Nancy Strong

TigerBlog's friend Patrick Stevens is in the middle of a series that is projecting the Top 25 teams in men's lacrosse for next spring.

Patrick, who covers as much lacrosse as anyone and who is as knowledgeable as anyone, had Princeton 20th in his way-ahead rankings. Here's what he said about the Tigers:

No program — not hadn’t-quite-put-it-together-yet Penn State, not scorching Syracuse, not even fellow Ivies Cornell and Yale — deserved to see how the spring of 2020 would play out as much as Princeton did.

TB could remind everyone that nobody had Princeton ranked anywhere in the preseason and that when the season was cancelled in mid-March, the Tigers were ranked second or third, depending on the poll you like. 

When the 2020 preseason began, TB was pretty sure Princeton would be much better than anyone was suggesting. He was relatively certain this was at least a Top 10 team, but it didn't matter if nobody else in the preseason agreed. The Tigers would have every chance to prove, or not prove, that they belonged.

And that's what happened. 

Princeton won all five of its games, scoring at least 16 goals each time. Matt Madalon's team was complete all over the field, with depth and athleticism combine with a strong team culture. The 2020 Tigers were primed for very big things, and Patrick is right when he says it would have been great to see how it played out.

Anyway, preseason polls don't mean much, though they are fun. 

And, in this uncertain world, it's nice to simply read about lacrosse and how a possible 2021 season might shake out, even if it has the Tigers lower than TB would have put them.

Of course, these days nothing is certain. Will there be a 2021 season? TB really hopes so, but that's not up to him.

This brings him to today's subject, which isn't just Princeton lacrosse.

When there is no certainty on things, all you can do is make your best possible decisions and hope for the best, right?  

TigerBlog wants to tell you about his longtime colleague and friend in the Department of Athletics, Nancy Donigan, part of the compliance staff (her husband Joe has also been a longtime Princeton employee). He asked Nancy's permission to share this with you, and she said she was fine with it, especially if it helps someone.

Nancy currently is undergoing chemo for breast cancer. She might not have even been aware she had breast cancer had she not gone for her annual mammogram, something that she was considering not doing because of the COVID-19 situation. 

Why go into the doctor's office unnecessarily, right? That's what she was thinking. Then she decided to go anyway, even though it was a few months later than she might otherwise have done.

The result? Her cancer was caught early, and now she's in treatment.

Her message? Don't let the virus situation keep you from taking care of yourself.

Nancy is strong. She's a former athlete herself, a soon-to-be member of her high school Hall of Fame. She was stunned by the initial diagnosis, but she quickly shifted from "why is this happening to me" to "I will beat this."

And so now she is doing just that. 

She's certainly gotten the support of the entire department. There have been t-shirts with "Nancy Strong" on them, and she has been overwhelmed by the number of calls and texts and videos that show how much people are thinking about her.

Her diagnosis came shortly after she and Joe became grandparents for the first time. Being a grandmother has given her added strength and purpose, not that she really needed additional inspiration.

Nancy is a Princeton Athletics staple. She's funny, well-meaning, empathetic and always upbeat. She's been dealt something that she says she has always dreaded, and she hasn't backed down at all. 

Everyone at Princeton is rooting hard for her. 

And her message is to take care of yourself. Make sure you don't let the COVID-19 situation stand in the way of getting yourself checked out when it's necessary.

She's glad she did. And a bit lucky she did.

Tigers In The WNBA

If you want to know what the hardest class TigerBlog took in college was, he might have to say it was astronomy.

Now that wouldn't seem like it would be that difficult, but the professor - who was one of the best one TB had in his four years at Penn - made it challenging and tough, but also really, really interesting and informative.

What more could you ask for from an elective?

His tests were the most unique tests TB ever took. There would be seven sections with three questions each, and you had to answer any five of the seven sections. The only catch was that the three questions in each section were unrelated, so it wasn't like you could jump on the section on a certain topic you felt good about or avoid one where you didn't have as much confidence.

Anyway, TigerBlog still remembers a lot of what he learned in that class. The most fascinating was the concept that when you look up and see stars, most of those stars don't exist anymore. It's just that they were so far away from Earth that it's taken the light this long to get here.

He also remembered that on Venus, it was 700 degrees and rained sulfuric acid. Now that hardly seems conducive to life, right?

That was the first thing TB thought of when he saw the story yesterday that astronomers may have discovered life on Venus. Okay, that's a bit overstated. They may have discovered traces of mircobial organisms in the atmosphere of the planet. 

Speaking of planets, TB is halfway through the 10-episode first season of "Away," which stars Hilary Swank as the commander of the first manned trip to Mars. It's pretty good, not great, but certainly entertaining.

For matters back here on Earth, TigerBlog really wanted to see the Atlanta Dream knock off the Washington Mystics in the WNBA season finale Sunday evening.

Atlanta, which features Princeton alum Blake Dietrick, had already been eliminated, but another Princeton alum, Bella Alarie, had helped the Dallas Wings to a win Sunday afternoon, which meant that the Wings would have taken the last playoff spot had Atlanta beaten Washington. Instead, Washington gets the last spot.

That's an awful situation for a team to be in, by the way. TB has seen it from Princeton teams before.

You need to win to either get a share of the Ivy League title or to get into the Ivy tournament, but you also need some other team to lose. It's a helpless feeling, caused by a game or two earlier in the year that didn't go your way.

The first one TB could think of came from the final day of the 2018 men's lacrosse season. Princeton needed to beat Cornell (it did, 14-8) and then have Dartmouth upset Brown in a game that started after the Princeton-Cornell one ended to get into the Ivy tournament. The first time TB checked the score of that game, it was 1-1. The next time it was 13-1 Brown. The final was 20-6. It was helpless.

There are others. Fortunately, Princeton is on the other end of that more often than not, when it was the team someone else needed to lose, only Princeton won. For instance, there was the field hockey regular season finale a year ago, when Harvard needed Princeton to lose to Penn to get a share of the championship, but Princeton beat the Quakers.

Anyway, you get the point.

As for Dietrick and Alarie, both of them showed that they clearly belong in the WNBA during the abbreviated bubble season of 2020. 

Dietrick made a huge jump this year, going from averaging 1.02 points per game during her first 46 career games to averaging six a game this year for Atlanta in 22 games. She had 15 points, five assists, three steals and two rebounds in the second-to-last game of the year making all three of her threes as well. 

She went from shooting 30 percent from three-point range in her first three seasons to 45 percent (26 for 58) this year, which ranked eighth in the league. She also averaged 21 minutes per game after averaging 6.7 prior to this year. 

As for Alarie, she averaged 14 minutes per game as a rookie. She also showed the versatility that made her so dangerous at Princeton (a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year), with her ability to play inside and outside, rebound and block shots (she was 12th in the league as a rookie).

No, there wouldn't be any playoffs for either this year. 

Yes, it was a great experience for both.

Opening Kickoff

If you were out yesterday, you probably noticed that there were more people wearing NFL jerseys than usual.

And why not? It was opening day, after all.

TigerBlog was on his bike yesterday morning when he rode past a family out for a walk. The father was wearing an Eagles jersey, with No. 65 on the bike.

Lane Johnson is your favorite player? An offensive lineman?

That was a guy after Princeton head coach Bob Surace's heart.

In his entire life, TB has owned the jersey of exactly one football player. It was a long time ago, and it was the jersey of the most dominant player who ever walked on a football field.

Hint - it was a New York Giants jersey, No. 56.

If you're too young to know what that means, watch THIS.

For the opening day of the NFL season, TigerBlog watched the Red Zone channel, which 1) he doesn't usually get, 2) was being offered as a free preview for Week 1 and 3) which he might have to get. 

If you've never seen the Red Zone channel, it basically is non-stop football from the kickoff of the first game at 1 until the last 4:00 game ends. It never has any commercials, and it jumps around from game to game to game, depending on the situation.

If you're focused on one team or one game, then it's not for you. Also, if your head starts to spin easily, then it's also not for you.

On the other hand, if you aren't really all that invested in any one game, and you don't want to see any commercials, it's the greatest thing ever. 

It can get to be a little much after awhile, though it's at its best when all of the games start to get to the finish line at the same time.

This is an opening weekend like no other in NFL history. No, it's not the first time that teams didn't play preseason games, but you have to go back a very, very long way for that not to be the case. 

And even when there were no preseason games, there were exhibition games all over the place. In fact, when the NFL first started, it was hard to tell what was a real game and what was an exhibition game.

TB even remembers when the defending NFL champion would play a team of college all-stars in Chicago. That ended in 1976.

This year, because of the COVID-19 situation, there was no preseason. It's actually not the worst thing that ever happened, since nobody really wants to watch preseason games and practice and scrimmages are a much better way for player evaluation. Maybe not much better, but certainly good enough.

The other big issue this year is that there are no fans in the stands, or at least there weren't for every early game except the one in Jacksonville.

TB's rooting interest this year extends to the Princetonians in the NFL. 

He turned on the Red Zone channel shortly after 1, the first game that was on was Green Bay-Minnesota, and the first play was a running play on which the lead blocker was No. 45. That would be John Lovett, the two-time Bushnell Cup winner as a quarterback. Lovett, of course, was the quarterback for Princeton's unbeaten 2018 team, as well as one of the quarterbacks - and receivers and runners - on its 2016 Ivy title team.

Lovett, who won a Super Bowl ring last year with the Kansas City Chiefs, is now on the Packers. He was released last Saturday, immediately signed to the practice squad and then activated this past Saturday. The game against Minnesota was his first regular season game action.

Green Bay won a shootout 43-34, a game that wasn't quite that close. 

Stephen Carlson played for the Browns yesterday to start his second season on the active roster. It wasn't a great start for Cleveland, who lost 38-6 to the Ravens.

Jesper Horsted is on the Bears' practice squad, which is where he started last season before being activated midway through the year. TB is confident Horsted will again end up active. Either way, he's rooting for the Bears, who came back to beat Detroit 27-23.

Caraun Reid is on the Jacksonville practice squad. The Jags opened with a 27-20 win over the Colts. 

Tonight marks the season start for another Princeton alum in the NFL. That would be Jason Garrett, the offensive coordinator for the Giants. It'll be fun to be able to root for Jason without having to root for the Cowboys after all those years.

19 Years Later

TigerBlog will write each entry the day before it's posted, and he'll set it to go live shortly after midnight each day. 

The way to do that is to click on the little calendar on the blogspot back end and select the date and time. When he sees what day is coming up, it often reminds him that someone's birthday is coming up or that he has an appointment or something along those lines.

When he did it yesterday, it gave him chills. And not the good kind. 

Today is September 11, and TB doesn't even like having to type the date. Seeing it on the calendar yesterday did what it always does - it brings the events of Sept. 11, 2001, flooding back to him. 

These days, there are pretty much no Princeton students who are old enough to remember that day. There are even some who weren't born yet.

TB remembers. He'll never forget. And as he does each year, he'll share these thoughts with you:

TigerBlog can remember every detail of that awful day 19 years ago today.

He remembers most of the details of the day after, 19 years ago tomorrow.

He wishes that he could remember the day before, back to Sept. 10, 2001. He wishes he could remember what he was thinking on that day, what his world was like on that day, because that world changed forever on Sept. 11 and has never come back.

Each year since Sept. 11, 2001, TigerBlog has gotten an uneasy feeling in the hours before the next anniversary. This year is no different.

The date is enough to bring it all rushing back.

TigerBlog has gone through this pretty much each year he's been doing this. It's important though. It's important not to let what happened on that day ever fade in importance.

The only day in American history that can compare with Sept. 11, 2001, is Dec. 7, 1941. That's the day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II.

Yes, there have been battles in wars that have featured unimaginable death totals. Nearly 10 times more American soldiers were killed in the Battle of Normandy (the entire battle, not just D-Day) in World War II than died on 9/11.

As for 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, though, those were direct attacks on America, not overseas (yes, Hawaii was not yet a state in 1941).

Now, nearly 78 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, the day Dec. 7 still lives, as FDR said it would, in infamy. It just doesn't haunt the national consciousness the way 9/11 does.

Part of that is because the vast majority of Americans who were alive 78 years ago no longer are. The other, though, is that it would take less than four years for the U.S. and its Allies to defeat the Axis powers.

The aftermath of 9/11 has not been anything quite so tidy. There are still military operations as a direct result of 9/11, and even though Al Qaeda never launched another massive attack in this country, the threat is still there.

Like TigerBlog said, the world of Sept. 10 vanished and has never come back. In so many ways.

TigerBlog knows people who saw 9/11 from so many different angles. Everyone has a story to tell from that day.

TB has friends who were on airplanes at the time of the attacks and landed nowhere near New York, as all flights were immediately grounded. They had to try to rent cars to drive home, including one who was on a flight to Newark that landed instead in Nashville, from where he drove home.

He knows another who landed at Newark around the time that the flight that would crash in Pennsylvania after the passengers fought back against the hijackers was leaving and saw the Towers burning as she drove down the New Jersey Turnpike.

He knows another who was unaware of the attacks until, after being told about them, looked out the window at home on Long Island and saw the smoke from the Twin Towers. FatherBlog was in his office in midtown, four or so miles from ground zero.

Princeton had more than its share of graduates, a lot of them athletes, who were in one of the towers at the time. A total of 14 Princetonians were killed.

As for TigerBlog, he was dropping off TigerBlog Jr. at the University League Nursery School, on the far side of the parking lot outside Jadwin. It was the most perfect weather day, crystal clear, sunshine, no humidity, not a cloud to be found.

TB dropped TBJ off at the school, and the woman who was the office manager said that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.

TigerBlog walked outside, looked up, and thought "how in the world did that happen?" By the time he got to Jadwin, he found out how.

Most of that day was spent huddled around the only television around, the one in the athletic training room in Caldwell Field House. It was a day where people spoke very little, where everyone had dazed looks on their faces.

By mid-afternoon, he went back to get TBJ at the nursery school. He can still see the children, swinging on the swings, playing in a sandbox, oblivious - happily oblivious - to what had happened to the innocence of the world outside that playground.

Later that night, after it was dark, TigerBlog walked outside to the end of his driveway and looked up. There were no planes in the sky. They'd all been grounded. TB remembers it vividly, the sight of the stars, without planes, above a world of confusion, angst, uncertainty, fear.

Those were TB's memories. They come rushing back each year on this day, and they bring with them all of those emotions all over again. It's important that it does. This isn't a day that should ever fade from anyone's memory.

Miss TigerBlog was 1 at the time. She's a Princeton junior now. All of those children from the playground have grown up. They need to understand what happened.

The next day, TigerBlog was able to track down former Princeton football captain Dan Swingos, who had been in the second tower but managed to get out. He told TigerBlog a wild story of survival, and luck, one shared by so many others who'd been there at the time.

TigerBlog tells this story each year. He'll continue to do so.

He'll also continue to remember all of the people who were lost that day, the ones who didn't get out, or the ones on the planes.

It's a group that includes John Schroeder, a member of the 1992 men's lacrosse team that won the first of the program's six NCAA championships. He'd been in the World Trade Center and did not get out.

Anytime that TigerBlog has been around the men's lacrosse Class of 1992, no matter what the occasion or celebration, they remember their teammate. They talk about him. They include him in whatever they're doing. They keep his memory alive.

It's been 19 years now.

It seems like yesterday. The memories are vivid, for TigerBlog and everyone else.

And those lost - like John Schroeder - are still missed. 

Going Back - 2003 NCAA Champs

This is the fourth installment of the "Going Back" series, in which TigerBlog is writing entries that he would have written for events that occurred before the blog started in 2008.

His goal is to do this once per week. He also invites anyone who would like to submit a version of their own to do so.

For this week, he goes back a little more than 17 years, to when the women's lacrosse team won its second-straight NCAA title and third overall. This one was quite a bit different than the one the year before, when Princeton simply ran away from the rest of the field.

In addition to having to tough it out in two tight games, Princeton also had to deal with an incredibly emotional subplot of which it had no control.

Here is what TigerBlog would have been on Monday, May 19, 2002:

The Princeton women's lacrosse team did nothing the easy way this past weekend in Syracuse. 

That is 100 percent sure.

Theresa Sherry's goal in the second overtime gave Princeton an 8-7 win over Virginia in the NCAA championship game Sunday to give the Tigers a second-straight title. To accomplish this, Princeton had to:

* defeat two of the four teams it lost to during the regular season

* win the tournament as an unseeded team

* defeat the No.1 seed in the semifinals

* defeat the No. 3 seed in the final

* rally from a 3-0 deficit in the championship game

* find a way to get the ball back and then tie the game in the final two minutes of regulation of the championship game

* win it in overtime

And really, none of those things even scratches the surface of the surreal environment in the Carrier Dome Friday night, when it was Princeton against top seed Loyola in the semifinals. Loyola had defeated Princeton 9-8 in March at Class of 1952 Stadium, but the rematch was about so much more than just figuring out a physical way to defeat the Greyhounds.

No, this was more emotional than anything else. And if what was going on didn't tug at your emotions, well, then that's on you. 

The phrase "life and death" is often thrown around in sports. This time it applied in the literal sense. 

Loyola head coach Diane Geppi-Aikens brought her team to Syracuse knowing full way that she does not have much time left to live. Geppi-Aikens had fought through brain cancer for nine years, but she got the news last December that it was now back and inoperable.

Not to be deterred, she continued to coach her team every day, and her team was ranked No. 1 heading into the semifinals. In April, she wrote a gripping piece in Sports Illustrated entitled "No Time To Die," which included this:

Doctors told me in January that I might have only a few months left. I have two goals: getting to the Final Four and to my oldest son Michael's high school graduation, both in May. How do I face each
day? I wake up to the sound of my kids cranking up the stereo. Then they run into my room to sing and dance around my bed. I try to be as positive as humanly possible and thank God for one more day with people I love. As I tell my players, you can find inspiration no matter what you're up against.

It was against this backdrop that Princeton had to play. That could not possibly have been easy. In fact, TigerBlog will go as far as to say that he's never seen a Princeton team in any sport who had to face anything like that.

Chris Sailer is Princeton's head coach. She and Geppi-Aikens are close, as is everyone in the women's lacrosse community, and Sailer - herself the kind of coach you'd love your own daughter to have a chance to play for - had to guide her team with the proper respect and empathy for the situation while also staying focused on the fact that the best way to show respect would be to compete its hardest.

And that's what Princeton did. 

The Loyola game was a grind-it-out contest, one that Princeton took 5-3. The key was draw controls, as Princeton won eight of 10 draws and subsequently outshot Loyola 19-7.

The win put Princeton into the final against UVa, who had taken out the Tigers 13-8 seven days after the loss to Loyola in March. This one looked like it would be more of the same when it started out 3-0 Cavs, but Princeton fought back.

Keeping it close and winning it were two different things, though. The Tigers still trailed 7-6 with two minutes to play and Virginia in possession when Alex Fiore made the biggest play of the weekend, with a strip that led to a turnover.

The Tigers didn't waste it, as Whitney Miller tied the game with 1:39 to play, on an assist from Lindsey Biles. That led to the overtime (two three-minute periods), and that led to Sherry's goal, which Princeton then made stand up. 

In doing so, it was championship No. 3 for the women's lacrosse team, and the second in a row.

The 2002 team went 19-1, losing its opener and running through the rest of the season basically unchallenged. In fact, the Tigers outscored their two Final Four opponents by a combined 26-9 last year.

This year? This required a whole different level of toughness, and it ran the spectrum of emotions, including a large dose of empathy for a courageous woman whose inspiration will resonate in the sport forever.

Note - Diane Geppi-Aikens died on June 29, 2003, a little more than one month after the NCAA tournament ended. She did get to see her son's graduation. TigerBlog never met her, but he knows many people who did know her and who consider her one of the strongest and most inspirational people they have ever met. You can read her entire SI piece HERE.

Majoring In Sports

So if you owned a racehorse, what would you name it? 

This past Saturday evening, TigerBlog noticed that it was almost post time for the Kentucky Derby. Who knew?

The Kentucky Derby is usually held on the first Saturday in May. This was the first Saturday in September.

That May date had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the race organizers were determined that there would be a Kentucky Derby in 2020, just as there had been for each of the 144 years prior, uninterrupted by things like world wars, the Great Depression, other pandemics or anything else. 

The race Saturday was won by a horse named "Authentic," which is a pretty good name for a horse. He seemed like a pretty genuine horse. 

There are rules about what you're allowed to name a racehorse. For one thing, all names have to be approved by the Jockey Club. For another, they can't be more than 18 letters long.

Also, if you want to name your horse after a live person, that person has to approve of it in writing. There are other rules, like you can't include the name of a racetrack or have any horse-related term.

You can also change your horses name until it's actually run in a race.

Besides that, it's pretty open to creativity. So again, what would you name your horse?

TigerBlog would name his, well, TigerBlog. That would be a great name for a racehorse.

The first winner of the first Kentucky Derby, back in 1875, was named Aristedes. The 1882 winner was the coolest winner - Fonso. The 1947 winner was named Jet Pilot, winning in the same year that Chuck Yeager would break the sound barrier. 

The 1968 winner was Forward Pass. A year later, Princeton scrapped the single-wing for the T-formation, with its first pro-style quarterback.

Speaking of pro-style, there are a lot of people out there whose view of college athletics is simply that of Power Five football and basketball, with some "other" stuff out there as well. To them, college athletics are a money-making venture, and those who drive it are divided into two camps - the coaches who make tons of money and the players who make none. Out of that has come the debate over paying athletes, usually by those who don't have a strong sense or interest in the Title IX applications, among other issues of fairness or equity.

TB, by the way, is not taking a side on the issue. He's just saying that his experience suggests this is the case.

In reality, college athletics are played by several hundred thousand athletes a year, and as the commercial used to say, most are "going pro in something other than sports."

TigerBlog read the column by Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post the other day entitled "Colleges Should Offer A Major In Sports." You can read it HERE.

It's a fascinating concept, right? The basic point is that the dynamics that go along with being an elite level college athlete go hand-in-hand with the ideals of scholarship in its most fundamental form. The lessons learned through intercollegiate competition are not extra-curricular but co-curricular, and the coaches who are leading these teams are in fact teachers, with the playing fields an extension of the classroom.

Sound familiar?

It should if you're a Princeton fan. It's the entire concept of "Education Through Athletics."

It shouldn't be a surprise then that two of the people quoted in the column are Princeton men's basketball alums. One is Drew Hyland, a 1961 Princeton grad and longtime philosophy professor at Trinity who coined the phrase "the sweatiest of the liberal arts," a phrase often repeated by the other Princetonian Jenkins quotes, Ford Family Director of Athletics Emeritus Gary Walters.

In fact, TigerBlog has heard Gary often through the years talk about the idea of athletics as an academic venture (Gary makes a clear distinction between "academic" and "educational," with each having its own value). The column that Jenkins wrote very much aligns with Gary's beliefs.

There are issues, of course, with the idea of a major in sports. Most of those, TB would guess, would be more about perception than the actual educational worth of such study. Also, there's the unfortunate realty that not all coaches would view themselves as teachers, so oversight would be pretty important.

Of course, the pandemic has done more than just change the Kentucky Derby from May to September. Among other things, it's opened up a lot of questions about big-time college athletics, the salaries involved, the incredible amounts of money that fund facilities and luxuries. And about the college athletics landscape in general, as several schools have already been forced to drop programs.

Hey, anything that focuses the conversation on the educational value of college athletics can't be bad.

Education Through Athletics isn't just a slogan that originated at Princeton. It's a real thing.

Transactions

TigerBlog was doing laps on his bike yesterday.

With each go-round, he passed by a man who looked to be around his age who was wearing a hat that said "Penn" across the front. On the third lap, TB stopped and asked him if he had attended Penn.

Maybe they were classmates?

Nope. He didn't go to Penn. His wife teaches at Penn. Nobody in the family went to Penn.

TB then explained that he had gone to Penn. The man simply said something like "that's nice" and TB pedaled away. 

Now, if the situation had been reversed, then TB would have, 1,000 times out of 1,000 not responded with "nice." 

Why? Because TB was wearing a "Princeton football" t-shirt, "Princeton lacrosse shorts" and orange and black socks. Had this been the other way around, and TB rode past someone wearing Penn stuff head to toe who said he or she had actually gone to Princeton, then TB would have without missing a beat said something along the lines of "why are you wearing the stuff of one of the biggest rivals then?"

Instead, TB got "very nice." Where's the curiosity?

TB would have been really confused and would have needed to know why. It would be like seeing someone who said they went to Duke who was wearing North Carolina stuff, right? 

It was a nice Penn hat, by the way. As TB has said before, he has absolutely nothing with the name of his alma mater on it other than a diploma. 

No hats. No shirts. No shorts. Nothing. 

Would he ever wear anything that said Penn? Nah. 

He does have stuff from four other colleges: Sacred Heart, Purdue, Navy and Louisiana.

He used to have a great hat from the University of Washington, but TigerBlog Jr. swiped it one day. Worse, he wears it backwards.

Oh well.

Speaking of Princeton football, this was a big weekend for the Princeton alums who had spent the summer in NFL camps. There were five of them, and they found out over this weekend what the first and last round of cuts would be as the league approaches its opening games this week and weekend.

Stephen Carlson made the Cleveland Brown 53-man active roster. Carlson, a second-year player, is one of four Browns' tight ends. Originally the team kept five before releasing one Sunday, and TB saw a great quote from Kevin Stefanski, the Cleveland head coach, who said the point was to keep the 53 best players.

Carlson was never a first-team All-Ivy League selection at Princeton, largely because he played opposite Jesper Horsted as the Tiger wide receivers. Carlson still finished his career third in career TD receptions (and eighth in receiving yards and 10th in receptions), but the fact that Horsted is first, second and first in those categories left Carlson a little underrated.

Still, he's just one of those players you can't help but want on your team. That was clear at Princeton, and so far it's clear with the Cleveland Browns.

A year ago, Carlson spent more than half the season on the practice squad, but he was activated and did make his first career TD reception. Now he looks like he'll have more chances this year.

Horsted, who also had a TD reception a year ago, was originally cut Saturday by the Bears and then immediately brought back to the practice squad. The same was true with two-time Bushnell Cup winner John Lovett, who was cut by Green Bay and then added to the practice squad.

Caraun Reid, who has two career NFL touchdowns as a defensive lineman, was cut by Jacksonville and then added to the practice squad as well. The rules for the practice squad have changed, allowing veterans like Reid to be on them. Also, two practice squad players can be activated each week and then returned to the practice squad without have to be released and opened up to a waiver claim.

The only Princeton player who was in a camp who is not as of now on a practice squad is Kevin Davidson, who was with Carlson in Cleveland this summer. Maybe he'll get another chance. Maybe not.

Either way, Davidson's loyalty to the program and his record-setting senior year give him a special legacy with Princeton football.

Opening day in the NFL is Thursday night with Houston at Kansas City. The rest of the league gets started over the weekend.

Once again, Princeton will be well-represented.

Going Back - Way Back

This is the third installment of the "Going Back" series, where TigerBlog is writing the blog he would have written had it existed when these games were played.

That means prior to 2009, when he started doing this every day.

For the first two, he didn't have to back all that far, first to 1996 (NCAA men's basketball against UCLA) and then 2004 (women's soccer against Harvard). Those games were games he attended.

Today, he's going back to a game that he was not at; in fact, he was not even born when this one was played. Actually, it was nearly 100 years until he would be born when this one was played.

He's wondered if he would write these as if he had been at the game, and he thinks he will, at least for this one. He'll try at least.

With that, here's what TigerBlog would have been on Monday, Nov. 8, 1869:

TigerBlog decided to take the train to New Brunswick Saturday afternoon to see what all the fuss was about.

A challenge had been thrown down to the College of New Jersey by the men of Rutgers College for a game of what they're calling "football." It had been played unofficially in Princeton for years as a release from the tedium of endless studying, with very little else on campus for a distraction.

Actually, even the people playing the game had no idea what it was and what the rules were. This was largely due to the fact that there were no actual rules.

It wasn't the football that was being played in England, where touching the ball was strictly forbidden. It also wasn't the other game being played with a ball in England, the one that started in the town of Rugby, in which carrying the ball wasn't just legal, it was the whole point.

The students at the College of New Jersey didn't care about the rules. They just loved to have something physical to do beyond simply going for long walks, or, for those who could afford it, horseback riding.

It was a far cry from before the war, when all such outdoor activities were prohibited on campus. And if they weren't exactly approved of by the administration now, at least they were tolerated.

Besides, it was all an extension of the Greek ideal of the healthy mind and the healthy body. And clearly, it fomented a school spirit that had been lacking.

And so it was only a matter of time until the team from TCNJ played a team from another school. And that time came this past Saturday.

It was a rainy morning, which led to a sloppy field in New Brunswick, but the weather dried as the day went along. By the time the game started at 3, TB was on the sidelines, along with a few dozen others, curious as to what he would see.

And what exactly was it that the teams played?

If nothing else, it was confusing. The goal was, well, to score goals. The teams agreed to a set of rules beforehand, including that the game would be played until there were 10 goals scored. Whoever had more would be the winner.

In the end, that would be the Rutgers College team, who scored six to Princeton's four. 

That was the only clear part of the day.

The game was incredibly violent, that's for sure, as full contact was permitted. There were 25 men on each side, which made for too crowded a field. 

No man was allowed to possess the ball with his hands, but it could be touched and even batted forward. TCNJ had more size than Rutgers and was much more physical, but Rutgers had a much better strategy for spreading its men out on the wings and for advancing the ball up the field.

In the end, it was a Rutgers win, followed by cordial handshakes and greetings and even a meal for the two teams with some singing by both sides. There was also the promise for a rematch back in Princeton this coming weekend.

Is there a future for this game? 

Maybe.

If there is, it has to figure out what it's trying to be. Does it want to be English football or rugby? 

It also needs fewer players. And a ball that isn't exactly the same as the English football one. 

There was no denying the spectacle of the day. It's certainly not a game for the weak or men who lack the courage to play it. 

Perhaps that alone can make this into something that sticks.

TB would like to think that what he saw Saturday in New Brunswick wasn't a one-time thing. He'd like to think that this game could catch on.

Maybe he'll be right about this one.

Football Talk

Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Princeton's fall sports would have already begun with women's soccer this past weekend, and most of the rest of the fall would have been getting ready to get started with events this weekend.

The football team wouldn't have been playing for two more weeks, when the Tigers had been scheduled to be at VMI.

This means that the team would be well on its way through preseason practices for what figured to be a serious run at a fourth Ivy League championship in eight years. 

A key piece of that run was going to be linebacker Jeremiah Tyler, a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection last year and a finalist for the Bushnell Cup for the league' Defensive Player of the Year. Tyler is an explosive, game-changing player, and his defining characteristics are his intensity, his enthusiasm and his ever-present smile.

Tyler in many ways encompasses exactly what Bob Surace has wanted to build with Princeton football. He has the talent to be a potential NFL player, and he has the team-first mentality to build a winning culture at Princeton.

It's hard to watch Tyler play and not be impressed. He never stops, never slows down. He's in constant pursuit of the ball, and his ability to make big plays is, as TB said, game-changing. 

Plus, he just looks like he's having so much fun doing it. There are players, though not a lot, who combine those two qualities - the ability to dominate the appearance of pure joy while competing.

Tyler's list of honors certainly suggests that TigerBlog is not the only one who has noticed this.

Tyler was named an FCS preseason second-team All-American yesterday. He was one of three Ivy League players named to the preseason teams, and he was the only one of those who plays on the defensive side of the ball.

As TB said, the football team in a normal year would be in practice now. This, being anything but a normal year, means that isn't the case.

Still, it's good to see one of Princeton's best players during this great run the team is on be honored at least.

Princeton football is still represented by five players in NFL camps as opening day for the season approaches. Teams have been carrying 80 players in training camp, instead of the usual 90, and that number needs to be 53 by Saturday at 4.

Practice squads have been expanded from 12 players to 16 for this year, due to the probability of positive COVID tests. There have been no preseason games, which means that players have not had that opportunity to stand out. There have been an increased number of intrasquad scrimmages, which presumably gives a similar chance.

Last year was a big year for Princeton football in the NFL, of course. 

John Lovett, a two-time Bushnell Cup winner as a quarterback who is now something of a fullback/tight end, earned a Super Bowl ring while on injured reserve with the Kansas City Chiefs. He's now in camp with the Green Bay Packers.

Both of Lovett's receivers from the unbeaten 2018 team, Stephen Carlson and Jesper Horsted, started last year on practice squads (Carlson with the Browns, Horsted with the Bears). Both were activated after the midway point of the season (making them both eligible for the practice squad again this year if it comes to that), and both caught their first NFL touchdown passes.

Horsted's came on Thanksgiving Day against Detroit, which gave him a huge national audience.

Horsted was also a big part of a story in the New York Times Magazine, one with the headline "Can Athletic Intelligence Be Measured?" The subheadline was: "Teams in the N.F.L. and other leagues believe performance on a tablet can predict success in a real game."

You can read the story HERE.

The basic premise is whether or not intelligence data can predict success, beyond just the physical presence that players have. Horsted's experience a year ago is used to suggest that the answer is a resounding "yes."

It's a long story, but it's worth reading. Horsted appears in a few places in the story, including the very beginning and the very end. In fact, the very last word of the story is "Horsted."

That certainly has your attention, right? 

Happiness Updated

As TigerBlog said yesterday, he received a comment a few weeks ago asking him three questions. 

Today, he addresses the first:

Which Princeton events have made you happiest? It might be a repeat of your answer to "greatest wins," but I suspect not.

This is in contrast to a question he was asked back in 2015, one that he answered HERE. 

That question was very similar, with a subtle, but huge, difference: 

What are the happiest moments you've experienced due to Princeton sports?

What's the difference between events and moments? Do events have to be games only? 

The list he came up with back then is more about what you would consider moments than events.

For instance, he wrote about the retirement party for Gary Walters, the bus ride home from Dartmouth after the 1991 men's basketball team wrapped up a 14-0 Ivy season and the traveling he's done, especially with people like Tom McCarthy and John McPhee. 

TB has been part of NCAA championship teams, Ivy League championship teams, some of the greatest moments in Princeton Athletics history. Those have all obviously made him happy.

As he thinks back to his time at Princeton, the types of moments he just mentioned, though, are what stand out the most.

For this list, TB decided he had two choices. He could write an update of the 2015 piece and only reference things from the last five years. Or he could write a new list with any event on it at all, but it has to be a game itself, not what instead could be described as a moment. 

The question does correctly suggest, though, that there is a difference between the elation of those greatest wins and simply pure happiness. The pure happiness part comes not from the game but from the people involved.

And that's why the moments are what stand out.

This is tough.

* as TB said yesterday, the men's basketball win over Penn in the last game of the 2001 Ivy League season left him as happy as any event he's seen here. Why? There were certainly better Princeton teams and bigger wins, but that one was a championship moment for what could be called the Bad News Bears of Princeton basketball. 

To see that team start from where it did and end where it did was extraordinary. Knowing how that team grew together, and knowing that TB had been a very small part of that growth, led to what could only be called great happiness.

Here are some others (again, the rule is that TB had to be at the event in person) to add to the list from 2015, including some that happened before 2015:

* the 16-12 men's lacrosse win over Virginia back in February of this year. It was the signature win for a team that needed one after a few years without one, and it clearly stamped the program as being among the very, very best in the country. It was 60 minutes of watching a team show off its newly found confidence and impose its will on the defending NCAA champion, and it was beautiful to watch. It didn't hurt that it was TB and TigerBlog Jr. on the radio together from Charlottesville.

* also from February, it was the wrestling team's win over Cornell to win the Ivy League title (Princeton's first since 1986) and end the Big Red's 18-year run. Having seen what Chris Ayres has done since he first arrived at Princeton and to have experienced the unrelenting faith he had that he would one day get the job done, seeing it play out was extraordinary.

* the 2004 women's soccer team's NCAA Final Four run, including all four games on Lourie-Love Field that postseason. It was the chance to see a team go on an unprecedented run and a community that swelled in appreciation while watching it.

* Princeton 13, Penn 11 in women's lacrosse at Franklin Field in 2019. Yes, part of it was the fact that it was the biggest step to an Ivy League championship for his daughter, but it also was one of the very best examples of pure toughness that TB has seen from a Princeton team, who had to kill off multiple unreleasable two-minute cards - including two that overlapped for 90 seconds - while also scoring the eventual game-winner while shorthanded. Oh, and this was done on the home field of a huge rival with a large home crowd in attendance.

* Princeton 43, UCLA 41 in the 1996 NCAA men's basketball tournament. Yes, this is more related to the historical significance, but beating the defending champion and knowing in the moment what it meant for Pete Carril's legacy makes it qualify for this list. 

* Donn Cabral's Ivy League Heptagonal cross country championship in 2010. TB was standing near the finish line, and the sheer greatness of watching Cabral dominate the field was awe-inspiring.

* Princeton 14, Dartmouth 9, 2018 football. Again, this crosses over into "greatest game" territory, but still, to see two teams go at it as intensely as these two did (in a matchup of unbeatens) and to see Princeton win crosses back over into being happy for the people involved, especially given that it led to Princeton's first unbeaten season in 54 years.

* Princeton women's track and field's second-place finish in the 2016 Ivy outdoor Heps. Second place? Yes, in this case, not being first still made TB happy, as he saw the outpouring of love for Peter Farrell in the final Heps of his 39-year Princeton career.

* Princeton's 2017 ECAC opening round win over Colgate in men's hockey. The games themselves were great, especially Game 2, where Princeton forced OT just before the horn and then won it to extend the series. More than that, this fell under the "so happy for the people involved" category, starting with head coach Ron Fogarty.

* Delaware 81, Princeton 70 in women's basketball, Dec. 2, 2011. Again, not happy with the outcome, just happy with what it meant for women's basketball to have two unbeaten teams in front of a huge crowd at Jadwin Gym. Also, TB is very happy he got to see Elena Delle Donne play in college. It was, as he wrote at the time, what it had to be like to see Bill Bradley play for Princeton in the 1960s.

Anyway, you can add these to the list he originally came out with in 2015. Fortunately, it's been three decades of having many more moments that made him happy than unhappy. It's one of the best parts of having been at a place like Princeton.

And again, if you're looking to add to the list of events that have made him happy? 

You can definitely add the next time Princeton plays in anything.