TigerBlog had an appointment yesterday to talk about where he currently stands with his retirement.
The person with whom he met was a very nice woman. She asked him what he's looking for out of retirement. He said a beach house and a French bulldog.
Is that asking too much?
She told him that her best advice about his retirement was to think of a lot of topics for the blog, because he'll have to be doing it for a few more decades.
Hey, no problem. There's always something to write about.
Some days it's easier than others. Like today.
TigerBlog had hoped to write about a gold medal for Bella Alarie at the U19 World Championships in women's basketball, held in Italy the last two weeks. Unfortunately, Alarie and her USA teammates had to settle for silver after falling to Russia 86-82 in the championship game Sunday.
Alarie was a first-team All-Ivy League selection and the Ivy League Rookie of the Year this past season for the Princeton women's basketball team. From opening night of the season, when she put up 24 points and seven rebounds against Rider, it was clear that Alarie was someone really special.
TigerBlog has said this about her before, but she is the most unique - and complete - women's basketball player Princeton has ever had. She's 6-4 on Princeton's roster and 6-5 on Team USA's roster, but she's hardly a back-to-the-basket player, though she could be if that's what you want.
She's a guard. She can get from above the three-point line to the basket in two steps. She can shoot three's. She can beat a press. She can run the break with the ball or on the wing. And she can defend.
In her freshman year, she set the Princeton record for blocked shots in a season. She also put up 377 points, which, if multiplied by four, takes her to 1,508. If she can improve by 59 points per season - or two per game basically - over her freshman year, then she'll break the Princeton career record of 1,683, held since 1990 by Sandi Bittler Leland.
There's a big jump to international basketball of course. Alarie was a starter at the World Championships for the Americans, and she averaged 7.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for the tournament.
You don't think that experience is going to translate to an improved Alarie when she gets back on the court at Jadwin Gym?
In an athletic program filled with standouts across 37 sports, Alarie is as much a must-see as any Princeton athlete whose last name doesn't rhyme with the field in the football stadium.
In all seriousness, if you haven't gotten a chance yet to see her play, make sure you do. You'll be impressed.
It's been a big summer for Princetonians in Europe. There's Alarie. There's all of the success at the Maccabiah Games in Israel and the World U23 Rowing Championships in Bulgaria.
To that list, you can add the World Championships in track and field, which are about to begin in London.
Princeton is represented there by recent alum Julia Ratcliffe and current assistant men's coach Robby Andrews.
Ratcliffe is competing, obviously, in the hammer throw. She was a four-time All-America at Princeton and the 2014 NCAA champion, as well as a runner-up once and a fourth-place finisher this past year.
She's from New Zealand, though she's still spent a lot of time on this campus this summer training and competing. She's funny, laid back, extremely intelligent, really personable, really likeable - and one of the greatest female athletes in school history.
She just missed qualifying standard for the 2016 Olympic Games, despite being her country's record-holder in the event. Hopefully she'll be in the 2020 Games, in Tokyo.
Hopefully, too, Andrews will be there as well.
Andrews was in the Olympics last summer, the ones in Rio that began just about one year ago. Andrews was in the semifinals of the 1,500 when he was DQ'd on a really, really close call.
Had he not been ruled out of the final, he would have definitely been in the hunt for a medal.
Since then, Andrews has hardly given up. He came back to win the U.S. championship last month, defeating the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the process.
To get to the World Championships, he needed to run the qualifying standard of 3:36.00. In fact, his winning time at the U.S. championships was more than seven seconds off the qualifying time.
He needed to get to 3:36 or below by July 12. On July 7, in a meet in New York, Andrews ran a 3:35.25.
That put him on a plane to London. By three-quarters of a second.
Like Ratcliffe, Andrews is laid back and really personable and really easy to root for. TigerBlog will be doing just that when they compete in London.
And so that's one more blog closer to retirement. Don't worry. TB has a million of them.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Busy Body
Jadwin lobby, Day 2. It's still not finished.
That's okay. As TB said yesterday, it's going to look great when it's done.
One thing TigerBlog forgot yesterday was to tell you the leading scorer for Princeton in the first game played in Jadwin. He does this a lot. He asks a questions, figures he'll wait a few paragraphs to give the answer and then forgets all about it.
The answer was Chris Thomforde. How many of you got that?
What else can TB tay to you today?
Oh, the Yankees traded for Sonny Gray. If you've seen the movie "Donnie Brasco," then you know who Sonny Black and Sonny Red were.
TigerBlog can tell you that, with one week left in the Major League Lacrosse regular season, Denver and Ohio have clinched home games in the semifinals and Florida has also clinched a playoff spot.
There are four other teams who are either 7-6 or 6-7.
He's paid much closer attention to the Major League Lacrosse than Major League Baseball. There was a time when TB would know where every team was in the standings, where he'd watch a lot of baseball over the course of a season. Now? He roots for Tom McCarthy, the TV voice of the Phillies, and any Princeton players who happen to be playing.
He does know that the Astros, Dodgers and Nationals are having big years. And that the Yankees have done surprisingly well. And that the Mets - Barlow's team, by the way - aren't.
He also knows that Princeton has two alums on Major League Baseball rosters and 10 alums playing professional baseball this summer. You can get information on all of them right HERE.
Princeton has had a great run in producing professional baseball talent. Among the most recent group of Major Leaguers were former Princeton two-sport athletes Will Venable and Chris Young, who were both dominant basketball players as undergrads.
Young's long career in the Majors appears to have ended, though he does have the distinction of owning a World Series ring, which he won with the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
The two Princeton alums on Major League rosters now are Danny Barnes, who is with Blue Jays (though he's on the disabled list at the moment) and Matt Bowman with the Cardinals. The Blue Jays, by the way, lead Major League Baseball in attendance.
Bowman? He also leads the Majors in something - appearances by a pitcher.
In fact, Bowman has been in 54 games, or two more than half of the 106 that the Cards have played so far. He is 2-4 with one save, but those numbers hardly describe his worth.
With the way baseball is played these days, a team needs arms like Bowman's. It's already Aug. 2. Erwin Santana of the Twins has the most complete games in the Majors. Any guesses how many he has?
Four.
Go back 10 years, and the league high was seven complete games. Go back 30 years, and the league high was 18 games.
In other words, starters don't go deep in games, and bullpens need a lot of depth.
It's also interesting that going back 30 years, the back end guy in the bullpen didn't only pitch in save situations. The top seven closers that year combined for 237 saves, but they also combined to finish 399 games. In other words, they'd pitch a lot in non-save situations.
This year, the top seven closers currently have combined for 192 saves. They also have combined to finish 262 games. In other words, closers are much less likely to get into non-save situations today.
It is, by the way, the dopiest thing in all of sports, pitching a closer only in save situations. There is nothing else in all of sports that TigerBlog can think of where strategy is dictated solely by stat keeping rules. So many games are lost in the sixth and seventh while presumably your best short reliever sits in the bullpen, waiting for the ninth inning to get there.
On the other hand, it works out well for Bowman, and he's a Princeton guy.
He pitched again last night, going two-thirds of an inning, in the eighth, of a 3-2 loss to the Brewers. It was an odd game, as Milwaukee scored three times in the first and then was shut out the rest of the way.
Bowman, by the way, was never a first-team All-Ivy League selection at Princeton. He was, in 2011, a second-team selection - as a shortstop.
That's okay. As TB said yesterday, it's going to look great when it's done.
One thing TigerBlog forgot yesterday was to tell you the leading scorer for Princeton in the first game played in Jadwin. He does this a lot. He asks a questions, figures he'll wait a few paragraphs to give the answer and then forgets all about it.
The answer was Chris Thomforde. How many of you got that?
What else can TB tay to you today?
Oh, the Yankees traded for Sonny Gray. If you've seen the movie "Donnie Brasco," then you know who Sonny Black and Sonny Red were.
TigerBlog can tell you that, with one week left in the Major League Lacrosse regular season, Denver and Ohio have clinched home games in the semifinals and Florida has also clinched a playoff spot.
There are four other teams who are either 7-6 or 6-7.
He's paid much closer attention to the Major League Lacrosse than Major League Baseball. There was a time when TB would know where every team was in the standings, where he'd watch a lot of baseball over the course of a season. Now? He roots for Tom McCarthy, the TV voice of the Phillies, and any Princeton players who happen to be playing.
He does know that the Astros, Dodgers and Nationals are having big years. And that the Yankees have done surprisingly well. And that the Mets - Barlow's team, by the way - aren't.
He also knows that Princeton has two alums on Major League Baseball rosters and 10 alums playing professional baseball this summer. You can get information on all of them right HERE.
Princeton has had a great run in producing professional baseball talent. Among the most recent group of Major Leaguers were former Princeton two-sport athletes Will Venable and Chris Young, who were both dominant basketball players as undergrads.
Young's long career in the Majors appears to have ended, though he does have the distinction of owning a World Series ring, which he won with the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
The two Princeton alums on Major League rosters now are Danny Barnes, who is with Blue Jays (though he's on the disabled list at the moment) and Matt Bowman with the Cardinals. The Blue Jays, by the way, lead Major League Baseball in attendance.
Bowman? He also leads the Majors in something - appearances by a pitcher.
In fact, Bowman has been in 54 games, or two more than half of the 106 that the Cards have played so far. He is 2-4 with one save, but those numbers hardly describe his worth.
With the way baseball is played these days, a team needs arms like Bowman's. It's already Aug. 2. Erwin Santana of the Twins has the most complete games in the Majors. Any guesses how many he has?
Four.
Go back 10 years, and the league high was seven complete games. Go back 30 years, and the league high was 18 games.
In other words, starters don't go deep in games, and bullpens need a lot of depth.
It's also interesting that going back 30 years, the back end guy in the bullpen didn't only pitch in save situations. The top seven closers that year combined for 237 saves, but they also combined to finish 399 games. In other words, they'd pitch a lot in non-save situations.
This year, the top seven closers currently have combined for 192 saves. They also have combined to finish 262 games. In other words, closers are much less likely to get into non-save situations today.
It is, by the way, the dopiest thing in all of sports, pitching a closer only in save situations. There is nothing else in all of sports that TigerBlog can think of where strategy is dictated solely by stat keeping rules. So many games are lost in the sixth and seventh while presumably your best short reliever sits in the bullpen, waiting for the ninth inning to get there.
On the other hand, it works out well for Bowman, and he's a Princeton guy.
He pitched again last night, going two-thirds of an inning, in the eighth, of a 3-2 loss to the Brewers. It was an odd game, as Milwaukee scored three times in the first and then was shut out the rest of the way.
Bowman, by the way, was never a first-team All-Ivy League selection at Princeton. He was, in 2011, a second-team selection - as a shortstop.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Lobbying In Jadwin
Cindy Cohen stopped by last week.
Cindy, as you may or may not know, won more games as a Princeton head coach than Pete Carril did. Pete won 514 games in men's basketball. Cindy won 560 in softball.
Her record in 18 years as the head softball coach was 560-277-3, a winning percentage of .669. She took Princeton to 12 Ivy League championships and two Women's College World Series appearances.
When you make the list of the greatest women coaches in the history of Princeton Athletics, Cindy Cohen's name is way up near the top.
TigerBlog was still in the newspaper business when he first met her, and she's been an all-time TigerBlog favorite ever since.
Cindy left here and had a long second career, as an athletic administrator, first at the University of Rochester and then at William Paterson University.
She hasn't been back to Princeton too often in the interim. When she was here the other day, TigerBlog took her on a walk around Jadwin Gym, where her office had been for all the years she worked here.
At every turn, obviously, they ran into people who work here now. Almost none of them knew Cindy. The ones who did gave her big hugs.
TigerBlog actually has a list of people who work here in the athletic department, ranked in terms of seniority. It's the top 18. TigerBlog ranks 16th.
He actually wonders how many total people have worked in this department with him in all of the years he's been here. Five hundred? More?
If he sat down and tried to write out the names of everyone who's worked here with him, how many would he come up with? Maybe he'll try that and see how many he comes up with. It'd be an interesting summer project.
Anyway, as he and Cindy walked around Jadwin, he was struck by her comments about the physical appearance of the building. In some ways, she would say, things looked very much the same as the day she left. In other ways, there were major differences.
It's like when TigerBlog goes back to Penn. There are parts of the campus that are identical to the way they were when he was there 35 years ago. There are parts that have been completely overhauled.
Jadwin is a complex building, with so much of it underground, its hallways and stairways that link it to DeNunzio Pool and Caldwell Fieldhouse and its design to fulfill its main purpose of being a multipurpose facility. The basketball arena is a small part of the entire building.
Jadwin is approaching 50 years old. The first basketball game ever played here was on Jan. 25, 1969. Princeton beat Penn 72-64 that night. Serious extra credit if you know who Princeton's leading scorer in the game was, with 20 points.
If you're not going to be in Jadwin Gym until the start of this coming basketball season, then the place will look way different than you remember it.
The Jadwin lobby is currently undergoing a major renovation project, one that will give the main entry point of the building a completely new look. It'll be modern, and it will celebrate the great history of Princeton athletics at the same time.
TigerBlog has seen the mockups, and he's excited for what the final product will look like.
The renovation project began yesterday. Basically everything has been cleared out of the old lobby, and it had something of an eerie feel to it when TB was there yesterday morning.
For starters, he wasn't supposed to be in the lobby in the first place, since it's closed off. He accidentally took the elevator from E level all the way to the top.
By the afternoon yesterday it was clear that a construction project was about to begin. The lobby, as TB said, is locked off, and the entrance to the building is now on the side closest to the pool.
TB figures it'll get pretty busy, pretty quickly there. By the way, HERE is the original release on the announcement of the lobby renovation.
The construction is supposed to be completed by Nov. 1. When it is, you won't recognize it. That's definitely for sure. The end result will be well worth it.
What else can TigerBlog tell you today?
Oh year. It's August 1. That means that the first athletic event of the coming year is this month, though that's for later.
August always seems to zoom by. TB assumes this one will as well. Enjoy it. If you have a list of things you want to get done by the end of summer, now's the time to start working on it.
September will be here soon enough.
Cindy, as you may or may not know, won more games as a Princeton head coach than Pete Carril did. Pete won 514 games in men's basketball. Cindy won 560 in softball.
Her record in 18 years as the head softball coach was 560-277-3, a winning percentage of .669. She took Princeton to 12 Ivy League championships and two Women's College World Series appearances.
When you make the list of the greatest women coaches in the history of Princeton Athletics, Cindy Cohen's name is way up near the top.
TigerBlog was still in the newspaper business when he first met her, and she's been an all-time TigerBlog favorite ever since.
Cindy left here and had a long second career, as an athletic administrator, first at the University of Rochester and then at William Paterson University.
She hasn't been back to Princeton too often in the interim. When she was here the other day, TigerBlog took her on a walk around Jadwin Gym, where her office had been for all the years she worked here.
At every turn, obviously, they ran into people who work here now. Almost none of them knew Cindy. The ones who did gave her big hugs.
TigerBlog actually has a list of people who work here in the athletic department, ranked in terms of seniority. It's the top 18. TigerBlog ranks 16th.
He actually wonders how many total people have worked in this department with him in all of the years he's been here. Five hundred? More?
If he sat down and tried to write out the names of everyone who's worked here with him, how many would he come up with? Maybe he'll try that and see how many he comes up with. It'd be an interesting summer project.
Anyway, as he and Cindy walked around Jadwin, he was struck by her comments about the physical appearance of the building. In some ways, she would say, things looked very much the same as the day she left. In other ways, there were major differences.
It's like when TigerBlog goes back to Penn. There are parts of the campus that are identical to the way they were when he was there 35 years ago. There are parts that have been completely overhauled.
Jadwin is a complex building, with so much of it underground, its hallways and stairways that link it to DeNunzio Pool and Caldwell Fieldhouse and its design to fulfill its main purpose of being a multipurpose facility. The basketball arena is a small part of the entire building.
Jadwin is approaching 50 years old. The first basketball game ever played here was on Jan. 25, 1969. Princeton beat Penn 72-64 that night. Serious extra credit if you know who Princeton's leading scorer in the game was, with 20 points.
If you're not going to be in Jadwin Gym until the start of this coming basketball season, then the place will look way different than you remember it.
The Jadwin lobby is currently undergoing a major renovation project, one that will give the main entry point of the building a completely new look. It'll be modern, and it will celebrate the great history of Princeton athletics at the same time.
TigerBlog has seen the mockups, and he's excited for what the final product will look like.
The renovation project began yesterday. Basically everything has been cleared out of the old lobby, and it had something of an eerie feel to it when TB was there yesterday morning.
For starters, he wasn't supposed to be in the lobby in the first place, since it's closed off. He accidentally took the elevator from E level all the way to the top.
By the afternoon yesterday it was clear that a construction project was about to begin. The lobby, as TB said, is locked off, and the entrance to the building is now on the side closest to the pool.
TB figures it'll get pretty busy, pretty quickly there. By the way, HERE is the original release on the announcement of the lobby renovation.
The construction is supposed to be completed by Nov. 1. When it is, you won't recognize it. That's definitely for sure. The end result will be well worth it.
What else can TigerBlog tell you today?
Oh year. It's August 1. That means that the first athletic event of the coming year is this month, though that's for later.
August always seems to zoom by. TB assumes this one will as well. Enjoy it. If you have a list of things you want to get done by the end of summer, now's the time to start working on it.
September will be here soon enough.
Monday, July 31, 2017
New Man In LA
In almost any other week, the biggest news involving someone whose resume can include "head men's soccer coach at Princeton University" would be the big news involving the person who currently has that position.
Yes. Jim Barlow broke 80 in golf for the first time this past week.
If the Princeton University Department of Athletics decided to have some sort of decathlon of events, Barlow would be the favorite to win. Not a track and field decathlon. But he's already the department ping-pong champ, can break 80 in golf, would definitely be in the Jadwin lunchtime basketball Hall of Fame and could probably be good at just about any sport he set his mind to do.
TigerBlog first met Jim Barlow when he was a soccer player at Hightstown High School, which isn't very far from Princeton. TB was covering high school sports back then in the newspaper business.
That was more than 30 years ago. In fact, TigerBlog met Barlow before anyone else he's worked with at Princeton.
By the time Barlow was a Princeton player, TigerBlog was covering college sports. He wrote about Barlow as a Princeton player as well. And worked with him when Barlow wrote a few columns for the newspaper TB was working for at the time.
Now Barlow is about to start preparing for his 22nd season as the head coach of the Tigers. He has a record of 162-145-53, and he has won 26 more games than any other men's soccer coach in program history.
When you talk about all the things that Princeton Athletics want to be, you're talking about Jim Barlow. He's a proven coach. He takes his players' welfare seriously. He's an educator. He's a great role model for them. He's a competitor. And, on top of all that, he's the absolute last coach who would ever break an NCAA rule.
And now, to that, you can add breaking 80. Pretty impressive.
As TigerBlog said, though, it's not the biggest news of the week for a Princeton soccer coach. Nope.
Neither is the story about how Charlie Stillitano, a 1981 Princeton grad, was named one of the top 50 most influential people in soccer by ESPN. You can read all about Charlie HERE.
Bob Bradley, Barlow's predecessor, continues his worldwide tour of soccer coaching as he becomes the head coach of Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer. Bradley, who is also a Princeton alum, has coached pretty much everywhere since leaving Princeton.
He actually left Princeton to take a change on MLS when it began, first as an assistant coach to Bruce Arena in Washington and then as the head coach in Chicago. He's coached the U.S. men's national team to the World Cup - winning the group championship in 2010 - and then the Egyptian national team when it needed a stable, steadying hand.
Neurosurgeons, by the way, don't have stabler, steadier hands than Bob Bradley.
His time in Egypt might not have ended up in the 2014 World Cup, but he came closer than anyone could have imagined. And, more than what happened on the field, he was there at a time of incredible political upheaval and general unrest, the kind that would have scared away basically anyone else.
From Egypt, Bradley went to Norway and France. Then, famously, he became the first American ever to be a head coach in the English Premier League, when he was the manager at Swansea for a short time.
TigerBlog last saw Bradley at a Princeton baseball game. His brother Scott, as you probably know, is Princeton's longtime baseball coach.
At the time, Bob Bradley seemed genuinely unsure of where his next stop would be. And now he knows. It'll be with the new MLS team in Los Angeles.
The franchise, which doesn't yet have any players, has sold 17,000 season tickets at Banc of California Stadium, which is currently being built near the Los Angeles Coliseum. Now it has a face of its franchise.
TigerBlog hasn't met too many people in his life who are more focused than Bob Bradley. It's probably why his career has been spent taking on extraordinary challenges.
And now he has his next one.
He certainly hasn't been afraid of much along the way, and TigerBlog doesn't even mean the terrifying situation he walked into in Egypt. By comparison, starting an MLS team from scratch seems sort of tame.
Bob Bradley is up for it though. He is boundless energy and passion to go along with his other qualities. You know. His ability to steer through choppy waters.
All of that will serve him well in Los Angeles.
The LAFC players are in good hands - even if there aren't any of them yet.
Yes. Jim Barlow broke 80 in golf for the first time this past week.
If the Princeton University Department of Athletics decided to have some sort of decathlon of events, Barlow would be the favorite to win. Not a track and field decathlon. But he's already the department ping-pong champ, can break 80 in golf, would definitely be in the Jadwin lunchtime basketball Hall of Fame and could probably be good at just about any sport he set his mind to do.
TigerBlog first met Jim Barlow when he was a soccer player at Hightstown High School, which isn't very far from Princeton. TB was covering high school sports back then in the newspaper business.
That was more than 30 years ago. In fact, TigerBlog met Barlow before anyone else he's worked with at Princeton.
By the time Barlow was a Princeton player, TigerBlog was covering college sports. He wrote about Barlow as a Princeton player as well. And worked with him when Barlow wrote a few columns for the newspaper TB was working for at the time.
Now Barlow is about to start preparing for his 22nd season as the head coach of the Tigers. He has a record of 162-145-53, and he has won 26 more games than any other men's soccer coach in program history.
When you talk about all the things that Princeton Athletics want to be, you're talking about Jim Barlow. He's a proven coach. He takes his players' welfare seriously. He's an educator. He's a great role model for them. He's a competitor. And, on top of all that, he's the absolute last coach who would ever break an NCAA rule.
And now, to that, you can add breaking 80. Pretty impressive.
As TigerBlog said, though, it's not the biggest news of the week for a Princeton soccer coach. Nope.
Neither is the story about how Charlie Stillitano, a 1981 Princeton grad, was named one of the top 50 most influential people in soccer by ESPN. You can read all about Charlie HERE.
Bob Bradley, Barlow's predecessor, continues his worldwide tour of soccer coaching as he becomes the head coach of Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer. Bradley, who is also a Princeton alum, has coached pretty much everywhere since leaving Princeton.
He actually left Princeton to take a change on MLS when it began, first as an assistant coach to Bruce Arena in Washington and then as the head coach in Chicago. He's coached the U.S. men's national team to the World Cup - winning the group championship in 2010 - and then the Egyptian national team when it needed a stable, steadying hand.
Neurosurgeons, by the way, don't have stabler, steadier hands than Bob Bradley.
His time in Egypt might not have ended up in the 2014 World Cup, but he came closer than anyone could have imagined. And, more than what happened on the field, he was there at a time of incredible political upheaval and general unrest, the kind that would have scared away basically anyone else.
From Egypt, Bradley went to Norway and France. Then, famously, he became the first American ever to be a head coach in the English Premier League, when he was the manager at Swansea for a short time.
TigerBlog last saw Bradley at a Princeton baseball game. His brother Scott, as you probably know, is Princeton's longtime baseball coach.
At the time, Bob Bradley seemed genuinely unsure of where his next stop would be. And now he knows. It'll be with the new MLS team in Los Angeles.
The franchise, which doesn't yet have any players, has sold 17,000 season tickets at Banc of California Stadium, which is currently being built near the Los Angeles Coliseum. Now it has a face of its franchise.
TigerBlog hasn't met too many people in his life who are more focused than Bob Bradley. It's probably why his career has been spent taking on extraordinary challenges.
And now he has his next one.
He certainly hasn't been afraid of much along the way, and TigerBlog doesn't even mean the terrifying situation he walked into in Egypt. By comparison, starting an MLS team from scratch seems sort of tame.
Bob Bradley is up for it though. He is boundless energy and passion to go along with his other qualities. You know. His ability to steer through choppy waters.
All of that will serve him well in Los Angeles.
The LAFC players are in good hands - even if there aren't any of them yet.
Friday, July 28, 2017
Winning Women
TigerBlog pulled into the parking lot at Jadwin Gym yesterday morning as the radio played "Your Smiling Face" by James Taylor.
And whose smiling face did TigerBlog see when he got out of his car? Daisy's, of course.
And who is Daisy?
She's a French bulldog, belonging to field hockey assistant coach Dina Rizzo. Dina held her phone in one hand and the leash in the other. It was pretty obvious that Daisy, in addition to having a smiling face, has a lot of energy.
A year ago, in Rizzo and head coach Carla Tagliente's first year with Princeton field hockey, Princeton reached the NCAA Final Four and was only a late Delaware goal from the finals. Delaware, if you remember, won it all.
Meanwhile, back at Daisy and her smiling face, TigerBlog, as you may recall, is a big fan of French bulldogs.
So too is former Princeton All-America lacrosse goalie Trevor Tierney, who has his own French bulldog, named Canon. If you recall, Trevor saw a video of yet another French bulldog who could skateboard and tried to get his to do the same, with somewhat hilarious results.
When TB saw Daisy in the parking lot, he wondered if she'd ever been skateboarding.
The field hockey season, like the rest of the 2017-18 athletic year, is quickly approaching. Opening kickoff for the entire year comes four weeks from today, when Princeton hosts Monmouth in women's soccer, which will be followed by a trip to Villanova two days later.
The following Friday, Sept. 1, will see women's soccer play its third game (at North Carolina State) and men's soccer, field hockey and women's volleyball all get underway.
The month of August begins Tuesday. TigerBlog is pretty sure that August is either the slowest or fastest month of the year, though he's not sure which.
On the one hand, August around here is hazy, hot and humid. There will be a late afternoon thunderstorm about half of the time. It'll be its usual sweltering. Each day will seem to last forever.
On the other hand, the last few weeks of summer, or at least those without Princeton athletic events, always see to zoom by. This year will be no different.
The final piece of any athletic year here in the Office of Athletic Communications is to put together an annual report of sorts. It's a compilation of information, records and such for an entire athletic year, something that makes for a really good point of reference over time.
You want a few facts from last year?
* Princeton won at least 60 percent of its head-to-head games against each of its seven of its Ivy League rivals
* Princeton won at least two-thirds of its head-to-head games against four of its seven Ivy League rivals
* Of the 36 Princeton teams that competed for a league championship a year ago, there were 23 who finished in the top three in the final standings
Princeton won 63 percent of its games in 2016-17. This counts only games where official stat keeping determines one winner and one loser (or a tie), not things like championship golf tournaments or large track and field meets, by the way.
That's 63 percent of every game across all sports, league and non-league. That's a pretty good number.
Want one that's even more insane?
Princeton's 18 varsity women's teams combined to have a record of 240-90-6. That's a 72.3 percent winning percentage.
That, friends, is insane.
Basically, that means that Princeton's women's teams won essentially three of every four head-to-head games. Among the best records for Princeton's women's teams: fencing at 31-2, water polo at 24-4, volleyball at 19-5, hockey at 20-10-3, lacrosse at 15-4.
This past year was an extraordinary one for standout women athletes. If you noticed the 10 finalists for the von Kienbusch Award as the top female senior athlete, you know what TigerBlog means.
You can't put together winning teams with just a handful stars, though, no matter how good they are. There needs to be depth across the board, across all of the teams, to produce this kind of overall success. It's wildly impressive.
Anyway, that's probably it for 2016-17. And almost it for July.
It's your last weekend for the only month of the year that will not have any Princeton athletic events. So enjoy it.
Game Day will be here soon enough.
In exactly four weeks, to be precise.
And whose smiling face did TigerBlog see when he got out of his car? Daisy's, of course.
And who is Daisy?
She's a French bulldog, belonging to field hockey assistant coach Dina Rizzo. Dina held her phone in one hand and the leash in the other. It was pretty obvious that Daisy, in addition to having a smiling face, has a lot of energy.
A year ago, in Rizzo and head coach Carla Tagliente's first year with Princeton field hockey, Princeton reached the NCAA Final Four and was only a late Delaware goal from the finals. Delaware, if you remember, won it all.
Meanwhile, back at Daisy and her smiling face, TigerBlog, as you may recall, is a big fan of French bulldogs.
So too is former Princeton All-America lacrosse goalie Trevor Tierney, who has his own French bulldog, named Canon. If you recall, Trevor saw a video of yet another French bulldog who could skateboard and tried to get his to do the same, with somewhat hilarious results.
When TB saw Daisy in the parking lot, he wondered if she'd ever been skateboarding.
The field hockey season, like the rest of the 2017-18 athletic year, is quickly approaching. Opening kickoff for the entire year comes four weeks from today, when Princeton hosts Monmouth in women's soccer, which will be followed by a trip to Villanova two days later.
The following Friday, Sept. 1, will see women's soccer play its third game (at North Carolina State) and men's soccer, field hockey and women's volleyball all get underway.
The month of August begins Tuesday. TigerBlog is pretty sure that August is either the slowest or fastest month of the year, though he's not sure which.
On the one hand, August around here is hazy, hot and humid. There will be a late afternoon thunderstorm about half of the time. It'll be its usual sweltering. Each day will seem to last forever.
On the other hand, the last few weeks of summer, or at least those without Princeton athletic events, always see to zoom by. This year will be no different.
The final piece of any athletic year here in the Office of Athletic Communications is to put together an annual report of sorts. It's a compilation of information, records and such for an entire athletic year, something that makes for a really good point of reference over time.
You want a few facts from last year?
* Princeton won at least 60 percent of its head-to-head games against each of its seven of its Ivy League rivals
* Princeton won at least two-thirds of its head-to-head games against four of its seven Ivy League rivals
* Of the 36 Princeton teams that competed for a league championship a year ago, there were 23 who finished in the top three in the final standings
Princeton won 63 percent of its games in 2016-17. This counts only games where official stat keeping determines one winner and one loser (or a tie), not things like championship golf tournaments or large track and field meets, by the way.
That's 63 percent of every game across all sports, league and non-league. That's a pretty good number.
Want one that's even more insane?
Princeton's 18 varsity women's teams combined to have a record of 240-90-6. That's a 72.3 percent winning percentage.
That, friends, is insane.
Basically, that means that Princeton's women's teams won essentially three of every four head-to-head games. Among the best records for Princeton's women's teams: fencing at 31-2, water polo at 24-4, volleyball at 19-5, hockey at 20-10-3, lacrosse at 15-4.
This past year was an extraordinary one for standout women athletes. If you noticed the 10 finalists for the von Kienbusch Award as the top female senior athlete, you know what TigerBlog means.
You can't put together winning teams with just a handful stars, though, no matter how good they are. There needs to be depth across the board, across all of the teams, to produce this kind of overall success. It's wildly impressive.
Anyway, that's probably it for 2016-17. And almost it for July.
It's your last weekend for the only month of the year that will not have any Princeton athletic events. So enjoy it.
Game Day will be here soon enough.
In exactly four weeks, to be precise.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Keeping You Updated
There will be no trip to Williamsport for the Canton Little League baseball team in Connecticut.
If you recall from last week, Canton won its first district championship in 29 years. As an update, the team reached the sectional final before falling. If you forgot, Canton features Justin DiCarlo, whose father Vinnie is a former Office of Athletic Communications intern.
Losing stings. It's supposed to, especially if you're serious enough about playing that you got that far in the first place. On the other hand, if you were still playing into late July, then you've accomplished things to be proud of and had experiences that will stay with you forever. You know, like winning a town's first championship in 29 years.
So congrats to Justin and his teammates. You had a great summer run.
That's one update for you.
BrotherBlog checked in to thank his brother, presumably, for getting mentioned Monday. Here's what he said:
Aww, je suis très heureux d'être dans TigerBlog aujourd'hui. Merci pour le fromage!
TigerBlog had to ask Miss TigerBlog to translate. She came back with:
"Aww, I'm very happy to be in the TigerBlog today. Thank you for the cheese.
That's another update for you.
As an aside, MTB is spending the week at the shore. TB has heard from her exactly three times - that translation, a request for a short video update on her cat Jingles and then a reminder to make sure Jingles is eating enough because "he looks skinny."
For the record, he looks fine to TigerBlog.
And in another update, TigerBlog sends his congratulations to Jess Ward, his colleague in Dillon Gym.
Jess was recently named the full-time Associate Director of Athletics for Campus Recreation at Princeton. She had been doing the job on an interim basis for the last four or five months or so.
Jess has been at Princeton for nearly 10 years, so it's hard to call her an addition to the staff. She is one of those people who always seems to be in motion, always dripping with seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm. She's always up.
It's a perfect fit for her position.
There aren't too many people who interact with more of the campus community than the person who oversees Campus Rec. There are programs for intramurals, club sports, physical education, aquatics, summer camps and pretty much anything else you can think of.
TigerBlog would like to congratulate her. She certainly got off to an impressive start in her interim role. Dillon Gym, always busy, is in good hands.
What other updates can TigerBlog give you?
The U.S. U19 women's basketball team rolled into the quarterfinals of the current World Championships in Italy with a win over Puerto Rico yesterday. Princeton rising sophomore Bella Alarie continues to have a great run with the American team in the tournament, which continues with the quarterfinal game tomorrow against France.
TigerBlog watched some of the game against Puerto Rico yesterday, which was streamed in the middle of the day here. In the first 15 seconds after he turned the game on, TigerBlog saw Alarie run the floor and receive a pass to finish a fast break layup and then come down the other end and pull down a rebound.
If you watched Princeton this past year, it's nothing new for you. To see her do it in a "USA" uniform, well, it's something special.
The quarterfinal tomorrow starts a three-day sprint to the finish line, with the semifinals Saturday and then the championship game Sunday. Among those in attendance will be Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart.
It's a lot like the recently completed World Cup for women's lacrosse in England. It's amazing how easy it is these days to get really detailed information from events that not that long ago wouldn't have had a fraction of the content available that is now.
Of course, as TB said yesterday, with that comes expectations.
Are there any other updates for right now?
Well, speaking of the women's lacrosse World Cup, here's the final one of Nonie Anderson's blogs from her time there with the Irish team. She did a really good job with them.
Oh, and Julia Ratcliffe? She will be competing in London next week in the hammer throw at the World Track and Field Championships. You can read about her HERE.
And of course, there is Bob Surace's back. As of yesterday, he was questionable for his start in beach wiffleball. Was he able to take the ball?
Well, Game 7? He would be all in.
For now? TigerBlog recommends he just sit in a chair and check out the ocean.
And there are your updates for today.
If you recall from last week, Canton won its first district championship in 29 years. As an update, the team reached the sectional final before falling. If you forgot, Canton features Justin DiCarlo, whose father Vinnie is a former Office of Athletic Communications intern.
Losing stings. It's supposed to, especially if you're serious enough about playing that you got that far in the first place. On the other hand, if you were still playing into late July, then you've accomplished things to be proud of and had experiences that will stay with you forever. You know, like winning a town's first championship in 29 years.
So congrats to Justin and his teammates. You had a great summer run.
That's one update for you.
BrotherBlog checked in to thank his brother, presumably, for getting mentioned Monday. Here's what he said:
Aww, je suis très heureux d'être dans TigerBlog aujourd'hui. Merci pour le fromage!
TigerBlog had to ask Miss TigerBlog to translate. She came back with:
"Aww, I'm very happy to be in the TigerBlog today. Thank you for the cheese.
That's another update for you.
As an aside, MTB is spending the week at the shore. TB has heard from her exactly three times - that translation, a request for a short video update on her cat Jingles and then a reminder to make sure Jingles is eating enough because "he looks skinny."
For the record, he looks fine to TigerBlog.
And in another update, TigerBlog sends his congratulations to Jess Ward, his colleague in Dillon Gym.
Jess was recently named the full-time Associate Director of Athletics for Campus Recreation at Princeton. She had been doing the job on an interim basis for the last four or five months or so.
Jess has been at Princeton for nearly 10 years, so it's hard to call her an addition to the staff. She is one of those people who always seems to be in motion, always dripping with seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm. She's always up.
It's a perfect fit for her position.
There aren't too many people who interact with more of the campus community than the person who oversees Campus Rec. There are programs for intramurals, club sports, physical education, aquatics, summer camps and pretty much anything else you can think of.
TigerBlog would like to congratulate her. She certainly got off to an impressive start in her interim role. Dillon Gym, always busy, is in good hands.
What other updates can TigerBlog give you?
The U.S. U19 women's basketball team rolled into the quarterfinals of the current World Championships in Italy with a win over Puerto Rico yesterday. Princeton rising sophomore Bella Alarie continues to have a great run with the American team in the tournament, which continues with the quarterfinal game tomorrow against France.
TigerBlog watched some of the game against Puerto Rico yesterday, which was streamed in the middle of the day here. In the first 15 seconds after he turned the game on, TigerBlog saw Alarie run the floor and receive a pass to finish a fast break layup and then come down the other end and pull down a rebound.
If you watched Princeton this past year, it's nothing new for you. To see her do it in a "USA" uniform, well, it's something special.
The quarterfinal tomorrow starts a three-day sprint to the finish line, with the semifinals Saturday and then the championship game Sunday. Among those in attendance will be Princeton head coach Courtney Banghart.
You can watch the streams at fiba.com. You can also get updated stats, brackets, box scores and anything else you want.🇺🇸❤️🐯🏀. Cool is...👇 pic.twitter.com/hVXduUgDaP— Courtney Banghart (@CoachBanghart) July 26, 2017
It's a lot like the recently completed World Cup for women's lacrosse in England. It's amazing how easy it is these days to get really detailed information from events that not that long ago wouldn't have had a fraction of the content available that is now.
Of course, as TB said yesterday, with that comes expectations.
Are there any other updates for right now?
Well, speaking of the women's lacrosse World Cup, here's the final one of Nonie Anderson's blogs from her time there with the Irish team. She did a really good job with them.
Oh, and Julia Ratcliffe? She will be competing in London next week in the hammer throw at the World Track and Field Championships. You can read about her HERE.
And of course, there is Bob Surace's back. As of yesterday, he was questionable for his start in beach wiffleball. Was he able to take the ball?
Well, Game 7? He would be all in.
For now? TigerBlog recommends he just sit in a chair and check out the ocean.
And there are your updates for today.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Bob Surace's Slider
As the dog days of August approach, the best pitchers are often the toughest ones.
It's not easy to take the ball like that and go out there with your best stuff. And as the long season wears on, the wear and tear starts to become as much of an obstacle as opposing batters.
Take, for example, the injury report one on veteran pitcher: lower back strain, not expected to miss his turn.
Actually, that's the condensed version. Here's the actual report:
"With sweat pouring down his face, Coach Surace was grinding out his 175th pitch on a blistering hot day with a stiff wind coming from the east. After throwing his seemingly unhittable slider that his son finally fouled off, he incurred a debilitating injury where only the rare man could refuse the stretcher as he gamely walked off the dirt mound, waiving off the medical staff as he watched the last few outs from a distance. After the game, Surace said he would not miss his turn on Thursday, and might be available in relief tomorrow."
Coach Surace, of course, is Bob Surace, the head football coach here at Princeton. The head coach of the defending Ivy champion Princeton Tigers, that is.
This, though, was a different kind of sporting event. This was father against son, Bob Surace against A.J. Surace, wiffle ball on a beach.
TigerBlog can picture it all. Surace, his Princeton cap pulled down low with the brim over his eyes, giving the running play-by-play as he snaps off slider after slider. Big smile on his face the whole time. Yeah. That's him in a nutshell.
Bob Surace proves that you don't need to fit the stereotype of a football coach to be a great football coach. TigerBlog has said that before, several times, and it gets truer all the time.
Your average football coach is exactly what you see on TV, in games, or in fictional accounts there or in the movies. They are in to control. They obsess. They want, as once was famously said, "a university the football team can be proud of."
Bob Surace is hardly like that. He's driven and competitive. He advocates strongly for his program and his players. He wants to win as much as anyone you'll ever see. He's a wildly creative coach, and he does the No. 1 thing a coach needs to do: He puts his players in position to be successful.
At the same time, he's, well, he's sort of normal. It's a really good combination.
Princeton is lucky it has him.
TigerBlog saw a tweet from his old friend Scott Jurgens, who at one time was the marketing director here and now is at Rice, announcing that the Owls had started football practice. That seems sort of early.
Princeton is still a few weeks away from practice. TigerBlog can tell you exactly how long it is until the first game, since there's a countdown clock in his colleague Andrew Borders' office.
The clock indicates that there are 52 days until kickoff. TigerBlog was a little confused for a little while back in May or so, when the countdown was over 100. Was it counting down to the first football game, or to the first event, the women's soccer game, which also happens to be a sport that Andrew covers.
It'll be Princeton and San Diego 52 days from today, with a noon kickoff.
The Ivy League announced its television package earlier this week. Among Princeton's TV games will be two night games, on consecutive weeks.
The first is at Harvard, on Oct. 20, followed at home against Cornell on Oct. 28. The Harvard game is a Friday night.
TigerBlog hasn't looked this up, but he's guessing this is the first Princeton-Harvard Friday night game.
The picture that accompanied the story on goprincetontigers.com about the Ivy League showed five Princeton players in on one tackle. It's a really good picture. You can see for yourself HERE.
When you think of Princeton football, you think of the offense first. Princeton averaged 34.6 points per game a year ago, tops in the Ivy League, nearly seven points better than the next-highest team.
The defense, though, also led the league. Princeton allowed 16.4 points per game last year, nearly five better than the next best team.
That adds up to something of a winning formula.
Princeton went 8-2 a year ago, including 6-1 in the Ivy League. Princeton tied Penn for the league title, though the Tigers did own a 28-0 win over the Quakers in early November.
Early November? It's still July.
Late July, but July nonetheless.
Bob Surace will be back to work soon enough, bringing back to Princeton football the things that make him so successful, and so unique, and because of the two, so easy to root for.
It's not football season yet. It's beach wiffle ball season.
Today? He'll be back taking his turn in the rotation.
It's not easy to take the ball like that and go out there with your best stuff. And as the long season wears on, the wear and tear starts to become as much of an obstacle as opposing batters.
Take, for example, the injury report one on veteran pitcher: lower back strain, not expected to miss his turn.
Actually, that's the condensed version. Here's the actual report:
"With sweat pouring down his face, Coach Surace was grinding out his 175th pitch on a blistering hot day with a stiff wind coming from the east. After throwing his seemingly unhittable slider that his son finally fouled off, he incurred a debilitating injury where only the rare man could refuse the stretcher as he gamely walked off the dirt mound, waiving off the medical staff as he watched the last few outs from a distance. After the game, Surace said he would not miss his turn on Thursday, and might be available in relief tomorrow."
Coach Surace, of course, is Bob Surace, the head football coach here at Princeton. The head coach of the defending Ivy champion Princeton Tigers, that is.
This, though, was a different kind of sporting event. This was father against son, Bob Surace against A.J. Surace, wiffle ball on a beach.
TigerBlog can picture it all. Surace, his Princeton cap pulled down low with the brim over his eyes, giving the running play-by-play as he snaps off slider after slider. Big smile on his face the whole time. Yeah. That's him in a nutshell.
Bob Surace proves that you don't need to fit the stereotype of a football coach to be a great football coach. TigerBlog has said that before, several times, and it gets truer all the time.
Your average football coach is exactly what you see on TV, in games, or in fictional accounts there or in the movies. They are in to control. They obsess. They want, as once was famously said, "a university the football team can be proud of."
Bob Surace is hardly like that. He's driven and competitive. He advocates strongly for his program and his players. He wants to win as much as anyone you'll ever see. He's a wildly creative coach, and he does the No. 1 thing a coach needs to do: He puts his players in position to be successful.
At the same time, he's, well, he's sort of normal. It's a really good combination.
Princeton is lucky it has him.
TigerBlog saw a tweet from his old friend Scott Jurgens, who at one time was the marketing director here and now is at Rice, announcing that the Owls had started football practice. That seems sort of early.
Princeton is still a few weeks away from practice. TigerBlog can tell you exactly how long it is until the first game, since there's a countdown clock in his colleague Andrew Borders' office.
The clock indicates that there are 52 days until kickoff. TigerBlog was a little confused for a little while back in May or so, when the countdown was over 100. Was it counting down to the first football game, or to the first event, the women's soccer game, which also happens to be a sport that Andrew covers.
It'll be Princeton and San Diego 52 days from today, with a noon kickoff.
The Ivy League announced its television package earlier this week. Among Princeton's TV games will be two night games, on consecutive weeks.
The first is at Harvard, on Oct. 20, followed at home against Cornell on Oct. 28. The Harvard game is a Friday night.
TigerBlog hasn't looked this up, but he's guessing this is the first Princeton-Harvard Friday night game.
The picture that accompanied the story on goprincetontigers.com about the Ivy League showed five Princeton players in on one tackle. It's a really good picture. You can see for yourself HERE.
When you think of Princeton football, you think of the offense first. Princeton averaged 34.6 points per game a year ago, tops in the Ivy League, nearly seven points better than the next-highest team.
The defense, though, also led the league. Princeton allowed 16.4 points per game last year, nearly five better than the next best team.
That adds up to something of a winning formula.
Princeton went 8-2 a year ago, including 6-1 in the Ivy League. Princeton tied Penn for the league title, though the Tigers did own a 28-0 win over the Quakers in early November.
Early November? It's still July.
Late July, but July nonetheless.
Bob Surace will be back to work soon enough, bringing back to Princeton football the things that make him so successful, and so unique, and because of the two, so easy to root for.
It's not football season yet. It's beach wiffle ball season.
Today? He'll be back taking his turn in the rotation.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Buffered
Whatever your politics are, there is no getting around one true, undeniable, non-fake-news, non-alternative-fact fact.
Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, has a son who will be playing lacrosse at Sacred Heart University this coming year. The son, also named Anthony, will be a freshman longstick midfielder.
In all of the stories that TigerBlog read about the addition to the White House staff, none of them mentioned that Sacred Heart returns its top longstick midfielder, Nick Albanese, but graduated its two best close defensemen, Ryan O'Donoghue and Chase Godfrey.
Sacred Heart led Division I in caused turnovers per game this past year. OD, as he is known, was second individually, and Godfrey was 19th. Is it possible that Sacred Heart would move Albanese to close D, the same as the Pios did a year earlier, after O'Donoghue had played LSM for three years?
Where was any of this in all of the coverage last week? You call that analysis?
By the way, Albanese is a great athlete who is tremendous at picking up ground balls and in transition. In fact, he was 34th in Division I last year in ground balls per game.
If you took the number of ground balls that Albanese had last year and added the number of ground balls that Charlie Erdmann of Vermont, who was one spot ahead of Albanese in 33rd, you get 133 ground balls. That's just three more than Zach Currier had all by himself.
Currier has always been known as a great all-around player, one who could do everything on a lacrosse field and usually would during any given game. What you don't think of him as is a feeder, but he has completely elevated that piece of his game in the last year.
Currier had 35 assists in his first three years at Princeton. Then he had 34 more this year alone, the most in Division I by a midfielder.
Now in his first season in Major League Lacrosse, Currier, with the Denver Outlaws, is currently 14th in the league in assists, with 13, in just seven games. He had four Sunday night in Denver's game against Ohio, which the Machine won 13-12.
Of the 25 goals scored in that game, nine were either scored or assisted by Princeton alums. Currier had his four assists. Tom Schreiber, who is second in the league in assists, had two goals for Ohio. Ryan Ambler, who is starting to make a mark for himself in the league, had three more for Denver.
The Machine and Outlaws are tied for first in the league at 8-4 with two weeks left in the regular season. TigerBlog would be fine with a rematch in the MLL championship game next month.
TigerBlog is sure that, just like he was, you were watching the Denver-Ohio game on Twitter Sunday night. It's the future, after all.
When it works, that is.
Major League Lacrosse ran into a nightmare scenario, as the Twitter feed froze with just over two minutes left and the Outlaws up 12-11. The telecast would never resume.
It actually started during a commercial break, buffering as someone drank a Powerade. It buffered for so long that TigerBlog can confirm it was blue Powerade.
Then it resumed just long enough to show the Machine clear it, turn it over and get it right back. Then it would go back to that clear. The color commentator said "you have to shoot it" each time it started, because of the Denver turnover . It was like hearing "I Got You Babe" in "Groundhog Day."
Then there was the clear, the bad pass and then the ground ball to get possession back.
To make matters worse for Major League Lacrosse, the live (now buffered feed) was on one side of the screen and a list of Tweets was on the other, all of which were excoriating the league for having its feed fail at the worst time.
TB is pretty sure the best one was the one that said "Pretty sure the Denver players finished the game, did the autograph session and are the way home by now."
The buffering caused viewers to miss the two late Ohio goals, the ones that gave the Machine the huge win. Had Denver won, it would have been two games up on the Machine and would have clinched at least a tie for the regular season championship.
TigerBlog could relate to the problem that MLL was having.
When people tune into the videostream, they want to see a product that rivals what they see on television. It's just how it is. People are used to watching sports that way. They've been doing it for decades.
Now the mechanism to receive the broadcast continues to evolve. As it does, the level of expectation of that quality doesn't change.
TB had been to ESPN's massive campus in Bristol, Conn. It appears they have more equipment to work with than, say, Princeton.
TigerBlog gives the MLL credit for thinking a little differently and putting some games on Twitter. Part of that is taking the hit when it doesn't go right.
Princeton finds itself in the same situation all the time. The Ivy League Network offers live streaming that ranges from multiple cameras and graphics and a large production staff to single camera, hope nothing goes wrong productions.
The expectation for all of them is the same.
TigerBlog never wants to have anything go wrong with any of these streams, but something does every now and then. About 95 percent of the time it's something small and easily fixable. The rest of the time, it becomes a bit more problematic.
When it happens, though, it doesn't mean that nobody is trying to fix it or that the school/league/whoever is okay with it.
As TB watched the guy not finish the blue Powerade and then saw that 15 seconds of play repeat itself, he felt the same frustration everyone else did about missing out on the end of an exciting game.
Unlike most of them, he could also feel for the people at MLL.
Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, has a son who will be playing lacrosse at Sacred Heart University this coming year. The son, also named Anthony, will be a freshman longstick midfielder.
In all of the stories that TigerBlog read about the addition to the White House staff, none of them mentioned that Sacred Heart returns its top longstick midfielder, Nick Albanese, but graduated its two best close defensemen, Ryan O'Donoghue and Chase Godfrey.
Sacred Heart led Division I in caused turnovers per game this past year. OD, as he is known, was second individually, and Godfrey was 19th. Is it possible that Sacred Heart would move Albanese to close D, the same as the Pios did a year earlier, after O'Donoghue had played LSM for three years?
Where was any of this in all of the coverage last week? You call that analysis?
By the way, Albanese is a great athlete who is tremendous at picking up ground balls and in transition. In fact, he was 34th in Division I last year in ground balls per game.
If you took the number of ground balls that Albanese had last year and added the number of ground balls that Charlie Erdmann of Vermont, who was one spot ahead of Albanese in 33rd, you get 133 ground balls. That's just three more than Zach Currier had all by himself.
Currier has always been known as a great all-around player, one who could do everything on a lacrosse field and usually would during any given game. What you don't think of him as is a feeder, but he has completely elevated that piece of his game in the last year.
Currier had 35 assists in his first three years at Princeton. Then he had 34 more this year alone, the most in Division I by a midfielder.
Now in his first season in Major League Lacrosse, Currier, with the Denver Outlaws, is currently 14th in the league in assists, with 13, in just seven games. He had four Sunday night in Denver's game against Ohio, which the Machine won 13-12.
Of the 25 goals scored in that game, nine were either scored or assisted by Princeton alums. Currier had his four assists. Tom Schreiber, who is second in the league in assists, had two goals for Ohio. Ryan Ambler, who is starting to make a mark for himself in the league, had three more for Denver.
The Machine and Outlaws are tied for first in the league at 8-4 with two weeks left in the regular season. TigerBlog would be fine with a rematch in the MLL championship game next month.
TigerBlog is sure that, just like he was, you were watching the Denver-Ohio game on Twitter Sunday night. It's the future, after all.
When it works, that is.
Major League Lacrosse ran into a nightmare scenario, as the Twitter feed froze with just over two minutes left and the Outlaws up 12-11. The telecast would never resume.
It actually started during a commercial break, buffering as someone drank a Powerade. It buffered for so long that TigerBlog can confirm it was blue Powerade.
Then it resumed just long enough to show the Machine clear it, turn it over and get it right back. Then it would go back to that clear. The color commentator said "you have to shoot it" each time it started, because of the Denver turnover . It was like hearing "I Got You Babe" in "Groundhog Day."
Then there was the clear, the bad pass and then the ground ball to get possession back.
To make matters worse for Major League Lacrosse, the live (now buffered feed) was on one side of the screen and a list of Tweets was on the other, all of which were excoriating the league for having its feed fail at the worst time.
TB is pretty sure the best one was the one that said "Pretty sure the Denver players finished the game, did the autograph session and are the way home by now."
The buffering caused viewers to miss the two late Ohio goals, the ones that gave the Machine the huge win. Had Denver won, it would have been two games up on the Machine and would have clinched at least a tie for the regular season championship.
TigerBlog could relate to the problem that MLL was having.
When people tune into the videostream, they want to see a product that rivals what they see on television. It's just how it is. People are used to watching sports that way. They've been doing it for decades.
Now the mechanism to receive the broadcast continues to evolve. As it does, the level of expectation of that quality doesn't change.
TB had been to ESPN's massive campus in Bristol, Conn. It appears they have more equipment to work with than, say, Princeton.
TigerBlog gives the MLL credit for thinking a little differently and putting some games on Twitter. Part of that is taking the hit when it doesn't go right.
Princeton finds itself in the same situation all the time. The Ivy League Network offers live streaming that ranges from multiple cameras and graphics and a large production staff to single camera, hope nothing goes wrong productions.
The expectation for all of them is the same.
TigerBlog never wants to have anything go wrong with any of these streams, but something does every now and then. About 95 percent of the time it's something small and easily fixable. The rest of the time, it becomes a bit more problematic.
When it happens, though, it doesn't mean that nobody is trying to fix it or that the school/league/whoever is okay with it.
As TB watched the guy not finish the blue Powerade and then saw that 15 seconds of play repeat itself, he felt the same frustration everyone else did about missing out on the end of an exciting game.
Unlike most of them, he could also feel for the people at MLL.
Monday, July 24, 2017
World Beaters
TigerBlog was going to start today in Israel.
Instead, he'll make a stop in England first.
When TigerBlog went to Israel, he didn't go non-stop. Instead, it was overnight from JFK to Paris and then from there to Tel Aviv.
It's the only time TB has ever been in France. BrotherBlog? He loves France. He's been there a bunch of times and is planning to go back. Hey, he's even studying French these days.
It all led to a rather interesting exchange between brothers recently:
BB: "Question from French class - when did they last teach grammar in school? Did we have grammar in high school? Wasn't that the beginning of your love affair with gerunds?"
TB: "Yes. 10th grade. And to this day, still love a good gerund."
BB: "My running makes me so happy. :-) We just did that en francais. En courant, je suis heureux."
TB: "Fromage."
Gerunds, by the way, are in the category of "verbals," of which there are three: gerunds, infinitives and participles. Verbals are words that normally are verbs but are used as nouns or adjectives. Gerunds, for instance, are words that are usually verbs but are used as nouns, and they are always, always, always supposed to be preceded by possessive case, as in the example BrotherBlog used.
Oh, and fromage? It means cheese. TigerBlog uses it to represent any and all French words.
TigerBlog has been lucky in his life. He's made six trips to Europe, visiting 16 total European countries in all. He's been to Lichtenstein. He's been to Austria. Portugal. Finland. Sweden. Turkey. He's been to Belgium. Ireland. He's even been to Russia. That's half the list.
You know where he hasn't been?
England. He hasn't been to France or Italy either, unless you count his short time in the airport in Paris and Rome on layovers (the time in Rome was from Turkey to Greece). TB doesn't count them. If you do, then he's been in 18 countries.
But not even a stopover in England. Your average American who has made six trips to Europe has to have been to England at least once, right? Or, of every American who has been to 16 European countries, what percentage have not been to England, France or Rome?
Of course, TB has lived basically his entire life in either New Jersey or Pennsylvania but has never been to Pittsburgh.
TB would love to get to all four of those places at some point - England, France, Rome and Pittsburgh. And some others.
The World Cup for women's lacrosse, which is essentially the World Championship, ended this past weekend in England, in Surrey, to be exact, which is in the southern part of the country. The U.S. defeated Canada 10-5 in the final, but it Saturday morning it felt like the real winner was the home team.
England defeated Australia 11-10 in overtime in the third-place game Saturday. The Player of the Match was Princeton alum Olivia Hompe, who scored three goals, all in the second half, as England came from four goals down to force overtime. Megan Whittle, who will be a senior at Maryland, scored the game-winner in the OT.
England had not medaled in the last two World Cups. Australia? This marked the first time that the Aussies didn't finish in the top three.
A huge reason why England was back on the medal stand was Hompe, who afterwards said of the bronze medal match that “this was the game of the whole tournament.”
Hompe, who graduated last month as the all-time leading scorer in Princeton lacrosse history, led England in the tournament with 12 goals and six assists. Yeah, she certainly wasn't intimidated by playing on the international stage.
By the way, Kerrin Maurer, Princeton's new assistant women's lacrosse coach, finished second in the tournament in scoring, with 21 goals and 20 assists for Italy.
Hompe is not the only Princeton athlete who earned a medal in a major summer international competition. Princeton also did really well at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Josh Haberman, like Hompe a member of the Class of 2017, and rising sophomore Benjamin Issroff won gold with the U.S. in men's soccer, and recent grad Claire Klausner pitched the U.S. softball team to gold as well.
Princeton assistant softball coach Nicole Arias was the head coach for the U.S. team after winning gold medals as a player in 2009 and 2013. David Goldstein, another 2017 grad, was an assistant coach for the U.S. soccer team.
Sivan Krems, who also just graduated, won two silver medals in tennis.
About 1,000 miles to the northwest from Israel, the World U23 rowing championships were held the last four days in Bulgaria. Princeton brought home four medals.
Claire Collins, who will be a junior this year, won a silver with the U.S. women's eights. The other three Princetonians all won bronze.
Emily Kallfelz, who will also be a junior, won hers by herself, in the women's singles. Matthew Benstead, who graduated this past year, and David Bewicke-Copley, a rising sophomore, won bronze together in the British eight, edging out the U.S. boat for the medal.
It's the Olivia Hompe idea all over again. It's okay to root for the non-American team if it has Princeton people on it.
Oh, and speaking of Americans winning medals in international competition, Bella Alarie is playing with the U.S. under-19 team at the current World Championships in Italy. The U.S. team is 2-0 after a 91-51 win over China yesterday in which Alarie had 10 points and eight rebounds, along with three steals, in just 15 minutes, after opening the tournament with seven points and eight rebounds against Mali.
Alarie will come back with a medal. The championship game will be this coming Sunday.
Instead, he'll make a stop in England first.
When TigerBlog went to Israel, he didn't go non-stop. Instead, it was overnight from JFK to Paris and then from there to Tel Aviv.
It's the only time TB has ever been in France. BrotherBlog? He loves France. He's been there a bunch of times and is planning to go back. Hey, he's even studying French these days.
It all led to a rather interesting exchange between brothers recently:
BB: "Question from French class - when did they last teach grammar in school? Did we have grammar in high school? Wasn't that the beginning of your love affair with gerunds?"
TB: "Yes. 10th grade. And to this day, still love a good gerund."
BB: "My running makes me so happy. :-) We just did that en francais. En courant, je suis heureux."
TB: "Fromage."
Gerunds, by the way, are in the category of "verbals," of which there are three: gerunds, infinitives and participles. Verbals are words that normally are verbs but are used as nouns or adjectives. Gerunds, for instance, are words that are usually verbs but are used as nouns, and they are always, always, always supposed to be preceded by possessive case, as in the example BrotherBlog used.
Oh, and fromage? It means cheese. TigerBlog uses it to represent any and all French words.
TigerBlog has been lucky in his life. He's made six trips to Europe, visiting 16 total European countries in all. He's been to Lichtenstein. He's been to Austria. Portugal. Finland. Sweden. Turkey. He's been to Belgium. Ireland. He's even been to Russia. That's half the list.
You know where he hasn't been?
England. He hasn't been to France or Italy either, unless you count his short time in the airport in Paris and Rome on layovers (the time in Rome was from Turkey to Greece). TB doesn't count them. If you do, then he's been in 18 countries.
But not even a stopover in England. Your average American who has made six trips to Europe has to have been to England at least once, right? Or, of every American who has been to 16 European countries, what percentage have not been to England, France or Rome?
Of course, TB has lived basically his entire life in either New Jersey or Pennsylvania but has never been to Pittsburgh.
TB would love to get to all four of those places at some point - England, France, Rome and Pittsburgh. And some others.
The World Cup for women's lacrosse, which is essentially the World Championship, ended this past weekend in England, in Surrey, to be exact, which is in the southern part of the country. The U.S. defeated Canada 10-5 in the final, but it Saturday morning it felt like the real winner was the home team.
England defeated Australia 11-10 in overtime in the third-place game Saturday. The Player of the Match was Princeton alum Olivia Hompe, who scored three goals, all in the second half, as England came from four goals down to force overtime. Megan Whittle, who will be a senior at Maryland, scored the game-winner in the OT.
England had not medaled in the last two World Cups. Australia? This marked the first time that the Aussies didn't finish in the top three.
A huge reason why England was back on the medal stand was Hompe, who afterwards said of the bronze medal match that “this was the game of the whole tournament.”
Hompe, who graduated last month as the all-time leading scorer in Princeton lacrosse history, led England in the tournament with 12 goals and six assists. Yeah, she certainly wasn't intimidated by playing on the international stage.
By the way, Kerrin Maurer, Princeton's new assistant women's lacrosse coach, finished second in the tournament in scoring, with 21 goals and 20 assists for Italy.
Hompe is not the only Princeton athlete who earned a medal in a major summer international competition. Princeton also did really well at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Josh Haberman, like Hompe a member of the Class of 2017, and rising sophomore Benjamin Issroff won gold with the U.S. in men's soccer, and recent grad Claire Klausner pitched the U.S. softball team to gold as well.
Princeton assistant softball coach Nicole Arias was the head coach for the U.S. team after winning gold medals as a player in 2009 and 2013. David Goldstein, another 2017 grad, was an assistant coach for the U.S. soccer team.
Sivan Krems, who also just graduated, won two silver medals in tennis.
About 1,000 miles to the northwest from Israel, the World U23 rowing championships were held the last four days in Bulgaria. Princeton brought home four medals.
Claire Collins, who will be a junior this year, won a silver with the U.S. women's eights. The other three Princetonians all won bronze.
Emily Kallfelz, who will also be a junior, won hers by herself, in the women's singles. Matthew Benstead, who graduated this past year, and David Bewicke-Copley, a rising sophomore, won bronze together in the British eight, edging out the U.S. boat for the medal.
It's the Olivia Hompe idea all over again. It's okay to root for the non-American team if it has Princeton people on it.
Oh, and speaking of Americans winning medals in international competition, Bella Alarie is playing with the U.S. under-19 team at the current World Championships in Italy. The U.S. team is 2-0 after a 91-51 win over China yesterday in which Alarie had 10 points and eight rebounds, along with three steals, in just 15 minutes, after opening the tournament with seven points and eight rebounds against Mali.
Alarie will come back with a medal. The championship game will be this coming Sunday.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Summer, In Jadwin And Abroad
Given that it's another summer Friday, TigerBlog will begin where he usually does at this time of year.
Obviously, he's going to tell you how many more weeks there are until the first event of the coming academic year. The answer would be five. That means that it's getting close to feeling like that first game, a women's soccer game against Monmouth, will be here tomorrow.
On the other hand, it's still July, the only month of the year with no Princeton Athletic events scheduled. Another hot, really really hot, Friday in July, when people's thoughts are on summer things, summer fun, summer weekends.
Does TigerBlog dare skip a day? Nah. Never. There's always something to say.
Let's see. What's been going on around here? The big event in Jadwin Gym this week was basketball camp.
Uh, was that an elite prospect camp? Nope. This was way, way better. It was little kid basketball camp.
Cute? Definitely. Especially the littlest ones.
Kids, maybe as young as 5 or so. Basketballs. A short basket to shoot on. Princeton players as counselors. If you can watch THIS VIDEO and not smile, then you probably will for Scrooge in a few months.
Basketball camp notwithstanding, things are pretty quiet right now. TigerBlog has spent much of this week rooting for every Princetonian's favorite team at the women's lacrosse World Cup.
England, of course. England? Why? Because they're the host team? Root root root for the home team? Nope, there's more to it than that.
Clearly, TigerBlog is taking his loyalty to Ravi (Baggy) Sitlani, the English men's national team assistant coach and TB's longtime friend, seriously, right? Isn't that why he's rooting for the English women? He'll get back to that in a second.
Keeping up with recent international lacrosse history, it'll be the U.S. and Canada for the women's World Cup championship tomorrow. This could be seen as a problem for the game on the highest level.
Yes, there has been tremendous growth. Princeton is represented at the World Cup by three different countries, as a matter of fact. The number of countries who field teams at these events, on the men's side and women's side, grows each time.
There are some countries who have made big jumps onto the international scene. Israel at the men's championships. New Zealand at the current women's.
In fairness, Canada needed overtime to beat Australia yesterday in the semifinals - but Canada did win. If any team will crash the party, it seems like it'll be Australia, or, on the men's side, the Iroquois.
It's just that it seems like it's going to be awhile before it's not Canada and the U.S. in the championship of a major event. It was those two a year ago in the men's U19 championships (the U.S. won, led by leading scorer Michael Sowers). It was those two in the last women's U19 championships (Canada won) and the last men's World Championship (also Canada).
Actually, it was the U.S. and Canada in the last five men's World Championship finals. Next year in Israel? It'll be the U.S. and Canada for the title.
Trust TigerBlog on this one. If you're wondering why lacrosse isn't an Olympic sport, TB would say that this might be the biggest reason.
So why has he been rooting for England? Because the English have Princeton's Olivia Hompe.
The Irish, by the way, have Princeton's Nonie Anderson. The Italians have Kerrin Maurer, a Duke alum who has joined the Princeton coaching staff.
Speaking of Princeton's coaches, Chris Sailer and Jen Cook traveled to England to watch the games this week.
Hompe has had a great tournament, leading the English in scoring and having a four-goal game in an 8-6 loss to Canada in the round-robin portion.
Following the tournament has been relatively easy, by the way, since someone is doing an incredible job of updating the website with scores, stats and such.
Anyway, it'll be Australia and England for third place tomorrow. Much like the U.S.-Canada final, it seemed highly likely that that matchup was going to be the third-place game.
Speaking of international success and Princeton athletes, it's been a really busy week.
TigerBlog will have more next week on Princeton's success at the recently concluded Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Additionally, the World U23 rowing championships conclude Sunday in Bulgaria. There are seven Princetonians represented there.
For way more information than TigerBlog could give you, CLICK HERE.
What else can TigerBlog tell you on this Friday?
Well, here's how he ended things 52 weeks ago today:
And for you? Well, it's a summer weekend. Enjoy it. Do something fun. The first Princeton athletic event is five weeks from today.
The rest of your summer will be gone in a flash.
And 104 weeks ago today:
Thanks for sticking with TB this far.
Now go have a great summer weekend.
It's a common theme.
What do you have this weekend? Get outside. Go to a beach. Go water skiing if you've always wanted to, or something like that. BBQ. Go to a game. Go to a concert.
TigerBlog is pretty sure he will copy and paste that paragraph 52 weeks from today.
In the meantime, have a great weekend.
Obviously, he's going to tell you how many more weeks there are until the first event of the coming academic year. The answer would be five. That means that it's getting close to feeling like that first game, a women's soccer game against Monmouth, will be here tomorrow.
On the other hand, it's still July, the only month of the year with no Princeton Athletic events scheduled. Another hot, really really hot, Friday in July, when people's thoughts are on summer things, summer fun, summer weekends.
Does TigerBlog dare skip a day? Nah. Never. There's always something to say.
Let's see. What's been going on around here? The big event in Jadwin Gym this week was basketball camp.
Uh, was that an elite prospect camp? Nope. This was way, way better. It was little kid basketball camp.
Cute? Definitely. Especially the littlest ones.
Kids, maybe as young as 5 or so. Basketballs. A short basket to shoot on. Princeton players as counselors. If you can watch THIS VIDEO and not smile, then you probably will for Scrooge in a few months.
Basketball camp notwithstanding, things are pretty quiet right now. TigerBlog has spent much of this week rooting for every Princetonian's favorite team at the women's lacrosse World Cup.
England, of course. England? Why? Because they're the host team? Root root root for the home team? Nope, there's more to it than that.
Clearly, TigerBlog is taking his loyalty to Ravi (Baggy) Sitlani, the English men's national team assistant coach and TB's longtime friend, seriously, right? Isn't that why he's rooting for the English women? He'll get back to that in a second.
Keeping up with recent international lacrosse history, it'll be the U.S. and Canada for the women's World Cup championship tomorrow. This could be seen as a problem for the game on the highest level.
Yes, there has been tremendous growth. Princeton is represented at the World Cup by three different countries, as a matter of fact. The number of countries who field teams at these events, on the men's side and women's side, grows each time.
There are some countries who have made big jumps onto the international scene. Israel at the men's championships. New Zealand at the current women's.
In fairness, Canada needed overtime to beat Australia yesterday in the semifinals - but Canada did win. If any team will crash the party, it seems like it'll be Australia, or, on the men's side, the Iroquois.
It's just that it seems like it's going to be awhile before it's not Canada and the U.S. in the championship of a major event. It was those two a year ago in the men's U19 championships (the U.S. won, led by leading scorer Michael Sowers). It was those two in the last women's U19 championships (Canada won) and the last men's World Championship (also Canada).
Actually, it was the U.S. and Canada in the last five men's World Championship finals. Next year in Israel? It'll be the U.S. and Canada for the title.
Trust TigerBlog on this one. If you're wondering why lacrosse isn't an Olympic sport, TB would say that this might be the biggest reason.
So why has he been rooting for England? Because the English have Princeton's Olivia Hompe.
The Irish, by the way, have Princeton's Nonie Anderson. The Italians have Kerrin Maurer, a Duke alum who has joined the Princeton coaching staff.
Speaking of Princeton's coaches, Chris Sailer and Jen Cook traveled to England to watch the games this week.
Tons of Tiger support in the stands for team England (Olivia Hompe) 🇬🇧and Ireland (Nonie Andersen) 🇨🇮 #tigerup pic.twitter.com/fpHJ1757EZ— Princeton WLAX (@princetonwlax) July 19, 2017
Hompe has had a great tournament, leading the English in scoring and having a four-goal game in an 8-6 loss to Canada in the round-robin portion.
Following the tournament has been relatively easy, by the way, since someone is doing an incredible job of updating the website with scores, stats and such.
Anyway, it'll be Australia and England for third place tomorrow. Much like the U.S.-Canada final, it seemed highly likely that that matchup was going to be the third-place game.
Speaking of international success and Princeton athletes, it's been a really busy week.
TigerBlog will have more next week on Princeton's success at the recently concluded Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Additionally, the World U23 rowing championships conclude Sunday in Bulgaria. There are seven Princetonians represented there.
For way more information than TigerBlog could give you, CLICK HERE.
What else can TigerBlog tell you on this Friday?
Well, here's how he ended things 52 weeks ago today:
And for you? Well, it's a summer weekend. Enjoy it. Do something fun. The first Princeton athletic event is five weeks from today.
The rest of your summer will be gone in a flash.
And 104 weeks ago today:
Thanks for sticking with TB this far.
Now go have a great summer weekend.
It's a common theme.
What do you have this weekend? Get outside. Go to a beach. Go water skiing if you've always wanted to, or something like that. BBQ. Go to a game. Go to a concert.
TigerBlog is pretty sure he will copy and paste that paragraph 52 weeks from today.
In the meantime, have a great weekend.
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