TigerBlog plugged his phone in to charge the other night, and when he woke up, it was dead.
This is quite the 21st century frustration, no?
So what does one do when there is a phone that won't charge? Well, TigerBlog figured maybe it was the cord and not the phone, so he tried a different cord, the only other one in the house at the time. And? Nothing.
Plugging the phone in to charge is a fairly simple part of the routine these days. TigerBlog isn't sure if he's supposed to let his phone get all the way to empty before recharging it or recharge it a little at a time, whenever it's starting to get below 50 percent or so and he has something he has to do soon and won't have power available.
The sound of the charger as it buzzes when it's connected to the phone is one that is taken pretty much for granted, until it doesn't happen. Then it's infuriating.
TB was stuck with the icon that instructs him to connect the plug, as opposed to the one that shows that the plug is connected. He loves the lightning bolt that comes up next to the battery level indicator.
TB is a bit fascinated by the fact that a smartphone can do so many, well, smart things but yet the battery can't stay charged for more than a half day or so, even on a new phone.
Speaking of new phones, TB's is pretty new. When he couldn't get it to power up after trying two cords and multiple plugs - and trying to charge it through his computer - he did a search for it. Of course, four million solutions came up - none of which worked.
TB also got an odd error message when he tried to charge it on his computer. It told him that the USB port was trying to draw too much power.
So he did a search for that, and another four million explanations came up.
TB figured he'd blame Jon Kurian, who works in the business office and who is in charge of getting people at Princeton their phones. Kurian must have told the phone people to give TigerBlog a substandard phone, TB surmised. Or no, Kurian dropped the box when it came in and never told anyone. Yeah, that must be it.
TB also figured he'd have to go to the Apple Store and figure it out. Short of trying two cords and trying to restart, that's about all TB was good for here.
Then he plugged in his car charger when he got into his car, and all of the sudden it began to charge his phone. And then he tried a third cord - and that worked as well.
No trip to the Apple Store. Apologies to Kurian for thinking ill of him - this time.
What are the odds of that? Two cords, neither of which worked. That was the problem.
Anyway, TB's phone got back to 100 percent charged, and he was able to go on with his day.
One of his tasks yesterday was to fulfill a request for the NCAA men's lacrosse rules committee, which is beginning its meetings next week to address possible rules changes for the sport. The committee meets in two-year cycles, so any rule changes that are made now are supposed to be for two years.
The biggest issue in men's lacrosse now is whether or not the college game needs a shot clock. TigerBlog would be shocked if the rules committee didn't vote to put one in, though the specifics of it remain to be seen.
Would a shot clock start upon gaining possession? Upon getting across midfield? Getting it into the box?
And then how long would it last? A minute? Longer?
Major League Lacrosse has a 60-second shot clock. It also has a two-point shot, similar to the three-point shot in basketball.
TB is pretty sure that when MLL first began, it viewed these two devices as gimmicks to 1) attract fans and 2) differentiate itself from the college game.
The current rules of men's college lacrosse put a great deal of discretion on the part of the referees to police the pace of the game. If the refs decided that the offense isn't attempting to go to the goal, after a certain amount of a time a call of "Timer On" is issued. At that point, the offense has 30 seconds to either score or get a shot on goal, or else it's a turnover. The first 20 seconds of this time is counted by a stopwatch on the refs belt; the last 10 seconds are by hand. The clock continues to run no matter what during the first 20 seconds, even if the ball goes out of bounds or a timeout is called by the offense.
There are inherent problems with this, yes. First, one group of three refs might have a different sense of when to call "Timer On" than another. Second, should the refs treat an end game situation differently than a first-quarter situation, or should they both take the same amount of time before the call?
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, nobody can see the countdown clock, because there isn't one, so it's not completely certain how much time is remaining.
TigerBlog might be the only serious lacrosse fan who thinks that the "Timer On" rule of two years ago - along with the rules about faster restarts - accomplished exactly what was supposed to be accomplished. The play is much, much faster.
Look at Princeton.
In the last two years, Princeton games have averaged 22.6 goals and 76.5 shots per game. The two years before that, those numbers were 16.6 goals 66.4 shots per game.
Was Princeton a fluke? TigerBlog chose another school completely a random, Sacred Heart University. The Pioneers averaged 22.9 goals and 75 shots per game the last two years and 19.7 goals and 69.3 shots per game the two before it.
The problem with a shot clock is that it's not going to make the game move faster. Defenses will be able to react to the fact that the clock is winding down by packing it in. Teams may take more shots, but they won't necessarily be better shots. Scoring won't necessarily increase, because teams won't want to take bad shots late in the shot clock and risk transition the other way; instead they'll run the clock down, roll the ball into the corner and go set up on defense.
Besides, the sport doesn't need to keep making radical overhauls in its rules every two years. The current games are fast, well-paced. The ability to simply hold onto the ball and try to win 6-5 is gone - though TB is okay with games that end up 6-5 under the current rules.
The fact that the refs have too much discretion is something TB can live with. If anything, it adds to the drama, waiting for the "Timer On" call. The fact that nobody can see the clock? That's a pain, but a doable one.
But a shot clock? That won't really make the game better. Not in TB's mind anyway. He likes the current rules.
Maybe he's wrong about them. Maybe he's wrong about what the shot clock would do.
He's definitely in the minority though.
The shot clock is coming, he'd assume. He'll have to make the best of it.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
No. 1 In August
TigerBlog used to love Ivy League media day for football, though he suspects its for a different reason than his friend Bruce Wood of the Big Green Alert.
No, for TB, it had nothing to do with media access (or even the guaranteed annual bickering between Bill Wallace from the New York Times and TB's former Trenton Times colleague Harvey Yavener), even when he was a sportswriter. It had everything to do with camarderie.
Each year during this week, the Ivy League would have football media day and Ivy League sports information meetings on consecutive days. As TB recalls, it wasn't always in the same order.
In between would be a really nice dinner for the sports information people, who would sit around, talk, laugh, make fun of each other - do all the things that colleagues and friends do. There'd also be golf with the Ivy football media day.
These two events - actually TB thinks it went meetings, dinner, media day, golf - were almost always held at Yale or somewhere close to Yale. What was the name of the golf club? Lyman Orchards?
There are still some in the Ivy League who were part of years and years of those media days/meetings. Chris Humm at Brown. Steve Conn at Yale. A few others who came in on the tail end but at least had an experience with them.
The Ivy sports information meetings were laughably absurd, as TB thinks back on them. He can't help but laugh at the subjects that were vehemently debated, most famously that of standardized rosters back when it became possible to actually email files back and forth rather than faxing and retyping rosters.
If you've never had the thrill of receiving a fax and then retyping an alphabetical and numerical Ivy League football roster, well, then you don't really know what fun is.
Somewhere in his office, TB can find the minutes from Ivy sports information meetings, and they're always worth a chuckle. These were mostly in the early- to mid-’90s, when the internet hadn't quite exploded but the desire and need to find a way to quickly share information was starting to emerge anyway. Some of the solutions were hilarious.
Oh, another great argument was how many post-game faxes were too many for the visiting team to expect the home team to send. That number was capped at four by a rule, one that TB rolled his eyes at, as he assumed that any fax being sent by a visiting team was being done for a reason.
He wonders how much time was spent debating that. Or Player of the Week nomination procedure. Or when All-Ivy squash should be announced. Or how many track and field releases during the year the Ivy office should produce. And on and on it went.
As for media day, it was each of the eight head coaches, who would stand up in alphabetical order by school (or one year reverse alphabetical order) and talk about their team's prospects. To hear each talk, it's amazing that any Ivy football game was ever played in which both teams did not lose.
Then there would be a chance for one-on-one interviews.
Mostly it was about cultivating relationships. On the sports information side, it was about reaffirming that it wasn't just people from eight schools and a league office - it was one, as the late, great Kathy Slattery of Dartmouth said every year, a "clan," and the whole point was to remember that all of these discussions were for "the good of the clan."
On the football side, it was about seeing the coaches in a more informal setting and about fostering direct contact with the media that covered the Ivy League. And making sure the media guide was done for football media day.
Back then, there was a good turnout of media. Today? There would hardly be any. That's why TigerBlog gets why media day has been replaced by a conference call, which was held yesterday.
As with media day, the conference call serves as the setting to release the preseason football poll.
This year, Princeton was the preseason pick to win the league, by one point over Harvard. The consensus seems to think that those are the two best teams, as they were 1-2 on each of 17 ballots.
The two meet on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium on Oct. 25.
Princeton and Harvard tied for the championship last year. Princeton has beaten Harvard in wildly dramatic fashion in each of the last two years, including a 51-48 three-OT game last year in Cambridge that might have been the tamer of the two, after Princeton came from 29 points down in 12 minutes to shock Harvard 39-34 two years ago.
Quinn Epperly threw the game-winner to Roman Wilson in both of those games. Epperly, the reigning Ivy Offense Player of the Year, is back to quarterback Princeton again. Or to be one of Princeton's many quarterbacks, as the Tigers' unique attack looks to duplicate last year's outrageousness, when Princeton set the Ivy records for points and yards in a season and reached 50 points five times in 10 games after doing so five times in 48 years prior to that.
Whether or not Princeton wins the league, being picked No. 1 in the preseason poll is a startling accomplishment for a coach - Bob Surace - who less than two years ago was 2-20 after his first 22 games at Princeton.
Princeton is trying to do something that it has only done once before in its history, back in 1963 and 1964, and that's win consecutive Ivy League championships. Still, that's for November.
For August, it's okay to take some pride for being No. 1 in the preseason poll and enjoying the statement it makes about the program and where it has come under Surace and his staff. Long gone are the days when trying to win a game here or there was the goal.
Now Princeton has an army of talent and the desire - and opportunity - to win each Saturday. That doesn't mean that Princeton automatically will. It doesn't mean that there aren't a few other teams that can also make the same claim.
It's just that it serves as a reminder of the incredible rise of Princeton football, and what a great job the coaches have done in a short time.
Like TB said, that's enough for August.
TB used to leave media day thinking that the season was closing in but wasn't quite there yet, that there was still some summer left. It was like the opposite of Groundhog Day - six more weeks of summer.
But with a hint that it would be different soon.
Princeton football 2014 - No. 1 in the preseason poll. It'll mean nothing in November.
In August? It's great.
No, for TB, it had nothing to do with media access (or even the guaranteed annual bickering between Bill Wallace from the New York Times and TB's former Trenton Times colleague Harvey Yavener), even when he was a sportswriter. It had everything to do with camarderie.
Each year during this week, the Ivy League would have football media day and Ivy League sports information meetings on consecutive days. As TB recalls, it wasn't always in the same order.
In between would be a really nice dinner for the sports information people, who would sit around, talk, laugh, make fun of each other - do all the things that colleagues and friends do. There'd also be golf with the Ivy football media day.
These two events - actually TB thinks it went meetings, dinner, media day, golf - were almost always held at Yale or somewhere close to Yale. What was the name of the golf club? Lyman Orchards?
There are still some in the Ivy League who were part of years and years of those media days/meetings. Chris Humm at Brown. Steve Conn at Yale. A few others who came in on the tail end but at least had an experience with them.
The Ivy sports information meetings were laughably absurd, as TB thinks back on them. He can't help but laugh at the subjects that were vehemently debated, most famously that of standardized rosters back when it became possible to actually email files back and forth rather than faxing and retyping rosters.
If you've never had the thrill of receiving a fax and then retyping an alphabetical and numerical Ivy League football roster, well, then you don't really know what fun is.
Somewhere in his office, TB can find the minutes from Ivy sports information meetings, and they're always worth a chuckle. These were mostly in the early- to mid-’90s, when the internet hadn't quite exploded but the desire and need to find a way to quickly share information was starting to emerge anyway. Some of the solutions were hilarious.
Oh, another great argument was how many post-game faxes were too many for the visiting team to expect the home team to send. That number was capped at four by a rule, one that TB rolled his eyes at, as he assumed that any fax being sent by a visiting team was being done for a reason.
He wonders how much time was spent debating that. Or Player of the Week nomination procedure. Or when All-Ivy squash should be announced. Or how many track and field releases during the year the Ivy office should produce. And on and on it went.
As for media day, it was each of the eight head coaches, who would stand up in alphabetical order by school (or one year reverse alphabetical order) and talk about their team's prospects. To hear each talk, it's amazing that any Ivy football game was ever played in which both teams did not lose.
Then there would be a chance for one-on-one interviews.
Mostly it was about cultivating relationships. On the sports information side, it was about reaffirming that it wasn't just people from eight schools and a league office - it was one, as the late, great Kathy Slattery of Dartmouth said every year, a "clan," and the whole point was to remember that all of these discussions were for "the good of the clan."
On the football side, it was about seeing the coaches in a more informal setting and about fostering direct contact with the media that covered the Ivy League. And making sure the media guide was done for football media day.
Back then, there was a good turnout of media. Today? There would hardly be any. That's why TigerBlog gets why media day has been replaced by a conference call, which was held yesterday.
As with media day, the conference call serves as the setting to release the preseason football poll.
This year, Princeton was the preseason pick to win the league, by one point over Harvard. The consensus seems to think that those are the two best teams, as they were 1-2 on each of 17 ballots.
The two meet on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium on Oct. 25.
Princeton and Harvard tied for the championship last year. Princeton has beaten Harvard in wildly dramatic fashion in each of the last two years, including a 51-48 three-OT game last year in Cambridge that might have been the tamer of the two, after Princeton came from 29 points down in 12 minutes to shock Harvard 39-34 two years ago.
Quinn Epperly threw the game-winner to Roman Wilson in both of those games. Epperly, the reigning Ivy Offense Player of the Year, is back to quarterback Princeton again. Or to be one of Princeton's many quarterbacks, as the Tigers' unique attack looks to duplicate last year's outrageousness, when Princeton set the Ivy records for points and yards in a season and reached 50 points five times in 10 games after doing so five times in 48 years prior to that.
Whether or not Princeton wins the league, being picked No. 1 in the preseason poll is a startling accomplishment for a coach - Bob Surace - who less than two years ago was 2-20 after his first 22 games at Princeton.
Princeton is trying to do something that it has only done once before in its history, back in 1963 and 1964, and that's win consecutive Ivy League championships. Still, that's for November.
For August, it's okay to take some pride for being No. 1 in the preseason poll and enjoying the statement it makes about the program and where it has come under Surace and his staff. Long gone are the days when trying to win a game here or there was the goal.
Now Princeton has an army of talent and the desire - and opportunity - to win each Saturday. That doesn't mean that Princeton automatically will. It doesn't mean that there aren't a few other teams that can also make the same claim.
It's just that it serves as a reminder of the incredible rise of Princeton football, and what a great job the coaches have done in a short time.
Like TB said, that's enough for August.
TB used to leave media day thinking that the season was closing in but wasn't quite there yet, that there was still some summer left. It was like the opposite of Groundhog Day - six more weeks of summer.
But with a hint that it would be different soon.
Princeton football 2014 - No. 1 in the preseason poll. It'll mean nothing in November.
In August? It's great.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Dogs And Puppies
TigerBlog was driving along this morning when he saw a man walking up the street with something around his neck.
At first glance TigerBlog couldn't make out what it was. Then, as the man got closer, TB figured out that it was ... a dog.
A real dog. A live one. Wrapped around his neck like a scarf, or a towel on a hot day.
The man held a leash in his hands, though TB couldn't figure out if the leash was attached the dog's collar. At first TB wondered if the dog was hurt, or possibly had been hit by a car. He figured, though, that the man would be cradling the dog in his arms, in front of him, rather than wearing him on his neck, had that been the case.
TB wanted to stop and ask what was up with this rather unique way of walking a dog. Was it a ritual?
TigerBlog used to have a neighbor who had a dog, and the ritual there was that the dog got its beloved glove to carry around after it, uh, did its business. Off the dog would go in the morning, without the glove in its mouth. Back the dog would come, 20 minutes later, happily chomping on its glove.
TB isn't sure how that ritual started. Maybe the dog-around-the-neck walk is something similar?
Speaking of dogs, TB's colleague Nancy Donigan appears to be quite a dog trainer. At least she is from the video she sent TB, which is pretty impressive. TB made Nancy swear that she didn't have to beat the dog or anything to get him to do all those tricks.
So a man with a dog around his neck was the last thing that TB expected to see as he drove along this morning. The only other time he can remember a sentence like that is from the movie "Stripes," when Bill Murray is driving a cab in the first scene and he picks up the snooty woman with the fur and says "I thought that was a dog around your neck."
It was a good line, though not in the top, say, 50 in that movie, which happens to be one of the funniest TB has ever seen. It also was responsible for one of the two times in TB's life that he has seen FatherBlog laugh the hardest.
The first was Buddy Hackett's HBO special from a long time ago. The second is when Harold Ramis looks at Murray as the drill instructor is teaching them how to march and, with a look of pure bewilderment as what the platoon has accomplished, says "Look John, we're walking."
Anyway, TigerBlog was driving to work after dropping off Miss TigerBlog at a field hockey camp. It's at the high school she will be attending, starting in a few weeks.
MTB plays field hockey and lacrosse. On the middle school level, field hockey is a much better sport to watch for girls than lacrosse.
Why? On that level, girls' lacrosse too often becomes the fastest girl on the team with the ball in her stick on an unstoppable path to the goal. That's why if you have a legitimate defender on that level, it's a huge bonus.
Field hockey isn't that type of game, especially on that level. The same girl who can take the ball behind one goal in lacrosse and run straight down the field and score can't get the ball more than five or 10 yards in field hockey. It requires teamwork, passing, spacing - all the things that come out in women's lacrosse as the players get older and the defensive athletes get better.
MTB has tryouts for the high school team beginning next week, stunningly enough. That's from the point of view of 1) that the summer has flown by to the point that tryouts are starting and 2) that MTB is actually going to high school.
You know what soon-to-be high school athletes think about, and what their parents desperately talk about?
Recruiting.
TigerBlog is shocked by the conversations. Here are kids who have yet to take a high school class who are already thinking about whether or not coaches are watching them and if they're going to get recruited.
And the parents? They are obsessed about which club team or showcase event in the summer will put their kid in the best position to be recruited by the best - or biggest - school.
And these kids haven't started high school yet.
TigerBlog has spent hours talking to Princeton coaches across all sports basically about the trend towards earlier and earlier recruiting. It's frightening to them and they all universally hate it, even as they are forced to deal with it.
TB, for one, doesn't understand it. How can anyone possible project out a 14- or 15-year-old and figure what kind of contribution that kid will make to a college program six, seven, even eight years later? It's insane, almost as insane as making a choice about a college at that early age, as if a kid that age can process everything that should go into making a college decision.
Maybe the really, really best kids are going to be the best in a few years. But not definitely. It's why recruiting class sizes on the top levels of Division I have gotten bigger. Snap a kid up, keep that kid away from the competition, hope that kid develops. Hopefully get 25 percent correct.
TigerBlog laughs at the term "late bloomer." They're not late bloomers. They were better the whole time. It's just nobody noticed, because there are so many clubs, so many events - all of which are costing the parents money.
TB and some of the other parents joke that they should start something called an "elite showcase" and not even say what it is and watch the checks pour in.
And the kid? How does that kid know that the coach who is recruiting now will be there when it comes time to actually attend the school.
TigerBog saw it with TigerBlog Jr. and his friends and teammates and now he's starting to see it with Miss TigerBlog and her friends and teammates. Their dream is to play in college, and they think that the dream can get away from them before they ever finish their freshman year of high school.
The full effect of the early recruiting cycle hasn't been felt yet. The current college athletic classes feature almost no kids who made their commitments earlier than junior year. They're going to be filled with those kids in the next year, two years and so on.
What will this mean for tradition powers? What will this mean for the school that was more patient, either by design or by institutional control? Will they snap up the overlooked kids who were better all the time?
If nothing else, TB hopes that college coaches are aware that the rush to recruit early has taken quite a bit of the fun out of the games for kids who are in middle school or freshmen in high school, who are being forced to deal with this pressure way earlier than they need to or are able to.
TB laughs when he hears that the NCAA should do something about this. The NCAA doesn't make the rules. They start, usually, with the coaches, who have shown no inclination to want to end any of this.
Anyway, that's what TB's view from the sidelines of youth sports and from his chair here at Princeton affords. It's not pretty.
These kids are puppies, after all. Let them be puppies, at least for a little while longer.
At first glance TigerBlog couldn't make out what it was. Then, as the man got closer, TB figured out that it was ... a dog.
A real dog. A live one. Wrapped around his neck like a scarf, or a towel on a hot day.
The man held a leash in his hands, though TB couldn't figure out if the leash was attached the dog's collar. At first TB wondered if the dog was hurt, or possibly had been hit by a car. He figured, though, that the man would be cradling the dog in his arms, in front of him, rather than wearing him on his neck, had that been the case.
TB wanted to stop and ask what was up with this rather unique way of walking a dog. Was it a ritual?
TigerBlog used to have a neighbor who had a dog, and the ritual there was that the dog got its beloved glove to carry around after it, uh, did its business. Off the dog would go in the morning, without the glove in its mouth. Back the dog would come, 20 minutes later, happily chomping on its glove.
TB isn't sure how that ritual started. Maybe the dog-around-the-neck walk is something similar?
Speaking of dogs, TB's colleague Nancy Donigan appears to be quite a dog trainer. At least she is from the video she sent TB, which is pretty impressive. TB made Nancy swear that she didn't have to beat the dog or anything to get him to do all those tricks.
So a man with a dog around his neck was the last thing that TB expected to see as he drove along this morning. The only other time he can remember a sentence like that is from the movie "Stripes," when Bill Murray is driving a cab in the first scene and he picks up the snooty woman with the fur and says "I thought that was a dog around your neck."
It was a good line, though not in the top, say, 50 in that movie, which happens to be one of the funniest TB has ever seen. It also was responsible for one of the two times in TB's life that he has seen FatherBlog laugh the hardest.
The first was Buddy Hackett's HBO special from a long time ago. The second is when Harold Ramis looks at Murray as the drill instructor is teaching them how to march and, with a look of pure bewilderment as what the platoon has accomplished, says "Look John, we're walking."
Anyway, TigerBlog was driving to work after dropping off Miss TigerBlog at a field hockey camp. It's at the high school she will be attending, starting in a few weeks.
MTB plays field hockey and lacrosse. On the middle school level, field hockey is a much better sport to watch for girls than lacrosse.
Why? On that level, girls' lacrosse too often becomes the fastest girl on the team with the ball in her stick on an unstoppable path to the goal. That's why if you have a legitimate defender on that level, it's a huge bonus.
Field hockey isn't that type of game, especially on that level. The same girl who can take the ball behind one goal in lacrosse and run straight down the field and score can't get the ball more than five or 10 yards in field hockey. It requires teamwork, passing, spacing - all the things that come out in women's lacrosse as the players get older and the defensive athletes get better.
MTB has tryouts for the high school team beginning next week, stunningly enough. That's from the point of view of 1) that the summer has flown by to the point that tryouts are starting and 2) that MTB is actually going to high school.
You know what soon-to-be high school athletes think about, and what their parents desperately talk about?
Recruiting.
TigerBlog is shocked by the conversations. Here are kids who have yet to take a high school class who are already thinking about whether or not coaches are watching them and if they're going to get recruited.
And the parents? They are obsessed about which club team or showcase event in the summer will put their kid in the best position to be recruited by the best - or biggest - school.
And these kids haven't started high school yet.
TigerBlog has spent hours talking to Princeton coaches across all sports basically about the trend towards earlier and earlier recruiting. It's frightening to them and they all universally hate it, even as they are forced to deal with it.
TB, for one, doesn't understand it. How can anyone possible project out a 14- or 15-year-old and figure what kind of contribution that kid will make to a college program six, seven, even eight years later? It's insane, almost as insane as making a choice about a college at that early age, as if a kid that age can process everything that should go into making a college decision.
Maybe the really, really best kids are going to be the best in a few years. But not definitely. It's why recruiting class sizes on the top levels of Division I have gotten bigger. Snap a kid up, keep that kid away from the competition, hope that kid develops. Hopefully get 25 percent correct.
TigerBlog laughs at the term "late bloomer." They're not late bloomers. They were better the whole time. It's just nobody noticed, because there are so many clubs, so many events - all of which are costing the parents money.
TB and some of the other parents joke that they should start something called an "elite showcase" and not even say what it is and watch the checks pour in.
And the kid? How does that kid know that the coach who is recruiting now will be there when it comes time to actually attend the school.
TigerBog saw it with TigerBlog Jr. and his friends and teammates and now he's starting to see it with Miss TigerBlog and her friends and teammates. Their dream is to play in college, and they think that the dream can get away from them before they ever finish their freshman year of high school.
The full effect of the early recruiting cycle hasn't been felt yet. The current college athletic classes feature almost no kids who made their commitments earlier than junior year. They're going to be filled with those kids in the next year, two years and so on.
What will this mean for tradition powers? What will this mean for the school that was more patient, either by design or by institutional control? Will they snap up the overlooked kids who were better all the time?
If nothing else, TB hopes that college coaches are aware that the rush to recruit early has taken quite a bit of the fun out of the games for kids who are in middle school or freshmen in high school, who are being forced to deal with this pressure way earlier than they need to or are able to.
TB laughs when he hears that the NCAA should do something about this. The NCAA doesn't make the rules. They start, usually, with the coaches, who have shown no inclination to want to end any of this.
Anyway, that's what TB's view from the sidelines of youth sports and from his chair here at Princeton affords. It's not pretty.
These kids are puppies, after all. Let them be puppies, at least for a little while longer.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Day 1
TigerBlog was thinking back to all the bosses he's had in his life.
There haven't been many. Fewer than 10 at least. That's what happens when you basically have two jobs in the last 31 years.
Most of his career has been spent reporting to one of two bosses, actually. One was Jim Gauger, the former sports editor of the Trenton Times. TigerBlog would describe Gauger has amiable and lanky.
Actually, he'd say that Gauger did a lot for TB, giving him an opportunity to cover high school football a long, long time ago when TB had never written a story before and then sending him out on the college beat six years later, a move that first brought TB to Princeton.
For the last 20 years, of course, TigerBlog's boss has been Gary Walters. Well, that's not actually true. It depends on how your define the boss.
For the first eight of those years, TB reported directly to Kurt Kehl, who oversaw the Office of Athletic Communications back then. After that, when he became the head of the OAC, TB reported to Inge Radice, the Senior Associate AD for Finance and Administration before eventually reporting directly to Gary.
Speaking of Inge's position, its current inhabitant, Chris Brock, and his wife Alexis celebrated the birth of their first child, a daughter, over the weekend. Mazel tov to the Brock family.
Meanwhile, the main boss here had been Gary for all the time that TigerBlog worked here, from his first day until this past June 30, when he officially stepped aside.
TigerBlog adds a new boss today. Here at Princeton, today is Day 1 of the Mollie Marcoux era, as the 1991 Princeton grad - a former hockey and soccer player and student-worker in the OAC - takes over as the new Ford Family Director of Athletics.
Mollie becomes the first boss TB has had who is younger than he is, which says something about the nature of the way the world works, sort of like when you realize that you're older than a few professional athletes and then half of them and then eventually all of them.
Mollie becomes the fifth person to hold the title of Director of Athletics since the position was formalized in 1941. It wasn't until 1937 that the athletic department existed as a University entity; prior to that, it was an independent association with a separate board to oversee its functions. Going way back, there were no coaches, just team captains who ran each sport's show.
Asa Bushnell was the head of the last head of the board of the athletic association and the first person to oversee athletics when it became absorbed by the University, but his title was never actually "Director of Athletics."
The first person to hold that distinction was Ken Fairman, who served as actual Director of Athletics from 1941 through 1973, a 32-year tenure that was interrupted by Fairman's service in World War II (during which time Howard Stepp was acting AD).
Royce Flippen was AD from 1973-79 for the shortest tenure by an AD here, and the Robert Myslik took over from 1979 until Gary arrived in 1994.
That makes the average tenure of Mollie's four predecessors 18.3 years, with the shortest stay of six years and the longest of 34. History, at least, suggests that Mollie has a very good chance to be TB's last boss.
So now that it is Day 1, the question is what happens now?
Mollie's hiring was announced on April 15, or 3.5 months ago. Since then, she's transitioned into the role, but now she's here full time.
It's a time of great excitement and uncertainty here. What will her direction be? What will her management style be? What will her priorities be?
For her part, Mollie is stepping into the leadership role of an organization with a great legacy of success and a fairly well-established staff on the administrative and coaching end. One thing TB always said about Gary was that he came into the same type of situation and didn't just adopt a "don't rock the boat" philosophy. Instead, he basically tore it all down and built it back up in his image.
Is that what Mollie will do?
There are many unknowns right now, and they won't be answered today. Not in the least. Today is Day 1, the first day in what TB hopes is a long and successful tenure here.
Princeton is getting an AD with energy, personality, drive, competitiveness, creativity, intelligence.
What, you expected TigerBlog to rip his new boss? Not on her first day.
Besides, everything TB says about her is true.
He wishes her luck.
There haven't been many. Fewer than 10 at least. That's what happens when you basically have two jobs in the last 31 years.
Most of his career has been spent reporting to one of two bosses, actually. One was Jim Gauger, the former sports editor of the Trenton Times. TigerBlog would describe Gauger has amiable and lanky.
Actually, he'd say that Gauger did a lot for TB, giving him an opportunity to cover high school football a long, long time ago when TB had never written a story before and then sending him out on the college beat six years later, a move that first brought TB to Princeton.
For the last 20 years, of course, TigerBlog's boss has been Gary Walters. Well, that's not actually true. It depends on how your define the boss.
For the first eight of those years, TB reported directly to Kurt Kehl, who oversaw the Office of Athletic Communications back then. After that, when he became the head of the OAC, TB reported to Inge Radice, the Senior Associate AD for Finance and Administration before eventually reporting directly to Gary.
Speaking of Inge's position, its current inhabitant, Chris Brock, and his wife Alexis celebrated the birth of their first child, a daughter, over the weekend. Mazel tov to the Brock family.
Meanwhile, the main boss here had been Gary for all the time that TigerBlog worked here, from his first day until this past June 30, when he officially stepped aside.
TigerBlog adds a new boss today. Here at Princeton, today is Day 1 of the Mollie Marcoux era, as the 1991 Princeton grad - a former hockey and soccer player and student-worker in the OAC - takes over as the new Ford Family Director of Athletics.
Mollie becomes the first boss TB has had who is younger than he is, which says something about the nature of the way the world works, sort of like when you realize that you're older than a few professional athletes and then half of them and then eventually all of them.
Mollie becomes the fifth person to hold the title of Director of Athletics since the position was formalized in 1941. It wasn't until 1937 that the athletic department existed as a University entity; prior to that, it was an independent association with a separate board to oversee its functions. Going way back, there were no coaches, just team captains who ran each sport's show.
Asa Bushnell was the head of the last head of the board of the athletic association and the first person to oversee athletics when it became absorbed by the University, but his title was never actually "Director of Athletics."
The first person to hold that distinction was Ken Fairman, who served as actual Director of Athletics from 1941 through 1973, a 32-year tenure that was interrupted by Fairman's service in World War II (during which time Howard Stepp was acting AD).
Royce Flippen was AD from 1973-79 for the shortest tenure by an AD here, and the Robert Myslik took over from 1979 until Gary arrived in 1994.
That makes the average tenure of Mollie's four predecessors 18.3 years, with the shortest stay of six years and the longest of 34. History, at least, suggests that Mollie has a very good chance to be TB's last boss.
So now that it is Day 1, the question is what happens now?
Mollie's hiring was announced on April 15, or 3.5 months ago. Since then, she's transitioned into the role, but now she's here full time.
It's a time of great excitement and uncertainty here. What will her direction be? What will her management style be? What will her priorities be?
For her part, Mollie is stepping into the leadership role of an organization with a great legacy of success and a fairly well-established staff on the administrative and coaching end. One thing TB always said about Gary was that he came into the same type of situation and didn't just adopt a "don't rock the boat" philosophy. Instead, he basically tore it all down and built it back up in his image.
Is that what Mollie will do?
There are many unknowns right now, and they won't be answered today. Not in the least. Today is Day 1, the first day in what TB hopes is a long and successful tenure here.
Princeton is getting an AD with energy, personality, drive, competitiveness, creativity, intelligence.
What, you expected TigerBlog to rip his new boss? Not on her first day.
Besides, everything TB says about her is true.
He wishes her luck.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Welcome To August
More than any other month, August is the one that TigerBlog has the toughest time figuring out.
Yes, it's still summer, the dog days actually.
Where does that expression come from anyway? Wikipedia offers this:
The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog). Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky. The term "Dog Days" was used earlier by the Greeks (see, e.g., Aristotle's Physics, 199a2).
The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as the sun (heliacal rising), which is no longer true, owing to precession of the equinoxes. The Romans sacrificed a red dog in April to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies." according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813.[1]
What in the world did people do before Wikipedia? And phrensies? Sounds bad. And they didn't have hand sanitizer back then.
Actually, an interesting social trend that has emerged is the endless instant fact-checking that now is possible. A conversation will reach a point of uncertainty, and that uncertainty is immediately checkable on a smart phone.
Was so-and-so in that movie? Who was the 14th President (TigerBlog already knew that one)? Who was the National League MVP last year (TB has no idea)? Is it going to rain this weekend?
In an instant, the interpersonal face-to-face communication is disrupted in the name of looking it up. Is this rude? Or helpful? Is this socially acceptable? What's the etiquette say?
Or were all etiquette books written decades ago and therefore completely out-of-date for modern social times?
Oh, and the MVP of the National League last year was Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates. And Buster Posey won it two years ago. TB looked it up on his phone while writing this.
Anyway, today is the first day of August.
TigerBlog have never been able to figure out if August flies by or crawls by or both. One day in August can seem like three or four days in February, with the heat and humidity and all.
It's still summer obviously. But football preseason starts this weekend, and as the exhibition games drag by, it points out that the coming of fall is right around the corner. That means a new school year, new athletic year, new NFL season, cooler weather.
Everyone loves the fall. Everyone loves June and July. August? Is it enough already, let's move on, or is it the last vestiges of the best time of the year, to be savored for all 31 days?
TB has never been able to figure it out.
In addition to being August 1, it's also another Friday in the summer.
Each of the last three Fridays, TigerBlog has remarked about how quickly the previous week has flown by and how much closer to the start of the new athletic year Princeton is. The number is now five, as in five weeks from today will be opening day for field hockey, both soccers and women's volleyball. Men's water polo plays a day later; football starts in seven weeks.
The field hockey team isn't exactly easing into things. The Tigers start the season with Duke and Virginia the first weekend.
Friday in the summer is supposed to be a bit slower than any other day of the work year. TB can make the case that business around here slows even more in the last few weeks of December, but Friday in the summer is fairly universal in its tepid pace.
It's 43 miles from TigerBlog's desk to the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps everyone here should leave work at noon and go there, if for no other reason than to just breathe it in. Wouldn't that be great?
Okay, it's not exactly practical. But hey, it's a good idea in theory anyway.
Besides, today isn't just another Friday in the summer. It's the last work day before Mollie Marcoux officially starts as the Ford Family Director of Athletics.
Mollie has been doing a considerable amount in terms of transitioning and preparing, and she has already started to lay out what her short- and long-term vision is.
It's just that she actually takes over Monday.
Her office is Gary Walters' old one, and it has been completely remodeled in the last few weeks, with new carpet, furniture and layout - a literal and figurative new beginning. And now, starting Monday, she will be a full-time inhabitant of that office.
It's an exciting time for Princeton University. Mollie will be just the fifth person in Princeton history to hold the title of "Director of Athletics." She is also the first woman who will do so.
But again, that's for Monday.
Today is a summer Friday, another summer week come and gone. In a flash. And with this week, July has come and gone, also in a flash.
It's time for August, a month that TB has never really understood.
And for a new Director of Athletics.
Today is quiet around here.
Monday will be exciting.
Yes, it's still summer, the dog days actually.
Where does that expression come from anyway? Wikipedia offers this:
The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the "Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog). Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky. The term "Dog Days" was used earlier by the Greeks (see, e.g., Aristotle's Physics, 199a2).
The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as the sun (heliacal rising), which is no longer true, owing to precession of the equinoxes. The Romans sacrificed a red dog in April to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies." according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813.[1]
What in the world did people do before Wikipedia? And phrensies? Sounds bad. And they didn't have hand sanitizer back then.
Actually, an interesting social trend that has emerged is the endless instant fact-checking that now is possible. A conversation will reach a point of uncertainty, and that uncertainty is immediately checkable on a smart phone.
Was so-and-so in that movie? Who was the 14th President (TigerBlog already knew that one)? Who was the National League MVP last year (TB has no idea)? Is it going to rain this weekend?
In an instant, the interpersonal face-to-face communication is disrupted in the name of looking it up. Is this rude? Or helpful? Is this socially acceptable? What's the etiquette say?
Or were all etiquette books written decades ago and therefore completely out-of-date for modern social times?
Oh, and the MVP of the National League last year was Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates. And Buster Posey won it two years ago. TB looked it up on his phone while writing this.
Anyway, today is the first day of August.
TigerBlog have never been able to figure out if August flies by or crawls by or both. One day in August can seem like three or four days in February, with the heat and humidity and all.
It's still summer obviously. But football preseason starts this weekend, and as the exhibition games drag by, it points out that the coming of fall is right around the corner. That means a new school year, new athletic year, new NFL season, cooler weather.
Everyone loves the fall. Everyone loves June and July. August? Is it enough already, let's move on, or is it the last vestiges of the best time of the year, to be savored for all 31 days?
TB has never been able to figure it out.
In addition to being August 1, it's also another Friday in the summer.
Each of the last three Fridays, TigerBlog has remarked about how quickly the previous week has flown by and how much closer to the start of the new athletic year Princeton is. The number is now five, as in five weeks from today will be opening day for field hockey, both soccers and women's volleyball. Men's water polo plays a day later; football starts in seven weeks.
The field hockey team isn't exactly easing into things. The Tigers start the season with Duke and Virginia the first weekend.
Friday in the summer is supposed to be a bit slower than any other day of the work year. TB can make the case that business around here slows even more in the last few weeks of December, but Friday in the summer is fairly universal in its tepid pace.
It's 43 miles from TigerBlog's desk to the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps everyone here should leave work at noon and go there, if for no other reason than to just breathe it in. Wouldn't that be great?
Okay, it's not exactly practical. But hey, it's a good idea in theory anyway.
Besides, today isn't just another Friday in the summer. It's the last work day before Mollie Marcoux officially starts as the Ford Family Director of Athletics.
Mollie has been doing a considerable amount in terms of transitioning and preparing, and she has already started to lay out what her short- and long-term vision is.
It's just that she actually takes over Monday.
Her office is Gary Walters' old one, and it has been completely remodeled in the last few weeks, with new carpet, furniture and layout - a literal and figurative new beginning. And now, starting Monday, she will be a full-time inhabitant of that office.
It's an exciting time for Princeton University. Mollie will be just the fifth person in Princeton history to hold the title of "Director of Athletics." She is also the first woman who will do so.
But again, that's for Monday.
Today is a summer Friday, another summer week come and gone. In a flash. And with this week, July has come and gone, also in a flash.
It's time for August, a month that TB has never really understood.
And for a new Director of Athletics.
Today is quiet around here.
Monday will be exciting.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Another Day
TigerBlog can't think of a single thing to write about today.
It happens.
Not to worry. Something will come to him. It always does.
He hasn't missed a day in nearly six years of doing this. A work day anyway.
What is it about streaks that are so fascinating? Does TB keep writing every single day simply because he doesn't want to miss a day, or is there another reason?
His belief is that if the audience knows it's there every day, so it keeps coming back. If he stopped every now and then, then the audience couldn't rely on having a new entry every day. It's just as easy to get out of the habit of checking as it is to get into the habit of checking.
The same logic sort of applies to the main website.
TB's belief is that people check the site and judge whether or not to stay based on the first picture. If it's the same as the last time, then they figure there's nothing new here.
The issue then becomes what to do with a major story, one that you might want to lock into place for a little while. With the number of stories that go up around here, that's not always easy to do.
If the main picture is, say, Julia Ratcliffe after she wins the NCAA hammer throw title and then the other six pictures keep changing, would anyone notice? Or would the audience just see Julia and figure that nothing new has been added?
Fortunately, the redesigned website - still targeted to launch on Sept. 1 - will address that problem.
Meanwhile, back at streaks, some continue for the sake of the streak, while others have more noble purposes, like maintaining an audience or even as an extension of a unbreakable work ethic.
TB missed the Penn-Princeton men's basketball game in 1990 at the Palestra - that was the famous Hassan Duncombe game, which if you're a Princeton or Penn fan, you know immediately what happened; if not, Penn won at the buzzer on a put-back by Duncombe off a missed foul shot - because he was covering a Division III game in Glassboro between the College of New Jersey (then Trenton State College) and Rowan (which might still have been called Glassboro State then).
TB still isn't completely sure what to call the school he used to cover. It was Trenton State all the years he covered it; the name changed to the College of New Jersey long ago.
Anyway, TB was in the sports information office at Glassboro. The SID at the time, by the way, was Sheila Stevenson, who is something of a legend in Division III sports information history. TB just checked the staff directory for Rowan - and Sheila is still there. Before she went to Rowan (or is Glassboro), Sheila worked at Penn for a little while.
Another digression. What's up with TB this morning?
Anyway, TB was in Sheila's office listening to the end of the Princeton-Penn game on the radio even while the game he was covering was going on.
That would be the last Princeton-Penn men's basketball game TB would miss for 20 years. Then the streak ended.
His best current streak is in men's lacrosse, where he hasn't missed a game since the opener in 2004. TB thinks that's 154 straight games. That's a lot of lacrosse.
TigerBlog Jr. just finished a seven-summer run with his club team, and he was the only player in the core group that stayed together the whole time who played in all 202 games that the team played. That's even more lacrosse.
Craig Sachson, TB's colleague here in the Office of Athletic Communications, has been the Princeton football contact since 2002 and hasn't missed a single game in all that time. That's 120 straight for him.
TB confirmed that a few seconds ago, when Sachson said that 1) he in fact has not missed a game in that time and 2) is eight games under .500.
If he's eight games under .500, then the only way for him to get over .500 this year would be for Princeton to go 10-0, which would be just fine with him, TB assumes. TB would be okay it as well.
If Princeton goes 9-1, then he picks up eight games and would be exactly .500. Would he take 9-1 right now?
That's an interesting question. The answer is, it depends on which is the one loss, right? If Princeton were to go 9-1 with a loss to an Ivy opponent who went 7-0, then that wouldn't be great. If Princeton went 9-1 with a non-league loss but a perfect league record, then yes, of course he'd take that.
Not that TigerBlog is getting ahead of himself or anything. Not that TB is taking anything for granted. He's talking strictly in hypotheticals here.
Oh, and here's another question. If Sachson, is eight games under .500 after 120 games, what would Princeton's record be? TigerBlog always liked word problems in math.
He liked essay questions better than multiple choice or true false or any of those other kinds of tests in other subjects. Why? An essay question is asking what you know. The other kinds are trying to find out what you don't know.
So back at this word problem ...
Let's see. If x is the number of games that Princeton has won and 120 is the total number of games Princeton has played, then x+8 is the number of games Princeton has lost. That means that x+x+8=120, or 2x+8=120, or 2x=112, or x=56. That means the record is 56-64.
And TB thought algebra didn't have a practical application.
And he also thought he had nothing to write about.
And yet he came up with something.
See you tomorrow.
It happens.
Not to worry. Something will come to him. It always does.
He hasn't missed a day in nearly six years of doing this. A work day anyway.
What is it about streaks that are so fascinating? Does TB keep writing every single day simply because he doesn't want to miss a day, or is there another reason?
His belief is that if the audience knows it's there every day, so it keeps coming back. If he stopped every now and then, then the audience couldn't rely on having a new entry every day. It's just as easy to get out of the habit of checking as it is to get into the habit of checking.
The same logic sort of applies to the main website.
TB's belief is that people check the site and judge whether or not to stay based on the first picture. If it's the same as the last time, then they figure there's nothing new here.
The issue then becomes what to do with a major story, one that you might want to lock into place for a little while. With the number of stories that go up around here, that's not always easy to do.
If the main picture is, say, Julia Ratcliffe after she wins the NCAA hammer throw title and then the other six pictures keep changing, would anyone notice? Or would the audience just see Julia and figure that nothing new has been added?
Fortunately, the redesigned website - still targeted to launch on Sept. 1 - will address that problem.
Meanwhile, back at streaks, some continue for the sake of the streak, while others have more noble purposes, like maintaining an audience or even as an extension of a unbreakable work ethic.
TB missed the Penn-Princeton men's basketball game in 1990 at the Palestra - that was the famous Hassan Duncombe game, which if you're a Princeton or Penn fan, you know immediately what happened; if not, Penn won at the buzzer on a put-back by Duncombe off a missed foul shot - because he was covering a Division III game in Glassboro between the College of New Jersey (then Trenton State College) and Rowan (which might still have been called Glassboro State then).
TB still isn't completely sure what to call the school he used to cover. It was Trenton State all the years he covered it; the name changed to the College of New Jersey long ago.
Anyway, TB was in the sports information office at Glassboro. The SID at the time, by the way, was Sheila Stevenson, who is something of a legend in Division III sports information history. TB just checked the staff directory for Rowan - and Sheila is still there. Before she went to Rowan (or is Glassboro), Sheila worked at Penn for a little while.
Another digression. What's up with TB this morning?
Anyway, TB was in Sheila's office listening to the end of the Princeton-Penn game on the radio even while the game he was covering was going on.
That would be the last Princeton-Penn men's basketball game TB would miss for 20 years. Then the streak ended.
His best current streak is in men's lacrosse, where he hasn't missed a game since the opener in 2004. TB thinks that's 154 straight games. That's a lot of lacrosse.
TigerBlog Jr. just finished a seven-summer run with his club team, and he was the only player in the core group that stayed together the whole time who played in all 202 games that the team played. That's even more lacrosse.
Craig Sachson, TB's colleague here in the Office of Athletic Communications, has been the Princeton football contact since 2002 and hasn't missed a single game in all that time. That's 120 straight for him.
TB confirmed that a few seconds ago, when Sachson said that 1) he in fact has not missed a game in that time and 2) is eight games under .500.
If he's eight games under .500, then the only way for him to get over .500 this year would be for Princeton to go 10-0, which would be just fine with him, TB assumes. TB would be okay it as well.
If Princeton goes 9-1, then he picks up eight games and would be exactly .500. Would he take 9-1 right now?
That's an interesting question. The answer is, it depends on which is the one loss, right? If Princeton were to go 9-1 with a loss to an Ivy opponent who went 7-0, then that wouldn't be great. If Princeton went 9-1 with a non-league loss but a perfect league record, then yes, of course he'd take that.
Not that TigerBlog is getting ahead of himself or anything. Not that TB is taking anything for granted. He's talking strictly in hypotheticals here.
Oh, and here's another question. If Sachson, is eight games under .500 after 120 games, what would Princeton's record be? TigerBlog always liked word problems in math.
He liked essay questions better than multiple choice or true false or any of those other kinds of tests in other subjects. Why? An essay question is asking what you know. The other kinds are trying to find out what you don't know.
So back at this word problem ...
Let's see. If x is the number of games that Princeton has won and 120 is the total number of games Princeton has played, then x+8 is the number of games Princeton has lost. That means that x+x+8=120, or 2x+8=120, or 2x=112, or x=56. That means the record is 56-64.
And TB thought algebra didn't have a practical application.
And he also thought he had nothing to write about.
And yet he came up with something.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Liverpool At Princeton
TigerBlog saw a picture the other day of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
This was when they were kids, at the same grammar school, something that TB didn't realize they had done together.
It was a class picture, and TB presumes that the other 20 or so boys in the picture grew up to tell the story of how they had gone to grammar school with two members of the Rolling Stones.
Apparently Jagger was a decent athlete when he was a boy. At least that's what the article mentioned, though it didn't say what sports. TigerBlog will assume soccer and/or track and field.
TigerBlog has always been a fan of the Rolling Stones, going back as far as he can remember. He cannot believe they still are at it, all these years later.
As an aside, there used to be an ultra-, ultra-dry comedian named Steven Wright, who used to say weirdly literal things and was hysterical. TB saw him at a comedy club in Philadelphia in the early 1980s and laughed like he rarely has before. One of Wright's lines was this: "I love the Stones. I can't believe they're still doing it after all these years. I watch them every chance I get. Fred and Barney."
If you don't get it, that's because you never saw "The Flintstones." Fred, of course, once played football for Princestone and had a huge game against Shale.
Ah, but TB digresses.
Meanwhile, back at those other Stones, TB can name 25 songs of theirs that he thinks are epic classics. His favorites? Hmmm. "As Tears Go By." "Lets Spend The Night Together." "You Can't Always Get What You Want." "Sympathy For The Devil." "Wild Horses." "Waiting On A Friend."
He's not a huge fan of, of all songs, "Satisfaction."
The problem with the Stones is that they also have a ton of songs that TB doesn't really like, but that's because they have played for so long.
Still, TB has great admiration for just how great the Rolling Stones are. He puts them slightly above The Who and slightly below the Beatles.
TB's first musical love was the Beatles, and he understands perfectly anyone who considers the Fab Four the greatest band of all time. For his money, obviously, he will go with a different group, one whose hometown was much closer to TB's own than that of the Beatles.
The Beatles, of course, came together in Liverpool, before arriving with a rather large bang in the United States.
Earlier this week, Liverpool again came to this area, this time to Princeton University. And it wasn't quite the greatest rock band of all-time, though the participants might as well have been rock stars for the followers who, well, followed them here.
Liverpool, as in the English Premier League soccer team, practiced for three days on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, in advance of tonight's game at Yankee Stadium against Manchester City - and the coming EPL season, which kicks off in three weeks.
Liverpool is one of the biggest names in professional soccer, in England or anywhere. It's not quite the biggest name, but it is still a huge one. It would be like having the Chicago Bulls or St. Louis Cardinals practice for a few days at a college in England.
This is hardly the first time that Roberts Stadium has hosted big names in advance of big events.
The U.S. men's and women's national teams have both practiced at Roberts Stadium, the men in advance of the 2010 World Cup and the women in advance of the 2012 Olympics. Paris Saint-Germaine has been here also, and a few other teams as well.
If the World Cup wasn't proof enough, then all it takes is an EPL team to show up on campus to prove that soccer fans are the most, well, fanatical. It's not even close.
The fact that the team was here wasn't really advertised, but there was an open session for the public to watch. Word apparently got out somehow, as there were red Liverpool shirts everywhere. And they weren't just casually wearing red shirts. They were really, really into their team.
It's always great for Princeton soccer to have big-time teams at Roberts Stadium. If nothing else, it shows a wider audience what a great facility it is. Even the Liverpool players noticed, as one was quoted as saying it was "way better than Harvard."
The idea of watching practice isn't that thrilling for TigerBlog, whether it is an EPL team or even an NFL team. Lacrosse, of course, is a little different.
Still, having Liverpool here was a very big deal.
Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer anywhere in this country.
Roberts will get quite a workout once the Princeton seasons start. The men's and women's teams will combine for 17 home games, beginning Sept. 5, when Rutgers is at Princeton in women's soccer.
All 17 of those home games will be free. As in no admission charge.
That too is one of the best things about Princeton Athletics.
This was when they were kids, at the same grammar school, something that TB didn't realize they had done together.
It was a class picture, and TB presumes that the other 20 or so boys in the picture grew up to tell the story of how they had gone to grammar school with two members of the Rolling Stones.
Apparently Jagger was a decent athlete when he was a boy. At least that's what the article mentioned, though it didn't say what sports. TigerBlog will assume soccer and/or track and field.
TigerBlog has always been a fan of the Rolling Stones, going back as far as he can remember. He cannot believe they still are at it, all these years later.
As an aside, there used to be an ultra-, ultra-dry comedian named Steven Wright, who used to say weirdly literal things and was hysterical. TB saw him at a comedy club in Philadelphia in the early 1980s and laughed like he rarely has before. One of Wright's lines was this: "I love the Stones. I can't believe they're still doing it after all these years. I watch them every chance I get. Fred and Barney."
If you don't get it, that's because you never saw "The Flintstones." Fred, of course, once played football for Princestone and had a huge game against Shale.
Ah, but TB digresses.
Meanwhile, back at those other Stones, TB can name 25 songs of theirs that he thinks are epic classics. His favorites? Hmmm. "As Tears Go By." "Lets Spend The Night Together." "You Can't Always Get What You Want." "Sympathy For The Devil." "Wild Horses." "Waiting On A Friend."
He's not a huge fan of, of all songs, "Satisfaction."
The problem with the Stones is that they also have a ton of songs that TB doesn't really like, but that's because they have played for so long.
Still, TB has great admiration for just how great the Rolling Stones are. He puts them slightly above The Who and slightly below the Beatles.
TB's first musical love was the Beatles, and he understands perfectly anyone who considers the Fab Four the greatest band of all time. For his money, obviously, he will go with a different group, one whose hometown was much closer to TB's own than that of the Beatles.
The Beatles, of course, came together in Liverpool, before arriving with a rather large bang in the United States.
Earlier this week, Liverpool again came to this area, this time to Princeton University. And it wasn't quite the greatest rock band of all-time, though the participants might as well have been rock stars for the followers who, well, followed them here.
Liverpool, as in the English Premier League soccer team, practiced for three days on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium, in advance of tonight's game at Yankee Stadium against Manchester City - and the coming EPL season, which kicks off in three weeks.
Liverpool is one of the biggest names in professional soccer, in England or anywhere. It's not quite the biggest name, but it is still a huge one. It would be like having the Chicago Bulls or St. Louis Cardinals practice for a few days at a college in England.
This is hardly the first time that Roberts Stadium has hosted big names in advance of big events.
The U.S. men's and women's national teams have both practiced at Roberts Stadium, the men in advance of the 2010 World Cup and the women in advance of the 2012 Olympics. Paris Saint-Germaine has been here also, and a few other teams as well.
If the World Cup wasn't proof enough, then all it takes is an EPL team to show up on campus to prove that soccer fans are the most, well, fanatical. It's not even close.
The fact that the team was here wasn't really advertised, but there was an open session for the public to watch. Word apparently got out somehow, as there were red Liverpool shirts everywhere. And they weren't just casually wearing red shirts. They were really, really into their team.
It's always great for Princeton soccer to have big-time teams at Roberts Stadium. If nothing else, it shows a wider audience what a great facility it is. Even the Liverpool players noticed, as one was quoted as saying it was "way better than Harvard."
The idea of watching practice isn't that thrilling for TigerBlog, whether it is an EPL team or even an NFL team. Lacrosse, of course, is a little different.
Still, having Liverpool here was a very big deal.
Roberts Stadium is a great venue, one of the best for college soccer anywhere in this country.
Roberts will get quite a workout once the Princeton seasons start. The men's and women's teams will combine for 17 home games, beginning Sept. 5, when Rutgers is at Princeton in women's soccer.
All 17 of those home games will be free. As in no admission charge.
That too is one of the best things about Princeton Athletics.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Andi And Josh Find Love
TigerBlog knew Andi was going to pick Josh over Nick.
So did anyone with a brain. Well, except for Nick himself, who didn't quite take it graciously.
TigerBlog refers, of course, to the season finale of "The Bachelorette," which aired last night. Depending on your point of view, the show is either breezy, soap opera-ish entertainment, another sign of the collapse of American culture and society or something in the middle.
TigerBlog has little tolerance for most reality television, especially the ones that are merely showcases for increasingly abhorrent behavior, the ones that make people rich and famous for doing things that not that long ago would have resulted in some parental scolding and admonishment, not to mention major societal disapproval.
Today? Whatever it takes to be famous, right? Celebrity at all costs, right?
There are some shows that fall under the "reality" genre that are pretty good. "The Amazing Race," for instance, is a fun show with a pretty good premise - contestants in groups of two go all over the world facing various obstacles and challenges, and the first one to the final finish line wins.
TB saw a little of "Dancing With The Stars" and admired the actual talent and hard work it took to be successful at that. The same is true with "American Idol." He's watched almost none of the other shows were contestants have to sing or dance, but he assumes the same thing applies to them.
Make no mistake. If TB never saw another minute of any of these shows, he'd be fine. Give him Turner Classic Movies, repeats of some of his favorite old shows or a handful of current dramas and he'll be just fine.
As for "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette," these are somewhere in the middle. They're not exactly shows that require actual talent, but they're also not shows that make TB want to break his television and weep for the future of America.
Yeah, TB does sort of believe that love should be found and cultivated in private between the two people doing the falling, rather than on a television show with cameras everywhere. Can they really get to know each other when they're constantly worrying about how they look for TV or getting another sound check or all of that, all with ubiquitous cameras (and people holding them)?
And yeah, the idea that one man or woman is definitely going to fall in love with a random stranger from a group of 24 or however many start out is a little far-fetched. But hey, it's a popular show and hey, 50% of marriages fall apart anyway, so who's to say Andi and Josh won't make it simply because they met on a TV show.
As for last night's season finale, it was obvious early on that Josh was the one. TigerBlog only saw two brief moments of the show this season. The first was when the guy from Iowa got dumped because he was from Iowa and then he gushed tears, only to have some random woman from the audience come onto the show and ask him out. TB suggest that that was staged.
The second was a bit of last night's finale. Nick had no chance, even if he didn't think that way. Sorry Nick. To quote "On the Waterfront," "kid this ain't your night."
As an aside, TB would rather watch "On the Waterfront" for the 1,000th time than most anything else.
Anyway, it came to be that Josh was the winner, he and Andi are going to get married and Nick came in second and was fairly bitter about it. And, TB supposes, America is no worse off because of it.
Josh was once the 48th player selected in the Major League Draft, by the Brewers, though he never made it to the Majors. His brother Aaron was the quarterback for the University of Georgia the last few years, and he was drafted by the Chiefs this past spring.
TigerBlog always thought Murray was a pretty good quarterback, and TB thinks Murray has a good chance to make the Chiefs, who currently have four quarterbacks listed on the roster, including starter Alex Smith and backups Chase Daniel and Tyler Bray.
As for the Chiefs, TB is much more interested in the defensive line, where Princeton alum Mike Catapano is heading into his second year with the team.
MotherBlog always hated three NFL teams - the Cowboys, the Raiders and the Chiefs. TB could never figure out why she lumped the Chiefs in with the other two, but TB has always sort of liked Kansas City. And now they have Catapano, a Princeton player, on top of that.
Catapano made the team last year as a seventh-round draft choice, and he had four tackles and one sack as a rookie, when he played mostly on special teams. There's a great picture of Catapano on his bio page on the Chiefs' website.
TigerBlog figures Catapano has a pretty good chance not only to make the team again but also to have an expanded role on the defense.
Joining Catapano in an NFL training camp this year is Caraun Reid, who was the 158th pick of the most recent NFL draft. That breaks down to being the fifth round pick of the Lions.
Reid is a defensive tackle on a team with two of the best defensive tackles in the league. Still, Reid has a great chance to make the team as well. For starters, when a team has that much money invested in two defensive tackles, it needs to have inexpensive depth.
Here is what it says about Reid on the Lions' website:
Reid will learn from two of the League’s most dominant duos in DT Nick Fairley and DT Ndamukong Suh in 2014, and is expected to provide key depth to the defensive line unit as a whole.
As it is the last week of July, NFL training camps are in full swing. The first preseason game is the Hall of Fame Game this coming Sunday, when the Bills take on the Giants.
TB will be back to rooting for the Giants, who were awful last year. Still, with their two recent Super Bowl wins and four total, TB can't complain about anything for the next few years.
So he'll be fine with some other teams if they do well. Like the Chiefs and Lions.
Just not Dallas.
Or worse, the Eagles.
At least Dallas is coached by a Princeton guy.
So did anyone with a brain. Well, except for Nick himself, who didn't quite take it graciously.
TigerBlog refers, of course, to the season finale of "The Bachelorette," which aired last night. Depending on your point of view, the show is either breezy, soap opera-ish entertainment, another sign of the collapse of American culture and society or something in the middle.
TigerBlog has little tolerance for most reality television, especially the ones that are merely showcases for increasingly abhorrent behavior, the ones that make people rich and famous for doing things that not that long ago would have resulted in some parental scolding and admonishment, not to mention major societal disapproval.
Today? Whatever it takes to be famous, right? Celebrity at all costs, right?
There are some shows that fall under the "reality" genre that are pretty good. "The Amazing Race," for instance, is a fun show with a pretty good premise - contestants in groups of two go all over the world facing various obstacles and challenges, and the first one to the final finish line wins.
TB saw a little of "Dancing With The Stars" and admired the actual talent and hard work it took to be successful at that. The same is true with "American Idol." He's watched almost none of the other shows were contestants have to sing or dance, but he assumes the same thing applies to them.
Make no mistake. If TB never saw another minute of any of these shows, he'd be fine. Give him Turner Classic Movies, repeats of some of his favorite old shows or a handful of current dramas and he'll be just fine.
As for "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette," these are somewhere in the middle. They're not exactly shows that require actual talent, but they're also not shows that make TB want to break his television and weep for the future of America.
Yeah, TB does sort of believe that love should be found and cultivated in private between the two people doing the falling, rather than on a television show with cameras everywhere. Can they really get to know each other when they're constantly worrying about how they look for TV or getting another sound check or all of that, all with ubiquitous cameras (and people holding them)?
And yeah, the idea that one man or woman is definitely going to fall in love with a random stranger from a group of 24 or however many start out is a little far-fetched. But hey, it's a popular show and hey, 50% of marriages fall apart anyway, so who's to say Andi and Josh won't make it simply because they met on a TV show.
As for last night's season finale, it was obvious early on that Josh was the one. TigerBlog only saw two brief moments of the show this season. The first was when the guy from Iowa got dumped because he was from Iowa and then he gushed tears, only to have some random woman from the audience come onto the show and ask him out. TB suggest that that was staged.
The second was a bit of last night's finale. Nick had no chance, even if he didn't think that way. Sorry Nick. To quote "On the Waterfront," "kid this ain't your night."
As an aside, TB would rather watch "On the Waterfront" for the 1,000th time than most anything else.
Anyway, it came to be that Josh was the winner, he and Andi are going to get married and Nick came in second and was fairly bitter about it. And, TB supposes, America is no worse off because of it.
Josh was once the 48th player selected in the Major League Draft, by the Brewers, though he never made it to the Majors. His brother Aaron was the quarterback for the University of Georgia the last few years, and he was drafted by the Chiefs this past spring.
TigerBlog always thought Murray was a pretty good quarterback, and TB thinks Murray has a good chance to make the Chiefs, who currently have four quarterbacks listed on the roster, including starter Alex Smith and backups Chase Daniel and Tyler Bray.
As for the Chiefs, TB is much more interested in the defensive line, where Princeton alum Mike Catapano is heading into his second year with the team.
MotherBlog always hated three NFL teams - the Cowboys, the Raiders and the Chiefs. TB could never figure out why she lumped the Chiefs in with the other two, but TB has always sort of liked Kansas City. And now they have Catapano, a Princeton player, on top of that.
Catapano made the team last year as a seventh-round draft choice, and he had four tackles and one sack as a rookie, when he played mostly on special teams. There's a great picture of Catapano on his bio page on the Chiefs' website.
TigerBlog figures Catapano has a pretty good chance not only to make the team again but also to have an expanded role on the defense.
Joining Catapano in an NFL training camp this year is Caraun Reid, who was the 158th pick of the most recent NFL draft. That breaks down to being the fifth round pick of the Lions.
Reid is a defensive tackle on a team with two of the best defensive tackles in the league. Still, Reid has a great chance to make the team as well. For starters, when a team has that much money invested in two defensive tackles, it needs to have inexpensive depth.
Here is what it says about Reid on the Lions' website:
Reid will learn from two of the League’s most dominant duos in DT Nick Fairley and DT Ndamukong Suh in 2014, and is expected to provide key depth to the defensive line unit as a whole.
As it is the last week of July, NFL training camps are in full swing. The first preseason game is the Hall of Fame Game this coming Sunday, when the Bills take on the Giants.
TB will be back to rooting for the Giants, who were awful last year. Still, with their two recent Super Bowl wins and four total, TB can't complain about anything for the next few years.
So he'll be fine with some other teams if they do well. Like the Chiefs and Lions.
Just not Dallas.
Or worse, the Eagles.
At least Dallas is coached by a Princeton guy.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Happy Valley, Revisited
TigerBlog was driving east on Pennsylvania Route 322 near Harrisburg yesterday afternoon when the sky darkened, the lightning crackled and the rain started.
In the lane next to him was a car driven by an older gentleman and, presumably, his wife. Their car was a convertible with the roof down, so the two of them were getting wet, as was the interior of the car. TB can't remember the make and model.
Now how do two people know that a storm is approaching but continue to drive with the top down? And, perhaps most stunningly, they didn't really seem to care that it was raining on them inside their car. They didn't pull over or speed up or anything like that. Eventually, TB presumes they did something about it, but they had to have been soaked by then.
If TB was on 322 heading east near Harrisburg, then it's a good bet he was coming from Penn State, which is about 90 minutes or so from the state capital.
It was bright sunshine at Penn State all weekend, and the thunderstorms didn't come to that part of the state until a few hours after the end of the Keystone State Games lacrosse tournament, which is what brought TB there. For those keeping score, TigerBlog Jr.'s team came home with a gold medal.
It was the second time TBJ played in the event. The first came back in 2011, when he won bronze. And when TB wrote this:
At Penn State, the single most famous person in the history of the school is football coach Joe Paterno. In fact, there is a statue of JoPa outside the stadium, one that stands about seven feet tall, with a little side drive in which people can pull in and get their picture taken. It appeared that there was a steady stream of people doing just that all weekend.
Back in 2011, Joe Paterno was still the most powerful person on that campus, and possibly in the state. He answered to no one at PSU, obviously.
There was something quaint and charming about Penn State in 2011. It's called Happy Valley, after all.
It's a giant state university, but State College has the feel of a very small, folksy town, one where everyone knows everyone else - and where the entire Penn State universe stopped on football Saturdays.
Back then, it seemed somewhat idyllic. Paterno, for his part, had the public persona of being a beacon of integrity in the unseemly world of big-time college football. He donated money for libraries, for Pete's sake.
Then, a few short months after TB was there in 2011, the entire facade came crashing down with the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, one that touched the upper echelon of the University administration and did something that losing seasons and old age couldn't do - it brought down Paterno, the man himself and even his statue, which served as a symbol of the place he had in State College society.
Paterno died shortly after he was fired from his job as head football coach, done in ultimately by lung cancer at the age of 85. He remains a wildly polarizing figure, with staunch defenders to this day who refuse to see the obvious, that a sexual predator was operating on his watch, long after Sandusky left the coaching staff, and that Paterno did nothing to stop it, all in the name of keeping his job.
Walking around State College this weekend, TigerBlog again had the feel of being in a really nice, really friendly really special college town.
At the same time, he couldn't help but sense that it will be a long time before the university is completely past what happened, even as all of the major players in the scandal have faced the music. Paterno is dead. Sandusky is in prison for the rest of his life. The administrators who turned a blind eye have been disgraced and face their own legal issues.
Still, there is the unmistakable pall that hangs over Happy Valley, that something awful happened there and that it can't simply be wiped clean without understanding the root cause of it. And that root cause is still there, on the northernmost spot of the campus, a giant, unmistakable reminder of everything that makes the place great - and what can come from that when left unchecked.
Beaver Stadium - the Keystone State Games lacrosse tournament was held on fields that were across the street from the mammoth facility, so TB spent his entire weekend looking up at it - seats 109,000 fans now. That would be four times the size of Princeton Stadium.
At its best, it brings together an entire community in a way that nothing else can. The pageantry, the school spirit, the sheer pride, the history - it's all there. There's something wondrous, beautiful, about it.
And yet underneath that, there is the reality of what can go on away from Game Day. A stadium with 109,000 seats brings in a ton of money, as does a top football program. And where there is that much money, well, you already know the rest.
Penn State's other athletic facilities surround Beaver Stadium, and they too are beautiful to look at. It's what a major Big 10 school does with its athletic facilities.
But make no mistake. Football drives everything there. And look what came of it. Look what was allowed to happen there, and why? Because the football team was "too big to fail," as it were.
Is it naive to wonder what else is out there across the BCS football landscape, under the surface, away from the beauty? Hardly. It's naive not to think that way.
TB wrote it when the scandal first broke and he believes it even more now. Maybe the best thing about Princeton is that nothing - not any part of the University or individual person - can be bigger than the Princeton name itself.
As a result, everyone here is accountable to the Princeton name. Nobody here can think that the rules don't apply to him or her.
At Penn State, Beaver Stadium is the sun that everything else on campus revolves around.
Here, there is no sun, per se. Not like that, anyway.
TigerBlog just looked up from his desk and out the big Jadwin Gym windows, across the track and at the football stadium. This might as well be a different planet from where TB spent his weekend, at least in terms of college football.
The people that TigerBlog met at Penn State this weekend couldn't be nicer. Their town is friendly and welcoming. Their campus is pristine and beautiful.
They deserved better from their hero.
In the lane next to him was a car driven by an older gentleman and, presumably, his wife. Their car was a convertible with the roof down, so the two of them were getting wet, as was the interior of the car. TB can't remember the make and model.
Now how do two people know that a storm is approaching but continue to drive with the top down? And, perhaps most stunningly, they didn't really seem to care that it was raining on them inside their car. They didn't pull over or speed up or anything like that. Eventually, TB presumes they did something about it, but they had to have been soaked by then.
If TB was on 322 heading east near Harrisburg, then it's a good bet he was coming from Penn State, which is about 90 minutes or so from the state capital.
It was bright sunshine at Penn State all weekend, and the thunderstorms didn't come to that part of the state until a few hours after the end of the Keystone State Games lacrosse tournament, which is what brought TB there. For those keeping score, TigerBlog Jr.'s team came home with a gold medal.
It was the second time TBJ played in the event. The first came back in 2011, when he won bronze. And when TB wrote this:
At Penn State, the single most famous person in the history of the school is football coach Joe Paterno. In fact, there is a statue of JoPa outside the stadium, one that stands about seven feet tall, with a little side drive in which people can pull in and get their picture taken. It appeared that there was a steady stream of people doing just that all weekend.
Back in 2011, Joe Paterno was still the most powerful person on that campus, and possibly in the state. He answered to no one at PSU, obviously.
There was something quaint and charming about Penn State in 2011. It's called Happy Valley, after all.
It's a giant state university, but State College has the feel of a very small, folksy town, one where everyone knows everyone else - and where the entire Penn State universe stopped on football Saturdays.
Back then, it seemed somewhat idyllic. Paterno, for his part, had the public persona of being a beacon of integrity in the unseemly world of big-time college football. He donated money for libraries, for Pete's sake.
Then, a few short months after TB was there in 2011, the entire facade came crashing down with the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, one that touched the upper echelon of the University administration and did something that losing seasons and old age couldn't do - it brought down Paterno, the man himself and even his statue, which served as a symbol of the place he had in State College society.
Paterno died shortly after he was fired from his job as head football coach, done in ultimately by lung cancer at the age of 85. He remains a wildly polarizing figure, with staunch defenders to this day who refuse to see the obvious, that a sexual predator was operating on his watch, long after Sandusky left the coaching staff, and that Paterno did nothing to stop it, all in the name of keeping his job.
Walking around State College this weekend, TigerBlog again had the feel of being in a really nice, really friendly really special college town.
At the same time, he couldn't help but sense that it will be a long time before the university is completely past what happened, even as all of the major players in the scandal have faced the music. Paterno is dead. Sandusky is in prison for the rest of his life. The administrators who turned a blind eye have been disgraced and face their own legal issues.
Still, there is the unmistakable pall that hangs over Happy Valley, that something awful happened there and that it can't simply be wiped clean without understanding the root cause of it. And that root cause is still there, on the northernmost spot of the campus, a giant, unmistakable reminder of everything that makes the place great - and what can come from that when left unchecked.
Beaver Stadium - the Keystone State Games lacrosse tournament was held on fields that were across the street from the mammoth facility, so TB spent his entire weekend looking up at it - seats 109,000 fans now. That would be four times the size of Princeton Stadium.
At its best, it brings together an entire community in a way that nothing else can. The pageantry, the school spirit, the sheer pride, the history - it's all there. There's something wondrous, beautiful, about it.
And yet underneath that, there is the reality of what can go on away from Game Day. A stadium with 109,000 seats brings in a ton of money, as does a top football program. And where there is that much money, well, you already know the rest.
Penn State's other athletic facilities surround Beaver Stadium, and they too are beautiful to look at. It's what a major Big 10 school does with its athletic facilities.
But make no mistake. Football drives everything there. And look what came of it. Look what was allowed to happen there, and why? Because the football team was "too big to fail," as it were.
Is it naive to wonder what else is out there across the BCS football landscape, under the surface, away from the beauty? Hardly. It's naive not to think that way.
TB wrote it when the scandal first broke and he believes it even more now. Maybe the best thing about Princeton is that nothing - not any part of the University or individual person - can be bigger than the Princeton name itself.
As a result, everyone here is accountable to the Princeton name. Nobody here can think that the rules don't apply to him or her.
At Penn State, Beaver Stadium is the sun that everything else on campus revolves around.
Here, there is no sun, per se. Not like that, anyway.
TigerBlog just looked up from his desk and out the big Jadwin Gym windows, across the track and at the football stadium. This might as well be a different planet from where TB spent his weekend, at least in terms of college football.
The people that TigerBlog met at Penn State this weekend couldn't be nicer. Their town is friendly and welcoming. Their campus is pristine and beautiful.
They deserved better from their hero.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Thoughts On Another Summer Friday
Well, it's the next Friday in the summer. Another blink of an eye come and gone, another week closer to the start of the 2014-15 athletic year.
Those numbers now read six weeks from today until the first games of the new year and eight weeks from tomorrow until opening day of the football season.
The lead story on goprincetontigers.com as TigerBlog writes this is the announcement of the 2014-15 men's hockey schedule. Opening day for that sport will be Oct. 31, Halloween. That is a little more than three months away. That's about the same amount of time between opening day for hockey and opening day for lacrosse.
On and on it will go.
Speaking of hockey, Princeton will be playing the Russian Red Stars (TB has no idea who they are, but they have "Russian" in their name so they must be good at hockey) in an exhibition game on Jan. 3, followed by a game six days later against the defending NCAA champ. Off the top of your head, can you name the defending NCAA hockey champ?
TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs to mull that over. In the meantime, the big story in college sports this week was the comment by Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby that essentially said "cheating pays" in college sports.
Again, TigerBlog has the same reaction. There are two separate and completely unequal worlds of college sports: World 1 is big-time football and men's basketball; World 2 and everything else. The everything else comprises 95% of the athletes and loses a ton of money; the first two are a small piece of athletes and billions of dollars.
There will always be coaches and programs in World 2 that skirt the rules. The majority of the rule-breaking is going to come from World 1.
And why? That's the easiest question ever. It's the money. When coaches are being paid that much and there is so much at stake financially for these institutions, what do you think is going to happen, especially when you factor in how competitive your average big-time coach is.
TB always laughs when people say the NCAA should make tougher rules or simplify its rule book, as if the governing body of college sports can unilaterally make up regulations. It can't. They come from the member schools.
Have you ever read the rulebook? It's long, bulky and in many ways weird. Read it for five minutes, and you won't be able to prevent yourself from wondering who in the world came up with some of this stuff.
The answer is that these rules came about because there were simple rules that someone figured out a way around. So they had to be tightened up here and there, except then someone else figured another loophole. And so on and so on.
The NCAA enforcement office shot back that it was in fact on top of the cheating in college sports and that most cheaters are eventually caught. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not.
The problem is that college athletics has all kinds of issues these days, and those issues are calling into question the very future of what college athletics will be and what they will look like. And it's World 1 that is causing 99% of the problems.
TB isn't as bleak on the future of college athletics as some are. Maybe that's because he spends his time in World 2, where the coaches are just as competitive but the money isn't as prevalent, which makes it all somewhat purer.
Plus, TB figures that it'll all work itself out in some way, and that 100 years from now, the Alabama-Auburn football game will still be huge and Princeton will still be playing Harvard, Penn and the rest in a bunch of sports.
Maybe he's wrong about that. He has a hunch he isn't.
Meanwhile, back at the trivia question, the defending NCAA men's hockey champ is Union.
And it's still a Friday in the summer. The last Friday in July, for that matter.
What do you have this weekend? Hopefully it's something good.
Two weeks ago, TigerBlog suggested it was too nice out for people to be at work, so they should all tell their bosses that TB said it would be okay to take the afternoon off. The weather is actually nicer around here today than it was then, if that's possible.
The summer is made for days like this, weekends like this one coming up. Make sure you're spending it outside. Go the beach. Or at least the pool. Have a BBQ. Get up early and go out to breakfast and then take a long walk. Go to an outdoor concert.
Six months from now will be the last Friday in January, which means Jan. 30 (even though it's only the 25th of July). On that night, Princeton will be at Yale in men's hockey. Yale won the NCAA title the year before Union.
TB's sense is it'll be much colder that weekend than it will be this one. Cold. Maybe snowy. Windy for sure. It'll be a weekend to bundle up and all that, and to think about how summer is out there somewhere in the distance, somewhere far off at that point.
So enjoy it while it's here.
Have a great weekend.
Those numbers now read six weeks from today until the first games of the new year and eight weeks from tomorrow until opening day of the football season.
The lead story on goprincetontigers.com as TigerBlog writes this is the announcement of the 2014-15 men's hockey schedule. Opening day for that sport will be Oct. 31, Halloween. That is a little more than three months away. That's about the same amount of time between opening day for hockey and opening day for lacrosse.
On and on it will go.
Speaking of hockey, Princeton will be playing the Russian Red Stars (TB has no idea who they are, but they have "Russian" in their name so they must be good at hockey) in an exhibition game on Jan. 3, followed by a game six days later against the defending NCAA champ. Off the top of your head, can you name the defending NCAA hockey champ?
TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs to mull that over. In the meantime, the big story in college sports this week was the comment by Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby that essentially said "cheating pays" in college sports.
Again, TigerBlog has the same reaction. There are two separate and completely unequal worlds of college sports: World 1 is big-time football and men's basketball; World 2 and everything else. The everything else comprises 95% of the athletes and loses a ton of money; the first two are a small piece of athletes and billions of dollars.
There will always be coaches and programs in World 2 that skirt the rules. The majority of the rule-breaking is going to come from World 1.
And why? That's the easiest question ever. It's the money. When coaches are being paid that much and there is so much at stake financially for these institutions, what do you think is going to happen, especially when you factor in how competitive your average big-time coach is.
TB always laughs when people say the NCAA should make tougher rules or simplify its rule book, as if the governing body of college sports can unilaterally make up regulations. It can't. They come from the member schools.
Have you ever read the rulebook? It's long, bulky and in many ways weird. Read it for five minutes, and you won't be able to prevent yourself from wondering who in the world came up with some of this stuff.
The answer is that these rules came about because there were simple rules that someone figured out a way around. So they had to be tightened up here and there, except then someone else figured another loophole. And so on and so on.
The NCAA enforcement office shot back that it was in fact on top of the cheating in college sports and that most cheaters are eventually caught. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not.
The problem is that college athletics has all kinds of issues these days, and those issues are calling into question the very future of what college athletics will be and what they will look like. And it's World 1 that is causing 99% of the problems.
TB isn't as bleak on the future of college athletics as some are. Maybe that's because he spends his time in World 2, where the coaches are just as competitive but the money isn't as prevalent, which makes it all somewhat purer.
Plus, TB figures that it'll all work itself out in some way, and that 100 years from now, the Alabama-Auburn football game will still be huge and Princeton will still be playing Harvard, Penn and the rest in a bunch of sports.
Maybe he's wrong about that. He has a hunch he isn't.
Meanwhile, back at the trivia question, the defending NCAA men's hockey champ is Union.
And it's still a Friday in the summer. The last Friday in July, for that matter.
What do you have this weekend? Hopefully it's something good.
Two weeks ago, TigerBlog suggested it was too nice out for people to be at work, so they should all tell their bosses that TB said it would be okay to take the afternoon off. The weather is actually nicer around here today than it was then, if that's possible.
The summer is made for days like this, weekends like this one coming up. Make sure you're spending it outside. Go the beach. Or at least the pool. Have a BBQ. Get up early and go out to breakfast and then take a long walk. Go to an outdoor concert.
Six months from now will be the last Friday in January, which means Jan. 30 (even though it's only the 25th of July). On that night, Princeton will be at Yale in men's hockey. Yale won the NCAA title the year before Union.
TB's sense is it'll be much colder that weekend than it will be this one. Cold. Maybe snowy. Windy for sure. It'll be a weekend to bundle up and all that, and to think about how summer is out there somewhere in the distance, somewhere far off at that point.
So enjoy it while it's here.
Have a great weekend.
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