Have you ever had a conversation that drifts into a topic and then you try to retrace your steps to remember what you were talking about and how it got to the new point?
That happens to TigerBlog all the time.
It happened the other day. He and TigerBlog Jr. were talking about something, and then that ended up turning into this question from him: What was the most crushing Princeton loss you ever saw?
For the life of him, TB cannot remember how the two came to that subject. It's actually bothering him a little.
Anyway, it didn't take more than a split second for him to answer the question itself.
Princeton-Michigan State men's basketball, second round, 1998 NCAA tournament.
The game was played in Hartford, and TB remembers it like it was yesterday. It was snowy and cold outside, but he never had to leave the building, since his hotel was on one side of a mall and the arena was on the other.
Michigan State used four players who would start again two years later when the Spartans would win the national championship. In the 1998 tournament, MSU was the fourth seed, a very underrated fourth seed.
Princeton was the fifth seed. The Tigers were 27-1 on the year and ranked seventh nationally, between Kentucky and Utah, who would play for the national title later that tournament.
The Tigers had easily run past UNLV in the opening round and now were 40 minutes away from the Sweet 16, which would mean a rematch with the only team to have beaten them that year, North Carolina. The Sweet 16 that year was played at Kentucky's Rupp Arena.
Princeton fell behind 10-0 to Michigan State and fought uphill all game. The Tigers would be outrebounded by an astonishing 39-15, and yet the game would get close by halftime (33-31 MSU) and set up an excruciating final minute.
Princeton trailed by two when James Mastaglio knocked down a long jump shot, only to have his foot on the three-point line, which tied the score instead of putting the Tigers ahead. Mateen Cleaves, the two-time Big 10 Player of the Year who went on to a reasonable NBA career, was the only Spartan in double figures in that game, and he would destroy Princeton with a long three from the top of the key that put the Spartans back up by three. Cleaves would finish with 27 points.
The final would be 63-56, and it would be the end of the careers of Mastaglio, Mitch Henderson and Steve Goodrich, who went 39, 40 and 39 minutes in that game. Brian Earl went 40, and Gabe Lewullis went 39.
TigerBlog remembers vividly sitting behind a curtain with Goodrich prior to the postgame interview and feeling Goodrich's frustration and sadness at the cruel end of his Princeton playing days.
As for TB, he would have loved to see the Carolina rematch. It would have been difficult to win, but the Tigers had played the Tar Heels close twice in two seasons, and it would have been possible. Plus, just getting to the Sweet 16 would have been insane.
That is, without question, No. 1 on the list.
No. 2?
Probably the 2009 quarterfinal loss to Cornell, 6-4, at Hofstra, in what would be Bill Tierney's last game as Tiger head coach. Princeton dug a 5-1 hole at the half, tried to come back, fell just short and missed on the Final Four in a year that the team had all the pieces for a big run at it all.
Or the 2002 NCAA men's lacrosse championship game, when Princeton fell 13-12 to Syracuse after a huge comeback fell just short. Had there been 10 more seconds to that game, maybe five, TB is convinced it was going to overtime.
Or the Syracuse loss this past year, because TB knew in the moment that it was going to cost Princeton a chance at an at-large bid, which is what happened.
Or the football game at Harvard when Taylor Northrop missed a 50-yard field goal on the final play that would have won it, on a kick that still looks good to TigerBlog.
Or men's hockey against Minnesota-Deluth in the NCAA tournament, when the Tigers were up two late and then lost in OT.
Or women's soccer against Penn the year the Quakers used a 0-0 tie (does that even count, since it wasn't technically a loss?) to win the Ivy title and advance to the NCAA tournament. Princeton had a shot past the goalkeeper in overtime that was just knocked off the line by a defender.
Or women's basketball against Kansas State in the 2012 NCAA tournament.
And of all the other men's basketball games, the one that sticks out is the 1991 Princeton loss to Villanova in the NCAA tournament at the Carrier Dome in Kit Mueller's last game, when Lance Miller's floater with two seconds left was the difference. TB was alone in the football press box at the Dome when it happened, far from the basketball court, because he was having some issues with his old radio shack word processor and had to use something in the football press box.
Even after all these years, TB can still go back to the moment for all of those games and more and still feel the sting.
Fortunately, there have been many more days that TB remembers much more fondly.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
A Gentleman Passes
The picture shows a man, a young man, being carried off the field by his football teammates.
In the background is the unmistakable cement outline of Palmer Stadium, the old home of Princeton football. The young man being carried off its field is the best player who ever played there.
TigerBlog knew him only as an older man, decades after he tore up that field and others, after he was honored as the very best in college football in 1951, after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
And yet everything TB knew about Dick Kazmaier as an older man comes screaming through in that picture.
His look isn't one of a wild smile. He's not pumping his fists. He's doing nothing to draw attention to himself.
He looks uncomfortable, in fact. He looks like he's wondering why all the fuss over him, when it's a team game and Princeton, once again, won as a team, something it did each of the last 22 times hewas part of that team.
Dick Kazmaier died Thursday at the age of 82.
Each obituary that TigerBlog read about Kazmaier mentioned as much about his sportsmanship and modesty as it did about the yards he gained or the touchdowns he scored. Again, that's in keeping with the Kazmaier that TB got to know.
When you're the only Heisman Trophy winner in the long history of a football program and you had the kind of career that Kazmaier had, you naturally have a bit of "that's him, that's the one" celebrity about you. Kazmaier wanted no part of that.
His story is of course very familiar to any Princeton fan by now.
He came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, in 1948 after being a five-sport star in his hometown. He started out at Princeton as the fifth-string back on the freshman team, an undersized 155-pounder who didn't figure to be able to stand up to the pounding of head coach Charlie Caldwell's single-wing offense.
Instead, he thrived in it as a duel passing/running threat. As a sophomore he led the team in rushing as the Tigers went 6-3 while winning their final four games.
Princeton then went 9-0 and finished ranked sixth nationally in 1950. With only Kazmaier back on offense in 1951, Princeton nevertheless went 9-0 and ended up sixth again in 1951.
Among the highlights of his senior year was his 15 for 17 passing performance against Cornell in a 53-15 win. When the season was over, he was the overwhelming winner for the Heisman Trophy, with 506 first-place votes and 1,777 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Hank Lauricella of Tennessee, who had 45 first-place votes and 424 points.
The rest of the top 10 that year included future Pro Football Hall of Fame members Ollie Matson of San Francisco and Hugh McElhenny of Washington, who would share the NFL Rookie of the Year Award in 1952.
Kazmaier famously passed on an opportunity to play in the NFL, choosing instead to go to Harvard Business School before spending three years in the Navy and embarking on a long, successful career in business and philanthropy.
TigerBlog knew him to see him at Princeton events the last 20 years or so. He was always quick to say hello, to ask how everything was going, to share common interests.
He never once talked about himself or his own individual accomplishments during any conversation TB ever had with him. When TB wrote a story about him as the top Princeton football player of the last century, Kazmaier spent as much time talking about his teammates as he did about anything he had done, as if he was embarrassed by the fuss.
The same was true when Princeton retired the No. 42 that was shared by Kazmaier and then a decade later by another Midwestern boy who had come to Princeton, Bill Bradley.
Today, that No. 42 hangs from the rafter in Jadwin Gym, never to be worn again by any Princeton athlete in any sport.
In the Jadwin lobby in a glass case is the Heisman Trophy that Kazmaier won, after years of simply sitting in the office of the head football coach. There is also a larger-than-life Kazmaier statue on display as well.
They all serve as reminders of the greatest football player - and along with Bradley and Hobey Baker one of the three greatest athletes - in Princeton history.
He will be remembered forever for what he did as an athlete and even more so for the person that he was, and for the way he lived his life.
With his passing, the world lost one of its truest gentlemen.
He will be missed at Princeton.
He will never be forgotten.
In the background is the unmistakable cement outline of Palmer Stadium, the old home of Princeton football. The young man being carried off its field is the best player who ever played there.
TigerBlog knew him only as an older man, decades after he tore up that field and others, after he was honored as the very best in college football in 1951, after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
And yet everything TB knew about Dick Kazmaier as an older man comes screaming through in that picture.
His look isn't one of a wild smile. He's not pumping his fists. He's doing nothing to draw attention to himself.
He looks uncomfortable, in fact. He looks like he's wondering why all the fuss over him, when it's a team game and Princeton, once again, won as a team, something it did each of the last 22 times hewas part of that team.
Dick Kazmaier died Thursday at the age of 82.
Each obituary that TigerBlog read about Kazmaier mentioned as much about his sportsmanship and modesty as it did about the yards he gained or the touchdowns he scored. Again, that's in keeping with the Kazmaier that TB got to know.
When you're the only Heisman Trophy winner in the long history of a football program and you had the kind of career that Kazmaier had, you naturally have a bit of "that's him, that's the one" celebrity about you. Kazmaier wanted no part of that.
His story is of course very familiar to any Princeton fan by now.
He came to Princeton from Maumee, Ohio, in 1948 after being a five-sport star in his hometown. He started out at Princeton as the fifth-string back on the freshman team, an undersized 155-pounder who didn't figure to be able to stand up to the pounding of head coach Charlie Caldwell's single-wing offense.
Instead, he thrived in it as a duel passing/running threat. As a sophomore he led the team in rushing as the Tigers went 6-3 while winning their final four games.
Princeton then went 9-0 and finished ranked sixth nationally in 1950. With only Kazmaier back on offense in 1951, Princeton nevertheless went 9-0 and ended up sixth again in 1951.
Among the highlights of his senior year was his 15 for 17 passing performance against Cornell in a 53-15 win. When the season was over, he was the overwhelming winner for the Heisman Trophy, with 506 first-place votes and 1,777 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Hank Lauricella of Tennessee, who had 45 first-place votes and 424 points.
The rest of the top 10 that year included future Pro Football Hall of Fame members Ollie Matson of San Francisco and Hugh McElhenny of Washington, who would share the NFL Rookie of the Year Award in 1952.
Kazmaier famously passed on an opportunity to play in the NFL, choosing instead to go to Harvard Business School before spending three years in the Navy and embarking on a long, successful career in business and philanthropy.
TigerBlog knew him to see him at Princeton events the last 20 years or so. He was always quick to say hello, to ask how everything was going, to share common interests.
He never once talked about himself or his own individual accomplishments during any conversation TB ever had with him. When TB wrote a story about him as the top Princeton football player of the last century, Kazmaier spent as much time talking about his teammates as he did about anything he had done, as if he was embarrassed by the fuss.
The same was true when Princeton retired the No. 42 that was shared by Kazmaier and then a decade later by another Midwestern boy who had come to Princeton, Bill Bradley.
Today, that No. 42 hangs from the rafter in Jadwin Gym, never to be worn again by any Princeton athlete in any sport.
In the Jadwin lobby in a glass case is the Heisman Trophy that Kazmaier won, after years of simply sitting in the office of the head football coach. There is also a larger-than-life Kazmaier statue on display as well.
They all serve as reminders of the greatest football player - and along with Bradley and Hobey Baker one of the three greatest athletes - in Princeton history.
He will be remembered forever for what he did as an athlete and even more so for the person that he was, and for the way he lived his life.
With his passing, the world lost one of its truest gentlemen.
He will be missed at Princeton.
He will never be forgotten.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
An Afternoon In Portland
You pick up Route 26 off of 101 halfway between Seaside and Cannon Beach, whose downtowns, as it were, are separated by maybe seven miles.
It's not easy leaving Cannon Beach, what with its amazing natural beauty, especially Haystack Rock. The rock is actually accessible by foot when the tide is out, while at other times there's a good 20 yards of Pacific Ocean in between the beach and the rock.
When you can walk out to the rock, you find sights that you don't normally see, like, for instance, gigantic starfish of several different colors.
Haystack Rock is so mesmerizing that it's easy to lose focus of everything else on the beach, which has several other smaller rocks, not to mention mountains that come down almost literally to touch the sea.
And then there's the town itself, which runs at a much slower pace than does Seaside, which in turn runs at about, oh, 10% of the speed of the Jersey Shore.
No, it's not easy to make the turn onto 26 and head east, though that's exactly what TigerBlog did Wednesday morning.
Route 26 connects Oregon's North Shore with the state's biggest city, Portland. It's about a 90-minute drive from Cannon Beach to Portland, and almost all of it is spent on Route 26.
And almost all of the time on Route 26 is spent going through forests. This is the home of the Pacific Northwest logging industry, and there are trees everywhere - well, almost everywhere, as there are also huge empty patches where trees used to be mixed in with the ones still standing tall.
Whoever built the road had the foresight to envision trucks hauling logs up and down mountains and therefore decided to put passing lanes in every few miles. Otherwise, the trip from the shore to Portland could be two or three times as long.
TigerBlog was in Portland once before, back in the early 1980s, for the Far West Classic men's basketball tournament.
Back then, he was doing student radio for WXPN, Penn's campus station, and it was the Quakers who were his primary focus in Ivy basketball. The tournament that year was an eight-team event held on the banks of the Willamette River at the old Memorial Coliseum, former home of the Trail Blazers. For those who paid attention to such things, the Blazers used to sell out every game, and attendance was always 12,666.
Anyway, Penn went 0-3 in the tournament that year, keeping the team winless to that point of the season. Or at least that's how TB remembers it. Or is he wrong? Did Penn win its last game at the tournament for its first win of the year?
Either way, from there, the Quakers turned their season around, winning the Ivy League and advancing to the NCAA tournament.
TB remembers flying back from that tournament, on a flight that was originally supposed to go from Portland to Denver to Philadelphia. The flight actually backed away from the gate and then came right back, as it turned out Denver was getting hammered by snow. Instead, TB was rerouted through Chicago - his bags arrived two days later.
This time, TB's trip to Portland was merely a stopover on his way back to Seattle. Portland has many suburban sections that have as their mailing address the city itself, and TB was on his way to one of those, a house near the top of a dead-end street that is the home of the Leland family.
When TB rang the doorbell, he was greeted by Max, the youngest Leland, who simply opened the door, let in the strangers and then went about his business as his mother greeted her guests.
Mrs. Leland is Sandi, the former Sandi Bittler, Princeton Class of 1990. Back when she played at Princeton, she was a deadly three-point shooter, and she used that weapon to ring up 1,683 career points.
To this day, only one player in Princeton history, male or female, has ever scored more than she did. That, obviously, was Bill Bradley, who scored 2,503 in three years, with no three-point shot. Just in case anyone out there forgot the absurdity of what Bradley did.
As for Leland, her record has withstood some serious challenges, mostly on the women's side.
Meagan Cowher finished her career with 1,671 points, just 12 behind Leland.
Think about that. That means that had two three-pointers of Leland's rimmed out and three shots for Cowher that didn't fall gone in, they would have been tied. And that's over four full seasons.
Then there was Niveen Rasheed, who would have beaten Leland by probably 250 points or so had she not missed the entire Ivy League season her sophomore year with a torn ACL. Or, for that matter, been part of teams that so routinely won by 20, 30 or 40 or more points that her minutes and scoring opportunities on many nights were over shortly after halftime.
Leland makes no bones about her place in Princeton women's basketball history. She freely admits both Cowher and Rasheed and others were better all-around players.
At the same time, she is definitely proud of her standing as the all-time leading scorer for the program.
TB's visit lasted about two hours and included some home run derby in the backyard and male vs. female basketball in the driveway, with lineups stocked with TigerBlog Jr., Miss TigerBlog and Max's siblings Emma and Jack.
Then it was off to I-5 and the trip north to Seattle.
TB never realized that Portland was so close to the Oregon/Washington state line, but even with heavy traffic, the rented Subaru Outback was back in Washington state in about 20 minutes. Three hours later, it was back in Seattle.
TB very much enjoyed his time in Oregon, though.
Two relaxing days on the beach. Two fun hours with an old friend.
Not a bad way to start the week.
It's not easy leaving Cannon Beach, what with its amazing natural beauty, especially Haystack Rock. The rock is actually accessible by foot when the tide is out, while at other times there's a good 20 yards of Pacific Ocean in between the beach and the rock.
When you can walk out to the rock, you find sights that you don't normally see, like, for instance, gigantic starfish of several different colors.
Haystack Rock is so mesmerizing that it's easy to lose focus of everything else on the beach, which has several other smaller rocks, not to mention mountains that come down almost literally to touch the sea.
And then there's the town itself, which runs at a much slower pace than does Seaside, which in turn runs at about, oh, 10% of the speed of the Jersey Shore.
No, it's not easy to make the turn onto 26 and head east, though that's exactly what TigerBlog did Wednesday morning.
Route 26 connects Oregon's North Shore with the state's biggest city, Portland. It's about a 90-minute drive from Cannon Beach to Portland, and almost all of it is spent on Route 26.
And almost all of the time on Route 26 is spent going through forests. This is the home of the Pacific Northwest logging industry, and there are trees everywhere - well, almost everywhere, as there are also huge empty patches where trees used to be mixed in with the ones still standing tall.
Whoever built the road had the foresight to envision trucks hauling logs up and down mountains and therefore decided to put passing lanes in every few miles. Otherwise, the trip from the shore to Portland could be two or three times as long.
TigerBlog was in Portland once before, back in the early 1980s, for the Far West Classic men's basketball tournament.
Back then, he was doing student radio for WXPN, Penn's campus station, and it was the Quakers who were his primary focus in Ivy basketball. The tournament that year was an eight-team event held on the banks of the Willamette River at the old Memorial Coliseum, former home of the Trail Blazers. For those who paid attention to such things, the Blazers used to sell out every game, and attendance was always 12,666.
Anyway, Penn went 0-3 in the tournament that year, keeping the team winless to that point of the season. Or at least that's how TB remembers it. Or is he wrong? Did Penn win its last game at the tournament for its first win of the year?
Either way, from there, the Quakers turned their season around, winning the Ivy League and advancing to the NCAA tournament.
TB remembers flying back from that tournament, on a flight that was originally supposed to go from Portland to Denver to Philadelphia. The flight actually backed away from the gate and then came right back, as it turned out Denver was getting hammered by snow. Instead, TB was rerouted through Chicago - his bags arrived two days later.
This time, TB's trip to Portland was merely a stopover on his way back to Seattle. Portland has many suburban sections that have as their mailing address the city itself, and TB was on his way to one of those, a house near the top of a dead-end street that is the home of the Leland family.
When TB rang the doorbell, he was greeted by Max, the youngest Leland, who simply opened the door, let in the strangers and then went about his business as his mother greeted her guests.
Mrs. Leland is Sandi, the former Sandi Bittler, Princeton Class of 1990. Back when she played at Princeton, she was a deadly three-point shooter, and she used that weapon to ring up 1,683 career points.
To this day, only one player in Princeton history, male or female, has ever scored more than she did. That, obviously, was Bill Bradley, who scored 2,503 in three years, with no three-point shot. Just in case anyone out there forgot the absurdity of what Bradley did.
As for Leland, her record has withstood some serious challenges, mostly on the women's side.
Meagan Cowher finished her career with 1,671 points, just 12 behind Leland.
Think about that. That means that had two three-pointers of Leland's rimmed out and three shots for Cowher that didn't fall gone in, they would have been tied. And that's over four full seasons.
Then there was Niveen Rasheed, who would have beaten Leland by probably 250 points or so had she not missed the entire Ivy League season her sophomore year with a torn ACL. Or, for that matter, been part of teams that so routinely won by 20, 30 or 40 or more points that her minutes and scoring opportunities on many nights were over shortly after halftime.
Leland makes no bones about her place in Princeton women's basketball history. She freely admits both Cowher and Rasheed and others were better all-around players.
At the same time, she is definitely proud of her standing as the all-time leading scorer for the program.
TB's visit lasted about two hours and included some home run derby in the backyard and male vs. female basketball in the driveway, with lineups stocked with TigerBlog Jr., Miss TigerBlog and Max's siblings Emma and Jack.
Then it was off to I-5 and the trip north to Seattle.
TB never realized that Portland was so close to the Oregon/Washington state line, but even with heavy traffic, the rented Subaru Outback was back in Washington state in about 20 minutes. Three hours later, it was back in Seattle.
TB very much enjoyed his time in Oregon, though.
Two relaxing days on the beach. Two fun hours with an old friend.
Not a bad way to start the week.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Read All About It
Sort of complimentary, that is. After the cost of the room per night is factored in, complimentary takes on a whole new meaning.
Anyway, it's been awhile since TB actually read a newspaper. At least one that wasn't online.
When he was a kid, The Asbury Park Press and Star-Ledger took turns arriving at his door every day. And FatherBlog always brought home The New York Post.
It was reading those newspapers that played a large role in moving him towards the direction of the newspaper business. For all the years he was in that business, plus most of the time he's been at Princeton, he had morning delivery of The Trenton Times.
For the last few years, though, he has gotten his news online. He reads many newspapers each day, and finds links to different ones all the time. It's how newspapers are to be read these days.
Of course, it makes him wistful for the days when the paper came to the door every day and he would read basically all of it.
So he was pretty fired up when The Oregonian was on his doorstep this morning.
Even better, he was pumped to read it on the beach.
If you've never been to the beach in Oregon, or at least the northern part of the Oregon coast - which TB had never been before this week - the first thing you need to know is that is that it's TB's idea of a nearly perfect beach. The temperature was in the low 70s, and the water was a bit cold.
But the beach was mostly overcast, the wind was gently blowing in off the Pacific, there were mountains whose tops were covered in fog just to the east, there was natural beauty everywhere, the sand was clean and there was hardly a crowd to be found.
If TB had to choose a word to describe it, that word would be relaxing.
So TB took his newspaper and began to read. Of course, it's not always easy to fold a paper on the beach, because of the breeze, but TB did his best.
The lead story on the front page was about a man whose ex-wife had killed a woman in a drunk driving accident 16 years ago and then fled to Canada with their three-year-old and baby. He hadn't seen or heard from them since, until recently, when the ex-wife was finally arrested after having remarried and lived under a false name all those years.
The issue was that the second husband was trying to adopt the two kids, and he is the only father they've ever known. Meanwhile, the first husband has gone through all his money trying to stop it and has of yet gotten nowhere.
After reading that story, TB went to the sports section. There, he found way more stories on what sport than any other, or really every other combined?
That's right.
College football.
There were eight stories about college football in all. There were two on Major League Soccer, one on the playoff push for the Portland Timbers and the other on MLS expansion.
College football dwarfs everything in Oregon. In Seattle, it was more of a balance between the Huskies and Cougars and the Seahawks. Here, talk of college football dominates.
The newspaper this morning had continued its series counting down the top 10 impact players for both Oregon (an offensive guard) and Oregon State (a running back), with today's spotlight on the No. 6 players. There were also depth charts for Oregon's offensive line and Oregon's State backs, depth charts that ran four deep.
There was a round up on other college football news. There was a story on an Oregon player on the Steelers.
And camp hasn't even started yet. Imagine what the season is like around here.
TB saw framed pictures for sale of games at Oregon and Oregon State, with packed houses at both. They sold for $250 each.
Oregon opens its season Aug. 31 against Nicholls. Oregon State opens that same day against Eastern Washington. The regular season ends with Oregon State at Oregon on Nov. 29.
Princeton's season starts three weeks after Oregon and Oregon State start, and it ends one week before the two teams meet.
Ivy League football is great, at least to TigerBlog. The tradition. The long, long history. The relatively even matchups week after week.
He likes the 10 games in 10 weeks format, though he'd be open to an 11th game, or to opening the season and having an off week (for health reasons alone) and of course for Ivy participation in the NCAA playoffs.
TB also loves the fact that football doesn't drive everything about the schools themselves, let alone their athletic departments. He loves that so many Ivy Leaguers - including Princeton's Mike Catapano - are currently competing for NFL spots while at the same time the schools haven't sold their souls in the name of football.
But he also gets that in so many parts of the country, football - especially college football - is where it starts and ends. Princeton will never again be able to compete with the Giants or Jets like it did when the NFL was new. TB gets that.
Oregon and Oregon State? They are bigger than the NFL in this state.
Princeton's 2013 season should be an interesting one.
The Tigers went from 1-9 and 1-9 to 5-5 a year ago. There is considerable excitement about the coming season, as there should be. Clearly Bob Surace has the Tigers headed in the right direction as he enters Year 4.
Princeton began last year 0-2 with tough losses to Lehigh and Georgetown, and those are the first two opponents again this year. After that is the Ivy opener against Columbia, the final non-league game against Lafayette and then, as it always is, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Penn, Yale and Dartmouth.
Each week provides its own challenge. The goal is to be in contention in November.
By then, TB's time here in the Pacific Northwest will have become a memory, and the serenity of reading a newspaper in nearly perfect conditions on the Oregonian beach will have long vanished.
Football is coming soon at Princeton. Even sooner here in Oregon.
Judging by today's paper, the locals are more than ready.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
The North Coast
Almost nobody wears a college t-shirt.
At the Jersey Shore, where TB has spent most of his life's beach time, it's a common sight to see one college t-shirt or hat or shorts or whatever after another. The number of colleges represented is enormous.
Here, there are basically four colleges that have their name out there. Washington State, Washington, Oregon State and the one that has about 75% of the representation, Oregon.
Even for the last few days, when TB was in Seattle, he saw almost nothing other than those four schools. Hey, Washington State has its own store in the mall that has the monorail to the Space Needle on its top floor. Washington, similarly, has one on Fourth Avenue, just down from Pike Street.
In the city, almost everything is those two schools. TB saw way more people wearing Washington and Washington State gear than he has seen here at the beach, and he saw almost nothing from any other school. Maybe there was one Seattle University sweatshirt.
And here in Oregon, he saw one "CWU" sweatshirt, which he assumes was Central Washington.
It's a little less than a four-hour drive from Seattle to the North Coast, most of which is spent on I-5. The trip starts out in Seattle and goes past Tacoma, Olympia and then a bunch of other small towns, until exit 36, which cuts across the Columbia River into Oregon, offering an amazing view of the logging industry along the way.
Eventually, the ride heads into beach towns like Astoria, Seaside and Cannon Beach, which is notable for the giant rock - Haystack Rock - that is anchored just off the shoreline.
What is absent from the ride is a sign for a college, except for a handful of community colleges.
It's a vastly different animal than TB usually sees back home, where there are colleges everywhere. What it does, other than offer beach-goers a wildly varied number of t-shirts to wear, is create tons of opponents for schools.
Out here, that doesn't appear to be the case. There is huge distance that separates teams in conferences, something that impacted scheduling long ago and something that now forces teams to fly to almost every game.
Scheduling long ago?
Any idea what the most-played rivalry is in the history of men's college basketball? Let's get back to that in a second.
Let's start with the record for most consecutive years having played. Here are the top five:
1. Princeton vs. Yale and Columbia vs. Yale (112 straight years)
3. Princeton vs. Penn (111 straight years)
4. Columbia vs. Penn and Cornell vs. Penn (110 straight years)
In other words, the five rivalries that have played for the most consecutive years feature Ivy League opponents. You have to go to the No. 6 spot on that list to find non-Ivy schools (Maine and New Hampshire 108 straight years) .
Princeton has played Columbia 229 times in men's basketball and has not played any other team more. The Tigers have played Penn and Yale 228 times each.
Meanwhile, back at the record for most games played against another opponent. Here are your top five:
1. Oregon vs. Oregon State (339 times)
2. Oregon vs. Washington (298 times)
3. Oregon State vs. Washington (293 times)
4. Oregon State vs. Washington State (288 times)
5. Oregon vs. Washington State (285 times)
The top five is comprised of just the four schools seen on the beaches around here.
Think about that. Princeton and Penn first played in 1903, the same year that Oregon and Oregon State did. And yet Oregon and Oregon State have played 111 more games against each other than Princeton and Penn have in that same time.
That's extraordinary, no? Especially considering that Princeton and Penn have played at least twice every season since 1903.
So what's the reason?
Lack of opponents within driving distance.
TigerBlog has been to about a billion Ivy League athletic events in his life. He's never flown to a single one. He's been to every campus so many times that he long ago lost track of how often it was.
And he's driven every time.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, that's just not an option.
Maybe that's why Ivy League schools have so many teams and so many other leagues don't. Maybe it just comes down to how prohibitively expensive it is to get from one campus to another in those other leagues and how easy it is in the Ivy League.
When schools like Princeton and Harvard and Penn and Yale began playing each other in one sport, other sports saw how easy it was to get there and began to field teams of their own. Oregon and Oregon State, say, never had that option.
TB never thought of it in those terms before.
Anyway, the Pacific Ocean is pretty cold up here, but the beaches are pristine and the scenic beauty is everywhere, with mountains to the east and the ocean to the west, something that is always difficult to remember.
As for TB, he was wearing a Princeton lacrosse sweatshirt today.
He'll be back with more Princeton stuff tomorrow.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Executive Associate AD Anthony Archbald
If you look at the picture on the website, you can see pretty much everything you need to know about Anthony Archbald.
First, he's wearing a sport coat and button-down shirt, with no tie. It's a pretty common look.
Second, he's standing directly behind Ford Family Director of Athletics Gary Walters, which is where Archbald now stands in the athletic department, after being named last week the Executive Associate Athletic Director.
Archbald takes over for Erin McDermott, who is leaving Princeton become the AD at the University of Chicago.
McDermott took over for Mike Cross, who is now the AD at Bradley.
Cross took over for, if TigerBlog's memory is correct, Jim Fiore, who is now the AD at Stony Brook. Going further back, Fiore, TB believes, took over when George VanderZwaag left to become the AD at Rochester.
Cross and McDermott both made the move that Archbald is now making, going from the director compliance to take over as the one who oversees admissions, facilities, scheduling, event operations, intercollegiate programming and strength and conditioning. He will also be the department's liaison to the athletic medicine staff.
TB has never bothered to add up how many people report directly to the person in this position, but it's a lot.
Oh, and what else can you tell about Archbald by that picture?
That's he's excited.
Can't you see by his smile? Well, in his case, that's a wide, wide grin, with his face lit up.
TB didn't expect to see Archbald mug for the camera. It's not his style.
His is to be understated, laid back, unflappable. That's how TB would describe him.
That, and humble and loyal and supportive.
Oh, and hard-working. And effective. And with very high standards for him and those around him.
Those are pretty good qualities for someone who now has so many responsibilities. And people who report to him.
A strong case could be made that the single most important factor in determining athletic success at Princeton is the recruiting/admissions piece. To that end, it's essential that the department liaison between the coaches and the admissions office be someone as effective as possible at balancing the needs of both sides.
This was a great strength of McDermott and Cross. And TB has no doubt that Archbald is perfect for that role.
As for the rest, it's a big move from compliance, which is mostly oversight and rules interpreting, to intercollegiate programming, which is a major hands-on with everything that happens for Princeton Athletics.
It's an exciting challenge for someone. TB knows both Cross and McDermott were thrilled for the opportunity. And Archbald is as well.
TB has worked closely with Archbald since he first came here, and TB knew right away that this was someone destined for big things. In fact, TB can't imagine it will be all that long before Archbald joins his predecessors as an AD.
Why not? He has a background in law. And in intercollegiate athletics, starting at the ground floor, which in his case included setting up the pylons at Brown field hockey games way back when.
Now he's a rising star in the business, especially since his move last week.
For Princeton fans, coming to games here is about being entertained and about winning, or at least being in position to win.
The idea of who does what behind the scenes to make all that happen probably doesn't enter most people's minds when they're watching.
In truth, though, the department is filled with dedicated people, all of whom work together to allow Princeton athletics to look good, to put its athletes in the best chance to be competitive, to give its coaches what they need so that they can focus on the nuts and bolts of getting their teams ready to play.
It's not easy to pull that off.
Rest easy, though.
Anthony Archbald won't let anyone down.
First, he's wearing a sport coat and button-down shirt, with no tie. It's a pretty common look.
Second, he's standing directly behind Ford Family Director of Athletics Gary Walters, which is where Archbald now stands in the athletic department, after being named last week the Executive Associate Athletic Director.
Archbald takes over for Erin McDermott, who is leaving Princeton become the AD at the University of Chicago.
McDermott took over for Mike Cross, who is now the AD at Bradley.
Cross took over for, if TigerBlog's memory is correct, Jim Fiore, who is now the AD at Stony Brook. Going further back, Fiore, TB believes, took over when George VanderZwaag left to become the AD at Rochester.
Cross and McDermott both made the move that Archbald is now making, going from the director compliance to take over as the one who oversees admissions, facilities, scheduling, event operations, intercollegiate programming and strength and conditioning. He will also be the department's liaison to the athletic medicine staff.
TB has never bothered to add up how many people report directly to the person in this position, but it's a lot.
Oh, and what else can you tell about Archbald by that picture?
That's he's excited.
Can't you see by his smile? Well, in his case, that's a wide, wide grin, with his face lit up.
TB didn't expect to see Archbald mug for the camera. It's not his style.
His is to be understated, laid back, unflappable. That's how TB would describe him.
That, and humble and loyal and supportive.
Oh, and hard-working. And effective. And with very high standards for him and those around him.
Those are pretty good qualities for someone who now has so many responsibilities. And people who report to him.
A strong case could be made that the single most important factor in determining athletic success at Princeton is the recruiting/admissions piece. To that end, it's essential that the department liaison between the coaches and the admissions office be someone as effective as possible at balancing the needs of both sides.
This was a great strength of McDermott and Cross. And TB has no doubt that Archbald is perfect for that role.
As for the rest, it's a big move from compliance, which is mostly oversight and rules interpreting, to intercollegiate programming, which is a major hands-on with everything that happens for Princeton Athletics.
It's an exciting challenge for someone. TB knows both Cross and McDermott were thrilled for the opportunity. And Archbald is as well.
TB has worked closely with Archbald since he first came here, and TB knew right away that this was someone destined for big things. In fact, TB can't imagine it will be all that long before Archbald joins his predecessors as an AD.
Why not? He has a background in law. And in intercollegiate athletics, starting at the ground floor, which in his case included setting up the pylons at Brown field hockey games way back when.
Now he's a rising star in the business, especially since his move last week.
For Princeton fans, coming to games here is about being entertained and about winning, or at least being in position to win.
The idea of who does what behind the scenes to make all that happen probably doesn't enter most people's minds when they're watching.
In truth, though, the department is filled with dedicated people, all of whom work together to allow Princeton athletics to look good, to put its athletes in the best chance to be competitive, to give its coaches what they need so that they can focus on the nuts and bolts of getting their teams ready to play.
It's not easy to pull that off.
Rest easy, though.
Anthony Archbald won't let anyone down.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Your Prostitutional Self
The two best things ESPN has ever done are 1) signing a deal with Princeton and 2) getting into the documentary business.
Okay, maybe that's a provincial view of the situation.
While a case could possibly be made that the Princeton/ESPN relationship isn't quite a game-changer, there can be no one who can even remotely say that the documentaries aren't fabulous.
The original "30 For 30"series started it. There have been shorter pieces on the web.
And now there are the "Nine For IX" documentaries, put out by ESPNw to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX. They center around women's issues in sports, historically and contemporarily.
TigerBlog's favorite "30 For 30" movies were the ones about the Colombian drug lord and soccer player who shared the same last name (and as it turned out, same fate), the one about Marcus Dupree and the one about Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
Beyond those, the two that stood out the most were the one about Terry Fox and his attempt to run across Canada and the one with Vlade Divac that spoke about the Yugoslavian basketball players whose team and relationships were destroyed by politics.
The movies are amazing. All of them.
TB is looking forward to the upcoming "Nine For IX" ones about Katarina Witt and the one about the 1999 U.S. women's soccer team. He missed the one about Pat Summitt, though he assumes he'll see it at some point.
The only one he's seen to date is the one entitled "Let Them Wear Towels," which is about the history of women's sportswriters and the fight to gain access to the lockerroom.
TigerBlog has a picture somewhere of the press box at Palmer Stadium from the 1940s. It shows exactly what you think it would show, which is a bunch of older white men in suits and ties and those hats that they wore back then.
There was also a sign in the foreground. It read "no women allowed in press box."
The ESPNw movie traced the evolution that allowed women to gain access to the press box and ultimately the locker room, during a decade (the 1970s) that coincided with when women's athletics at Princeton first began to grow.
At one point during the movie, TigerBlog thought he recognized the chapel on the Princeton campus, which, it turned out, he did.
What followed was an introduction to Robin Herman, who started out her piece of the story by explaining that she was part of the first class of women at Princeton.
Herman went on to talk about how she went to work at the Daily Princetonian and how each writer was assigned a news beat and sports beat. When she saw that she was not given a sports beat, she immediately confronted the editor to find out why.
Had she backed away, her story would be much different. Instead, she had the courage or the determination to fight for what was right, even if it was unpopular or even unheard of at the time.
Or maybe she wasn't even thinking about the big picture back then. Maybe she just wanted to cover a sport.
She ended up with rugby - and that was the start of a lifetime in the business. She had to fight the standard prejudices of the time, and one of the best parts of the movie was when she read an old, handwritten letter that she received that was basically saying that women had no place in that man's world.
The letter called her a lesbian and also told her to get "your prostitutional self" out of the lockerroom.
It was not easy for the women writers of the time, who had to fight against every negative stereotype there was. They were either lesbians or whores. They were in there only to oogle the naked men. They didn't know anything about sports.
One of the women interviewed referred to how lonely it was, actually. The case of Lisa Olson, the Boston Globe writer who was harassed by the New England Patriots, was of course included.
The women all had stories about big-name, famous owners and athletes who were fighting them every step of the way. Others, like Steve Garvey and Tommy John, were much more willing to join their struggle.
They also talked about the sorority they formed and how they couldn't wait for the day when every woman writer wouldn't know every other woman writer.
Robin Herman's Twitter is @girlinthelocker, and today women in the profession are so common that it's not even an issue. Women have roles all over the world of athletics, and college athletic communications is a clear example of that.
If anything, the bigger issue now is in broadcasting, where women are still hired largely because of their looks. TB can't help but wonder what Robin Herman says and thinks about that.
But for TB, that's more of a celebrity issue than it is a gender issue.
Women's athletics and women in the field of athletics have come so far since the 1970s.
TB always refers to the women's athletic pioneers at Princeton who endured blatant inequality, something that would never happen today.
It was the same for women's sportswriters.
It was nice to see a Princetonian so involved in that struggle for equality.
Okay, maybe that's a provincial view of the situation.
While a case could possibly be made that the Princeton/ESPN relationship isn't quite a game-changer, there can be no one who can even remotely say that the documentaries aren't fabulous.
The original "30 For 30"series started it. There have been shorter pieces on the web.
And now there are the "Nine For IX" documentaries, put out by ESPNw to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX. They center around women's issues in sports, historically and contemporarily.
TigerBlog's favorite "30 For 30" movies were the ones about the Colombian drug lord and soccer player who shared the same last name (and as it turned out, same fate), the one about Marcus Dupree and the one about Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
Beyond those, the two that stood out the most were the one about Terry Fox and his attempt to run across Canada and the one with Vlade Divac that spoke about the Yugoslavian basketball players whose team and relationships were destroyed by politics.
The movies are amazing. All of them.
TB is looking forward to the upcoming "Nine For IX" ones about Katarina Witt and the one about the 1999 U.S. women's soccer team. He missed the one about Pat Summitt, though he assumes he'll see it at some point.
The only one he's seen to date is the one entitled "Let Them Wear Towels," which is about the history of women's sportswriters and the fight to gain access to the lockerroom.
TigerBlog has a picture somewhere of the press box at Palmer Stadium from the 1940s. It shows exactly what you think it would show, which is a bunch of older white men in suits and ties and those hats that they wore back then.
There was also a sign in the foreground. It read "no women allowed in press box."
The ESPNw movie traced the evolution that allowed women to gain access to the press box and ultimately the locker room, during a decade (the 1970s) that coincided with when women's athletics at Princeton first began to grow.
At one point during the movie, TigerBlog thought he recognized the chapel on the Princeton campus, which, it turned out, he did.
What followed was an introduction to Robin Herman, who started out her piece of the story by explaining that she was part of the first class of women at Princeton.
Herman went on to talk about how she went to work at the Daily Princetonian and how each writer was assigned a news beat and sports beat. When she saw that she was not given a sports beat, she immediately confronted the editor to find out why.
Had she backed away, her story would be much different. Instead, she had the courage or the determination to fight for what was right, even if it was unpopular or even unheard of at the time.
Or maybe she wasn't even thinking about the big picture back then. Maybe she just wanted to cover a sport.
She ended up with rugby - and that was the start of a lifetime in the business. She had to fight the standard prejudices of the time, and one of the best parts of the movie was when she read an old, handwritten letter that she received that was basically saying that women had no place in that man's world.
The letter called her a lesbian and also told her to get "your prostitutional self" out of the lockerroom.
It was not easy for the women writers of the time, who had to fight against every negative stereotype there was. They were either lesbians or whores. They were in there only to oogle the naked men. They didn't know anything about sports.
One of the women interviewed referred to how lonely it was, actually. The case of Lisa Olson, the Boston Globe writer who was harassed by the New England Patriots, was of course included.
The women all had stories about big-name, famous owners and athletes who were fighting them every step of the way. Others, like Steve Garvey and Tommy John, were much more willing to join their struggle.
They also talked about the sorority they formed and how they couldn't wait for the day when every woman writer wouldn't know every other woman writer.
Robin Herman's Twitter is @girlinthelocker, and today women in the profession are so common that it's not even an issue. Women have roles all over the world of athletics, and college athletic communications is a clear example of that.
If anything, the bigger issue now is in broadcasting, where women are still hired largely because of their looks. TB can't help but wonder what Robin Herman says and thinks about that.
But for TB, that's more of a celebrity issue than it is a gender issue.
Women's athletics and women in the field of athletics have come so far since the 1970s.
TB always refers to the women's athletic pioneers at Princeton who endured blatant inequality, something that would never happen today.
It was the same for women's sportswriters.
It was nice to see a Princetonian so involved in that struggle for equality.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Head Games
TigerBlog was driving yesterday when Bill Belichick's press conference came on the radio.
TB listened as the Patriots coach read a long statement about the Aaron Hernandez situation, about how a member of his team was arrested for first degree murder. Now, instead of getting ready for the start of training camp, Hernandez sits in a jail cell, probably never to be free again, while police investigate whether or not he was behind two other murders.
And so there was Belichick, the surliest coach of all-time, up there to talk about it.
As Belichick spoke, TB couldn't help but wonder what Hernandez thinks about as he sits in that cell. Does he realize that he went from a $44 million contract to prison and that there's likely no going back?
Anyway, Belichick was perhaps sincere enough - or possibly just smart enough - to realize that
this wasn't the time for his standard contempt of the media. To that end, he did fine.
Of course, he also benefited from just how low he's set the bar for himself. To that end, he could talk in insulting generalities - as opposed to saying the obvious, which is that in today's NFL teams have to take chances on players who aren't exactly model citizens - and do that without having getting completely ripped apart for it.
In fairness to Belichick, TB doubts that anyone could have anticipated the fact that Hernandez would become an alleged murderer.
And TB certainly didn't envy Belichick for having to stand up there yesterday and face that music.
When he made it clear that he wasn't going to answer questions about Hernandez directly, Belichick was flooded with other ones asking about the screening process before the draft, about how potential players were evaluated for their citizenship, about anything that might be done differently in the future.
The Hernandez situation is the last thing the NFL needed.
Right now, the league is wrestling with huge issues that threaten its very existence. And can you imagine two or three years ago having that sentence written?
The NFL is by far the biggest sports property in the country. Nothing approaches it. The league brings in billions of dollars, draws insane television ratings and is seemingly immune to any of the other problems that take down other sports.
Von Miller, one of the top linebackers in football, was suspended for four games for violating league policy. That's one-quarter of the season. Think Ryan Braun and A-Rod for the baseball equivalent. Football? Not even a mild wrinkle.
So what is it that can possibly threaten this league? Concussions. Head injuries. Long-term health concerns.
TigerBlog heard one clip of a social commentator who actually likened football to dog fighting.
The NFL features grown men who play for the chance to earn millions of dollars each year. College football and high school football - or youth football - aren't earning big dollars.
But they are taking the same kinds of health risks.
The Ivy League, partnering with the Big 10, has been actively - or is that proactively - trying to solve the problem. Princeton's head of athletic medicine, Dr. Margot Putukian, has taken a leadership role on the issue.
Most recently, the two leagues combined to have a head injury summit outside of Chicago.
Basically, there's a recognition on the part of these two conferences that the marquee sport of college athletics is also at a crossroads.
Yes, Ivy League football and Big 10 football are much different. The smallest Big 10 crowd of the year will probably eclipse - or at the very least approach - Princeton's total for its entire home schedule.
Even with that, the two league's understand what's at stake here.
Ivy League football dates back to 1869, when Princeton played Rutgers in the first game.
The history of football at Princeton and in the Ivy League is storied and loaded with legendary games and players.
Even today, nothing other than Reunions and Commencement brings more people to the Princeton campus than football. A football Saturday on an Ivy campus is a wonderful event.
Could it ever go away? It's laughable on its face, right?
But it's also a serious issue now.
Football can survive many things, even having an All-Pro tight end who turned out to be a murderer.
What it can't abide by is its former players who are killing themselves because of head injuries.
Can the sport be saved from itself? Probably.
Events like what the Ivy League and Big 10 had last week are a huge step forward.
It's important to keep the issue front and center, not hide it and hope it goes away.
TB listened as the Patriots coach read a long statement about the Aaron Hernandez situation, about how a member of his team was arrested for first degree murder. Now, instead of getting ready for the start of training camp, Hernandez sits in a jail cell, probably never to be free again, while police investigate whether or not he was behind two other murders.
And so there was Belichick, the surliest coach of all-time, up there to talk about it.
As Belichick spoke, TB couldn't help but wonder what Hernandez thinks about as he sits in that cell. Does he realize that he went from a $44 million contract to prison and that there's likely no going back?
Anyway, Belichick was perhaps sincere enough - or possibly just smart enough - to realize that
this wasn't the time for his standard contempt of the media. To that end, he did fine.
Of course, he also benefited from just how low he's set the bar for himself. To that end, he could talk in insulting generalities - as opposed to saying the obvious, which is that in today's NFL teams have to take chances on players who aren't exactly model citizens - and do that without having getting completely ripped apart for it.
In fairness to Belichick, TB doubts that anyone could have anticipated the fact that Hernandez would become an alleged murderer.
And TB certainly didn't envy Belichick for having to stand up there yesterday and face that music.
When he made it clear that he wasn't going to answer questions about Hernandez directly, Belichick was flooded with other ones asking about the screening process before the draft, about how potential players were evaluated for their citizenship, about anything that might be done differently in the future.
The Hernandez situation is the last thing the NFL needed.
Right now, the league is wrestling with huge issues that threaten its very existence. And can you imagine two or three years ago having that sentence written?
The NFL is by far the biggest sports property in the country. Nothing approaches it. The league brings in billions of dollars, draws insane television ratings and is seemingly immune to any of the other problems that take down other sports.
Von Miller, one of the top linebackers in football, was suspended for four games for violating league policy. That's one-quarter of the season. Think Ryan Braun and A-Rod for the baseball equivalent. Football? Not even a mild wrinkle.
So what is it that can possibly threaten this league? Concussions. Head injuries. Long-term health concerns.
TigerBlog heard one clip of a social commentator who actually likened football to dog fighting.
The NFL features grown men who play for the chance to earn millions of dollars each year. College football and high school football - or youth football - aren't earning big dollars.
But they are taking the same kinds of health risks.
The Ivy League, partnering with the Big 10, has been actively - or is that proactively - trying to solve the problem. Princeton's head of athletic medicine, Dr. Margot Putukian, has taken a leadership role on the issue.
Most recently, the two leagues combined to have a head injury summit outside of Chicago.
Basically, there's a recognition on the part of these two conferences that the marquee sport of college athletics is also at a crossroads.
Yes, Ivy League football and Big 10 football are much different. The smallest Big 10 crowd of the year will probably eclipse - or at the very least approach - Princeton's total for its entire home schedule.
Even with that, the two league's understand what's at stake here.
Ivy League football dates back to 1869, when Princeton played Rutgers in the first game.
The history of football at Princeton and in the Ivy League is storied and loaded with legendary games and players.
Even today, nothing other than Reunions and Commencement brings more people to the Princeton campus than football. A football Saturday on an Ivy campus is a wonderful event.
Could it ever go away? It's laughable on its face, right?
But it's also a serious issue now.
Football can survive many things, even having an All-Pro tight end who turned out to be a murderer.
What it can't abide by is its former players who are killing themselves because of head injuries.
Can the sport be saved from itself? Probably.
Events like what the Ivy League and Big 10 had last week are a huge step forward.
It's important to keep the issue front and center, not hide it and hope it goes away.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Riffing On Entitlement
It's a slow week in late July, a little past the halfway point between the end of last athletic year and the start of the next one.
So what is a blogger to do?
Every now and then, TigerBlog will see something that triggers something that makes him say "hey, that'd be something good to write about." Nine times out of 10, he forgets all about what it was.
It's like that scene in "Seinfeld," where Jerry scribbles something down in the middle of the night that he thinks was going to be hilarious but when he wakes up, he can't remember what it was.
It frustrates TB even more when he remembers what it was but then forgets it by the time he wants to write about it. Or if it's something that comes back to him later, only it's way too late by then for it to matter.
Then again, every now and then, something comes around that smacks him in the face at a moment when he's without a subject.
Like now.
TB wrote about the royal baby, which then prompted this comment:
PU riffing about a disdain of entitlement is like Ryan Braun riffing about a disdain of steroid use.
And it was signed "Jason Garrett."
And presto, TB has something to write about.
Let's get back to the baby, for a moment. How could it take these two parents so long to come up with what to name him?
The stories about how it's possible to bet on the baby's name - or basically anything else - fascinated TB way more than the baby himself did.
As for the comment, well, there are a few issues.
First, was it really Jason Garrett, the Princeton alum and head coach of the Dallas Cowboys who posted it? Rather than speculate, TB will simply point out that in this day and age, anyone can say anything and use any name desired.
The point is there is no way to know definitively if it is Garrett, or anyone else.
It's a lesson that the athletic department staff often will try to get across to the 1,000 Princeton athletes each year. When they have conversations with people about their team, their coaches, their next game, the officials - anything - they have no real way of knowing what will happen with that information.
Is it going to show up on some blog like this one? Or on the Ivy League message board? Or on some email distribution list?
And who will be the author? Someone claiming to be someone else?
In other words, they need to be extraordinarily careful with anything that could be construed as "classified" information. Or comments that might not exactly be flattering, to Princeton, its athletes, its coaches, its officials, its opponents, the other schools in the league, anything.
As TB said last week when the subject was Twitter, it used to be harder to say something dumb, because you needed someone to say it to. Actually, it didn't just require someone to say it to. It required someone who had an outlet to publish whatever dumb thing was said.
Now? Nope. Anyone can be an outlet.
Even Jason Garrett. If that's really who it was.
And what about Jason's comment?
TB actually thought about it when he was writing about the new baby. Yes, Princeton is a place of great, historical entitlement, or, if TB would have chosen the word, privilege.
Still, TB wasn't talking about that when he was talking about the British monarchy. He was talking about the idea that everyone is created equal.
And maybe some who are third and fourth and fifth generation at a school like Princeton or Harvard or Yale aren't born as equally as some whose parents never went to college.
There's an arena where that doesn't matter, though, and it's athletics.
TigerBlog heard Pete Carril talk about this publicly many times and privately many, many more times than that. On his team, there was no privilege. Or at least no inherent privilege.
No. Privilege is what you earned in practice.
It's something that Carril always spoke about with extraordinary passion, and it's stuff TB will never forget.
Gary Walters, Princeton's Director of Athletics the last 19 years, played for Carril in high school, Reading High School. It's a public school in an area that nobody would consider affluent. Carril himself is the son of man who worked in the Bethlehem steel mills for 40 years.
The football coach is the son of a high school football coach. The men's lacrosse coach is the son of public school teachers. He took over for a coach - a Hall of Fame coach - whose father was a New York City cop. The women's soccer coach is also from a family in law enforcement.
The women's track and field coach is a New York City Catholic high school product who through his own hard work and natural abilities was able to run at the dream school for kids from his background, Notre Dame.
TigerBlog could go on and on about the people he works with.
Nobody handed any of them anything.
And the athletes?
Yeah, some come elite prep schools. Many come from public schools.
The point is that it doesn't matter.
Either you can play or you can't. Either you worked hard enough to be a Princeton student or you didn't.
That's it.
Privilege? Entitlement?
Not in these arenas.
So what is a blogger to do?
Every now and then, TigerBlog will see something that triggers something that makes him say "hey, that'd be something good to write about." Nine times out of 10, he forgets all about what it was.
It's like that scene in "Seinfeld," where Jerry scribbles something down in the middle of the night that he thinks was going to be hilarious but when he wakes up, he can't remember what it was.
It frustrates TB even more when he remembers what it was but then forgets it by the time he wants to write about it. Or if it's something that comes back to him later, only it's way too late by then for it to matter.
Then again, every now and then, something comes around that smacks him in the face at a moment when he's without a subject.
Like now.
TB wrote about the royal baby, which then prompted this comment:
PU riffing about a disdain of entitlement is like Ryan Braun riffing about a disdain of steroid use.
And it was signed "Jason Garrett."
And presto, TB has something to write about.
Let's get back to the baby, for a moment. How could it take these two parents so long to come up with what to name him?
The stories about how it's possible to bet on the baby's name - or basically anything else - fascinated TB way more than the baby himself did.
As for the comment, well, there are a few issues.
First, was it really Jason Garrett, the Princeton alum and head coach of the Dallas Cowboys who posted it? Rather than speculate, TB will simply point out that in this day and age, anyone can say anything and use any name desired.
The point is there is no way to know definitively if it is Garrett, or anyone else.
It's a lesson that the athletic department staff often will try to get across to the 1,000 Princeton athletes each year. When they have conversations with people about their team, their coaches, their next game, the officials - anything - they have no real way of knowing what will happen with that information.
Is it going to show up on some blog like this one? Or on the Ivy League message board? Or on some email distribution list?
And who will be the author? Someone claiming to be someone else?
In other words, they need to be extraordinarily careful with anything that could be construed as "classified" information. Or comments that might not exactly be flattering, to Princeton, its athletes, its coaches, its officials, its opponents, the other schools in the league, anything.
As TB said last week when the subject was Twitter, it used to be harder to say something dumb, because you needed someone to say it to. Actually, it didn't just require someone to say it to. It required someone who had an outlet to publish whatever dumb thing was said.
Now? Nope. Anyone can be an outlet.
Even Jason Garrett. If that's really who it was.
And what about Jason's comment?
TB actually thought about it when he was writing about the new baby. Yes, Princeton is a place of great, historical entitlement, or, if TB would have chosen the word, privilege.
Still, TB wasn't talking about that when he was talking about the British monarchy. He was talking about the idea that everyone is created equal.
And maybe some who are third and fourth and fifth generation at a school like Princeton or Harvard or Yale aren't born as equally as some whose parents never went to college.
There's an arena where that doesn't matter, though, and it's athletics.
TigerBlog heard Pete Carril talk about this publicly many times and privately many, many more times than that. On his team, there was no privilege. Or at least no inherent privilege.
No. Privilege is what you earned in practice.
It's something that Carril always spoke about with extraordinary passion, and it's stuff TB will never forget.
Gary Walters, Princeton's Director of Athletics the last 19 years, played for Carril in high school, Reading High School. It's a public school in an area that nobody would consider affluent. Carril himself is the son of man who worked in the Bethlehem steel mills for 40 years.
The football coach is the son of a high school football coach. The men's lacrosse coach is the son of public school teachers. He took over for a coach - a Hall of Fame coach - whose father was a New York City cop. The women's soccer coach is also from a family in law enforcement.
The women's track and field coach is a New York City Catholic high school product who through his own hard work and natural abilities was able to run at the dream school for kids from his background, Notre Dame.
TigerBlog could go on and on about the people he works with.
Nobody handed any of them anything.
And the athletes?
Yeah, some come elite prep schools. Many come from public schools.
The point is that it doesn't matter.
Either you can play or you can't. Either you worked hard enough to be a Princeton student or you didn't.
That's it.
Privilege? Entitlement?
Not in these arenas.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
British Heir Ways
TigerBlog saw a great 10-second video, from a reporter in
England who was camped out in front of the hospital where Kate Middleton was in
labor.
Basically, the reporter did everything but roll his eyes at
the absurdity of what he was doing there. When he did speak, he essentially
said “we’ll be here, even if there’s no news, because the Palace will be
announcing it anyway.”
And so it would be that later in the day, the Palace did in
fact make its public announcement. It was a boy.
The way it works, TB learned from the radio, is that the
announcement is taken from the hospital to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen
is informed. Then it’s posted outside on a simple blackboard, which is how it’s
made public.
The new baby is third in line – behind his grandfather
Charles and his father William - to the throne of an empire that dates to 1066
and includes 16 different countries.
To this TB offers the following: were he Canadian, the whole
thing would offend him.
Since he’s an American, it’s not as big a deal, because
nobody is claiming to be his king or queen.
Maybe it’s an American thing, or at least supposed to be an
American thing. This country was founded way back when because of the repugnant
concept of a monarchy, of someone who is simply by virtue of his/her birth
endowed with the right to rule over others.
Here, in America, the whole show is based on the idea of a
self-evident truth, that everyone is created equal. Okay, Thomas Jefferson said
all men are created equal, but these days, that means all men and women.
Equal.
Not royalty.
TB has never been a fan of the royal family, of the concept
of a monarchy.
What he doesn’t understand is why the British go nuts over the royals. Aren’t they as offended as TB would be were he one of the commoners?
TB does have a great deal of respect for William and his
brother Harry for their military service, something they didn’t need to do.
Both of them are well-accomplished officers who have put their lives in danger
in service, to, well, uh, yeah, that’s where it gets sticky.
It’s supposed be in service to the country. Not to the
Queen.
And it's not like they govern the country or anything. They are the royal family of a great democracy.
Yeah, TB gets the celebrity allure of it all. But that’s not
exactly making it more appealing to him.
TB has never been to London, though it looks like a great
city to visit. Certainly that’s how it came across during the Olympics last
summer.
Has it really been only a year since those Olympics?
Princeton was well-represented there, including in the sport
of field hockey. Four Princeton players were on the national team, three were
on the Olympic roster and two started every game in London.
Then they all came back to Princeton, where they rolled
through the Ivy League (going 7-0 and outscoring its opponents 45-1) and then
defeated Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina in order to win the NCAA
championship as well, ending an 11-year run by the ACC.
TB was looking at goprincetontigers.com yesterday and
noticed that the lead story was the announcement of the field hockey schedule.
The opener is no day at the beach, as Duke comes to Bedford
Field on Sept. 6. As in six weeks from Friday. As in will be here before anyone
can blink an eye.
Princeton has its usual tough non-conference schedule,
including games at UConn, Maryland and Syracuse, which was the only team to
knock off the Tigers a year ago, when they went 21-1, as well as home against
Penn State, an NCAA quarterfinal team a year ago.
Princeton graduated Kat Sharkey and Katie Reinprecht, but it
still has national team players Michele Cesan and Julia Reinprecht, as well as
an army of players back from a year ago.
It’s hard to say the Tigers are the preseason favorite to
repeat, given how dominant the ACC teams are and the two huge graduation
losses, but Princeton will be up there with anyone.
As always, goal No. 1 is the Ivy League championship, which
Princeton has won eight straight times and 18 of the last 19.
And then there is the idea of seeing how well the team can
do nationally. The regular season ends, by the way, with a game against local
rival Rider, who is as strong in field hockey as it is in any sport.
And the season will be played on a reconstructed Bedford
Field, with its permanent stands that back up to those at Class of 1952
Stadium, as well as other amenities such as a new press box and concession
areas. There will also be team rooms built near the trees where the Dining
Services truck used to park.
And it’ll all be here before you know it.
Hey, it’ll be six weeks from now.
Maybe the new prince will have slept through the night by
then.
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