Mega Optimistic

One day back in 1991, when his Princeton men's basketball team was cruising along somewhere near the end of what became a 14-0 Ivy record and a national ranking, Pete Carril famously had this to say when asked about how it was going:

"These are tough times for a pessimist."

At the other end of the spectrum from Princeton's legendary basketball coach is TigerBlog's friend Corey, as optimistic a soul as it gets.

As a matter of fact, in the nearly 45 years that TB has know Corey, he can probably count on the fingers on one hand the number of times that Corey wasn't in a good mood and thinking that everything was just fine and that whatever was to come next would be even better.

Corey sent out an email this week inviting TB to join in on the Holy Grail that is the mega millions jackpot, which this week tops $500,000,000.

For $20, Corey would go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, and everyone who was in would split the winnings. There are probably thousands of such arrangements going on around the country, and it's likely that you'll see one of those groups on the news this coming week.

Eventually, Corey sent out a follow-up saying that he had 54 people who were in.

TB's advice was to make up some numbers for them and keep the $1,080.

TigerBlog is not sending his friend $20. Instead, Corey has agreed that if he wins - each individual's share would be $9.66 million - that Corey will pay the remaining 11 payments of TB's car.

Corey also sent back a correction - "when we win," he wrote, not "if we win."

TB is pretty sure that if Corey bought one ticket alone, he would have won the entire $500,000,000 - or that his odds would be 50-50 at the worst. With each partner he brought in, though, the odds went down.

The odds of winning are 1 in 176 million. You are apparently 50 times as likely to get hit by lightning as you are to win the mega millions, though as one college professor pointed out, if you buy 50 tickets, your chances of winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning are the same.

The big question of the lottery winner is always the same: Will you quit your job?

If TB won $500,000,000 - keep in mind his odds are even worse than 1 in 176 million since he didn't buy any lottery tickets - he'd probably still work here. What else would he do?

Maybe he'd buy lunch more than he'd bring it in - though there is something to be said for the convenience of having lunch already in the fridge in the office after squash.

And even if TB was part of Corey's group and had $9 million coming his way, he'd still go to Providence tomorrow for the men's lacrosse game.

TB knows he's in the right business because he still gets excited about the games.

What's the point of working in athletics if you don't like the games, right?

It's almost like there are two separate entities to working here.

There's all the regular during-the-week work stuff, the business of putting together a college athletic program with 38 varsity teams and 1,000 athletes.

Then there are the games.

TB has always been fascinated by the idea that he works in a building where people come to see teams play. He gets paid to be in a building that other people pay to get into.

It's the games - an extension of the athletes and coaches -  that really secure the connection between those who work here and the institution itself. It's why there's such pride in working here, because of the fact that your work is part of something that directly represents the school.

There is a unique sense of pride in that.

TB's sense is that many jobs - even really good ones - are all about how the company can help the individual who works there. To the employee, it's about getting back from the company. Maybe there's a sense of pride in working for a well-known, well-respected company.

On the other hand, TB doesn't see too many of his friends who wear their company logo on their clothes seven days a week, like many of the people here do.

TB considers himself extremely lucky to be part of a place like Princeton Athletics and Princeton University.

And he's looking forward to going to Brown tomorrow.

And he feels like he probably saved himself $20 by not getting in with Corey's group on the mega millions.

On the other hand, maybe he's just a pessimist.

Here Come The Blues

Let's face it. If you saw the movie "Oxford Blues," you were entertained.

Okay, maybe it wasn't as good as "A Yank In Oxford," the 1938 original on which they 1980-something remake was based.

And maybe "A Yank In Oxford" had a starting lineup of Lionel Barrymore, Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan, whereas the remake countered with Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe and a bunch of English people.

Still, how could you go wrong?

Rob Lowe as the cocky American who ends up rowing at Oxford after being a dealer in a Las Vegas casino, all in the name of pursuing the cute English gentry woman who ended up married to Corbin Bernsen (in real life, that is).

The movie exploits every cliche there is, and the end isn't exactly up there with the end of "The Sting" in terms of being surprising.

As an aside, TigerBlog has never met anyone who saw "The Sting," the 1973 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and wasn't fooled by the end.

Meanwhile, back at "Oxford Blues," it wasn't quite an Oscar nominee. Still, you couldn't help but come away thinking that there'd be bigger wastes of time in your life than the two hours you spent on that movie.

Anyway, TB long ago filed "Oxford Blues" away along with the other movies that are not exactly showered with great critical reception and yet are fun to watch. At the top of that list, by the way, is the hard-to-beat "Point Break."

There's also another file of movies that do great critical reception that couldn't be duller and only got the reviews they got because critics like to show how much smarter they are than the people reading their reviews. How else can anyone explain movies like "The English Patient?"

TigerBlog thought back to "Oxford Blues" when he saw that the real Oxford Blues are on their way to Princeton for the weekend.

In what has to be one the great decisions for an out-of-season team, the Princeton men's soccer team hosts Oxford University Saturday at 5 at Roberts Stadium.

Oh, and if you weren't already rooting against Oxford as a Princeton fan, there's next week's Oxford-Cambridge regatta, the rather prestigious "Boat Race" as it's called. Princeton alum Jack Lindeman, the captain of last year's Tiger heavyweight boat, has been named to Cambridge first varsity 8 for the event.

Earlier this week, TigerBlog got an email from former Princeton marketing chief Scott Jurgens about a college football coach (Clemson's?) who wants the NCAA to allow schools to play other schools in their spring games. Sure, why not. College football's already out of control. Why not add to it, right?

Actually, it's not the worst idea TB has ever heard.

In soccer and most other sports, the rules already permit out-of-season competition against other schools. And apparently, it doesn't limit it U.S. schools.

Oxford has already tied Harvard and beaten Yale on their American tour, which has come at the end of their college season.

For more information on the Blues, go to Google, though you have to do a search for "Oxford Football," not "Oxford Soccer" to come up with anything.

For Princeton, the match comes at the beginning of spring practice.

And it's not just any game.

It's a chance to play an English team in its own game. There's also the backdrop of having it be between two of the top five or 10 academic universities in the world.

For an out-of-season game, it doesn't get much better than that.

Princeton-Oxford.

It has a real ring to it, no?

Welcome Home

The ride from Princeton to Providence isn't TigerBlog's favorite, largely because of the neverending (okay, a little more than 100 mile) stretch that is I95 in Connecticut.

One time, TB was driving to Brown for a football game, back when TB swore he'd leave by 11 am each football Friday when he had to go to New England, ended up leaving around 2 and ended up getting destroyed in traffic the whole way.

This time, it was 1995, and typical of TB and Tom McCarthy and whoever else went that day, it was a late start.

Now, when you have to drive to New England from here, there are all kinds of options.

TB likes to avoid the Cross Bronx Expressway at all costs, which usually means the Henry Hudson to the Saw Mill to the Cross County to the Merritt and cross over to 95 after the helicopter factory (though the Merritt isn't always a bargain either).

On that 1995 day, TB was following that route when traffic came to a complete stop. And stayed that way.

Eventually, a helicopter landed not far in front of where the line of cars was. An accident?

Nope. It was the Pope.

Anyway, by the time the Pope was all settled into the church where he was speaking, it ended up taking eight hours to get from Princeton to Providence.

TB makes the ride again this weekend, as he heads to Rhode Island for the Princeton-Brown men's lacrosse game.

Since 1995, TB has found a nice sandwich shop in Northern Connecticut, where he got a great turkey club hoagie the first time he was there and then an even-better roast beast, roasted red pepper, onion one the next time.

TB will be on the road this weekend.

Not many others in orange and black will be.

Between the end of the basketball doubleheader against Penn on March 6 and this coming Friday, there have been seven home events on the Princeton campus. For the record, there were two men's volleyball matches, two men's tennis matches, one men's lacrosse game, one women's lacrosse game and one crew race.

And this weekend?

There will be no fewer than 15 home events between Friday and Sunday, spread across seven sports.

And there is no admission charge for any of them.

This weekend marks the home openers and the Ivy openers for the baseball and softball teams, as both host Dartmouth and then Harvard.

In softball, that's Friday/Saturday.

In baseball, that's Saturday/Sunday.

Princeton had its worst Ivy League baseball record ever two years ago and then came back to win the league last year, defeating Dartmouth in three dramatic games in the Ivy League championship series.

The Ivy League format has two four-team divisions (Cornell, Columbia and Penn are in with Princeton) for baseball and softball. Each team plays the other four teams twice and then plays four games against each of the teams in its division.

At the end, the two division winners meet for the Ivy title and automatic NCAA tournament berth.

The women's lacrosse team hosts Cornell, one of four Ivy teams in the Top 20, as the Big Red are ranked 17th, followed by Princeton at 19th. Dartmouth (ninth) and Penn (10th) are also looming out there for the Tigers.

In other words, it's a big game.

There is also a visit from Penn State in men's volleyball as Sam Schweisky's team is home twice this weekend, as well as rowing and tennis.

The full schedule for Princeton games this weekend is here.

For the first time in awhile, it has a lot of events in bold.

Fencing Lessons

TigerBlog is learning more and more about fencing every day.

Among the things he's learned? Princeton is really good at it. And so is Jonathan Yergler.

What else does TB know now about the sport?

There are three weapons - the epee, sabre and foil. There are subtle differences in the swords themselves and also in where on the opponent's body where a touch equals a point.

Still, fencing remains mostly foreign to TB, though he can appreciate the job that Zoltan Dudas and his staff have done in establishing Princeton as a national power.

Princeton had its highest finish ever in the NCAA championships in their current format (the 1964 men won the title), finishing second to Ohio State. Yergler became an NCAA individual champion, as he won the epee title.

It's a huge accomplishment - and it's one that leaves the door open to take the last step.

The women's team would have taken that step each of the last two years had there been separate championships for the men and women. Instead, the NCAA fencing championships combine the two sexes into one, so Princeton had to settle for second behind the Buckeyes.

Princeton's women actually tied Ohio State on points. A year ago, Princeton's women would have been outright champ.

As for Yergler, he qualified for the individual championship by essentially point differential after his 23 bouts during the team event.

TB also learned about this.

Each team could qualify two fencers per weapon, for a total of 12 per team. There are 24 fencers per weapon, and they all go head-to-head, with bouts up to five points.

The top four fencers in the standings for each weapon go to the semifinals for the individual championships.

Yergler was tied for fourth after 23 bouts but got in on the tiebreaker, which is the scoring of each of the 23 bouts (think point differential). Once there, he won the title.

Here's another thing TB learned from the fencing championships:

Twitter is great.

TB kept checking Twitter on his iPhone to see how Princeton was doing. No muss. No fuss. Simple and easy.

Yeah, there are too many retweets going on that clutter up the medium, but TB doesn't follow that many people.

TB thinks that Princeton isn't using its Twitter feed enough. For that matter, he's not using his own TB Twitter feed enough.

Moving forward, we'll have to look into it and see what can be done.

Of course, TB also fears that the 140-character limit is having really negative effects on the way that people write, use grammar, spell and all.

For a college athletic department, though, Twitter is here to stay and needs to be maximized. It was great for the EIWA wrestling and the national squash championships as well.

As for fencing, it's a pretty fascinating sport.

TB wonders what kind of specific athletic skills are necessary to be a great fencer and how they'd carry over to other sports.

In the meantime, Princeton continues to excel at the sport, with an NCAA individual champion and an NCAA runner-up finish.

At least that's what it said on Twitter.

An Epic In New Haven

TigerBlog should have known that Saturday was going to be a bit different when he ran into Megan or Maggie or whatever the name of the little girl who was selling Girl Scout cookies outside the bagel place at 7:30.

TB couldn't tell her name, since she spoke only in whispers. He also could barely tell what she was saying when she asked "would you like to buy some cookies," and in fact he's just assuming that's what she said, since she was somewhat shy and inaudible.

So TB said in a loud voice "What'd you say?"

Then, seeing that she was a bit startled, TB said he was only kidding and then coughed up the $4 for Thin Mints.

And then it was off to New Haven, armed with a bacon and egg on a plain for the way up and Thin Mints for the way back.

As he drove, TB though about how many times he'd made this trip, for how many different sports, in how many different decades. He concluded that a defining moment of his life is going to be how much of it he spent driving back and forth to watch Princeton play, always on the same roads, always to the same destinations.

He thought about all the games he went to that are now a blur to him, with fuzzy details of who scored, what the final score was, what the big play was.

As he drove back, he was struck by another interesting thought.

One of the great aspects of his job is that he never knows when he's going to stumble on an all-time great game.

It could happen at any time, without any warning.

Like Saturday, for instance.

TB expected another Princeton-Yale lacrosse game - close, competitive, and then on to the next.

What he got was one of the best games he's ever seen.

Yes, Princeton's 10-9, five-overtime win over Yale was the longest game in the history of either program, ended on Alex Capretta's goal after 18:21 of OT.

Oh, the game lacked the historical significance necessary to put it over the top. There was no NCAA championship at stake, no championship of any kind.

Still, TB has seen hundreds of lacrosse games. Few have been able to match this one for drama.

Princeton led Yale by three with four minutes to go and by two with a minute to go before Greg Mahony tied it with 21 seconds to go.

Then it got exciting.

Keep in mind what was at stake here.

Princeton had won back-to-back games coming into this one and was looking to get to 5-2, 2-0 in the Ivy League. Yale had lost three straight and was looking to get to .500 overall and in the league.

For Princeton, it was especially huge, considering where the team was a year ago and where it hope to be heading this year.

And so whoever scored next was going to have accomplished something huge for its season.

TigerBlog cannot remember too many games that had this kind of back-and-forth "we've got it, no we've lost it, no we've got it back, no we've lost it" momentum swings.

Both teams had great chances in all five OTs.

Both goalies played great.

Both lineups were filled with players who made huge plays - and with players who just missed ending it.

The second-longest game in Princeton history - now, anyway - was the 1999 15-14 win over Syracuse, which ran 73:25 before Josh Sims won it for the Tigers.

That game in Syracuse featured a total of 11 shots in the four OTs.

The game Saturday featured 28 shots in the five OTs.

That's 28 shots in a little more than 18 minutes.

Prorated over a 60-minute game, that would have been 92 shots.

Colgate (apparently) leads Division I with 44.5 shots per game. TB couldn't find another team averaging more than 40.

The overtimes were a track meet, back and forth, shot after shot, any of which could have ended it and each of which added to the drama.

In the end, it was Capretta's shot that finally brought it to a conclusion.

Capretta, by the way, is the possessor of a cannon of a shot who is finally putting all of his potential together and having a strong senior year. Through seven games, Capretta has eight goals and seven assists while playing in the midfield; he had 10 points through his first three years.

If you weren't there, you couldn't possibly sense just how exciting and dramatic it was, and ultimately how draining it was for both teams when it ended.

TB was in the Princeton team room after the game, and the emotions there rivaled those of a championship win.

It wasn't, of course.

Just a huge win in late March.

In a game that reminded TigerBlog why he loves what he does so much.

You never know what the next game has in store.

Final Buzzer

TigerBlog, somewhat shockingly, watched more CBI basketball than NCAA basketball so far this week. He's sure that will change as the weekend goes along, though right now the score is "CBI games watched on TV since Monday 2, NCAA tournament games watched in the same span 1."

Princeton's men's basketball season ended with a loss to Pitt in the CBI Monday (TB listened to that one on the radio), and it was a week ago that the women were in Bridgeport getting ready for their NCAA game.

Still, before the book is closed on the 2011-12 Princeton basketball seasons, TB has one more thought on each team.

Let's start with the women.

TigerBlog was minding his own business when he got an email yesterday that had the subject line of "WBCA Announces Finalists for the 2012 RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA DI Coach of the Year Award."

TB opened the email and read the first paragraph:
Muffet McGraw of Notre Dame, Brenda Frese of Maryland, Tom Collen of Arkansas, Curt Miller of Bowling Green, Kim Mulkey of Baylor, Coquese Washington of Penn State, Reagan Pebley of Utah State and Tara VanDerveer of Stanford are the 2012 RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Regional Coaches of the Year, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association announced today.


Okay, good for them.

And as TB read further, he saw that there was one finalist for each region nationally, which meant that Frese was the representative of this region.

This is knock on Frese, whose Terrapin team is 30-4 and playing in the Sweet 16 against Texas A&M this weekend.

Still, TB has a hard time believing that anyone in this region deserves it more than Princeton's Courtney Banghart.

Go ahead. Call TB a shill.

After all, he did spend the first 14 games of year as the women's basketball contact. And he isn't exactly objective in all this, given that this is Princeton's blog.

Even with all that, how can anyone be more deserving than Banghart?

Yes, Maryland has had a great year. Of course, Maryland also is one of the elite programs in women's basketball, a team that has won an NCAA title and is more likely than not to win 30 games and go to the Sweet 16.

Sure, Frese built all that. Her team won 10 games her first year, a decade back.

It's just that this year is essentially what Maryland women's basketball is supposed to be.

And Princeton?

The Tigers had never played in the NCAA tournament in women's basketball before Banghart arrived. This year was the third straight time the Tigers were in the tournament.

Princeton went 24-5 this year, lost its NCAA game by three points, had three players reach 1,000 career points and was the only team in Division I - men or women - to go undefeated in its league while winning every game by double figures.

Of Princeton's 14 Ivy League wins, 12 were by at least 25 points.

To go from seven wins her first year to Ivy titles and NCAA tournament appearances in her third, fourth and fifth is remarkable.

Still, if that was all there was to it, then it would just be a nice job in a non-power league.

What Princeton did this year was break into the national Top 25, coming in at No. 24 in the final regular season poll. No Ivy League women's basketball team had ever accomplished that.

Yes, Coach of the Year often goes to the coach of the best team, rather than the coach who did the most compared to what reasonable expectations might be. If it was the other way around, then Banghart would be on the list. No question.

On the men's side, Douglas Davis finished his career with 1,550 career points, second-best all-time at Princeton.

Davis scored 51 points in two CBI games to pass Kit Mueller, who had 1,546.

Davis played in 13 more games in his career than Mueller, but their career minutes were fairly similar. Davis also is second all-time at Princeton in three-pointers made with 276, five off the school record held by assistant coach Brian Earl.

What put Davis over the top as a scorer was his ability to create his own shot, especially driving into the lane and pulling up from 10-15 feet. Very few Princeton players have ever had that skill, certainly not to Davis' extent.

Davis is one of three players (among 30) in program history to score 1,000 points and not be named first-team All-Ivy League. The other two? Bob Roma and Dan Mavraides.

Maybe it's a testament to his consistency. Davis wasn't a spectacular player for Princeton. He was just a very solid, very consistent, very reliable one.

Oh, and he did make one of the two biggest shots in school history.

Barring injury or some other member of what Bill Carmody always called "The Whammy" family, Davis will get to enjoy being the No. 2 scorer in Princeton history for one season, until Ian Hummer passes him next year.

Hummer has 1,170 career points and scored 515 this year. If he does that next year, then he'll have 1,685, or two more than Sandi Bittler (now Leland) scored in her Princeton career.

Right now, Bittler ranks second behind Bill Bradley among points scored at Princeton. Niveen Rasheed, as an aside, will enter her senior year with 1,134 points, leaving her 549 away from Bittler; Rasheed had 490 this year.

Bradley scored 2,503, in three years, without a three-point shot. Just for some context.

Had Bradley not destroyed the record book, then there would have been a great deal of drama to Davis' pursuit of Mueller and now Hummer's pursuit of Davis.

Because of Bradley, Davis' climb was more steady and a bit under the radar, as was the player himself during his career.

It's his accomplishments that are spectacular.

The same goes for Courtney Banghart.

Voices From The Past

The decision to put the NCAA men's basketball tournament games on four different CBS-controlled networks was a great one.

Now, instead of being at the mercy of the having to watch the game in your region, viewers simply watch what they want, as every game was on last weekend.

TigerBlog used to hate the way the network would switch from one game to another. Not the concept, mind you, but the execution.

For whatever reason, CBS would always stay with games too long, keeping the viewer locked in until the final buzzer of games that were close but had deteriorated into foul shooting, all while the ticker showed that there was a two-point game with three minutes to go that you were missing.

Of course, with eight first weekend sites comes the need for eight broadcast teams.

Some of them TB likes; some he doesn't like. It's personal preference.

The ones that TB finds unlistenable might just be your favorite.

And the sideline reporters? TB doesn't like the whole concept, as he's said many times before.

Aside from the fact that they offer nothing that can't simply be relayed to the broadcast team and that everything has to start with "I spoke to Coach Boeheim" or "Coach Williams told me," there's the whole degrading, exploitative aspect of "we have to find an unbelievably attractive woman to be our sideline reporter."

If TB were a female journalist, he'd be horribly offended by it all. Actually, TB's a guy and he's horribly offended by it.

Of course, no offense to the sideline reporters themselves. Especially Tracy Wolfson, who is TB's all-time favorite sideline reporter.

Wolfson, for those who never knew it, began her career at WZBN, the tiny cable station in Hamilton, which is two towns away from Princeton.

Tracy used to come here and do interviews and features and reports on Princeton athletes across many sports, back maybe 12-14 years ago, somewhere in that range.

Back then, TB remembers her as being friendly, funny, good-natured, well-prepared - and short, very short.

And there she was on CBS last weekend, where she's been for about 10 years, looking exactly the same as she did when she was at WZBN, interviewing coaches and players who were nearly two feet taller than she is.

The last time TB saw her at Princeton, she was doing a feature on something (TB can't remember), and she was very, very pregnant with one of her three sons. In other words, it appears that it's all worked out well for Tracy Wolfson, and TB wishes her continued success and happiness.

Seeing her on TV last weekend got TB to thinking about the others who used to cover Princeton sports who have hit it big.

There's a pretty good list.

There's Walter Perez (Uncle Walt to TigerBlog Jr. and Little Miss TigerBlog), who went from doing color on Princeton football in Palmer Stadium to a career in TV that now sees him as an anchor/reporter on Channel 6 in Philadelphia.

There's Tom McCarthy, who was Walt's play-by-play partner for football and who also did Princeton basketball for years. Tom moved up to do the Phillies on the radio, the Mets on the radio and now the Phillies on TV.

One of TB's favorite memories of the two of them is the time that TB trudged up the wooden steps in Palmer Stadium to the top level, where radio and TV would broadcast. As he put down a stat sheet or the out-of-town scores, he heard McCarthy say this:
"Washington [as in Marc Washington, former Princeton running back] up the middle for seven and Walt, don't even think about eating my cookie."

Tom - or Boog, as he is known - has reached the top of his profession and has gotten TB to root for the Phillies. There is nobody nicer than Boog, and TB couldn't be happier for him, though he does miss the days when he was do his ESPN-radio Tom McCarthy Show from courtside at Jadwin before a Friday Tiger game.

Who else?

Grant Wahl went from being a student-worker in the OAC and the author of an astonishing piece on former Princeton running back Billy Jordan for the Daily Princetonian to being a staff writer at Sports Illustrated. Hey, SI is stocked with Princetonians, including Alex Wolff, who was just inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame.

Howard David used to be the voice of Princeton football before he became a national NFL voice. David Brody, who took over for David (if TB remembers the progression correctly), went from Princeton to be the host of a national sports talk show out of Las Vegas.

Mike Mayock, of the NFL Network and Notre Dame football broadcasts, used to be the color commentator for Princeton football on, TB believes, New Jersey Network.

Sean Gregory, a former Princeton basketball player, wrote a great piece for the 1998 men's basketball media guide about the team's preseason trip to Spain. Today he writes for Time.

There is an army of people who went from writing and broadcasting Princeton sports to other opportunities. Maybe some of the current voices are headed to the same path.

TB is sure he's left a few out, and as always, he apologizes (and welcomes anyone who can offer a few names).

Anyway, the games in the NCAA tournament resume tonight.

And if there have to be sideline reporters, let it be someone who got her start at Princeton.

Winter Wonderland

Well, the long harsh winter is officially over. And now it's spring.

Of course, living here in the tropics, it's hard to differentiate between the two.

TigerBlog remembers when he used to live in an area of the country where there was a change of seasons, where each season flowed one to the other and the coming of spring was a time of rejuvenation and rebirth.

Of course, TB still lives in the same area.

This year, winter lasted from the overnight hours of Oct. 29 until the early evening of the same day. During that time, about five inches of snow fell on Princeton, and it destroyed what would have otherwise been some well-attended events, such as Princeton-Cornell football and Heps cross country.

Within three days of the snowstorm, temperatures reached the 50s, the snow disappeared, and spring was essentially here.

Oh, sure, there were a few flurries here and there, though nothing that required a snow shovel.

Spring lasted through December, January and February. And of course, now it's summer. High temperatures today, tomorrow and Friday will be in the 80s.

And there is the whole tropical nature to Central New Jersey as well, since it rains overnight and into the early morning, clears up and becomes sunny and hot - just like it does in the Virgin Islands.

If you're keeping score, TigerBlog wore his heavy winter coat once in the months that used to be considered winter. He cannot remember one day where he walked outside and said "holy shimolly, it's freezing out here."

In fact, there were probably more "no jacket" days than "jacket" days.

And there's your weather update.

The winter athletic season isn't quite over, and it could go out in a big way.

The NCAA fencing championships begin tomorrow at Ohio State, and Princeton has as good a chance as anyone to bring home the biggest trophy.

TigerBlog isn't exactly a fencing expert, but he did learn how the championships work.

Basically, there are three fencing weapons: sabre, epee and foil. Each weapon has 24 fencers who qualify for the NCAA event, and no school can have more than two fencers per weapon.

The men and women are counted together, and there is one NCAA team championship. That means the maximum number of fencers a school can qualify is 12 (two men and two women per weapon times three weapons), and Princeton is one of five schools to have qualified the maximum (St. John's, Harvard, Ohio State and Notre Dame are the other four).

Each fencer has a bout against the other 23 fencers in that weapon, and the first one to five touches wins a point for his/her team. Add up all the points, and there's your winner.

The top four in each weapon advance to the individual weapon championships.

The job that Princeton's fencing staff of Zoltan Dudas, Hristo Hristov and Szilvia Voros have done is remarkable. The Tigers have won five Ivy titles in the last three years between the men's and women's programs, and they head to Columbus with a legitimate chance of winning the NCAA title.

TB wonders how some of these athletes got into fencing in the first place. He knows little about the sport, and he wonders what the specific skills that it requires.

Fencing 23 bouts in two days seems like a lot. Is it? Is it an endurance contest, or are they so quick that 23 bouts is pretty much standard?

TB knows the answer to none of those questions. Seems like a pretty interesting sport, though, no?

In fact, basically all he knows about fencing is that he's rooting for the Tigers.

It's Mandatory

The man at the door to the big conference room at the Carl Fields Center - the greeter, if you will - had a scalp full of staples, a reminder that he was a week removed from brain surgery.

Only you couldn't see any of them. Not a single one.

Instead, he had a full head of hair covering any sign that something was amiss. He was his usual self, Bob Callahan was, funny and modest and soft-spoken and genuine and concerned for everyone else.

It's been quite a few months for Callahan.

First, there was the incident in December, when Callahan's car was hit by a power line that snapped, incinerating the vehicle seconds after Callahan had gotten out of it.

Then there was February, when Callahan's team had a dream weekend at Jadwin Gym, where Princeton ended Trinity's 13-year run as national champion.

And then the dream quickly turned to a nightmare.

Not that you could tell by Callahan's original email.

TigerBlog will summarize Callahan's first correspondence this way: He basically said he had something little to take care of, nothing worse than a common cold or root canal, and that he'd be back soon good as new.

And sure enough, there he was, not too long after having a mass removed from his brain, at the monthly athletic department staff meeting, first standing at the door getting hugged from everyone and then taking about three or four minutes to talk to everyone.

In typical Bob fashion, he included this:
"When people asked me why I was here, I told them that it's the monthly meeting. After all, it's mandatory."

Every workplace with more than a handful of people has, TB assumes, a similar dynamic to the one that exists here.

There are the people you like. There are the people you don't like. There are different groups by age, experience, position and so on who hang together more than the people from the other group.

It's just the nature of a large organization of people.

And then there's the Bob Callahan type, the person in your organization that you can't possibly find someone to say something bad about. The one everybody loves.

TB has liked Bob - and Gail Ramsay, the women's coach - since Day 1 here.

They are both such great role models, such great educators, such team players, such funny people - such great people.

They have encouraged TB and all of the other people here who have gotten involved in playing squash almost like proud parents whose kids have decided to enter the family business. They instruct, they laugh, they're patient with beginners.

They seem to love their place here at Princeton, as the well-respected, ultra-successful coaches of a sport that usually operates far from the mainstream.

Any Princeton fan would have been fired up to beat Trinity. That it was Bob Callahan whose team did it made it even better.

And then there was his email, nonchalant, about not a cold or a bad tooth but about a brain tumor, and imminent surgery to remove it.

It was shocking to read; even more shocking to process.

And then there he was the meeting, there to reassure everyone, to talk about how lucky he was in his life, to talk about the sheer joy of waking up and being able to move his arms and legs and speak and see his five Princeton-educated sons and his wife and how no matter what, he'd be back and indeed, as good as new.

It's hard to describe the emotion of a moment like that. TB knows he was smiling with each word that came out of Bob's mouth, that he was shocked at how good he looked (Bob, not TB), that it was all so comforting to find him so, well, normally himself.

And then there was also some envy. Not of the tumor, obviously.

Of the man himself.

Envy at the site of a person so rock solid, someone who long ago learned to cherish every day, who learned what was important in his life, who sees only the good in people and things, who is so genuine in what he says and does.

He's a wonderful man, Bob Callahan. To know him is to like him, to love him, to love to be around him, to be overwhelmed by his gentle humor, humility and character.

He's not all the way there yet. But he'll get there.

And as he goes through this, he knows that everyone here is pulling for him.

Rooting for Bob Callahan?

It's mandatory.

This Much Is True

TigerBlog doesn't understand the car commercial with the Spandau Ballet song.

Clearly, it's about a system in a car that does something that helps out with the ride and the fuel efficiency. The problems are:
1) TB saw it 1,000 times this weekend and can't remember which car it's for, which isn't what you want out of your fancy commercial
2) the guy driving mumbles the name of the system, so you can't tell what he's saying
3) are they marketing solely to dorks?

TB has always liked the song "True," the Spandau Ballet song featured in the commercial, ever since he first heard it a million times somewhere in the early ’80s.

It's just that the four people in the car in the commercial don't come across as exactly the coolest kids in the class.

Anyway, that's one thing from Weekend 1 of the NCAA basketball tournament that TB saw and didn't quite comprehend.

Another was Lehigh's win over Duke.

Actually, TB missed the first 35 minutes of the game, since he was at Little Miss TigerBlog's school play of "Honk Jr.," a musical version of "The Ugly Duckling" in which LMTB played one of the cats. In case you're looking for a review: 1) some of the kids are really talented, 2) the cuteness quotient was off the charts and 3) the bullfrog stole the show.

While the play was going on, TB was stealing updates on the Duke-Lehigh game on his iPhone, which by the way has gone from "TB doesn't need one of those" to "how did TB get along without one of those as long as he did" in about three weeks.

By the time TB was in front of television, Lehigh was up and in control, and Duke was in full panic mode. Ultimately, the Mountain Hawks scored one of the great upsets in NCAA tournament history.

And it was no fluke. Lehigh looked like it had the quickness to play with Duke, and maybe even was a the faster team. C.J. McCollum was the best player on the court, even with a Duke team that features more than one lottery pick.

Maybe the whole Jeremy Lin thing shows that it's all about getting a chance and not about the label of "ACC player" or "Ivy League player" or "Patriot League player." Maybe Duke has so many advantages when playing at home that come tournament time, it's a whole new world for the team.

Whatever it means, a team that lost to William & Mary and Cornell during the regular season and came in second in the Patriot League thumped the biggest name in college basketball.

And, as an aside, TB still thinks that Lehigh didn't belong there and that Bucknell actually earned the chance to represent the league in the NCAA tournament by winning the league championship. Or maybe he thinks a 2 vs. 3, winner plays 1 event wouldn't be a bad idea, but he remains completely anti-conference tournament.

Anyway, Lehigh almost got to the Sweet 16 after putting up a big effort against Xavier. Norfolk State couldn't follow up its win over Missouri with a similar effort against Florida, but for one day, Lehigh and Norfolk State showed why people love this event so much.

And hey, Ohio is in the Sweet 16. And N.C. State, not Duke, is there, after knocking off Georgetown in a game that was frustrating for TB to watch.

So was the Denver-Notre Dame lacrosse game, which was on at the same time as Gtown-NC State, but that's for another day.

TB was rooting for both Georgetown and Denver, and neither won.

The one that stung the most for TB this weekend wasn't it men's basketball or men's lacrosse.

It was in women's basketball.

TB really, really wanted Princeton to beat Kansas State and stamp its season with an NCAA tournament victory.

After two years in which Princeton was essentially never in its NCAA tournament game, this year's Tigers clawed all the way to the end before falling 67-64 to Kansas State, a team from one of the two top women's basketball conferences.

While the men's tournament shows that anything is possible, the women's tournament shows that the gap between the top teams and the next level teams is still huge.

In the men's tournament, nine double figure seeds won their first game, including a 12, a 13 and two 15s. In the women's tournament, only three double figure seeds won their first game, two 11s and a 13 (Marist, whom Princeton beat in the regular season).

For Princeton, a No. 9 seed, the challenge was a big physical K-State team, one whose regular-season results suggested that it would be close.

At least, now looking back on it, Princeton doesn't have to be kicking itself about not playing hard or playing well or letting it get away.

Princeton's women's basketball team can look back on a 24-5 season, another 14-0 Ivy season, the league's first-ever national ranking and so many other high notes.

Princeton fans can look ahead to another season of Niveen Rasheed, the best all-around women's basketball player in Ivy history and quite possibly the greatest female athlete in Princeton history. At least the case can be made for both, which says a lot.

And Princeton can look back on its own season, which, as with the other statements, could make this the best Ivy League women's basketball team ever.

The Princeton-K State contest was one of those great NCAA tournament games, against which sits a rather cruel, harsh reality - if you play hard and well and tough for 40 minutes and don't win, you go home.

It's such a brutal way for it all to end, given the stakes.

A few more shots fall, and Lehigh is a Sweet 16 team.

A few more shots fall and Princeton is playing UConn tonight.

Instead, it's just over, just like that.

It's not a fun way for a great season to end.

To quote Spandau Ballet, TigerBlog knows this much is true.