back 1-9 years, minus Chuck Dibilio, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year who rushed for a 1,000 yards last year before suffering an off-season stroke.

So where is Princeton heading into 2012? The great thing about Ivy football is that nobody knows.

For reference, TB refers you to the following records:

0-9.
1-9.
1-9.

Those were the records for Penn football in 1979, 1980 and 1981.

Penn won the Ivy title each year from 1982-86.

Will Princeton win the Ivy title this year? TB isn't going to predict that.

What's he's saying is that there's precedent for big turnarounds in Ivy League football. It all has to do with momentum, staying healthy, getting big performances from young players who are on their way up - and getting some luck.

If there's a program that's owed luck, it's Princeton football, both on the field and, with what happened to Dibilio, off the field as well.

The opener isn't easy, coming against one of the top teams in the FCS. The league, as always, will be a challenge each week.

For the Tigers, the chance to turn the page from 2010 and 2011 is a great opportunity.

In a few days, the 2012 Princeton football season kicks off.

It'll be over before you know it.

Luis, The Gov And A Busy Weekend

The two men in the picture look like brothers.

In reality they'd never met until seconds before the picture was snapped. The site was one of the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concerts at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last weekend, and the two men are famously huge fans of the Boss.

One of them is a bit more famous than the other, of course.

The man on the right is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The one on the left is Princeton water polo coach Luis Nicolao.

They could be twins, actually.

TigerBlog follows Governor Christie on Twitter, as much for his commentary on his personal interests as his positions on the salient issues for the state.

Not too long ago, Christie tweeted his ten favorite Springsteen songs, a list that featured overlap with TB's own list on maybe four or five songs.

Maybe more than any other current politician, Christie comes across as just another guy from the neighborhood, which probably explains his popularity both nationally and in a state that has gone against Christie's party in the last five Presidential elections.

Christie had his moment on national TV last week when he gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention. In the interest of keeping his blog politically neutral, TB will remind everyone that the keynote address at this week's Democratic National Convention was given by Julian Castro.

The other guy in the picture with Christie from the Springsteen concert gets to be on television tonight, though not in the same politically charged way.

Nicolao and his 13th-ranked men's water polo team host third-ranked California at 6 this evening in a game that will televised on ESPNU as the first Princeton event on ESPN this academic year. The next will be the football game against Georgetown in on Sept. 21, followed by men's soccer against Creighton on Oct. 9.

The game against Cal is part of the 12-team Princeton Invitational, which also includes second-ranked UCLA. The event runs from Princeton's game at 1 this afternoon against Cal-Lutheran through Sunday.

This is the first huge home weekend for Princeton Athletics of the 2012-13 academic year, and there are some great events, including the water polo.

There's also the men's soccer game tomorrow at 2 on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium in a game that will pull Nancy Donigan in two directions.

Who's Nancy Donigan? She works in the compliance office here (she also handles the departmental awards), and she's been here longer than you'd guess possible to look at her. Nancy's husband Joe is a Temple man who also works here at Princeton, and his brother - Nancy's brother-in-law - is Rutgers soccer coach Dan Donigan.

Way back when, TigerBlog covered Dan Donigan when he was a player at Steinert High, and he went on to a great career at UConn. His was the head coach at St. Louis for nine years before taking over at RU a year ago.

The Scarlet Knights are 1-2, with a win over Fordham and losses last week in Nebraska against SIU-Edwardsville and Creighton, who is ranked third nationally. Princeton is 1-1, having beaten Seton Hall and lost to No. 15 St. John's.

Princeton-Rutgers is always a great matchup, no matter what the sport. One note - if you're coming to the game Saturday, you have to park on the football stadium/Jadwin Gym side and walk over (about a five-minute walk; it's good for you) because of student move-in on the other side of campus.

There are three soccer games this weekend at Roberts Stadium, including the women's games tonight (7) against St. Joe's and Sunday at noon against Temple.

And then there's field hockey.

The 3-0 Tigers are ranked fourth, with wins over nationally ranked Duke, Wake Forest and most recently Penn State, 3-2 in overtime last night.

Next up? A game against Richmond Sunday at noon in what will be the first game played on the artificial turf at Bedford Field.

Hoy Story

It wasn't a great sports night for TigerBlog.

The Giants lost. The Yankees won, moving back into sole possession of first place in the American League East (and TB will be surprised if they don't win by at least five games).

Going back to the Giants, TB can't really get too upset with the opening-night loss to the Cowboys, or anything else the team does this year or in any of the next few. Not after the Giants won two highly dramatic, highly improbable Super Bowl titles in the last four years.

In fact, TB has said that the Giants could go 0-16 for the next 10 years and he won't complain, not with the last four already in the bank. Think about it. Barring something completely unforeseeable right now, Eli Manning will have more Super Bowl titles than Peyton Manning.

With sports not going well, TB had only one reason to watch the Democratic National Convention, and it had nothing to do with the speakers, their policies or any of it. It was the same reason he watched the little he did of the Republican convention last week, to see the radically different way that the cable news outlets presented them.

TB long ago made up his mind as to who will be getting his vote exactly two months from today. His candidate could come out on stage for the debates wearing a prom gown or dressed like a clown and it wouldn't change anything.

So with no interest in what was being said, there was always how it was being portrayed.

Media bias fascinates TigerBlog, since he had the idea that reporting was supposed to actually be fair and balanced drilled into him early on in his newspaper days. And yet there was MSNBC and CNN on the left and Fox News on the right, all watching the same events unfold and yet reporting them from complete 180-degree differences.

It's embarrassing to watch all of these people with no ability to see anything outside of their narrow view and then have them gush over their candidate and dismiss the other side's, all without any shred of objectivity or even honesty. The ones who take the time to actually analyze what's being said and what's going on stand out so remarkably, even though all they're doing is what they're supposed to be doing.

With football, baseball and politics all depressing him, TB did the only thing he could. He fell asleep.

Now, when it comes to don't fall asleep, don't turn away, TB offers the Princeton women's soccer team and specifically senior Jen Hoy.

There have been athletes who have come through Princeton who were must-sees simply because they had the potential to do something amazing at any given second, and the crowd always reacts anytime such a moment begins to build.

TB doesn't want to leave anyone out, but through the years he recalls people like Keith Elias, Jesse Hubbard, current men's basketball coach Mitch Henderson, Will Venable in two sports, Esmeralda Negron.

When he looks at the current Princeton landscape, there are people like Niveen Rasheed, Ian Hummer and Tom Schreiber. And more than one field hockey player.

And Jen Hoy.

These are athletes who at any moment can make the entire audience stop and gasp and mutter "wow" at what they've just seen.

Hoy certainly showed that last weekend, when she scored four goals in Princeton's first two games to earn Ivy League Player of the Week honors. Hoy was easily the best player on the field in both games, against both Wake Forest (a Final Four team last year) and Colgate.

She obviously has great speed, and she routinely creates opportunities with her ability to make up ground and then open up another gear. She's tenacious defensively, and she is a great possessor of the ball.

When Hoy has a chance off a counter, her gifts are more apparent. She can challenge several defenders at once and still get off shots and, at a rate of 2.0 per game so far, goals.

What was also evident watching Hoy and the Tigers last weekend was the difference between a team that was playing its sixth game (Colgate) and a team playing its second (Princeton). The game fitness is not quite there yet, and in its second game in three days and in the heat and humidity, the Tigers clearly were tired while the Raiders rallied from a 4-1 deficit to tie it at 4-4.

Princeton gets another chance this weekend at home, when its hosts St. Joe's tomorrow night (7) and then Temple Sunday (noon). The Princeton men have their home opener Saturday at 2 against Rutgers.

The women then take a trip to California for two games and have a game at Lafayette before the Ivy opener Sept. 22 at Yale.

By then, Princeton will be fully fit and ready to take a shot at an Ivy title and return to the NCAA tournament.

Watching games at Roberts Stadium is a real treat, and every team that comes into the facility remarks about how special a place it is. The crowds there last weekend were tremendous, and with three games in three days this weekend, it'll be another great opportunity.

If you go, don't take your eyes of Jen Hoy.

She's No. 2, but you'd figure which one she is without knowing in advance.

She's one of those rare athletes where you just can't help but do so.

5,000 Miles To The East

TigerBlog knows two people who live about three or four miles apart near Princeton.

Last Thursday, they both woke up in the same town and then went to the same airport. One flew 3,000 miles west; the other went 5,000 miles east.

Doing the math, they went from waking up three or so miles apart one day to 8,000 miles apart the next day.

TigerBlog remembers driving home from a Trenton State College basketball game one night a long time ago with then-TSC SID Pete Manetas. TB is pretty sure the game was a holiday tournament game at one of the Pennsylvania Division III schools, maybe Moravian.

Anyway, TB and Manetas got into a discussion about the history of human beings, and TB raised the question of what percentage of people who have ever lived have flown in an airplane. Has to be small, no?

For much of human history, having two people wake up one day in the same small town and the next 8,000 miles apart would have been impossible. These days, it's so commonplace that it hardly makes you stop and think about how small the world continues to get.

The person who went west was on her way to a wedding in California, only to find out when she arrived at the wedding that it had been called off.

Apparently, it was called off before she ever got on the plane, only word didn't reach her or a handful of other guests, who showed up in full wedding attire. TB would be a tad miffed had he done so, largely for having to drag his dress shoes across the country.

The person who went east went with the Princeton men's basketball team on its trip to Spain, which runs through this weekend.

Princeton is now 1-2 on the trip in its games against Spanish professional teams following a 94-72 loss to Alicante. When TB saw the name of the opponent, during the Valencia portion of the trip, he couldn't help but smile.

Alicante was the town where the men's lacrosse team landed on its 2008 trip to Spain and Ireland. TB saw the airport in Alicante, and that was it, as the team bused over an hour to the coastal resort of La Manga. Even now, men's lacrosse faculty fellow John McPhee, who was TB's roommate in Spain, will refer to himself as "Juan of La Manga."

Princeton's leading scorer on this trip so far has been Ian Hummer, who had 21 and 20 in the first two games and then 14 against Alicante. That's an average of 18.3, which is what TB would suggest will be around what Hummer will average this year.

Hummer enters his senior year with 1,170 carer points, and he needs to average fewer than 12 per game to catch Douglas Davis to be the second all-time leading scorer in Princeton history.

In case you're wondering, he needs to average 47.6 points per game to catch Bill Bradley for first, to give you an idea of how ridiculous Bradley's accomplishments were.

The trip to Spain has been chronicled through stories, pictures and videos on goprincetontigers.com, and they remind TB of the trips he's taken with the men's lacrosse team.

It's obvious from watching the video and seeing the pictures and stories that the experience of traveling overseas has a great impact on a college athletic team.

And, as was the case for the men's lacrosse trip to Costa Rica, it should be a must to go to a soccer game as part of these trips, as the men's basketball team did when it went to the Barcelona game.

The video is designed to offer a direct portal into what it's like to be part of a team, in this case the Princeton men's basketball team. And there's no way to watch the video and see that they are having anything other than an amazing time.

There's still one game to be played for the Tigers, and the basketball end of a trip like this is huge, what with extra practices and competitions.

But it's not really what the trip is about.

No, it's mostly about the cultural, educational and social opportunities that the Tigers are being exposed to during their 10 days in Spain.

From TB's seat 5,000 miles away, the Tigers are taking full advantage.

It's Back

The home attendance for Scott Jurgens' last football game of last year was 10,001.

The attendance for his first game of this season was 49,023.

Obviously, Jurgens has gotten way better at marketing.

Or maybe he just switched employers. Jurgens went from being Princeton's athletic marketing person to working in the same position at East Carolina, where average attendance last year was 50,012 for Pirate football.

It's a different world, going from the Ivy League to an FBS school like East Carolina, especially one where the local college football team is the biggest game for miles around.

TigerBlog wouldn't want to make such a move. He loves being at Princeton, where there are 38 sports and as much as possible they are treated equally.

It was obvious during his time here that Jurgens wanted to be part of an FBS school. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that.

This past Saturday was the first football Saturday for Jurgens as the ECU marketing head.

And there was TB, flipping through the guide on the TV, seeing one college football game after another come up, until he stumbled upon East Carolina-Appalachian State.

Actually, the game was on three different channels on TB's TV.

TB put the game on, half expecting to see Jurgens' dog Barnaby wearing a purple vest throwing t-shirts into the crowd, all with that same "why didn't he leave me at the pound where I was happy" look on his face.

Instead, he saw App State cause a turnover, score a touchdown and go up 7-0. TB was willing to blame the marketing guy.

ECU came back to win 35-13 against one of the top FCS programs, a team that famously defeated Michigan in Ann Arbor a few years back.

This weekend was the start of the college football season, and there were about four million games on television, beginning Thursday night and running through last night's Virginia Tech win over Georgia Tech.

If you're wondering why college football has driven all of the conference realignments, even when the NCAA basketball tournament is such a preeminent event, well, all you had to do was look at this weekend. Stadium after stadium was packed, and the dollar amounts that this sport generates were there to smack you in the face.

The sanctions at Penn State were meant to among other things dial back the football-first, football-above-all culture that allowed Joe Paterno to achieve the status he did and then in turn drove him to protect at all costs what he had built. So what happened? PSU drew 97,000 fans for a game against Ohio (which the Nittany Lions lost).

Princeton obviously doesn't open its season until a week from Saturday, Sept. 15, at Lehigh. The Tigers play 10 games in 10 weeks, with no open dates along the way. It turns football into a sprint.

TB has always liked the way the Ivy League does it, though he'd be okay with opening a week earlier and having an off-week (or even opening two weeks earlier, having an off week, adding one game and allowing the league champion to go to the NCAA playoffs, though he understands well why all those things don't happen).

As TB watched the old marketing guy's team, he thought about the new marketing guy and the challenges that Princeton faces in marketing its own football team.

None of the issues that TB thought about are new - what would be considered good attendance, what should the University do to try to drive attendance, why don't people come, why do people come.

Add to this mix though the incredible saturation of football on television at the time when Ivy League games are being played, and it's even more difficult.

The weather is a huge issue here, and last year's home schedule was destroyed by three Saturdays of rain and one of snow.

But more and more, it's TV that is impacting attendance, TB thinks.

If you have a big screen, HD TV, you can watch any game you want, basically, and you never have to leave your house to do it.

It's hard to compete with that if you're an Ivy League school.

At the same time, if you're a college football fan and you're willing to be one with your couch for an entire Saturday, well, then this is about as good as it gets for you.