TigerBlog didn't set out to watch the Mary Decker Slaney/Zola Budd "Nine for IX" documentary.
He also didn't set out to write about it either, owing to the fact that he can't simply write about each one as it happens.
Hey, things don't always work out the way they're planned.
As an aside, TB is hoping Peter Farrell, Princeton's women's track and field coach, happens by before he's done writing this, just for his insight, which TB thinks would be considerable. Can't say for sure if he will, but there's about a 75% chance that Farrell stops in and a 100% chance he has a strong opinion.
Anyway, there was TB last night, flipping through the channels.
There was a "Seinfeld" repeat of highlights of the first 100 episodes, which basically sums up everything TigerBlog has always thought about the show, which is that the early episodes are as funny as anything that has ever been on TV and the later episodes are just average with too much forced humor that is barely funny at all.
There was a "Big Bang Theory" episode, the one where Sheldon's twin sister shows up and Leonard, Howard and Raj fall over themselves trying to impress her. It includes the classic line where Howard, thinking that Sheldon wouldn't approve of him with his sister because he's Jewish, suggests he would beat his rabbi with a pork chop to be with her.
By the time that episode went to its last commercial, TB finally saw that the Decker/Budd story was on ESPN.
If you don't know the back story, Decker was America's top female runner - and something of a national sweetheart - heading into the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Budd was a tiny teenager from South Africa, a country whose apartheid policies kept it from being eligible for the Olympics.
Budd, who was running times in the 1,500 and 3,000 that rivaled Decker's, was fast-tracked for British citizenship so she could run at the Olympics. The 1984 Olympics were boycotted by the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc (TB never thought he'd be nostalgic about the Cold War), mostly because the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow over, of all things, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Decker, by the way, would have been a gold medal favorite in 1980.
A huge story of the Games was going to be the meeting between Budd and Decker, to the point where it was probably the No. 1 story heading into the Olympics.
Anyway, the two went head-to-head in the 3,000, and they were in the lead midway through the race when they got tangled up. Decker went down, Budd kept going - and neither would finish with a medal.
That's the part TB remembered. He also had a vague memory that everyone went from liking Decker to not liking her, including TB. He just couldn't remember why.
Budd was originally disqualified from her seventh-place finish and then forced to leave Los Angeles because of the backlash.
As for Decker, TB did not remember her disastrous press conference after the race, where first she lashed out at Budd, whose attempt to talk to Decker after the race was met with a response of "don't bother," and then a tearful exit.
Decker's popularity was destroyed that day. She would make it to two more Olympics after that but never win a medal, her best chances gone from the 1980 boycott and the fall with Budd in 1984.
The documentary was really good, like all documentaries should be, at bringing back the missing details from something that was such a big deal in the moment. Decker and Budd were both very up front about what happened to them back then, which made the movie better.
This past week, the World Championships of track and field were held in Russia, which is no longer the Soviet Union, though every now and then it and this country like to remind people of what it used to be like, such as with the recent Snowden situation. Multiply that out by a lot and you have U.S.-Soviet relations in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Anyway, nobody boycotted the track and field championships this time around, which meant that the best women's steeplechasers in the world were there.
One of them was Princeton's 2011 grad Ashley Higginson, who ran the steeplechase in Russia but did not qualify for the final.
Still, she was the fastest of the three Americans who competed, topping one by less than a second and the other by 13 seconds. Higginson would finish seven spots out of the final.
Her goal is the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Decker's fall in 1984 meant she had to wait four more years to try again. Higginson is in a somewhat similar position after having finished fourth at the 2012 Olympic Trials.
That has to be the absolute worst. Finishing fourth in the Olympics means missing out on a medal but at least getting the Olympic experience. Finishing fourth at the Trials means missing out on all of that.
TB gives Higginson a lot of credit for pushing forward. And for putting herself in such a great position for redemption.
Princeton's Donn Cabral reached the 2012 Olympics and the final once there in the steeplechase. TB doesn't really understand what it is about the event and Princeton, but it's a fun event - seven hurdles and one water jump each of seven laps of the 3,000 meter event.
Higginson is on track, as it were, to make up in 2016 for what just slipped away a year ago. There are three long years to go, but her experience this summer clearly helps her.
The Olympics are a huge goal. Not everyone is there to win a medal.
Mary Decker was, but never did.
Ashley Higginson? Hopefully she'll get there in three more years. Anything after that would be just fine.
Oh, and Peter Farrell never came by. Too bad. But TB will get his take on the Decker/Budd situation.
He'll definitely have one.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Major Leaguer
When TigerBlog was in Seattle recently, he considered going to see the local MLS team, the Sounders, on a Sunday night.
He actually did go to see the Mariners play the Twins at Safeco Field, which itself was quite an experience. Felix Hernandez toyed with the Twins for eight innings, and never before could TigerBlog remember a 1-0 lead that looked so insurmountable. Until the Twins scratched out a run off King Felix in the ninth, making it a 1-1 game, forcing extra innings. The game would go 13 innings until the Twins would win.
TB made it through 11 innings. He would have stayed for the duration, but he was part of a group of 32 people, about half of whom were still left at that point. When everyone else decided to pack it in, TB figured he'd go along for the ride.
Or, more precisely, walk.
The walk from Safeco Field to the Hotel Monaco is a little more than two miles. Actually, it didn't really seem to matter where anyone leaving the stadium was going. It seemed like everyone walked.
Oh, and the walk to the hotel was mostly straight uphill, at least going from 1st Ave. to 4th Ave. Still, it was a nice walk.
Safeco Field is a very friendly, welcoming place. It has a great videoboard, a lot of good concession choices, easy sight lines, comfortable seats and a fanbase that is so loyal to its teams that it cheered wildly when former SuperSonic Gary Payton threw out the first pitch.
It was a perfect baseball night, too. Seattle may get rain 10 months a year, but the two it doesn't offer about the best weather on the planet.
And how many went to Safeco on this night? How about 23,162.
The baseball stadium is right next to Century Link Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks and the Sounders. Two nights after the Mariners drew 23,162 for as good a pitcher as there is in baseball right now, the Sounders drew 38,463 for a game against Chivas USA, the worst team in MLS.
And this was before the Sounders signed Clint Dempsey, whose first home game, Sunday the 25th against the Portland Timbers, is expected to draw more than 70,000.
Major League Soccer is in a really good place right now. The league long ago achieved stability and now has gone beyond that. New, soccer-only stadiums are the norm (unlike in Seattle, where the team plays in a giant NFL stadium) and more teams and stadiums are on the way.
The league came along at the perfect time, when soccer in Europe was able to come to this country through TV and the internet and brought with it an overall rise in the interest in the sport in this country.
Today, soccer is everywhere in the U.S., and not because every little kid plays the sport. That was always the logic, right? So many kids played soccer in this country that eventually they would grow up and be adult soccer fans.
That's not exactly how it worked.
What happened was that soccer did what the NBA did. It built its sport and its appeal around its top stars, and everything trickled from there. And because those stars are international, it needed the media explosion of the last 10-15 years to make it happen.
Go to any Princeton soccer game this year, women's or men's, and you'll see kids and adults wearing Messi jerseys or Ronaldo jerseys or any number of others.
You'll also see someone who knows all about the success of MLS, maybe more than anyone else.
Jesse Marsch graduated from Princeton in 1996 after a great career with the Tigers. His 16 goals his senior year are the second-most ever in program history and the most in the last 43 years by a Princeton player, and he was a 1995 first-team All-America.
After that, it was on to MLS, back in the first year of the new league. In all he would play in 321 MLS games, scoring 31 goals with 40 assists. When he retired in 2010, he was one of just four players remaining from the league's first season.
Marsch began his coaching career as an assistant coach with the U.S. men's national team under his college coach Bob Bradley. He was with the U.S. team for, among other events, the most recent World Cup.
After that, when Bradley became the head coach of the Egyptian team, Marsch became the head coach of the MLS expansion franchise in Montreal.
And now?
Well, first there was the matter of a little time off and some traveling, and by "some" TB means "a whole lot."
Yesterday TB ran into Jim Barlow, the Princeton men's head coach, and Marsch, his new assistant.
It's amazing how much huge, international, major soccer coaching experience Marsch has, and now he's on Barlow's staff for the 2013 season.
It takes someone who is able to park his ego outside, because going from coaching internationally at the World Cup and as a head coach in MLS to anything in the American college soccer world can't be easy.
Marsch, by all appearances, is the perfect man for something like this.
The head coach and his new assistant were both quoted in the story on goprincetontigers.com announcing Marsh's new role. Both are telling.
Barlow spoke about Marsch's experience as a student-athlete at Princeton and how much he has to offer the new generation.
Marsch spoke of giving back to the University and continuing to learn about the game.
TB has always thought it would be great for Bradley to come to Princeton one day as an assistant coach, and bring with him the benefit of his career back to this campus.
Now, with Jesse Marsch on the coaching staff, Princeton men's soccer has the next best thing.
He actually did go to see the Mariners play the Twins at Safeco Field, which itself was quite an experience. Felix Hernandez toyed with the Twins for eight innings, and never before could TigerBlog remember a 1-0 lead that looked so insurmountable. Until the Twins scratched out a run off King Felix in the ninth, making it a 1-1 game, forcing extra innings. The game would go 13 innings until the Twins would win.
TB made it through 11 innings. He would have stayed for the duration, but he was part of a group of 32 people, about half of whom were still left at that point. When everyone else decided to pack it in, TB figured he'd go along for the ride.
Or, more precisely, walk.
The walk from Safeco Field to the Hotel Monaco is a little more than two miles. Actually, it didn't really seem to matter where anyone leaving the stadium was going. It seemed like everyone walked.
Oh, and the walk to the hotel was mostly straight uphill, at least going from 1st Ave. to 4th Ave. Still, it was a nice walk.
Safeco Field is a very friendly, welcoming place. It has a great videoboard, a lot of good concession choices, easy sight lines, comfortable seats and a fanbase that is so loyal to its teams that it cheered wildly when former SuperSonic Gary Payton threw out the first pitch.
It was a perfect baseball night, too. Seattle may get rain 10 months a year, but the two it doesn't offer about the best weather on the planet.
And how many went to Safeco on this night? How about 23,162.
The baseball stadium is right next to Century Link Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks and the Sounders. Two nights after the Mariners drew 23,162 for as good a pitcher as there is in baseball right now, the Sounders drew 38,463 for a game against Chivas USA, the worst team in MLS.
And this was before the Sounders signed Clint Dempsey, whose first home game, Sunday the 25th against the Portland Timbers, is expected to draw more than 70,000.
Major League Soccer is in a really good place right now. The league long ago achieved stability and now has gone beyond that. New, soccer-only stadiums are the norm (unlike in Seattle, where the team plays in a giant NFL stadium) and more teams and stadiums are on the way.
The league came along at the perfect time, when soccer in Europe was able to come to this country through TV and the internet and brought with it an overall rise in the interest in the sport in this country.
Today, soccer is everywhere in the U.S., and not because every little kid plays the sport. That was always the logic, right? So many kids played soccer in this country that eventually they would grow up and be adult soccer fans.
That's not exactly how it worked.
What happened was that soccer did what the NBA did. It built its sport and its appeal around its top stars, and everything trickled from there. And because those stars are international, it needed the media explosion of the last 10-15 years to make it happen.
Go to any Princeton soccer game this year, women's or men's, and you'll see kids and adults wearing Messi jerseys or Ronaldo jerseys or any number of others.
You'll also see someone who knows all about the success of MLS, maybe more than anyone else.
Jesse Marsch graduated from Princeton in 1996 after a great career with the Tigers. His 16 goals his senior year are the second-most ever in program history and the most in the last 43 years by a Princeton player, and he was a 1995 first-team All-America.
After that, it was on to MLS, back in the first year of the new league. In all he would play in 321 MLS games, scoring 31 goals with 40 assists. When he retired in 2010, he was one of just four players remaining from the league's first season.
Marsch began his coaching career as an assistant coach with the U.S. men's national team under his college coach Bob Bradley. He was with the U.S. team for, among other events, the most recent World Cup.
After that, when Bradley became the head coach of the Egyptian team, Marsch became the head coach of the MLS expansion franchise in Montreal.
And now?
Well, first there was the matter of a little time off and some traveling, and by "some" TB means "a whole lot."
Yesterday TB ran into Jim Barlow, the Princeton men's head coach, and Marsch, his new assistant.
It's amazing how much huge, international, major soccer coaching experience Marsch has, and now he's on Barlow's staff for the 2013 season.
It takes someone who is able to park his ego outside, because going from coaching internationally at the World Cup and as a head coach in MLS to anything in the American college soccer world can't be easy.
Marsch, by all appearances, is the perfect man for something like this.
The head coach and his new assistant were both quoted in the story on goprincetontigers.com announcing Marsh's new role. Both are telling.
Barlow spoke about Marsch's experience as a student-athlete at Princeton and how much he has to offer the new generation.
Marsch spoke of giving back to the University and continuing to learn about the game.
TB has always thought it would be great for Bradley to come to Princeton one day as an assistant coach, and bring with him the benefit of his career back to this campus.
Now, with Jesse Marsch on the coaching staff, Princeton men's soccer has the next best thing.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Feeling Better, Dr. Arkin
TigerBlog's regular doctor looks like his friend Mark Major, who way back when was a hockey player at Cornell.
Mark's promising career, at least according to him, was seriously derailed when he suffered a major knee injury at Baker Rink, something that has caused him to be a tad anti-Princeton. TB has seen the scar on his knee, and he forgives him for not having the greatest relationship with all things Orange and Black.
Somehow - or because his kids have played sports through the years with TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog - Mark and TB have managed to put aside their differences, though there has been a lot of back-and-forth about certain Princeton-Cornell matchups.
And of course, there was the time when TB got Mark's son a Princeton Lacrosse hat, only to have him not wear it anyway, which probably was just as good, because he only wears hats backwards anyway.
TigerBlog was sick last week, sick enough to have to call the doctor. Only his regular doctor was out, so he had to go with another doctor in the practice, one he had never met before.
When the doctor came in, TB thought this one, took, looked like someone. In this case, it was someone famous, an actor.
This is something that happens often, at least to TB. He sees someone and realizes that the person looks like someone else, and then it takes a little while to figure out who it is.
In this case, it was almost to the end of TB's visit when it dawned on him. The doctor looked like Alan Arkin.
You know, the actor. The one who won Best Supporting Actor as the grandfather in "Little Miss Sunshine" and was nominated for "Argo" and who was in about 1,000 other things.
Anyway, being sick anytime stinks, but it really stinks in the summer. For some reason, everybody who ever gets sick in the summer talks about how it's so much worse than any other time of year.
Fortunately, TB is back to 100% now.
The summer has reached the same point it does every year around here.
Vacations are for the most part over. Practices haven't yet started.
TB was talking to his friend Todd last week, and he sort of spoke for everyone when he said he was "sick of the beach."
August is a more than a third of the way gone. Exhibition football games are on. Football in general dominates all sports news coverage, between pro and college.
Even though it doesn't seem like that long ago that TB was at the Princeton Varsity Club senior awards banquet last May, it's almost time for the start of a new year.
In fact, there are just 19 days - less than three weeks - until the first athletic event of the 2013-14 academic year, as the women's cross country team competes at the Lehigh Invitational on Aug. 31.
It gets far busier a week later.
The big day is Friday, Sept. 6, when four teams begin their seasons.
The men's soccer team will be at FDU, while the women's volleyball team will at George Mason's tournament.
As for home games, there are two pretty good ones.
The defending Ivy League champion women's soccer team hosts Richmond. The defending NCAA champion field hockey team hosts Duke. Both games are at 6 with no admission charge.
That's Friday, Sept. 6. As in three weeks from this Friday.
That's insane, by the way. But not nearly as insane as how quickly the time will go between now and then.
It always does.
Princeton will be off and running at Lehigh in fewer than three weeks. And then another athletic year will be off and running.
Summer, it appears, will be ending soon.
Mark's promising career, at least according to him, was seriously derailed when he suffered a major knee injury at Baker Rink, something that has caused him to be a tad anti-Princeton. TB has seen the scar on his knee, and he forgives him for not having the greatest relationship with all things Orange and Black.
Somehow - or because his kids have played sports through the years with TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog - Mark and TB have managed to put aside their differences, though there has been a lot of back-and-forth about certain Princeton-Cornell matchups.
And of course, there was the time when TB got Mark's son a Princeton Lacrosse hat, only to have him not wear it anyway, which probably was just as good, because he only wears hats backwards anyway.
TigerBlog was sick last week, sick enough to have to call the doctor. Only his regular doctor was out, so he had to go with another doctor in the practice, one he had never met before.
When the doctor came in, TB thought this one, took, looked like someone. In this case, it was someone famous, an actor.
This is something that happens often, at least to TB. He sees someone and realizes that the person looks like someone else, and then it takes a little while to figure out who it is.
In this case, it was almost to the end of TB's visit when it dawned on him. The doctor looked like Alan Arkin.
You know, the actor. The one who won Best Supporting Actor as the grandfather in "Little Miss Sunshine" and was nominated for "Argo" and who was in about 1,000 other things.
Anyway, being sick anytime stinks, but it really stinks in the summer. For some reason, everybody who ever gets sick in the summer talks about how it's so much worse than any other time of year.
Fortunately, TB is back to 100% now.
The summer has reached the same point it does every year around here.
Vacations are for the most part over. Practices haven't yet started.
TB was talking to his friend Todd last week, and he sort of spoke for everyone when he said he was "sick of the beach."
August is a more than a third of the way gone. Exhibition football games are on. Football in general dominates all sports news coverage, between pro and college.
Even though it doesn't seem like that long ago that TB was at the Princeton Varsity Club senior awards banquet last May, it's almost time for the start of a new year.
In fact, there are just 19 days - less than three weeks - until the first athletic event of the 2013-14 academic year, as the women's cross country team competes at the Lehigh Invitational on Aug. 31.
It gets far busier a week later.
The big day is Friday, Sept. 6, when four teams begin their seasons.
The men's soccer team will be at FDU, while the women's volleyball team will at George Mason's tournament.
As for home games, there are two pretty good ones.
The defending Ivy League champion women's soccer team hosts Richmond. The defending NCAA champion field hockey team hosts Duke. Both games are at 6 with no admission charge.
That's Friday, Sept. 6. As in three weeks from this Friday.
That's insane, by the way. But not nearly as insane as how quickly the time will go between now and then.
It always does.
Princeton will be off and running at Lehigh in fewer than three weeks. And then another athletic year will be off and running.
Summer, it appears, will be ending soon.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Pay Day
TigerBlog has never called into a sports talk radio station, or any
other station, for that matter. He gets the lure of it, though he
doesn't quite understand the idea of holding on for that long, only to
get either talked down to or hung up on by the host.
Every now and then, apparently it can pay off in a big way.
Joe Benigno started out by being a regular caller - Joe from Saddle River - to WFAN, and he somehow parlayed that into the overnight show. Today, he's usually on from 10-1 with Evan Roberts, whose own radio career started when he was a kid.
Together they are an easy-to-listen-to team, something that's not always the case in sports talk radio.
Their show is a very hard to achieve mix of lightheartedness without being forced and fluffy, and they come across as putting together a product that achieves just what sports talk is supposed to be about - two guys having a conversation about sports the way two friends would or two co-workers would or two strangers at a game would.
Except when they talk about the NCAA, but that's okay. They're not unique in that respect.
Yesterday, they were talking about Johnny Manziel, the autograph signing situation and the apparent hypocrisy of the NCAA.
Then they took a phone call from a caller who piled on the NCAA by saying that there had been a case last spring in which a Stanford women's golfer lost her eligibility for using a hose that had been unavailable to the general student body to wash her car.
Then Benigno, Roberts and the caller laughed about it.
The next caller corrected the story, saying that she had not lost her eligibility but instead had to pay back the value of the water that she used. This caused even more laughter.
To correct the story a bit more, the golfer was actually from a West Coast Conference school, not Stanford, not that that matters.
The point is the same.
On its face, it's laughable that a women's golfer had to pay $20 to use a hose to wash her car, especially when there are so many bigger issues in college athletics to tackle than that.
The bigger conversation the two were having was about the idea of paying college athletes.
TigerBlog will get to this in a second.
First, TB is always amazed at how sportswriters and broadcasters can know so much about so many subjects and yet basically know nothing about the way the NCAA works.
Benigno made a statement that the athletes bring in all this revenue to the schools but they can't get plane tickets home in case of family emergencies. This isn't the case.
A few days ago, Roberts mentioned the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit, the one that famously is suing the NCAA for using his likeness in a video game without his approval. This is the biggest thing going in college sports right now, and yet Roberts had only a cursory knowledge of it and Benigno apparently had none.
They, and most media members, know a lot about big-time college football and basketball and almost nothing about NCAA rules and procedures.
For instance, TB often hears announcers talk about NCAA rules and the NCAA as if the organization itself has the power to change them. This isn't the case. Actually it's like the federal government in some ways.
The NCAA is the executive branch of college athletics, and its charge is enforcing the rules. Also, the organization isn't rolling in money per se, as almost all of the money brought in is turned around and given back to the member institutions.
Those institutions, by the way, are the legislative branch. Their charge is to propose rules, which usually start with coaches' organizations and move up the administrative chain, ultimately being put up to a vote.
Anytime TB hears that the NCAA should do something about, oh, early recruiting, he laughs, because that would have to start with the coaches, who always want to lessen the restrictions, not add to them.
And the golfer and the hose? If the NCAA didn't enforce that, then there would always be someone else trying to figure out a way to get away with something a little bigger and a little bigger than that and so on.
Meanwhile, back at paying athletes ...
The caller before the one about the golfer said that Title IX would prevent that from ever happening, because schools would have to pay the women's athletes in addition to the men's.
Benigno and Roberts said that was ridiculous, because the money is brought in only by certain sports. They wouldn't pay the baseball players what they pay the football players, which they agreed makes sense.
And it does. Only the law isn't written that way. Pay the football players? Pay the field hockey players.
Besides, would Manziel be paid the same as his backup? Would an offensive tackle get the same as a wide receiver?
TigerBlog has never really considered the practical aspect of what it would mean to a school like Princeton if it had to pay its athletes, because he thinks it's so far-fetched that it's not worth it.
Where would the money come from? How much? To whom? Everyone? All 1,000 athletes each year?
Would that just be the end of broad-based athletic participation, which is the cornerstone of Princeton and Ivy athletics?
The world of college athletics is very volatile right now, with conference realignment, huge revenues at stake and now the outcome of the O'Bannon suit and what that will ultimately mean for the future.
It's going to be a very complicated one, a world where common sense solutions might not always be practical - or even legal.
Every now and then, apparently it can pay off in a big way.
Joe Benigno started out by being a regular caller - Joe from Saddle River - to WFAN, and he somehow parlayed that into the overnight show. Today, he's usually on from 10-1 with Evan Roberts, whose own radio career started when he was a kid.
Together they are an easy-to-listen-to team, something that's not always the case in sports talk radio.
Their show is a very hard to achieve mix of lightheartedness without being forced and fluffy, and they come across as putting together a product that achieves just what sports talk is supposed to be about - two guys having a conversation about sports the way two friends would or two co-workers would or two strangers at a game would.
Except when they talk about the NCAA, but that's okay. They're not unique in that respect.
Yesterday, they were talking about Johnny Manziel, the autograph signing situation and the apparent hypocrisy of the NCAA.
Then they took a phone call from a caller who piled on the NCAA by saying that there had been a case last spring in which a Stanford women's golfer lost her eligibility for using a hose that had been unavailable to the general student body to wash her car.
Then Benigno, Roberts and the caller laughed about it.
The next caller corrected the story, saying that she had not lost her eligibility but instead had to pay back the value of the water that she used. This caused even more laughter.
To correct the story a bit more, the golfer was actually from a West Coast Conference school, not Stanford, not that that matters.
The point is the same.
On its face, it's laughable that a women's golfer had to pay $20 to use a hose to wash her car, especially when there are so many bigger issues in college athletics to tackle than that.
The bigger conversation the two were having was about the idea of paying college athletes.
TigerBlog will get to this in a second.
First, TB is always amazed at how sportswriters and broadcasters can know so much about so many subjects and yet basically know nothing about the way the NCAA works.
Benigno made a statement that the athletes bring in all this revenue to the schools but they can't get plane tickets home in case of family emergencies. This isn't the case.
A few days ago, Roberts mentioned the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit, the one that famously is suing the NCAA for using his likeness in a video game without his approval. This is the biggest thing going in college sports right now, and yet Roberts had only a cursory knowledge of it and Benigno apparently had none.
They, and most media members, know a lot about big-time college football and basketball and almost nothing about NCAA rules and procedures.
For instance, TB often hears announcers talk about NCAA rules and the NCAA as if the organization itself has the power to change them. This isn't the case. Actually it's like the federal government in some ways.
The NCAA is the executive branch of college athletics, and its charge is enforcing the rules. Also, the organization isn't rolling in money per se, as almost all of the money brought in is turned around and given back to the member institutions.
Those institutions, by the way, are the legislative branch. Their charge is to propose rules, which usually start with coaches' organizations and move up the administrative chain, ultimately being put up to a vote.
Anytime TB hears that the NCAA should do something about, oh, early recruiting, he laughs, because that would have to start with the coaches, who always want to lessen the restrictions, not add to them.
And the golfer and the hose? If the NCAA didn't enforce that, then there would always be someone else trying to figure out a way to get away with something a little bigger and a little bigger than that and so on.
Meanwhile, back at paying athletes ...
The caller before the one about the golfer said that Title IX would prevent that from ever happening, because schools would have to pay the women's athletes in addition to the men's.
Benigno and Roberts said that was ridiculous, because the money is brought in only by certain sports. They wouldn't pay the baseball players what they pay the football players, which they agreed makes sense.
And it does. Only the law isn't written that way. Pay the football players? Pay the field hockey players.
Besides, would Manziel be paid the same as his backup? Would an offensive tackle get the same as a wide receiver?
TigerBlog has never really considered the practical aspect of what it would mean to a school like Princeton if it had to pay its athletes, because he thinks it's so far-fetched that it's not worth it.
Where would the money come from? How much? To whom? Everyone? All 1,000 athletes each year?
Would that just be the end of broad-based athletic participation, which is the cornerstone of Princeton and Ivy athletics?
The world of college athletics is very volatile right now, with conference realignment, huge revenues at stake and now the outcome of the O'Bannon suit and what that will ultimately mean for the future.
It's going to be a very complicated one, a world where common sense solutions might not always be practical - or even legal.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Sign Here
TigerBlog was at an intersection this morning when he noticed that the car in front of him had a rather odd bumper-sticker.
It read "Dog Grandma."
TB tried to figure out if that meant the driver was a grandmother who loves dogs in general? Or maybe a woman whose child had a dog that she loves? Or perhaps she loves her grandchild's dog?
Very confusing.
At that exact moment, the Imus In The Morning show on the radio went to the sports with Warner Wolf, who played a clip from the Texas A&M football coach, who basically said that if they wanted to ask him about football he would talk about that but he couldn't take about the Johnny Manziel autograph signing situation.
He came across as a bit terse. And someone who is a tad fed up with Manziel's off-field act.
This seems to be the new way of avoiding a subject, to say that it's something that can't be addressed.
Bill Belichek did it during the Aaron Hernandez training camp press conference. A-Rod did it the other day.
What they're really saying is "I don't want to talk about this." It's not like they're being asked to release the confidential memos the NCAA has sent regarding whatever evidence does or does not exist against Manziel. He's being asked to talk about Manziel.
Is there another question for him right now? Heisman Trophy quarterback hasn't been able to stay out of the spotlight since he won it. Most of it has been harmless 20-year-old stuff, but now he's done something to call his eligibility into question. Worse, if he plays and then is found to have been ineligible, that would be even more problematic.
Oh, and did you hear about what's going on at LSU?
The best running back on the team is named Jeremy Hill, who already was on probation for a statutory rape arrest in high school and who sucker punched a man outside a bar in the spring, leading to assault charges.
Hill plead guilty to a reduced charge Monday and was given no prison time. LSU coach Les Miles then let the team vote on whether or not Hill should be allowed to rejoin them.
Well what did he think they were going to do?
Of course they voted to let him back on.
The unpopular move would have been for the coach to say no, it doesn't matter how good he is, he's forfeited the privilege of playing here. But the coach knows he's his best running back, and hey, he needs to beat Alabama.
By putting it up to a vote, he basically was saying "hey, don't blame me for this." But he's the adult, or supposed to be.
Meanwhile, back at Manziel, the issue is whether or not he got paid for signing autographs. TB has no idea if he really did or not, and that's not the issue here.
If he got paid and there's proof of it, then he will no longer be Texas A&M's quarterback. Pretty simple.
It's not even a matter of whether or not he should be able to get paid for signing autographs, or that the organization that is policing him can profit from him through sales of a Texas A&M No. 2 jersey. Or that A&M can profit from him in dozens of ways without having to give him a cent.
Is there hypocrisy there? On its face, yes.
It doesn't matter, though. These are the NCAA's rules, and a college athlete has to know them and abide by them.
The NCAA rulebook is a long, complex book. There are so many rules in it that are contradictory to common sense, not to mention each other, not to mention their own spirit.
But they are the rules.
Universities, like Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League, spend a lot of time educating coaches and athletes on the rules. It's people's full-time jobs to do so.
And above all that, it's even more the responsibility of the athletes to make sure they understand the rules and abide by them.
Whether or not they make sense, they're the rules today.
Oh, and there's nothing in the rulebook about coaches who shouldn't hide behind their teams and let them vote to do things that seem to be wrong.
But that appears to happen too.
It read "Dog Grandma."
TB tried to figure out if that meant the driver was a grandmother who loves dogs in general? Or maybe a woman whose child had a dog that she loves? Or perhaps she loves her grandchild's dog?
Very confusing.
At that exact moment, the Imus In The Morning show on the radio went to the sports with Warner Wolf, who played a clip from the Texas A&M football coach, who basically said that if they wanted to ask him about football he would talk about that but he couldn't take about the Johnny Manziel autograph signing situation.
He came across as a bit terse. And someone who is a tad fed up with Manziel's off-field act.
This seems to be the new way of avoiding a subject, to say that it's something that can't be addressed.
Bill Belichek did it during the Aaron Hernandez training camp press conference. A-Rod did it the other day.
What they're really saying is "I don't want to talk about this." It's not like they're being asked to release the confidential memos the NCAA has sent regarding whatever evidence does or does not exist against Manziel. He's being asked to talk about Manziel.
Is there another question for him right now? Heisman Trophy quarterback hasn't been able to stay out of the spotlight since he won it. Most of it has been harmless 20-year-old stuff, but now he's done something to call his eligibility into question. Worse, if he plays and then is found to have been ineligible, that would be even more problematic.
Oh, and did you hear about what's going on at LSU?
The best running back on the team is named Jeremy Hill, who already was on probation for a statutory rape arrest in high school and who sucker punched a man outside a bar in the spring, leading to assault charges.
Hill plead guilty to a reduced charge Monday and was given no prison time. LSU coach Les Miles then let the team vote on whether or not Hill should be allowed to rejoin them.
Well what did he think they were going to do?
Of course they voted to let him back on.
The unpopular move would have been for the coach to say no, it doesn't matter how good he is, he's forfeited the privilege of playing here. But the coach knows he's his best running back, and hey, he needs to beat Alabama.
By putting it up to a vote, he basically was saying "hey, don't blame me for this." But he's the adult, or supposed to be.
Meanwhile, back at Manziel, the issue is whether or not he got paid for signing autographs. TB has no idea if he really did or not, and that's not the issue here.
If he got paid and there's proof of it, then he will no longer be Texas A&M's quarterback. Pretty simple.
It's not even a matter of whether or not he should be able to get paid for signing autographs, or that the organization that is policing him can profit from him through sales of a Texas A&M No. 2 jersey. Or that A&M can profit from him in dozens of ways without having to give him a cent.
Is there hypocrisy there? On its face, yes.
It doesn't matter, though. These are the NCAA's rules, and a college athlete has to know them and abide by them.
The NCAA rulebook is a long, complex book. There are so many rules in it that are contradictory to common sense, not to mention each other, not to mention their own spirit.
But they are the rules.
Universities, like Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League, spend a lot of time educating coaches and athletes on the rules. It's people's full-time jobs to do so.
And above all that, it's even more the responsibility of the athletes to make sure they understand the rules and abide by them.
Whether or not they make sense, they're the rules today.
Oh, and there's nothing in the rulebook about coaches who shouldn't hide behind their teams and let them vote to do things that seem to be wrong.
But that appears to happen too.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Those Were The Days
There was a time when this week would have been among the highest stress weeks of the year.
Of course TigerBlog is referring to the long-gone days of Ivy League sports information meetings, the football media guide and Ivy League football media day. The first preceded the third, for which the second had to be done.
At first, it was at the Lyman Orchards Golf Club in Middlefield, Conn.. TB shot his all-time best with a 91 at Lyman Orchards one year, in a foursome that included Chuck Yrigoyen (then of the Ivy League office), John Veneziano (then of Harvard) and either Kurt Kehl (then of Princeton) or Tim Bennett (then and now of Yale).
TB recalls shooting a 50 on the front nine, which gave him hope that he could break 100. And then he tore it up on the back nine, with a 41, which, granted, isn't quite tearing it up, though he did have an actual birdie.
Media day moved to Yale at some point, where TB's golf career, such as it was, ended one year on the 17th hole. TB has mentioned this story before, but his first shot on the par 3 was with an eight-iron.
Anyway, the day was really hot and humid, and the club flew out of TB's hands, helicoptering into a lake. The ball, on the the other hand, majestically landed on the green, not far from the cup.
Rather than putt, TB simply picked up the ball, and he has not hit another golf shot since. Maybe one day he will. Maybe he won't.
It definitely won't be with that eight-iron, which he never retrieved from the lake. In fact, he wonders if it's still there.
The week always began with the sports information meetings. For yucks, TB will look back every now and then to the minutes from those meetings and marvel at the fact that he used to spend time discussing those things.
Most of that stuff, by the way, technically still are Ivy rules, though nobody in the league follows any of them anymore. Like standardized rosters. Just the words themselves give TB shivers.
For the most part, the Ivy meetings were just a great way to renew relationships with the other people in the league. It was fun to just argue for a day or more over mundane minutia, because hey, everyone there was in it together anyway.
And then it would be football media day. Which meant the media guide, which every year for TB was a last-minute scramble but which was never late. It's one of his proudest accomplishments.
And there are great stories from those media days, like the time the two resident curmudgeons - the late William Wallace of the New York Times and the great Harvey Yavener of the Trenton Times - went at it over, of all things, a lengthy presentation on the new rules for that season by the supervisor of officials. It included Yav's legendary "can you move it along; we have interviews to do" and Wallace's four-letter response.
In all fairness, TB sides with Yav on this one. The explanation of permissible towels to be worn in pants by quarterbacks and centers was a tad excessive.
Anyway, those days, like TB said, are long gone.
Today there are no Ivy League media guides, and football media day has been replaced by a media conference call, which was held yesterday.
The preseason media poll was released as well, and Princeton was picked to finish fifth.
Penn was picked first, followed by Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Yale and Columbia.
It's nice to be picked first, TB supposes. Then again, it doesn't really matter once the games begin.
This year is Princeton's turn to have four league road games, and they happen to be at Penn, Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth, the four teams picked ahead of Princeton.
In other words, moving up higher than fifth will require beating those teams in their buildings.
Princeton made huge progress last year, going from consecutive 1-9 seasons to 5-5, including a gigantic win over Harvard. This year? There's more reason for optimism.
Princeton has depth that it hasn't had in the past, especially at the skill positions. There's more experience now, and playing with juniors and seniors is bigger in football than any other sport.
And there's Caraun Reid, all 6-2, 305 pounds of him, who hopes to follow Mike Catapano into the NFL draft next spring.
Most college teams are just beginning practices. The NFL is beginning exhibition games.
The Ivy League can wait a little while.
It's still early August. Not that long ago, this was a much different week for TigerBlog than it currently is.
Good times. Definitely good times.
Of course TigerBlog is referring to the long-gone days of Ivy League sports information meetings, the football media guide and Ivy League football media day. The first preceded the third, for which the second had to be done.
At first, it was at the Lyman Orchards Golf Club in Middlefield, Conn.. TB shot his all-time best with a 91 at Lyman Orchards one year, in a foursome that included Chuck Yrigoyen (then of the Ivy League office), John Veneziano (then of Harvard) and either Kurt Kehl (then of Princeton) or Tim Bennett (then and now of Yale).
TB recalls shooting a 50 on the front nine, which gave him hope that he could break 100. And then he tore it up on the back nine, with a 41, which, granted, isn't quite tearing it up, though he did have an actual birdie.
Media day moved to Yale at some point, where TB's golf career, such as it was, ended one year on the 17th hole. TB has mentioned this story before, but his first shot on the par 3 was with an eight-iron.
Anyway, the day was really hot and humid, and the club flew out of TB's hands, helicoptering into a lake. The ball, on the the other hand, majestically landed on the green, not far from the cup.
Rather than putt, TB simply picked up the ball, and he has not hit another golf shot since. Maybe one day he will. Maybe he won't.
It definitely won't be with that eight-iron, which he never retrieved from the lake. In fact, he wonders if it's still there.
The week always began with the sports information meetings. For yucks, TB will look back every now and then to the minutes from those meetings and marvel at the fact that he used to spend time discussing those things.
Most of that stuff, by the way, technically still are Ivy rules, though nobody in the league follows any of them anymore. Like standardized rosters. Just the words themselves give TB shivers.
For the most part, the Ivy meetings were just a great way to renew relationships with the other people in the league. It was fun to just argue for a day or more over mundane minutia, because hey, everyone there was in it together anyway.
And then it would be football media day. Which meant the media guide, which every year for TB was a last-minute scramble but which was never late. It's one of his proudest accomplishments.
And there are great stories from those media days, like the time the two resident curmudgeons - the late William Wallace of the New York Times and the great Harvey Yavener of the Trenton Times - went at it over, of all things, a lengthy presentation on the new rules for that season by the supervisor of officials. It included Yav's legendary "can you move it along; we have interviews to do" and Wallace's four-letter response.
In all fairness, TB sides with Yav on this one. The explanation of permissible towels to be worn in pants by quarterbacks and centers was a tad excessive.
Anyway, those days, like TB said, are long gone.
Today there are no Ivy League media guides, and football media day has been replaced by a media conference call, which was held yesterday.
The preseason media poll was released as well, and Princeton was picked to finish fifth.
Penn was picked first, followed by Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Yale and Columbia.
It's nice to be picked first, TB supposes. Then again, it doesn't really matter once the games begin.
This year is Princeton's turn to have four league road games, and they happen to be at Penn, Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth, the four teams picked ahead of Princeton.
In other words, moving up higher than fifth will require beating those teams in their buildings.
Princeton made huge progress last year, going from consecutive 1-9 seasons to 5-5, including a gigantic win over Harvard. This year? There's more reason for optimism.
Princeton has depth that it hasn't had in the past, especially at the skill positions. There's more experience now, and playing with juniors and seniors is bigger in football than any other sport.
And there's Caraun Reid, all 6-2, 305 pounds of him, who hopes to follow Mike Catapano into the NFL draft next spring.
Most college teams are just beginning practices. The NFL is beginning exhibition games.
The Ivy League can wait a little while.
It's still early August. Not that long ago, this was a much different week for TigerBlog than it currently is.
Good times. Definitely good times.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
On Cheating
TigerBlog isn't quite sure where to begin with the whole Alex Rodriguez situation and the sensory overload that he experienced yesterday when it was all A-Rod all the time.
Maybe, though, he should start with something Tony Kornheiser said on PTI. Paraphrasing, it went something like this: In the entire history of sports, there has always been cheating and there will always be someone who tries to cheat.
Somewhere else in the mountain of A-Rod talk was someone who likened yesterday's suspension of 13 Major League players, 12 of whom accepted their punishments and A-Rod who has chosen to fight it, to the Black Sox suspensions, after eight players including Shoeless Joe Jackson were banned for life for their roles in throwing the 1919 World Series.
TigerBlog disagrees. This one is worse, way worse, if only because the Black Sox were viewed as a national tragedy and this is viewed mostly with a shrug and an "oh well" and back to business, with just another layer of something that was once pure and innocent ripped away.
Except for the A-Rod part.
Then it's about revulsion at just how dishonest one person can be and how much that person can think anyone is falling for what he's saying.
The last seven months have been a nightmare, A-Rod? Is that what you said?
Rodriguez makes $28 million for 2013. Assuming that salary is paid off monthly for the year (TB doesn't think it actually is, but for the sake of argument let's say it is), then he's made more than $16 million for this last seven months, during which time he and TigerBlog had the same number of at-bats for the New York Yankees.
Yes, quite the nightmare.
And yet there he was yesterday, trying to actually generate sympathy for him as somehow the victim of all of this, like he is being persecuted.
The most telling analysis came from Curt Schilling, who hit more of a home run than A-Rod did while collecting that nightmarish $16 million with his take on Rodriguez' avoidance of the question of whether he had done PEDs.
There are basically two answers to that question, was what Schilling said. It's either "no," which means "no," or any other answer, which means "yes." When A-Rod said he woudn't discuss it, he was really saying "yes," was Schilling's obvious point.
And it's a good one.
A-Rod is staring at a 211-game suspension, which would wipe out the rest of this year and all of next year and bring him back in 2015 at age 40. The Yankees, of course, hate A-Rod and want nothing to do with his insane contract, but it has nothing to do with the fact that he's a cheat and everything to do with the fact that he's shot and can't produce anymore.
A-Rod himself said that he'd be accepted by his teammates and the fans if he produced.
And the fact that he will have a chance to produce, at least until his appeal is heard? That's something that looks awful on the surface, with the irony that his first appearance of 2013 came on the day he was given a 211-game suspension.
It's understandable, though. There are a lot of dollars at stake for him, after all, and his suspension is four times longer than the others, so why not fight it? It's not like his reputation is ever savable from this point on.
A-Rod was in Trenton last week for a rehab assignment, during which time he also went on a tour of the Princeton campus. TigerBlog saw a picture of him in Dillon Gym, and there were others online as well.
Princeton's campus is fairly quiet now. Most summer camps are over. Preseason practices are not here yet, but they are just around the corner.
And that brings TB back to what Kornheiser said.
Is sports really so closely aligned with cheating that the two cannot be separated?
A-Rod already had more money than he'll ever know what to do with, but what about the others on the list? Was it worth it to Ryan Braun? Maybe he wouldn't have gotten a fraction of the money he got had he not cheated. Or the others on the list who are barely Major Leaguers. Maybe they would never have gotten to that level at all?
And what about all of the athletes who are getting ready to come back to Princeton or are coming here for the first time? Or the rest of the Ivy League or the rest of college athletics?
What have they been willing to do to make this happen? Are there cheaters everywhere, like Kornheiser suggests?
TigerBlog wasn't the least bit phased by any of the people on the list yesterday, or when Von Miller was suspended by the NFL. Or by Lance Armstrong.
But it it's prevalent on this level, then TB would have a real problem with it.
Maybe he shouldn't though. As long as there's a prize out there, whether it's money or a college scholarship or the opportunity to compete athletically and academically in the Ivy League, then maybe there will be someone - a few someones - who will cut any corner to make it happen.
Maybe Tony Kornheiser is right.
TigerBlog hopes he isn't.
Still, the sports world is a little less pure today than it was yesterday. The bar has been lowered a little bit more. The ability for the average fan to be shocked by something has again been lessened.
One of the great appeals of Princeton athletics, of Ivy League athletics, has always been the purity.
TB never wants that to change, no matter what happens anywhere else.
Maybe, though, he should start with something Tony Kornheiser said on PTI. Paraphrasing, it went something like this: In the entire history of sports, there has always been cheating and there will always be someone who tries to cheat.
Somewhere else in the mountain of A-Rod talk was someone who likened yesterday's suspension of 13 Major League players, 12 of whom accepted their punishments and A-Rod who has chosen to fight it, to the Black Sox suspensions, after eight players including Shoeless Joe Jackson were banned for life for their roles in throwing the 1919 World Series.
TigerBlog disagrees. This one is worse, way worse, if only because the Black Sox were viewed as a national tragedy and this is viewed mostly with a shrug and an "oh well" and back to business, with just another layer of something that was once pure and innocent ripped away.
Except for the A-Rod part.
Then it's about revulsion at just how dishonest one person can be and how much that person can think anyone is falling for what he's saying.
The last seven months have been a nightmare, A-Rod? Is that what you said?
Rodriguez makes $28 million for 2013. Assuming that salary is paid off monthly for the year (TB doesn't think it actually is, but for the sake of argument let's say it is), then he's made more than $16 million for this last seven months, during which time he and TigerBlog had the same number of at-bats for the New York Yankees.
Yes, quite the nightmare.
And yet there he was yesterday, trying to actually generate sympathy for him as somehow the victim of all of this, like he is being persecuted.
The most telling analysis came from Curt Schilling, who hit more of a home run than A-Rod did while collecting that nightmarish $16 million with his take on Rodriguez' avoidance of the question of whether he had done PEDs.
There are basically two answers to that question, was what Schilling said. It's either "no," which means "no," or any other answer, which means "yes." When A-Rod said he woudn't discuss it, he was really saying "yes," was Schilling's obvious point.
And it's a good one.
A-Rod is staring at a 211-game suspension, which would wipe out the rest of this year and all of next year and bring him back in 2015 at age 40. The Yankees, of course, hate A-Rod and want nothing to do with his insane contract, but it has nothing to do with the fact that he's a cheat and everything to do with the fact that he's shot and can't produce anymore.
A-Rod himself said that he'd be accepted by his teammates and the fans if he produced.
And the fact that he will have a chance to produce, at least until his appeal is heard? That's something that looks awful on the surface, with the irony that his first appearance of 2013 came on the day he was given a 211-game suspension.
It's understandable, though. There are a lot of dollars at stake for him, after all, and his suspension is four times longer than the others, so why not fight it? It's not like his reputation is ever savable from this point on.
A-Rod was in Trenton last week for a rehab assignment, during which time he also went on a tour of the Princeton campus. TigerBlog saw a picture of him in Dillon Gym, and there were others online as well.
Princeton's campus is fairly quiet now. Most summer camps are over. Preseason practices are not here yet, but they are just around the corner.
And that brings TB back to what Kornheiser said.
Is sports really so closely aligned with cheating that the two cannot be separated?
A-Rod already had more money than he'll ever know what to do with, but what about the others on the list? Was it worth it to Ryan Braun? Maybe he wouldn't have gotten a fraction of the money he got had he not cheated. Or the others on the list who are barely Major Leaguers. Maybe they would never have gotten to that level at all?
And what about all of the athletes who are getting ready to come back to Princeton or are coming here for the first time? Or the rest of the Ivy League or the rest of college athletics?
What have they been willing to do to make this happen? Are there cheaters everywhere, like Kornheiser suggests?
TigerBlog wasn't the least bit phased by any of the people on the list yesterday, or when Von Miller was suspended by the NFL. Or by Lance Armstrong.
But it it's prevalent on this level, then TB would have a real problem with it.
Maybe he shouldn't though. As long as there's a prize out there, whether it's money or a college scholarship or the opportunity to compete athletically and academically in the Ivy League, then maybe there will be someone - a few someones - who will cut any corner to make it happen.
Maybe Tony Kornheiser is right.
TigerBlog hopes he isn't.
Still, the sports world is a little less pure today than it was yesterday. The bar has been lowered a little bit more. The ability for the average fan to be shocked by something has again been lessened.
One of the great appeals of Princeton athletics, of Ivy League athletics, has always been the purity.
TB never wants that to change, no matter what happens anywhere else.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Still Frustrating After All These Years
Have you ever had a conversation that drifts into a topic and then you try to retrace your steps to remember what you were talking about and how it got to the new point?
That happens to TigerBlog all the time.
It happened the other day. He and TigerBlog Jr. were talking about something, and then that ended up turning into this question from him: What was the most crushing Princeton loss you ever saw?
For the life of him, TB cannot remember how the two came to that subject. It's actually bothering him a little.
Anyway, it didn't take more than a split second for him to answer the question itself.
Princeton-Michigan State men's basketball, second round, 1998 NCAA tournament.
The game was played in Hartford, and TB remembers it like it was yesterday. It was snowy and cold outside, but he never had to leave the building, since his hotel was on one side of a mall and the arena was on the other.
Michigan State used four players who would start again two years later when the Spartans would win the national championship. In the 1998 tournament, MSU was the fourth seed, a very underrated fourth seed.
Princeton was the fifth seed. The Tigers were 27-1 on the year and ranked seventh nationally, between Kentucky and Utah, who would play for the national title later that tournament.
The Tigers had easily run past UNLV in the opening round and now were 40 minutes away from the Sweet 16, which would mean a rematch with the only team to have beaten them that year, North Carolina. The Sweet 16 that year was played at Kentucky's Rupp Arena.
Princeton fell behind 10-0 to Michigan State and fought uphill all game. The Tigers would be outrebounded by an astonishing 39-15, and yet the game would get close by halftime (33-31 MSU) and set up an excruciating final minute.
Princeton trailed by two when James Mastaglio knocked down a long jump shot, only to have his foot on the three-point line, which tied the score instead of putting the Tigers ahead. Mateen Cleaves, the two-time Big 10 Player of the Year who went on to a reasonable NBA career, was the only Spartan in double figures in that game, and he would destroy Princeton with a long three from the top of the key that put the Spartans back up by three. Cleaves would finish with 27 points.
The final would be 63-56, and it would be the end of the careers of Mastaglio, Mitch Henderson and Steve Goodrich, who went 39, 40 and 39 minutes in that game. Brian Earl went 40, and Gabe Lewullis went 39.
TigerBlog remembers vividly sitting behind a curtain with Goodrich prior to the postgame interview and feeling Goodrich's frustration and sadness at the cruel end of his Princeton playing days.
As for TB, he would have loved to see the Carolina rematch. It would have been difficult to win, but the Tigers had played the Tar Heels close twice in two seasons, and it would have been possible. Plus, just getting to the Sweet 16 would have been insane.
That is, without question, No. 1 on the list.
No. 2?
Probably the 2009 quarterfinal loss to Cornell, 6-4, at Hofstra, in what would be Bill Tierney's last game as Tiger head coach. Princeton dug a 5-1 hole at the half, tried to come back, fell just short and missed on the Final Four in a year that the team had all the pieces for a big run at it all.
Or the 2002 NCAA men's lacrosse championship game, when Princeton fell 13-12 to Syracuse after a huge comeback fell just short. Had there been 10 more seconds to that game, maybe five, TB is convinced it was going to overtime.
Or the Syracuse loss this past year, because TB knew in the moment that it was going to cost Princeton a chance at an at-large bid, which is what happened.
Or the football game at Harvard when Taylor Northrop missed a 50-yard field goal on the final play that would have won it, on a kick that still looks good to TigerBlog.
Or men's hockey against Minnesota-Deluth in the NCAA tournament, when the Tigers were up two late and then lost in OT.
Or women's soccer against Penn the year the Quakers used a 0-0 tie (does that even count, since it wasn't technically a loss?) to win the Ivy title and advance to the NCAA tournament. Princeton had a shot past the goalkeeper in overtime that was just knocked off the line by a defender.
Or women's basketball against Kansas State in the 2012 NCAA tournament.
And of all the other men's basketball games, the one that sticks out is the 1991 Princeton loss to Villanova in the NCAA tournament at the Carrier Dome in Kit Mueller's last game, when Lance Miller's floater with two seconds left was the difference. TB was alone in the football press box at the Dome when it happened, far from the basketball court, because he was having some issues with his old radio shack word processor and had to use something in the football press box.
Even after all these years, TB can still go back to the moment for all of those games and more and still feel the sting.
Fortunately, there have been many more days that TB remembers much more fondly.
That happens to TigerBlog all the time.
It happened the other day. He and TigerBlog Jr. were talking about something, and then that ended up turning into this question from him: What was the most crushing Princeton loss you ever saw?
For the life of him, TB cannot remember how the two came to that subject. It's actually bothering him a little.
Anyway, it didn't take more than a split second for him to answer the question itself.
Princeton-Michigan State men's basketball, second round, 1998 NCAA tournament.
The game was played in Hartford, and TB remembers it like it was yesterday. It was snowy and cold outside, but he never had to leave the building, since his hotel was on one side of a mall and the arena was on the other.
Michigan State used four players who would start again two years later when the Spartans would win the national championship. In the 1998 tournament, MSU was the fourth seed, a very underrated fourth seed.
Princeton was the fifth seed. The Tigers were 27-1 on the year and ranked seventh nationally, between Kentucky and Utah, who would play for the national title later that tournament.
The Tigers had easily run past UNLV in the opening round and now were 40 minutes away from the Sweet 16, which would mean a rematch with the only team to have beaten them that year, North Carolina. The Sweet 16 that year was played at Kentucky's Rupp Arena.
Princeton fell behind 10-0 to Michigan State and fought uphill all game. The Tigers would be outrebounded by an astonishing 39-15, and yet the game would get close by halftime (33-31 MSU) and set up an excruciating final minute.
Princeton trailed by two when James Mastaglio knocked down a long jump shot, only to have his foot on the three-point line, which tied the score instead of putting the Tigers ahead. Mateen Cleaves, the two-time Big 10 Player of the Year who went on to a reasonable NBA career, was the only Spartan in double figures in that game, and he would destroy Princeton with a long three from the top of the key that put the Spartans back up by three. Cleaves would finish with 27 points.
The final would be 63-56, and it would be the end of the careers of Mastaglio, Mitch Henderson and Steve Goodrich, who went 39, 40 and 39 minutes in that game. Brian Earl went 40, and Gabe Lewullis went 39.
TigerBlog remembers vividly sitting behind a curtain with Goodrich prior to the postgame interview and feeling Goodrich's frustration and sadness at the cruel end of his Princeton playing days.
As for TB, he would have loved to see the Carolina rematch. It would have been difficult to win, but the Tigers had played the Tar Heels close twice in two seasons, and it would have been possible. Plus, just getting to the Sweet 16 would have been insane.
That is, without question, No. 1 on the list.
No. 2?
Probably the 2009 quarterfinal loss to Cornell, 6-4, at Hofstra, in what would be Bill Tierney's last game as Tiger head coach. Princeton dug a 5-1 hole at the half, tried to come back, fell just short and missed on the Final Four in a year that the team had all the pieces for a big run at it all.
Or the 2002 NCAA men's lacrosse championship game, when Princeton fell 13-12 to Syracuse after a huge comeback fell just short. Had there been 10 more seconds to that game, maybe five, TB is convinced it was going to overtime.
Or the Syracuse loss this past year, because TB knew in the moment that it was going to cost Princeton a chance at an at-large bid, which is what happened.
Or the football game at Harvard when Taylor Northrop missed a 50-yard field goal on the final play that would have won it, on a kick that still looks good to TigerBlog.
Or men's hockey against Minnesota-Deluth in the NCAA tournament, when the Tigers were up two late and then lost in OT.
Or women's soccer against Penn the year the Quakers used a 0-0 tie (does that even count, since it wasn't technically a loss?) to win the Ivy title and advance to the NCAA tournament. Princeton had a shot past the goalkeeper in overtime that was just knocked off the line by a defender.
Or women's basketball against Kansas State in the 2012 NCAA tournament.
And of all the other men's basketball games, the one that sticks out is the 1991 Princeton loss to Villanova in the NCAA tournament at the Carrier Dome in Kit Mueller's last game, when Lance Miller's floater with two seconds left was the difference. TB was alone in the football press box at the Dome when it happened, far from the basketball court, because he was having some issues with his old radio shack word processor and had to use something in the football press box.
Even after all these years, TB can still go back to the moment for all of those games and more and still feel the sting.
Fortunately, there have been many more days that TB remembers much more fondly.
Friday, August 2, 2013
A Gentleman Passes
The picture shows a man, a young man, being carried off the field by his football teammates.
In the background is the unmistakable cement outline of Palmer Stadium, the old home of Princeton football. The young man being carried off its field is the best player who ever played there.
TigerBlog knew him only as an older man, decades after he tore up that field and others, after he was honored as the very best in college football in 1951, after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
And yet everything TB knew about Dick Kazmaier as an older man comes screaming through in that picture.
His look isn't one of a wild smile. He's not pumping his fists. He's doing nothing to draw attention to himself.
He looks uncomfortable, in fact. He looks like he's wondering why all the fuss over him, when it's a team game and Princeton, once again, won as a team, something it did each of the last 22 times hewas part of that team.
Dick Kazmaier died Thursday at the age of 82.
Each obituary that TigerBlog read about Kazmaier mentioned as much about his sportsmanship and modesty as it did about the yards he gained or the touchdowns he scored. Again, that's in keeping with the Kazmaier that TB got to know.
When you're the only Heisman Trophy winner in the long history of a football program and you had the kind of career that Kazmaier had, you naturally have a bit of "that's him, that's the one" celebrity about you. Kazmaier wanted no part of that.
His story is of course very familiar to any Princeton fan by now.
He came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, in 1948 after being a five-sport star in his hometown. He started out at Princeton as the fifth-string back on the freshman team, an undersized 155-pounder who didn't figure to be able to stand up to the pounding of head coach Charlie Caldwell's single-wing offense.
Instead, he thrived in it as a duel passing/running threat. As a sophomore he led the team in rushing as the Tigers went 6-3 while winning their final four games.
Princeton then went 9-0 and finished ranked sixth nationally in 1950. With only Kazmaier back on offense in 1951, Princeton nevertheless went 9-0 and ended up sixth again in 1951.
Among the highlights of his senior year was his 15 for 17 passing performance against Cornell in a 53-15 win. When the season was over, he was the overwhelming winner for the Heisman Trophy, with 506 first-place votes and 1,777 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Hank Lauricella of Tennessee, who had 45 first-place votes and 424 points.
The rest of the top 10 that year included future Pro Football Hall of Fame members Ollie Matson of San Francisco and Hugh McElhenny of Washington, who would share the NFL Rookie of the Year Award in 1952.
Kazmaier famously passed on an opportunity to play in the NFL, choosing instead to go to Harvard Business School before spending three years in the Navy and embarking on a long, successful career in business and philanthropy.
TigerBlog knew him to see him at Princeton events the last 20 years or so. He was always quick to say hello, to ask how everything was going, to share common interests.
He never once talked about himself or his own individual accomplishments during any conversation TB ever had with him. When TB wrote a story about him as the top Princeton football player of the last century, Kazmaier spent as much time talking about his teammates as he did about anything he had done, as if he was embarrassed by the fuss.
The same was true when Princeton retired the No. 42 that was shared by Kazmaier and then a decade later by another Midwestern boy who had come to Princeton, Bill Bradley.
Today, that No. 42 hangs from the rafter in Jadwin Gym, never to be worn again by any Princeton athlete in any sport.
In the Jadwin lobby in a glass case is the Heisman Trophy that Kazmaier won, after years of simply sitting in the office of the head football coach. There is also a larger-than-life Kazmaier statue on display as well.
They all serve as reminders of the greatest football player - and along with Bradley and Hobey Baker one of the three greatest athletes - in Princeton history.
He will be remembered forever for what he did as an athlete and even more so for the person that he was, and for the way he lived his life.
With his passing, the world lost one of its truest gentlemen.
He will be missed at Princeton.
He will never be forgotten.
In the background is the unmistakable cement outline of Palmer Stadium, the old home of Princeton football. The young man being carried off its field is the best player who ever played there.
TigerBlog knew him only as an older man, decades after he tore up that field and others, after he was honored as the very best in college football in 1951, after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
And yet everything TB knew about Dick Kazmaier as an older man comes screaming through in that picture.
His look isn't one of a wild smile. He's not pumping his fists. He's doing nothing to draw attention to himself.
He looks uncomfortable, in fact. He looks like he's wondering why all the fuss over him, when it's a team game and Princeton, once again, won as a team, something it did each of the last 22 times hewas part of that team.
Dick Kazmaier died Thursday at the age of 82.
Each obituary that TigerBlog read about Kazmaier mentioned as much about his sportsmanship and modesty as it did about the yards he gained or the touchdowns he scored. Again, that's in keeping with the Kazmaier that TB got to know.
When you're the only Heisman Trophy winner in the long history of a football program and you had the kind of career that Kazmaier had, you naturally have a bit of "that's him, that's the one" celebrity about you. Kazmaier wanted no part of that.
His story is of course very familiar to any Princeton fan by now.
He came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, in 1948 after being a five-sport star in his hometown. He started out at Princeton as the fifth-string back on the freshman team, an undersized 155-pounder who didn't figure to be able to stand up to the pounding of head coach Charlie Caldwell's single-wing offense.
Instead, he thrived in it as a duel passing/running threat. As a sophomore he led the team in rushing as the Tigers went 6-3 while winning their final four games.
Princeton then went 9-0 and finished ranked sixth nationally in 1950. With only Kazmaier back on offense in 1951, Princeton nevertheless went 9-0 and ended up sixth again in 1951.
Among the highlights of his senior year was his 15 for 17 passing performance against Cornell in a 53-15 win. When the season was over, he was the overwhelming winner for the Heisman Trophy, with 506 first-place votes and 1,777 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Hank Lauricella of Tennessee, who had 45 first-place votes and 424 points.
The rest of the top 10 that year included future Pro Football Hall of Fame members Ollie Matson of San Francisco and Hugh McElhenny of Washington, who would share the NFL Rookie of the Year Award in 1952.
Kazmaier famously passed on an opportunity to play in the NFL, choosing instead to go to Harvard Business School before spending three years in the Navy and embarking on a long, successful career in business and philanthropy.
TigerBlog knew him to see him at Princeton events the last 20 years or so. He was always quick to say hello, to ask how everything was going, to share common interests.
He never once talked about himself or his own individual accomplishments during any conversation TB ever had with him. When TB wrote a story about him as the top Princeton football player of the last century, Kazmaier spent as much time talking about his teammates as he did about anything he had done, as if he was embarrassed by the fuss.
The same was true when Princeton retired the No. 42 that was shared by Kazmaier and then a decade later by another Midwestern boy who had come to Princeton, Bill Bradley.
Today, that No. 42 hangs from the rafter in Jadwin Gym, never to be worn again by any Princeton athlete in any sport.
In the Jadwin lobby in a glass case is the Heisman Trophy that Kazmaier won, after years of simply sitting in the office of the head football coach. There is also a larger-than-life Kazmaier statue on display as well.
They all serve as reminders of the greatest football player - and along with Bradley and Hobey Baker one of the three greatest athletes - in Princeton history.
He will be remembered forever for what he did as an athlete and even more so for the person that he was, and for the way he lived his life.
With his passing, the world lost one of its truest gentlemen.
He will be missed at Princeton.
He will never be forgotten.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
An Afternoon In Portland
You pick up Route 26 off of 101 halfway between Seaside and Cannon Beach, whose downtowns, as it were, are separated by maybe seven miles.
It's not easy leaving Cannon Beach, what with its amazing natural beauty, especially Haystack Rock. The rock is actually accessible by foot when the tide is out, while at other times there's a good 20 yards of Pacific Ocean in between the beach and the rock.
When you can walk out to the rock, you find sights that you don't normally see, like, for instance, gigantic starfish of several different colors.
Haystack Rock is so mesmerizing that it's easy to lose focus of everything else on the beach, which has several other smaller rocks, not to mention mountains that come down almost literally to touch the sea.
And then there's the town itself, which runs at a much slower pace than does Seaside, which in turn runs at about, oh, 10% of the speed of the Jersey Shore.
No, it's not easy to make the turn onto 26 and head east, though that's exactly what TigerBlog did Wednesday morning.
Route 26 connects Oregon's North Shore with the state's biggest city, Portland. It's about a 90-minute drive from Cannon Beach to Portland, and almost all of it is spent on Route 26.
And almost all of the time on Route 26 is spent going through forests. This is the home of the Pacific Northwest logging industry, and there are trees everywhere - well, almost everywhere, as there are also huge empty patches where trees used to be mixed in with the ones still standing tall.
Whoever built the road had the foresight to envision trucks hauling logs up and down mountains and therefore decided to put passing lanes in every few miles. Otherwise, the trip from the shore to Portland could be two or three times as long.
TigerBlog was in Portland once before, back in the early 1980s, for the Far West Classic men's basketball tournament.
Back then, he was doing student radio for WXPN, Penn's campus station, and it was the Quakers who were his primary focus in Ivy basketball. The tournament that year was an eight-team event held on the banks of the Willamette River at the old Memorial Coliseum, former home of the Trail Blazers. For those who paid attention to such things, the Blazers used to sell out every game, and attendance was always 12,666.
Anyway, Penn went 0-3 in the tournament that year, keeping the team winless to that point of the season. Or at least that's how TB remembers it. Or is he wrong? Did Penn win its last game at the tournament for its first win of the year?
Either way, from there, the Quakers turned their season around, winning the Ivy League and advancing to the NCAA tournament.
TB remembers flying back from that tournament, on a flight that was originally supposed to go from Portland to Denver to Philadelphia. The flight actually backed away from the gate and then came right back, as it turned out Denver was getting hammered by snow. Instead, TB was rerouted through Chicago - his bags arrived two days later.
This time, TB's trip to Portland was merely a stopover on his way back to Seattle. Portland has many suburban sections that have as their mailing address the city itself, and TB was on his way to one of those, a house near the top of a dead-end street that is the home of the Leland family.
When TB rang the doorbell, he was greeted by Max, the youngest Leland, who simply opened the door, let in the strangers and then went about his business as his mother greeted her guests.
Mrs. Leland is Sandi, the former Sandi Bittler, Princeton Class of 1990. Back when she played at Princeton, she was a deadly three-point shooter, and she used that weapon to ring up 1,683 career points.
To this day, only one player in Princeton history, male or female, has ever scored more than she did. That, obviously, was Bill Bradley, who scored 2,503 in three years, with no three-point shot. Just in case anyone out there forgot the absurdity of what Bradley did.
As for Leland, her record has withstood some serious challenges, mostly on the women's side.
Meagan Cowher finished her career with 1,671 points, just 12 behind Leland.
Think about that. That means that had two three-pointers of Leland's rimmed out and three shots for Cowher that didn't fall gone in, they would have been tied. And that's over four full seasons.
Then there was Niveen Rasheed, who would have beaten Leland by probably 250 points or so had she not missed the entire Ivy League season her sophomore year with a torn ACL. Or, for that matter, been part of teams that so routinely won by 20, 30 or 40 or more points that her minutes and scoring opportunities on many nights were over shortly after halftime.
Leland makes no bones about her place in Princeton women's basketball history. She freely admits both Cowher and Rasheed and others were better all-around players.
At the same time, she is definitely proud of her standing as the all-time leading scorer for the program.
TB's visit lasted about two hours and included some home run derby in the backyard and male vs. female basketball in the driveway, with lineups stocked with TigerBlog Jr., Miss TigerBlog and Max's siblings Emma and Jack.
Then it was off to I-5 and the trip north to Seattle.
TB never realized that Portland was so close to the Oregon/Washington state line, but even with heavy traffic, the rented Subaru Outback was back in Washington state in about 20 minutes. Three hours later, it was back in Seattle.
TB very much enjoyed his time in Oregon, though.
Two relaxing days on the beach. Two fun hours with an old friend.
Not a bad way to start the week.
It's not easy leaving Cannon Beach, what with its amazing natural beauty, especially Haystack Rock. The rock is actually accessible by foot when the tide is out, while at other times there's a good 20 yards of Pacific Ocean in between the beach and the rock.
When you can walk out to the rock, you find sights that you don't normally see, like, for instance, gigantic starfish of several different colors.
Haystack Rock is so mesmerizing that it's easy to lose focus of everything else on the beach, which has several other smaller rocks, not to mention mountains that come down almost literally to touch the sea.
And then there's the town itself, which runs at a much slower pace than does Seaside, which in turn runs at about, oh, 10% of the speed of the Jersey Shore.
No, it's not easy to make the turn onto 26 and head east, though that's exactly what TigerBlog did Wednesday morning.
Route 26 connects Oregon's North Shore with the state's biggest city, Portland. It's about a 90-minute drive from Cannon Beach to Portland, and almost all of it is spent on Route 26.
And almost all of the time on Route 26 is spent going through forests. This is the home of the Pacific Northwest logging industry, and there are trees everywhere - well, almost everywhere, as there are also huge empty patches where trees used to be mixed in with the ones still standing tall.
Whoever built the road had the foresight to envision trucks hauling logs up and down mountains and therefore decided to put passing lanes in every few miles. Otherwise, the trip from the shore to Portland could be two or three times as long.
TigerBlog was in Portland once before, back in the early 1980s, for the Far West Classic men's basketball tournament.
Back then, he was doing student radio for WXPN, Penn's campus station, and it was the Quakers who were his primary focus in Ivy basketball. The tournament that year was an eight-team event held on the banks of the Willamette River at the old Memorial Coliseum, former home of the Trail Blazers. For those who paid attention to such things, the Blazers used to sell out every game, and attendance was always 12,666.
Anyway, Penn went 0-3 in the tournament that year, keeping the team winless to that point of the season. Or at least that's how TB remembers it. Or is he wrong? Did Penn win its last game at the tournament for its first win of the year?
Either way, from there, the Quakers turned their season around, winning the Ivy League and advancing to the NCAA tournament.
TB remembers flying back from that tournament, on a flight that was originally supposed to go from Portland to Denver to Philadelphia. The flight actually backed away from the gate and then came right back, as it turned out Denver was getting hammered by snow. Instead, TB was rerouted through Chicago - his bags arrived two days later.
This time, TB's trip to Portland was merely a stopover on his way back to Seattle. Portland has many suburban sections that have as their mailing address the city itself, and TB was on his way to one of those, a house near the top of a dead-end street that is the home of the Leland family.
When TB rang the doorbell, he was greeted by Max, the youngest Leland, who simply opened the door, let in the strangers and then went about his business as his mother greeted her guests.
Mrs. Leland is Sandi, the former Sandi Bittler, Princeton Class of 1990. Back when she played at Princeton, she was a deadly three-point shooter, and she used that weapon to ring up 1,683 career points.
To this day, only one player in Princeton history, male or female, has ever scored more than she did. That, obviously, was Bill Bradley, who scored 2,503 in three years, with no three-point shot. Just in case anyone out there forgot the absurdity of what Bradley did.
As for Leland, her record has withstood some serious challenges, mostly on the women's side.
Meagan Cowher finished her career with 1,671 points, just 12 behind Leland.
Think about that. That means that had two three-pointers of Leland's rimmed out and three shots for Cowher that didn't fall gone in, they would have been tied. And that's over four full seasons.
Then there was Niveen Rasheed, who would have beaten Leland by probably 250 points or so had she not missed the entire Ivy League season her sophomore year with a torn ACL. Or, for that matter, been part of teams that so routinely won by 20, 30 or 40 or more points that her minutes and scoring opportunities on many nights were over shortly after halftime.
Leland makes no bones about her place in Princeton women's basketball history. She freely admits both Cowher and Rasheed and others were better all-around players.
At the same time, she is definitely proud of her standing as the all-time leading scorer for the program.
TB's visit lasted about two hours and included some home run derby in the backyard and male vs. female basketball in the driveway, with lineups stocked with TigerBlog Jr., Miss TigerBlog and Max's siblings Emma and Jack.
Then it was off to I-5 and the trip north to Seattle.
TB never realized that Portland was so close to the Oregon/Washington state line, but even with heavy traffic, the rented Subaru Outback was back in Washington state in about 20 minutes. Three hours later, it was back in Seattle.
TB very much enjoyed his time in Oregon, though.
Two relaxing days on the beach. Two fun hours with an old friend.
Not a bad way to start the week.
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