Have you ever heard of a comedian named Brian Regan?
TigerBlog had never heard of him until recently, when he stumbled on him on Netflix. He's tremendous.
TB's favorite bit of his is the "Me Monster" bit. It's hysterical.
The essential premise is that people are inclined to talk about themselves and are determined to top whatever story you just told. He tells a really funny joke about being at a cocktail party and bringing up how he had two wisdom teeth out, only to have "the four wisdom tooth people come parachuting in."
He concludes by saying that he wishes he had been one of the 12 people who have walked on the moon, as they have an untoppable story. His way of telling it is better.
See for yourself:
That's funny stuff.
Every one knows the names of the first two people who walked on the moon. The first was Neil Armstrong. The second was Buzz Aldrin.
Did you know that the third was Pete Conrad, Princeton Class of 1953?
Those 12 people are about the only ones who could top John Rogers, Princeton Class of 1980. As the "me monsters" are doing their thing, Rogers can calmly wait it out, only to interject his story.
"So I beat Michael Jordan in one-on-one," he could say.
And he did.
The story is a famous one. Rogers, a former Princeton men's basketball captain, played a game of one-on-one at a camp against Jordan in 2003.
After Jordan's career ended with the Washington Wizards (it's like whatever Tom Brady will do with Tampa Bay; nobody will ever remember it), Jordan had a series of camps for seniors, sort of like the baseball fantasy camps. Rogers attended, and he got to play in one of the games Jordan would play against the players at the camp.
They'd be one-on-one to three baskets.
Rogers, who played for Pete Carril and through pretty much hard work and dedication worked his way from a program afterthought to a starter and captain, went from Princeton to a career in financial services that saw him become founder and CEO of the incredibly successful Ariel Investments.
He is also a close friend of former President Obama, and he has worked with, and played basketball with, the former President many times.
TB had heard the story of how Rogers came to beat Jordan in the one-on-one game many times before. It's told beautifully in a story on the website The Undefeated, by Jerry Bembry.
You can read it HERE.
Jordan, of course, is back in the spotlight lately because of the ESPN series "The Last Dance," a 10-part documentary, told over five Sundays, about Jordan that focuses on the 1998 Chicago Bulls season, when the team won its sixth NBA title. Along the way it has been telling Jordan's complete story, from when he was a kid in North Carolina, through everything that happened along the way of his playing career.
As TB said in an earlier post, it's an incredible documentary, for many reasons. First, there's Jordan, the greatest athlete TB has ever seen. His story alone is compelling, and most of the events are familiar if you remember seeing him play. When they're told again in the documentary, they remind you of every one of them all over again.
Second, the access is insane. It's like cameras followed Jordan everywhere for years, not just in 1997-98, and all of that footage has just been sitting there.
Third, there are the interviews. Every time a story is told, you think to yourself about what the people involved in the story might say. Then they appear on screen - and they're all being so brutally honest about their memories and emotions.
It's great stuff. Unfortunately, there are only two more episodes to go.
So far the story about Rogers hasn't been in the documentary. The way the game unfolded was that Jordan was used to simply thumping all of the players at the camp, regardless of how good they'd been at basketball.
Now it was Rogers' turn, and he, well, TB doesn't want to ruin it for you. Let Jerry Bembry tell you the story. Or you can see it for yourself:
The first video TB had for you today will make you laugh.
The second one will make you smile.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
The Rocking Chair
TigerBlog has been at this for awhile.
It was back in September of 1983 when he first wrote a story for a newspaper. He had no experience and no idea what he was doing. He had a friend who worked as a sportswriter who told him that the paper was looking for people to cover high school football and would TB be interested.
Sure, TB said.
He also pointed out that he had never written a story before and would that be a problem? Nope, he was assured.
And so he was off to cover the game between Pennington and Academy of the New Church. It wasn't much of a game. Pennington won easily, breaking the school record for the longest winning streak in school history.
That was TB's start. Or detour, more accurately.
To that point, he thought he might end up in law school after graduating from college. Instead, as his friend said, "when you get the ink in your blood, you never get it out."
From that day on, TB was hooked on writing about sports. He'd spend 11 years in the newspaper business, eventually moving up from covering high schools to colleges.
He'd have great experiences and meet great people at the other schools he covered (Rider, Trenton State College, Mercer County College, Rutgers), but his favorite was always Princeton. There was just something about covering Princeton Athletics that worked for him, which is odd, considering, you know, he went to Penn.
In 1994 Mark Panus, who was at the time the Manager of Sports Media Relations (essentially the SID) told TB, with whom he'd worked for five years, that he was leaving. TB immediately jumped at the chance to take his place, applying and getting the job.
He remembers being asked on his interview where he thought he'd be in five years or 10 years. His answer was clear: working at Princeton still.
And that's how it turned out.
Five years. Ten years. Fifteen years. Twenty years. Twenty five years.
He's almost through 26 years of being employed by Princeton.
By virtue of having passed the quarter-century mark, TB was entitled to choose from a selection of gifts. This is something that you get to do when you are there for 25, 30, 35, 40, etc.
As TB looked through the available items, there was really only one he wanted.
The rocking chair.
Actually, TB has been wanting it for a few years, ever since he passed the 20 mark. And he had to wait until he got to 25. Well, he had to wait til almost 26, since he started shortly after the cutoff from last year.
He chose the chair in February. Then he sort of forgot about it - until it showed up in a very big box the other day.
The first thing he did was take the chair out of the box. The second thing he did was attach the rockers on backwards. The third thing he did was take them off and put them on the correct way.
That little misstep notwithstanding, the chair means a great deal to him. It's a symbol of all of the games, all of the experiences, all of the travel, all of the people he's met - and especially all of the athletes and coaches he's worked with during all of those years.
He can't begin to calculate how many miles he's driven to attend Princeton games - or flown for that matter. He can't even guess how many games he's gone to in those years.
He does know that he's seen Princeton play in eight different time zones. He knows that he's spent a lot of nights on the roads back from so many places, especially Ivy League locations. He knows that some of the very best people he's ever met he's done so solely because he worked for Princeton Athletics.
When he started there, he had no children. Now one is a college graduate and the other is a Princeton student.
It's been an amazing time. It's not what you think of when you think of a normal job and presumably the drudgery that can come with it.
It's been the opposite, a quarter-century of championships, big wins, some excruciating losses and a lot of laughs along the way.
And now he has the chair that represents all of that. He's prouder of that chair than he thought he'd be.
One day, according to the plan, the rocking chair will sit out on the deck of TB's retirement beach house, though not for many more years. When he sits in it, he'll remember where it came from - and the surreal spring when the games stopped.
And he'll cherish it always.
It was back in September of 1983 when he first wrote a story for a newspaper. He had no experience and no idea what he was doing. He had a friend who worked as a sportswriter who told him that the paper was looking for people to cover high school football and would TB be interested.
Sure, TB said.
He also pointed out that he had never written a story before and would that be a problem? Nope, he was assured.
And so he was off to cover the game between Pennington and Academy of the New Church. It wasn't much of a game. Pennington won easily, breaking the school record for the longest winning streak in school history.
That was TB's start. Or detour, more accurately.
To that point, he thought he might end up in law school after graduating from college. Instead, as his friend said, "when you get the ink in your blood, you never get it out."
From that day on, TB was hooked on writing about sports. He'd spend 11 years in the newspaper business, eventually moving up from covering high schools to colleges.
He'd have great experiences and meet great people at the other schools he covered (Rider, Trenton State College, Mercer County College, Rutgers), but his favorite was always Princeton. There was just something about covering Princeton Athletics that worked for him, which is odd, considering, you know, he went to Penn.
In 1994 Mark Panus, who was at the time the Manager of Sports Media Relations (essentially the SID) told TB, with whom he'd worked for five years, that he was leaving. TB immediately jumped at the chance to take his place, applying and getting the job.
He remembers being asked on his interview where he thought he'd be in five years or 10 years. His answer was clear: working at Princeton still.
And that's how it turned out.
Five years. Ten years. Fifteen years. Twenty years. Twenty five years.
He's almost through 26 years of being employed by Princeton.
By virtue of having passed the quarter-century mark, TB was entitled to choose from a selection of gifts. This is something that you get to do when you are there for 25, 30, 35, 40, etc.
As TB looked through the available items, there was really only one he wanted.
The rocking chair.
Actually, TB has been wanting it for a few years, ever since he passed the 20 mark. And he had to wait until he got to 25. Well, he had to wait til almost 26, since he started shortly after the cutoff from last year.
He chose the chair in February. Then he sort of forgot about it - until it showed up in a very big box the other day.
The first thing he did was take the chair out of the box. The second thing he did was attach the rockers on backwards. The third thing he did was take them off and put them on the correct way.
That little misstep notwithstanding, the chair means a great deal to him. It's a symbol of all of the games, all of the experiences, all of the travel, all of the people he's met - and especially all of the athletes and coaches he's worked with during all of those years.
He can't begin to calculate how many miles he's driven to attend Princeton games - or flown for that matter. He can't even guess how many games he's gone to in those years.
He does know that he's seen Princeton play in eight different time zones. He knows that he's spent a lot of nights on the roads back from so many places, especially Ivy League locations. He knows that some of the very best people he's ever met he's done so solely because he worked for Princeton Athletics.
When he started there, he had no children. Now one is a college graduate and the other is a Princeton student.
It's been an amazing time. It's not what you think of when you think of a normal job and presumably the drudgery that can come with it.
It's been the opposite, a quarter-century of championships, big wins, some excruciating losses and a lot of laughs along the way.
And now he has the chair that represents all of that. He's prouder of that chair than he thought he'd be.
One day, according to the plan, the rocking chair will sit out on the deck of TB's retirement beach house, though not for many more years. When he sits in it, he'll remember where it came from - and the surreal spring when the games stopped.
And he'll cherish it always.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Dr. Glenn Wakam
Until Sunday night, TigerBlog had never spoken to Glenn Wakam.
He was the public address announcer who informed the 9,483 fans at Princeton Stadium back on Nov. 14, 2009, that it was in fact Wakam who had intercepted a pass in the fourth quarter of a game against Yale.
At the time, Princeton was ahead 21-17 with six minutes to play. Wakam's pick set up a field goal, and the final was Princeton 24, Yale 17.
That was essentially the extent of TB's interaction with Wakam until the two texted last week and then spoke Sunday. Since then, TB has learned a lot about Glenn Wakam, and all of it has been impressive.
Glenn Wakam is now a surgical resident, in the fourth year of a seven-year program that will see him become a transplant surgeon. He is doing his residency in the Detroit area.
For almost a year he'd also been working some shifts in local community hospitals in their ICUs, doing basic patient care, to pick up extra money on nights and weekends. What happened next was not what he expected at all.
Into those community hospital ICUs flooded a bunch of COVID-19 patients, and suddenly he was at the center one of the largest outbreaks in the country. The experience accelerated his education, that's for sure.
TigerBlog has already written about other former Princeton athletes who are now doctors and who have been thrown into the fight against the virus. There was the story of Evan Garfein, a 1992 NCAA champion men's lacrosse player, and then Liza Hartofilis, who won a pair of NCAA titles (in 2002 and 2003) with the women's team.
Both Garfein and Hartofilis have been working in New York City. Garfein actually caught the virus, recovered and went back to work in the ER.
TB's fear in writing about Wakam was that he'd be writing the same story all over again. In almost any other case, that wouldn't be something he'd like to do.
In these days, he can't tell the story enough.
You have former Princeton athletes out there - beyond just these three - who are doing so much to treat people during these awful times. Every one of them is doing something heroic, even if they wouldn't admit it.
Their stories are all the same, and yet they're also unique.
In Wakam's case, he's the son of immigrants from Cameroon, his mother a doctor and his father a chemical engineer. He grew up in Southern California, excelled athletically and academically, came to Princeton and played four years of football (starting at cornerback on Bob Surace's first team) and then went to medical school at the University of California at San Francisco.
You can read the whole story HERE.
There other links at the top of the story, one that will take you to a podcast featuring Wakam in which he talks about an issue that he clearly has a great deal of passion for, the way that the virus has been disproportionately affecting minority communities, and then another link to a story he wrote that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Those are both worth your time.
This is from the NEJM story:
This is what he's been dealing with. What they've all been dealing with.
Their stories are amazing, even if they are somewhat similar.
And as TB has said before, they're all heroic. They are the very best of Princeton Athletics.
He was the public address announcer who informed the 9,483 fans at Princeton Stadium back on Nov. 14, 2009, that it was in fact Wakam who had intercepted a pass in the fourth quarter of a game against Yale.
At the time, Princeton was ahead 21-17 with six minutes to play. Wakam's pick set up a field goal, and the final was Princeton 24, Yale 17.
That was essentially the extent of TB's interaction with Wakam until the two texted last week and then spoke Sunday. Since then, TB has learned a lot about Glenn Wakam, and all of it has been impressive.
Glenn Wakam is now a surgical resident, in the fourth year of a seven-year program that will see him become a transplant surgeon. He is doing his residency in the Detroit area.
For almost a year he'd also been working some shifts in local community hospitals in their ICUs, doing basic patient care, to pick up extra money on nights and weekends. What happened next was not what he expected at all.
Into those community hospital ICUs flooded a bunch of COVID-19 patients, and suddenly he was at the center one of the largest outbreaks in the country. The experience accelerated his education, that's for sure.
TigerBlog has already written about other former Princeton athletes who are now doctors and who have been thrown into the fight against the virus. There was the story of Evan Garfein, a 1992 NCAA champion men's lacrosse player, and then Liza Hartofilis, who won a pair of NCAA titles (in 2002 and 2003) with the women's team.
Both Garfein and Hartofilis have been working in New York City. Garfein actually caught the virus, recovered and went back to work in the ER.
TB's fear in writing about Wakam was that he'd be writing the same story all over again. In almost any other case, that wouldn't be something he'd like to do.
In these days, he can't tell the story enough.
You have former Princeton athletes out there - beyond just these three - who are doing so much to treat people during these awful times. Every one of them is doing something heroic, even if they wouldn't admit it.
Their stories are all the same, and yet they're also unique.
In Wakam's case, he's the son of immigrants from Cameroon, his mother a doctor and his father a chemical engineer. He grew up in Southern California, excelled athletically and academically, came to Princeton and played four years of football (starting at cornerback on Bob Surace's first team) and then went to medical school at the University of California at San Francisco.
You can read the whole story HERE.
There other links at the top of the story, one that will take you to a podcast featuring Wakam in which he talks about an issue that he clearly has a great deal of passion for, the way that the virus has been disproportionately affecting minority communities, and then another link to a story he wrote that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Those are both worth your time.
This is from the NEJM story:
My patient’s wife arrives at the emergency
department at 1:30 a.m., despite having been told she would not be
allowed to see her husband. I go to meet her, and we discuss her
husband’s continued decline. Unfortunately, in the middle of the
conversation, a Code Blue rings from the overhead speaker for a patient
in the ICU. I step away and find myself entering her husband’s room,
where CPR is already in progress.
After 90
minutes of CPR, epinephrine, and defibrillations, my patient still has
not regained a sustained pulse. I somberly call time of death. One of
the nurses in the hallway has been in contact with the wife throughout
the process and has informed her of the death; she now has the wife on
FaceTime so that she can see her husband. When she recognizes him in the
distorted image, she lets out a wail of sorrow. She is in the midst of
her final goodbyes when I have to excuse myself from the room: another
patient with Covid-19 is deteriorating a few rooms over.
Their stories are amazing, even if they are somewhat similar.
And as TB has said before, they're all heroic. They are the very best of Princeton Athletics.
Monday, May 11, 2020
Two Thumbs And A Send Button
Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog, is an information sciences professor.
He told TB an interesting story about a time he was talking about how in the Soviet Union, typewriters had to be registered and getting typewriter ribbons was nearly impossible. He said this prompted a very interesting, very serious question, from one of the students in the lecture hall.
"What," asked the student with the raised hand, "is a typewriter ribbon."
This led to a quick search of typewriter ribbons, which led to a YouTube video of millennials as they were handed an old manual typewriter and a piece of paper and had to try to figure out what do to make it work.
TigerBlog learned to type on a manual typewriter. When he went to college, he was the only one on his floor freshman year who had an electric typewriter. That's how old he is.
The millennials in the video couldn't figure out how to load the paper, or how to return the page from the right to the left. The bell that singled you were getting close to the margin scared a few of them.
When the video was over, Joe said, one of the students commented that "wow, back then you really had to think about what you wanted to say before you wrote it."
That could be among the wiser things that TB has ever heard.
The point was that making corrections on a typewriter was difficult. TB was lucky, because his electric typewriter came with built-in correct tape. No messing around with white out for him.
Since correcting typos (or simply changing your mind after you'd written something) was really difficult, you had to be sure about what path you were going down before you started to hit the keys. And then you had to be careful.
Hey, in that last paragraph alone, TB made three typos that he had to hit the "delete" key for to correct. Imagine if he had to go back and grab the correct tape or the white out every time he made one? He'd never get done.
The last paragraph featured only one typo to correct. This one is up to three. There. Three.
Now he's not even thinking about what he's writing, only about how many times he has to go back and hit "delete." This was a four-delete paragraph. Make it seven. He had three in that one sentence alone.
The global point about thinking about what you say before you write it is somewhat obvious in the modern context. It's easy to hit "send" before something is completely thought out.
Think of how much trouble people have gotten into because of that little issue. As TB says to Princeton's athletes, when he first started, to get yourself into trouble for something you said, you needed to first say something dumb and then you had to say it to someone who would then reproduce it in another medium. Now all you need is a phone, two thumbs and the "send button."
Of course, Princeton is fortunate to have the kinds of athletes it does, and so the good that comes of hitting "send" outweighs the bad by a factor of thousands.
Yesterday was one of the best days for Princeton and social media. It was Mothers' Day, and there were dozens of posts of Princeton's current players and alums and their mothers.
Here are a few of the really good ones:
The one on the bottom is Princeton men's lacrosse player Jacob Stoebner.
Those are great. There were so many others that were tremendous as well.
As someone who has spent a great deal of time in his life immersed in youth and club sports, TB can tell you first hand what sacrifices mothers make for their kids to get them to be able to compete at a level like Princeton. It's a sacrifice of love of course, and the memories that were created during those years will last forever.
They were times of a lot of joy, and it wasn't just because of the success or failure of a game or a tournament. They were major bonding experiences for families. For everything bad you've ever heard about youth sports and club sports - and there are many bad parts - there is no mistaking what they do for the people involved in them.
And so it's great to see Princeton's athletes thanking their moms yesterday.
They certainly deserved the shout out.
And to those who lost their moms? TB can relate, and no Mothers' Day since his own left him 26 years ago has been unemotional.
Gone, but the memories are still there. And they will never go away.
He told TB an interesting story about a time he was talking about how in the Soviet Union, typewriters had to be registered and getting typewriter ribbons was nearly impossible. He said this prompted a very interesting, very serious question, from one of the students in the lecture hall.
"What," asked the student with the raised hand, "is a typewriter ribbon."
This led to a quick search of typewriter ribbons, which led to a YouTube video of millennials as they were handed an old manual typewriter and a piece of paper and had to try to figure out what do to make it work.
TigerBlog learned to type on a manual typewriter. When he went to college, he was the only one on his floor freshman year who had an electric typewriter. That's how old he is.
The millennials in the video couldn't figure out how to load the paper, or how to return the page from the right to the left. The bell that singled you were getting close to the margin scared a few of them.
When the video was over, Joe said, one of the students commented that "wow, back then you really had to think about what you wanted to say before you wrote it."
That could be among the wiser things that TB has ever heard.
The point was that making corrections on a typewriter was difficult. TB was lucky, because his electric typewriter came with built-in correct tape. No messing around with white out for him.
Since correcting typos (or simply changing your mind after you'd written something) was really difficult, you had to be sure about what path you were going down before you started to hit the keys. And then you had to be careful.
Hey, in that last paragraph alone, TB made three typos that he had to hit the "delete" key for to correct. Imagine if he had to go back and grab the correct tape or the white out every time he made one? He'd never get done.
The last paragraph featured only one typo to correct. This one is up to three. There. Three.
Now he's not even thinking about what he's writing, only about how many times he has to go back and hit "delete." This was a four-delete paragraph. Make it seven. He had three in that one sentence alone.
The global point about thinking about what you say before you write it is somewhat obvious in the modern context. It's easy to hit "send" before something is completely thought out.
Think of how much trouble people have gotten into because of that little issue. As TB says to Princeton's athletes, when he first started, to get yourself into trouble for something you said, you needed to first say something dumb and then you had to say it to someone who would then reproduce it in another medium. Now all you need is a phone, two thumbs and the "send button."
Of course, Princeton is fortunate to have the kinds of athletes it does, and so the good that comes of hitting "send" outweighs the bad by a factor of thousands.
Yesterday was one of the best days for Princeton and social media. It was Mothers' Day, and there were dozens of posts of Princeton's current players and alums and their mothers.
Here are a few of the really good ones:
Those are great. There were so many others that were tremendous as well.
As someone who has spent a great deal of time in his life immersed in youth and club sports, TB can tell you first hand what sacrifices mothers make for their kids to get them to be able to compete at a level like Princeton. It's a sacrifice of love of course, and the memories that were created during those years will last forever.
They were times of a lot of joy, and it wasn't just because of the success or failure of a game or a tournament. They were major bonding experiences for families. For everything bad you've ever heard about youth sports and club sports - and there are many bad parts - there is no mistaking what they do for the people involved in them.
And so it's great to see Princeton's athletes thanking their moms yesterday.
They certainly deserved the shout out.
And to those who lost their moms? TB can relate, and no Mothers' Day since his own left him 26 years ago has been unemotional.
Gone, but the memories are still there. And they will never go away.
Friday, May 8, 2020
Bouncing Around
Are you bouncing off the walls during the quarantine period?
Today TigerBlog will be bouncing around a bit. Here he goes:
* Yesterday's entry talked about TB's favorite Ivy League athlete from another school that he's seen (but not rooted for, of course) in the time he's been at Princeton.
He wrote about Harvard men's basketball player Tim Hill, and he got some pretty good feedback about some others. Peter Cordrey, whose son Emmet was a men's lacrosse player who graduated in 2019, suggested his daughter Kyla, who played field hockey at Harvard. TB is guessing Peter, himself a Princeton alum and one of the top goalies in the history of the men's lacrosse team, probably rooted for Harvard in the games against the Tigers.
TB also got another person who said Jay Fiedler. TB hadn't thought of Fieldler actually, but he would probably have been 1A had TB remembered.
Fiedler was the quarterback at Dartmouth in the early 1990s. He was the Big Green quarterback for what has to be one of the five craziest games TB has ever seen, the 1993 Princeton-Dartmouth game on the final day of the season.
Both teams went into the game 5-1 in the league, a game behind unbeaten Penn, who was playing Cornell. To get a share of the title, the teams both needed a win and a Penn loss against Cornell.
The game in Hanover was close throughout, and Penn was actually behind Cornell, who was 3-3 in the league, for most of the game in Ithaca. This was also in the pre-overtime days, so a tie between Princeton and Dartmouth would eliminate both teams.
And, of course, the teams would end up tied 22-22 in the final few minutes of the fourth quarter. As a result, both teams had to take chances they never would have in a game with overtime, or if a tie hadn't meant their championship hopes vanished. Picture teams going for it on fourth-and-long in their own territory in a 22-22 game late in the fourth quarter.
Dartmouth, who added to the fun by not having a placekicker (not a good kicker, but no kicker at all), eventually won 28-22. Fiedler threw for something like 220 yards in the fourth quarter, and Keith Elias ran for 188 yards on 38 carries. Both went on to long NFL careers.
* Speaking of people who are hard to root against but whom TB will find a way to do just that, Harvard hired TB's former colleague at Princeton Erin McDermott as its new Director of Athletics. Erin will take over for Bob Scalise, who is retiring after 20 years as Harvard's AD.
Erin will come to Cambridge from the University of Chicago, where she was the Director of Athletics for the last seven years. She came to Princeton as an intern and left 13 years later as the No. 2 person in the department.
Now she takes over at Harvard. TB wishes his friend and former colleague the very best - except when the Crimson are playing Princeton.
* Today is the 50th anniversary of when the New York Knicks won the 1970 NBA championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 113-99 in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks would add a second championship in 1973 and have not won another since.
In other words, it seems the Knicks can't win without Bill Bradley.
The seventh game of the 1970 NBA finals was the famous "Willis Reed" game, when the injured Knicks big man and captain came out of the locker room just before tip off and then made two medium-range jump (or hobble) shots and then came out of the game. New York's starting five that day consisted of players from Grambling (Reed), Tennessee State (Dick Barnett), Southern Illinois (Walt Frazier), Detroit-Mercy (Dave DeBusschere) and Princeton (Bradley).
Four of those five (all but Barnett) are in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Frazier had the monster game that night, with 36 points, 19 assists and seven rebounds. Bradley had 17 points, five assists and four rebounds in the win.
* TigerBlog isn't sure why, but he's always like Joe Maddon, the Major League manager. Maybe it's because he's someone in sports who is older than TB? Maybe it's the glasses? Maybe it's because he's usually been associated with underdogs.
Whatever it is, TB has always been a fan.
Maddon was part of a Zoom call with the Princeton baseball team earlier this week. Included on the call was Princeton alum (and World Series champion) Chris Young.
Here's his tweet about his experience:
Today TigerBlog will be bouncing around a bit. Here he goes:
* Yesterday's entry talked about TB's favorite Ivy League athlete from another school that he's seen (but not rooted for, of course) in the time he's been at Princeton.
He wrote about Harvard men's basketball player Tim Hill, and he got some pretty good feedback about some others. Peter Cordrey, whose son Emmet was a men's lacrosse player who graduated in 2019, suggested his daughter Kyla, who played field hockey at Harvard. TB is guessing Peter, himself a Princeton alum and one of the top goalies in the history of the men's lacrosse team, probably rooted for Harvard in the games against the Tigers.
TB also got another person who said Jay Fiedler. TB hadn't thought of Fieldler actually, but he would probably have been 1A had TB remembered.
Fiedler was the quarterback at Dartmouth in the early 1990s. He was the Big Green quarterback for what has to be one of the five craziest games TB has ever seen, the 1993 Princeton-Dartmouth game on the final day of the season.
Both teams went into the game 5-1 in the league, a game behind unbeaten Penn, who was playing Cornell. To get a share of the title, the teams both needed a win and a Penn loss against Cornell.
The game in Hanover was close throughout, and Penn was actually behind Cornell, who was 3-3 in the league, for most of the game in Ithaca. This was also in the pre-overtime days, so a tie between Princeton and Dartmouth would eliminate both teams.
And, of course, the teams would end up tied 22-22 in the final few minutes of the fourth quarter. As a result, both teams had to take chances they never would have in a game with overtime, or if a tie hadn't meant their championship hopes vanished. Picture teams going for it on fourth-and-long in their own territory in a 22-22 game late in the fourth quarter.
Dartmouth, who added to the fun by not having a placekicker (not a good kicker, but no kicker at all), eventually won 28-22. Fiedler threw for something like 220 yards in the fourth quarter, and Keith Elias ran for 188 yards on 38 carries. Both went on to long NFL careers.
* Speaking of people who are hard to root against but whom TB will find a way to do just that, Harvard hired TB's former colleague at Princeton Erin McDermott as its new Director of Athletics. Erin will take over for Bob Scalise, who is retiring after 20 years as Harvard's AD.
Erin will come to Cambridge from the University of Chicago, where she was the Director of Athletics for the last seven years. She came to Princeton as an intern and left 13 years later as the No. 2 person in the department.
Now she takes over at Harvard. TB wishes his friend and former colleague the very best - except when the Crimson are playing Princeton.
* Today is the 50th anniversary of when the New York Knicks won the 1970 NBA championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 113-99 in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks would add a second championship in 1973 and have not won another since.
In other words, it seems the Knicks can't win without Bill Bradley.
The seventh game of the 1970 NBA finals was the famous "Willis Reed" game, when the injured Knicks big man and captain came out of the locker room just before tip off and then made two medium-range jump (or hobble) shots and then came out of the game. New York's starting five that day consisted of players from Grambling (Reed), Tennessee State (Dick Barnett), Southern Illinois (Walt Frazier), Detroit-Mercy (Dave DeBusschere) and Princeton (Bradley).
Four of those five (all but Barnett) are in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Frazier had the monster game that night, with 36 points, 19 assists and seven rebounds. Bradley had 17 points, five assists and four rebounds in the win.
* TigerBlog isn't sure why, but he's always like Joe Maddon, the Major League manager. Maybe it's because he's someone in sports who is older than TB? Maybe it's the glasses? Maybe it's because he's usually been associated with underdogs.
Whatever it is, TB has always been a fan.
Maddon was part of a Zoom call with the Princeton baseball team earlier this week. Included on the call was Princeton alum (and World Series champion) Chris Young.
Here's his tweet about his experience:
This week we had
Los Angeles @Angels
manager Joe Maddon @MaddHalos
and former Princeton Tiger Chris Young ‘02 who talked to the team about
leadership, the importance of self discipline and self awareness. Thank
you both for taking the time to help the Tigers get better! pic.twitter.com/vNcHFa4Jxr
—
Princeton Baseball (@PUTigerBaseball) May
6, 2020
Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Answer Is Tim Hill
TigerBlog's statement from yesterday that there was no chance that there could ever be a Michael Jordan-type Ivy League athlete from another school who would be so mesmerizing that TB wouldn't be able to root against him or her, even when that athlete played against Princeton, drew two interesting emails.
The first was this: "Who, then, would be your favorite all-time Ivy League athlete from another school since you've been at Princeton?" That's a good question.
The second was this: "Understandable about not letting an athlete from another Ivy school get you to root against Princeton. But what about Brian Earl? A favorite Princeton athlete who now coaches against Princeton."
Also a good question.
The answer to the first is easy. Connor Fletcher, currently a senior at Cornell on the men's lacrosse team.
TB was Connor's first lacrosse coach, back when he and Connor's dad Dan coached together in Lower Bucks Lacrosse, when TigerBlog Jr. was Connor's teammate. That would have been when Connor was in third grade and TBJ was in fourth.
The team back then was called the Barrage, named by TBJ after his favorite Major League Lacrosse team at the time. The Barrage was TBJ's favorite because it had Princeton alums Ryan Boyle and Matt Striebel, by the way.
TigerBlog couldn't help but think back to that when he saw that the actual Barrage had drafted Fletcher earlier this week. In fact, TB texted Dan Fletcher to remind him that it was the second time Connor had been selected by a team called the Barrage.
What? You're saying that Fletcher doesn't count because he's not just someone TB didn't know who played for another team?
Okay, how about Tim Hill, who played basketball at Harvard during the late 1990s and was a four-time All-Ivy selection, including first-team his senior year. Hill went 1-7 in his eight career games against Princeton, all of which TB saw in person, but he played really hard for every minute he was out there, which was usually every minute of the game.
TB went back and looked up the eight box scores from when Hill played against Princeton. One of the box scores, from Hill's freshman year, was cut off where the minutes would have been listed.
Of the other seven games, he averaged exactly 40 minutes per game. That's 280 minutes in seven games, plus however many he played in the other game his freshman year, with no fewer than 37 in any of those games. How many players have ever played more career minutes against Princeton?
He went all 45 of the one win Harvard had against Princeton in his career, when he scored 27 points, with only one made three-pointer (on two attempts) and 10 for 12 foul shooting. That was Hill in a nutshell. He was small (TB remembers that he was less than six-feet tall) but he loved to shoot floaters in the lane and draw contact.
He was easy to root for - even if TB never rooted for him. He can still, more than 20 years later, remember how annoyed he was that Princeton lost that game at Harvard that night.
If you remember the 1999 Ivy men's basketball season, that was the year that Princeton had the wild comeback win at the Palestra, winning 50-49 after being behind 29-3 at one point and 40-13 with 16 minutes left in the game. Penn, though, won the league title because the Tigers lost twice to other teams, once to Yale in a very strange game in which there was confusion as to whether a shot was a two or a three by the Bulldogs in the final seconds of the second OT in the game after the Penn comeback and then the one at Harvard.
As for that game at Harvard that night, Brian Earl also played all 45 minutes, as did Gabe Lewullis.
And yes, Brian Earl is an all-time favorite Princeton athlete for TigerBlog (as is Lewullis).
Rooting against Earl is not easy, but TB manages to find a away to do so when he's coaching against the Tigers.
He will say that's the closest he's ever come to rooting for someone else against Princeton.
The first was this: "Who, then, would be your favorite all-time Ivy League athlete from another school since you've been at Princeton?" That's a good question.
The second was this: "Understandable about not letting an athlete from another Ivy school get you to root against Princeton. But what about Brian Earl? A favorite Princeton athlete who now coaches against Princeton."
Also a good question.
The answer to the first is easy. Connor Fletcher, currently a senior at Cornell on the men's lacrosse team.
TB was Connor's first lacrosse coach, back when he and Connor's dad Dan coached together in Lower Bucks Lacrosse, when TigerBlog Jr. was Connor's teammate. That would have been when Connor was in third grade and TBJ was in fourth.
The team back then was called the Barrage, named by TBJ after his favorite Major League Lacrosse team at the time. The Barrage was TBJ's favorite because it had Princeton alums Ryan Boyle and Matt Striebel, by the way.
TigerBlog couldn't help but think back to that when he saw that the actual Barrage had drafted Fletcher earlier this week. In fact, TB texted Dan Fletcher to remind him that it was the second time Connor had been selected by a team called the Barrage.
What? You're saying that Fletcher doesn't count because he's not just someone TB didn't know who played for another team?
Okay, how about Tim Hill, who played basketball at Harvard during the late 1990s and was a four-time All-Ivy selection, including first-team his senior year. Hill went 1-7 in his eight career games against Princeton, all of which TB saw in person, but he played really hard for every minute he was out there, which was usually every minute of the game.
TB went back and looked up the eight box scores from when Hill played against Princeton. One of the box scores, from Hill's freshman year, was cut off where the minutes would have been listed.
Of the other seven games, he averaged exactly 40 minutes per game. That's 280 minutes in seven games, plus however many he played in the other game his freshman year, with no fewer than 37 in any of those games. How many players have ever played more career minutes against Princeton?
He went all 45 of the one win Harvard had against Princeton in his career, when he scored 27 points, with only one made three-pointer (on two attempts) and 10 for 12 foul shooting. That was Hill in a nutshell. He was small (TB remembers that he was less than six-feet tall) but he loved to shoot floaters in the lane and draw contact.
He was easy to root for - even if TB never rooted for him. He can still, more than 20 years later, remember how annoyed he was that Princeton lost that game at Harvard that night.
If you remember the 1999 Ivy men's basketball season, that was the year that Princeton had the wild comeback win at the Palestra, winning 50-49 after being behind 29-3 at one point and 40-13 with 16 minutes left in the game. Penn, though, won the league title because the Tigers lost twice to other teams, once to Yale in a very strange game in which there was confusion as to whether a shot was a two or a three by the Bulldogs in the final seconds of the second OT in the game after the Penn comeback and then the one at Harvard.
As for that game at Harvard that night, Brian Earl also played all 45 minutes, as did Gabe Lewullis.
And yes, Brian Earl is an all-time favorite Princeton athlete for TigerBlog (as is Lewullis).
Rooting against Earl is not easy, but TB manages to find a away to do so when he's coaching against the Tigers.
He will say that's the closest he's ever come to rooting for someone else against Princeton.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
The Last Dance
TigerBlog had a Zoom call yesterday with the Office of Athletic Communications group.
The OAC has been meeting twice a week via Zoom this spring, each Tuesday and Friday. They've been good discussions, a blend of thoughts about content to be produced in the present and what the future might look like.
There are all sorts of topics that have come up, going in every conceivable way as it relates to athletic communications. These are challenging times for everyone everywhere in every walk of life, and the challenges others face far exceed the ones that TB and his colleagues do.
At the same time, there are challenges, and one of them is to come up with ways to keep people engaged during a spring without actual athletic events. The focus has been varied, with stories and video pieces on the athletes, on senior days, on nostalgia.
TB thinks his colleagues have done a great job, especially considering that they don't have the standard access to Jadwin Gym, the archives, their offices and the Levine Broadcast Center.
The calls have also been fun. It's good to see all of his colleagues, especially the ones he would be spending most of his time with on Jadwin E level.
As he thinks about the office suite in which he has not been in nearly two months, he hopes that nobody left anything in the fridge that needed to be thrown away.
The OAC call yesterday was scheduled for 1:30, only there was a meeting before it than ran long, meaning that one of the five people on the OAC call hadn't yet joined.
So what do communications people talk about with some time to kill?
Well, for one, it was who might have been the goprincetontigers.com Athlete of the Week had all of the events that had been scheduled for the week been played. That was a good subject.
Each week the OAC staff chooses an Athlete of the Week. It's always a fun exercise, especially when people get a bit territorial about the athletes from their sports.
This week would have been such a week, what with all the teams who were competing and figured to be competing for high stakes in the last seven days.
What else came up?
Well, there was "The Last Dance." That's the Michael Jordan documentary series on ESPN.
TigerBlog has watched all six episodes to date. He's loved it.
Michael Jordan took TigerBlog to a place that no other athlete ever has. TigerBlog always, always rooted for Michael Jordan, even if it meant rooting against his favorite team, the Knicks.
It was weird. That's how good Jordan was. TB couldn't help but root for him, even if he really wanted the Knicks to win an NBA championship and Jordan singlehandedly kept them from doing so.
The documentary series has been great. The access, which is what makes any documentary the best it can be, is extraordinary in this case. The film from the 1997-98 season is incredible, and TB wonders why it has sat dormant for so long.
Also, the interviews are also excellent. It seems that anyone who figured anywhere into the story has been interviewed - and spoken with 100 percent honesty.
The emotions come across as genuine and raw, even from events now 30 years old in some cases.
It's definitely worth checking out.
By the way, Jordan is the greatest athlete TigerBlog has ever seen, let alone the greatest basketball player. The documentary showcases how different the NBA of today is compared to when Jordan played, even with thinking then that you needed a big man to win a championship, which is why the Trail Blazers passed on Jordan to take Kentucky's Sam Bowie after the Rockets took Hakeem Olajuwon.
Also, the video from back then shows how much teams have gotten away from attacking the basket and now rely on the three-point shot. But that's a different story.
TB's point is that for him, no player who has played since (or before) is better than Jordan.
The whole "root for Jordan while he demolishes your favorite team" thing got TB to thinking. Has there been an athlete in the Ivy League during his time at Princeton who has had the same impact?
Has there been an athlete on any competing team who has been such a great player, such an exciting player, such a dynamic player, with such an awesome personality that he or she caused TB to root for that particular athlete to succeed, even at Princeton's expense?
Thinking. Thinking.
No chance.
The OAC has been meeting twice a week via Zoom this spring, each Tuesday and Friday. They've been good discussions, a blend of thoughts about content to be produced in the present and what the future might look like.
There are all sorts of topics that have come up, going in every conceivable way as it relates to athletic communications. These are challenging times for everyone everywhere in every walk of life, and the challenges others face far exceed the ones that TB and his colleagues do.
At the same time, there are challenges, and one of them is to come up with ways to keep people engaged during a spring without actual athletic events. The focus has been varied, with stories and video pieces on the athletes, on senior days, on nostalgia.
TB thinks his colleagues have done a great job, especially considering that they don't have the standard access to Jadwin Gym, the archives, their offices and the Levine Broadcast Center.
The calls have also been fun. It's good to see all of his colleagues, especially the ones he would be spending most of his time with on Jadwin E level.
As he thinks about the office suite in which he has not been in nearly two months, he hopes that nobody left anything in the fridge that needed to be thrown away.
The OAC call yesterday was scheduled for 1:30, only there was a meeting before it than ran long, meaning that one of the five people on the OAC call hadn't yet joined.
So what do communications people talk about with some time to kill?
Well, for one, it was who might have been the goprincetontigers.com Athlete of the Week had all of the events that had been scheduled for the week been played. That was a good subject.
Each week the OAC staff chooses an Athlete of the Week. It's always a fun exercise, especially when people get a bit territorial about the athletes from their sports.
This week would have been such a week, what with all the teams who were competing and figured to be competing for high stakes in the last seven days.
What else came up?
Well, there was "The Last Dance." That's the Michael Jordan documentary series on ESPN.
TigerBlog has watched all six episodes to date. He's loved it.
Michael Jordan took TigerBlog to a place that no other athlete ever has. TigerBlog always, always rooted for Michael Jordan, even if it meant rooting against his favorite team, the Knicks.
It was weird. That's how good Jordan was. TB couldn't help but root for him, even if he really wanted the Knicks to win an NBA championship and Jordan singlehandedly kept them from doing so.
The documentary series has been great. The access, which is what makes any documentary the best it can be, is extraordinary in this case. The film from the 1997-98 season is incredible, and TB wonders why it has sat dormant for so long.
Also, the interviews are also excellent. It seems that anyone who figured anywhere into the story has been interviewed - and spoken with 100 percent honesty.
The emotions come across as genuine and raw, even from events now 30 years old in some cases.
It's definitely worth checking out.
By the way, Jordan is the greatest athlete TigerBlog has ever seen, let alone the greatest basketball player. The documentary showcases how different the NBA of today is compared to when Jordan played, even with thinking then that you needed a big man to win a championship, which is why the Trail Blazers passed on Jordan to take Kentucky's Sam Bowie after the Rockets took Hakeem Olajuwon.
Also, the video from back then shows how much teams have gotten away from attacking the basket and now rely on the three-point shot. But that's a different story.
TB's point is that for him, no player who has played since (or before) is better than Jordan.
The whole "root for Jordan while he demolishes your favorite team" thing got TB to thinking. Has there been an athlete in the Ivy League during his time at Princeton who has had the same impact?
Has there been an athlete on any competing team who has been such a great player, such an exciting player, such a dynamic player, with such an awesome personality that he or she caused TB to root for that particular athlete to succeed, even at Princeton's expense?
Thinking. Thinking.
No chance.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Virtually Annoyed
This past Saturday would have been the Kentucky Derby.
The horse race, known as "The Run For The Roses," has been run every year since 1875. Even without the traditional first Saturday in May running this year, there are still plans to hold the event in early September.
That's good, because the Kentucky Derby is for three-year-olds, and you'll only be three once, as they say. All horses who were born in 2017, by the way, are considered three-year-olds this year, whether they were born in January or December.
TB saw a good quote about the race, from the president of Churchill Downs, where it's run. He was actually quoting someone else, but he said "if we have to have two horses on the track and two people in the stands, we will run this race."
TigerBlog grew up a few miles from Freehold Raceway, but he's hardly ever been to the races. He went to Liberty Bell Park Race Track once in college, and that track hasn't been there for 34 years.
He knows nothing about betting on horses. It's not his thing at all.
He does know that the Kentucky Derby is more than a horse race. It's a huge event, a huge party, and anyone he knows who has ever gone to it swears it's the greatest thing they've ever seen.
Speaking of the Kentucky Derby, did you see the virtual race of every Triple Crown winner that was on social media this weekend?
As has been the case with all simulated or virtual sporting events, TB felt some real emotions as he watched. He also felt the right horse won.
It's worth your two minutes to check it out.
Speaking of virtual sporting events, the selections for the NCAA men's and women's lacrosse tournaments would have been this weekend, after the Ivy League tournaments for both.
US Lacrosse did a virtual tournament on social media, and that ended with Syracuse as the men's champion and the women's champion (defeating Princeton along the way). The men's final matched the Orange and Virginia, a team that Princeton defeated 16-12 on the field in a real game back in February.
For the men's championship, TB sends out virtual congratulations to Pat March, who left the Princeton staff to coach at Syracuse this season.
There is another website that has done a computer simulation of every game that wasn't played in Division I men's lacrosse. With the end of the league tournaments, that site released its NCAA field - and Princeton wasn't in it.
What the heck?
When TB saw the Tigers weren't in it, he was actually a bit pissed. How could Princeton not be in? The Tigers were 11-3 according to the simulations, and they had a win over No. 1 Cornell.
That's not an NCAA-worthy resume?
Then, as always, he had to step back and remind himself that, you know, it's not real.
Had Princeton actually gone 11-3, and beaten Cornell, and beaten Virginia - and not gotten in the real tournament? That would have been completely crushing.
Fortunately, that real disappointment from a simulated event waned when he saw the "TableTop Lacrosse NCAA Draw" that was announced yesterday. This is a field of 17 teams that was selected by some people from Inside Lacrosse, and the tournament will now be played out via a board game invented by TB's old, old lax buddy Christian Swezey, with whom he goes back as far as he does with anyone in the sport.
Princeton is the sixth-seed in that tournament. According to the draw, Princeton would be playing unseeded Villanova in the late game Sunday (6) on Sherrerd Field.
That made TB feel better.
Then he took it a little further, and he saw that the winner of Princeton-Villanova was going to take on the winner of third-seed Ohio State and unseeded St. Joe's, for a spot in the Final Four. He thought the quarterfinal matchup could be two Philly teams if the two unseeded teams won, with the Final Four at Lincoln Financial Field.
Then he thought that was a reasonable draw for the Tigers, and he liked their chances to get to Championship Weekend. He also thought fellow Ivy League schools Yale and Cornell had brutal draws, with potential quarterfinal matchups against either North Carolina or Maryland (in Cornell's case) or Virginia or Penn State (in Yale's case).
Brutal. But hey, maybe three Ivies could have made the Final Four.
Then, again, he remembered it wasn't real, and that there is no tournament this year.
Sad.
The horse race, known as "The Run For The Roses," has been run every year since 1875. Even without the traditional first Saturday in May running this year, there are still plans to hold the event in early September.
That's good, because the Kentucky Derby is for three-year-olds, and you'll only be three once, as they say. All horses who were born in 2017, by the way, are considered three-year-olds this year, whether they were born in January or December.
TB saw a good quote about the race, from the president of Churchill Downs, where it's run. He was actually quoting someone else, but he said "if we have to have two horses on the track and two people in the stands, we will run this race."
TigerBlog grew up a few miles from Freehold Raceway, but he's hardly ever been to the races. He went to Liberty Bell Park Race Track once in college, and that track hasn't been there for 34 years.
He knows nothing about betting on horses. It's not his thing at all.
He does know that the Kentucky Derby is more than a horse race. It's a huge event, a huge party, and anyone he knows who has ever gone to it swears it's the greatest thing they've ever seen.
Speaking of the Kentucky Derby, did you see the virtual race of every Triple Crown winner that was on social media this weekend?
Watch it again!
The 13 Triple Crown winners face off in a virtual race under the Twin
Spires of Churchill Downs.
Donate to COVID-19 relief
at https://t.co/6W7xpgby5a. |
#KyDerbyAtHome
pic.twitter.com/QCDkrrPB5p
—
Kentucky Derby (@KentuckyDerby) May
2, 2020
As has been the case with all simulated or virtual sporting events, TB felt some real emotions as he watched. He also felt the right horse won.
It's worth your two minutes to check it out.
Speaking of virtual sporting events, the selections for the NCAA men's and women's lacrosse tournaments would have been this weekend, after the Ivy League tournaments for both.
US Lacrosse did a virtual tournament on social media, and that ended with Syracuse as the men's champion and the women's champion (defeating Princeton along the way). The men's final matched the Orange and Virginia, a team that Princeton defeated 16-12 on the field in a real game back in February.
For the men's championship, TB sends out virtual congratulations to Pat March, who left the Princeton staff to coach at Syracuse this season.
There is another website that has done a computer simulation of every game that wasn't played in Division I men's lacrosse. With the end of the league tournaments, that site released its NCAA field - and Princeton wasn't in it.
What the heck?
When TB saw the Tigers weren't in it, he was actually a bit pissed. How could Princeton not be in? The Tigers were 11-3 according to the simulations, and they had a win over No. 1 Cornell.
That's not an NCAA-worthy resume?
Then, as always, he had to step back and remind himself that, you know, it's not real.
Had Princeton actually gone 11-3, and beaten Cornell, and beaten Virginia - and not gotten in the real tournament? That would have been completely crushing.
Fortunately, that real disappointment from a simulated event waned when he saw the "TableTop Lacrosse NCAA Draw" that was announced yesterday. This is a field of 17 teams that was selected by some people from Inside Lacrosse, and the tournament will now be played out via a board game invented by TB's old, old lax buddy Christian Swezey, with whom he goes back as far as he does with anyone in the sport.
Princeton is the sixth-seed in that tournament. According to the draw, Princeton would be playing unseeded Villanova in the late game Sunday (6) on Sherrerd Field.
That made TB feel better.
Then he took it a little further, and he saw that the winner of Princeton-Villanova was going to take on the winner of third-seed Ohio State and unseeded St. Joe's, for a spot in the Final Four. He thought the quarterfinal matchup could be two Philly teams if the two unseeded teams won, with the Final Four at Lincoln Financial Field.
Then he thought that was a reasonable draw for the Tigers, and he liked their chances to get to Championship Weekend. He also thought fellow Ivy League schools Yale and Cornell had brutal draws, with potential quarterfinal matchups against either North Carolina or Maryland (in Cornell's case) or Virginia or Penn State (in Yale's case).
Brutal. But hey, maybe three Ivies could have made the Final Four.
Then, again, he remembered it wasn't real, and that there is no tournament this year.
Sad.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Softball Senior Day
One of them takes him through a neighborhood that he will circle three times, on his way to his total of about 12 miles. Each lap around this particular neighborhood is about a half mile, so he's not there very long.
At times this spring the neighborhood has been eerily quiet, with nobody outside. It was the opposite of that Saturday afternoon when he rode through it.
He was about three-quarters of the way around the first lap when he started to hear a bit of a buzz. A few seconds later he peered down a cul-de-sac to see a large, social-distancing compliant group of neighbors who had gathered to watch a concert of sorts.
There, on one of the driveways stood two people, both with guitars and a mic stand, hooked up to speakers. They were giving a neighborhood concert.
Was this something they always did on the first Saturday in May? Maybe it was just an impromptu thing. Maybe it was somebody's birthday.
Whatever it was, the people in the neighborhood seemed to love it.
In the spring of 2020, you don't necessarily have the world you want. You have the world as it is. And you have to mold that as best as you can to make it fit the world you wanted.
And that brings TB to Princeton softball.
This past weekend would have been the regular season finale for the Tigers, with three home games against Dartmouth on the new field next to the baseball field. Add to that the fact that Princeton in 2020 had as good a chance as anyone to be playing for an Ivy League championship as May rolled around.
Instead, the season ended before a single Ivy game could be played. And now, instead of being on that new field - one that had not yet had a home game when the cancellation happened - the members of the team were scattered.
In fact, they were probably scattered more than most teams. There are 17 players on the softball team, and they come from 11 different states.
There are four seniors, and they come from four different states: Alex Colton from Texas, Caroline Taber from Connecticut, Allison Harvey from California and Megan Donahey from Arizona.
And there they were Saturday afternoon, not in their uniforms together but instead on Zoom, for a virtual Senior Day ceremony. They weren't together in person, but they were very much together nonetheless.
Princeton head coach Lisa Van Ackeren invited several members of the Department to join the call, and TB was one of them. He doesn't know any of the softball players individually, but you that didn't matter at all as he was still able to get a really good sense of the warmth and closeness that exudes from the team.
The theme of the event was "Legacy." It was a tribute to the program that has won more Ivy titles than any other team in the league, as well as the current seniors and the impact they have had on the classes that will remain, who will in turn impact those who follow.
Van Ackeren did a great job of making the event fun and upbeat, while also talking about the values of the team and Princeton Athletics and the hope that the players will take those values with them wherever they go.
There were great video tributes to each of the four seniors, with comments from the other members of the team included. Each senior spoke as well.
The most touching part was when Jess Deutsch, the Associate Director, Student Athlete Services, presented the Kathy Kobler Award, "given annually to that member of the Princeton varsity softball team whose generosity, positive attitude, genuine consideration for others, and quiet energy makes her essential to the success of the team."
Kobler was a 1991 grad who played soccer and softball who died tragically young, after marrying Judd Garrett, the former Bushnell Cup winning football player. She left behind four children.
TB didn't realize that Deutsch had been Kobler's roommate, and Deutsch spoke very emotionally about her late friend before announcing the winner, who was Taber. It was a very sweet moment.
Lastly, there was Van Ackeren, who talked about the 2020 season of unfinished business, who talked about how they will all emerge from this with a great perspective on life, sports and the people they love. She implored each athlete to value every time they get to wear "Princeton across your chest and play the game you love." Don't blink, she told them, because "it goes very fast."
It went a lot faster in the spring of 2020 than any of them wanted.
As TB watched the concert in the cul-de-sac shortly after he had gotten off the Zoom, he couldn't help but think of how it was a perfect day for softball.
Maybe it wasn't the Senior Day they wanted, he thought, but it was a Senior Day they'll always cherish.
Friday, May 1, 2020
May 1
TigerBlog, like you presumably, has spent a lot of time on social media the last few weeks, especially accounts that are featuring Princeton's alums, athletes and teams.
He's seen all kinds of content, a great deal of which has been about those who have been combating the virus. There have also been many other ones that have featured ways to stay connected, spotlights on seniors and anything and everything that could be considered fun and interesting.
For instance, there was this, which offers you your first chance to get a Bella Alarie Dallas Wings shirt.
Alarie, of course, wore No. 31 during her time at Princeton. According to the Wings' website, No. 31 belongs to Kristine Anigwe, a second-year player out of Cal, which left Alarie without her college number.
The roster on the website lists 16 players, including Alarie. Of those 16 players, nine, or one more than half, are listed as 6-3 or taller, including the 6-4 Alarie.
The ability to buy her new shirt was not that only appearance for Alarie on social media the last few days. She was also the latest person featured in the "Tig Talks" series with Cody Chrusciel.
You can see that here:
There was this yesterday from the women's lacrosse team on Instagram:
Who is that?
It's Kate Mulham, who as it turns out was a baby model. Here's what she looks like now:
That's the same face, right?
When you see a picture of someone when they were a baby, one of two things happens. Either it's "Yup, completely unchanged" or "Nope, don't see it." There's no real middle ground on that.
Princeton women's lacrosse was featured on the NCAA Lacrosse Instagram page as well. That was under its "Top Plays of the Year" segment.
It features a behind-the-back goal from Kyla Sears. The unseen assist, by the way, belonged to Katie Reilly.
Today was to be the start of the Ivy League lacrosse tournaments. The men's event was to be at Hofstra, and the women were to be at the home of the No. 1 seed.
The Princeton women had as good a chance as anyone to host. The men had as good a chance as anyone to head into Hofstra as the No. 1 seed.
Today is May 1, which would have been the beginning of what figured to be an extraordinary month for Princeton Athletics. Over the next 30 days, there would have been Ivy League championships and other postseason events across all of the spring sports.
Who knows what would ever have happened?
TigerBlog has tried to stay away from too much "what if-ing" as the spring as gone along. He's done some, especially on gamedays or on Fridays, when games should be rolling around.
In some ways, it'll probably be easier, especially for the athletes, once the last possible day to have competed has passed.
On May 1, it's hard not to play the "what if" game. And on this Friday, for the first time since the seasons were postponed, he isn't sure exactly where he would have been and what game he would have been watching.
Instead the surreal spring of moves along.
As it does, it's good to know there are ways to stay connected.
He's seen all kinds of content, a great deal of which has been about those who have been combating the virus. There have also been many other ones that have featured ways to stay connected, spotlights on seniors and anything and everything that could be considered fun and interesting.
For instance, there was this, which offers you your first chance to get a Bella Alarie Dallas Wings shirt.
just surreal! #32 pic.twitter.com/9AB4RjJ9Gt— Bella Alarie (@bella_alarie) April 29, 2020
That looks pretty good, right?Alarie, of course, wore No. 31 during her time at Princeton. According to the Wings' website, No. 31 belongs to Kristine Anigwe, a second-year player out of Cal, which left Alarie without her college number.
The roster on the website lists 16 players, including Alarie. Of those 16 players, nine, or one more than half, are listed as 6-3 or taller, including the 6-4 Alarie.
The ability to buy her new shirt was not that only appearance for Alarie on social media the last few days. She was also the latest person featured in the "Tig Talks" series with Cody Chrusciel.
You can see that here:
Every team has done its creative best on social media during these times. They have been great sources of connection for everyone involved.A Memory To Last A Lifetime.@PrincetonWBB & @DallasWings Star @bella_alarie Is Up Next On #TigTalks Presented By @RWJBarnabas To Talk Being The #5 Overall Pick In The #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/v9EnJ8d9mL— Princeton Tigers (@PUTIGERS) April 29, 2020
There was this yesterday from the women's lacrosse team on Instagram:
Who is that?
It's Kate Mulham, who as it turns out was a baby model. Here's what she looks like now:
That's the same face, right?
When you see a picture of someone when they were a baby, one of two things happens. Either it's "Yup, completely unchanged" or "Nope, don't see it." There's no real middle ground on that.
Princeton women's lacrosse was featured on the NCAA Lacrosse Instagram page as well. That was under its "Top Plays of the Year" segment.
It features a behind-the-back goal from Kyla Sears. The unseen assist, by the way, belonged to Katie Reilly.
Today was to be the start of the Ivy League lacrosse tournaments. The men's event was to be at Hofstra, and the women were to be at the home of the No. 1 seed.
The Princeton women had as good a chance as anyone to host. The men had as good a chance as anyone to head into Hofstra as the No. 1 seed.
Today is May 1, which would have been the beginning of what figured to be an extraordinary month for Princeton Athletics. Over the next 30 days, there would have been Ivy League championships and other postseason events across all of the spring sports.
Who knows what would ever have happened?
TigerBlog has tried to stay away from too much "what if-ing" as the spring as gone along. He's done some, especially on gamedays or on Fridays, when games should be rolling around.
In some ways, it'll probably be easier, especially for the athletes, once the last possible day to have competed has passed.
On May 1, it's hard not to play the "what if" game. And on this Friday, for the first time since the seasons were postponed, he isn't sure exactly where he would have been and what game he would have been watching.
Instead the surreal spring of moves along.
As it does, it's good to know there are ways to stay connected.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
