Princetonians In Rio !!!!!!!

TigerBlog is not an exclamation point sort of guy.

His favorite punctuation mark is the semicolon. You know. Connects two thoughts. No conjunction breaking it up. Figure it out.

The exclamation point? It's overused, especially these days, with social media and all, where every thought and sentiment seems to be followed by multiple exclamation points.

TigerBlog is different. He's very cautious with his exclamation points. If he uses them two or three times a year, that's a lot.

He would maybe, though, throw an exclamation point or two to Princeton's start at the Rio Olympic Games. Maybe.

Princeton is off to a tremendous start.

Let's begin with the three Tiger alums on the U.S. field hockey team - Kat Sharkey, Julia Reinprecht and Katie Reinprecht.

The three Princetonians played a big role as the U.S. defeated Australia 2-1 yesterday morning to improve to 2-0-0 in Group B. There are six teams in each group; the top four advance to the quarterfinals.

Note the use of the semicolon, by the way?

The Americans have six points (three for each win). That's twice as many as the team had for the entire group stage in 2012 in London, where the Reinprechts had their first Olympic experience. This is Sharkey's first time in the Olympics.

The game, by the way, featured play-by-play voice Mike Corey, who is one of the best lacrosse announcers out there and who has done many Princeton games through the years. It's good to see him get a shot at the Olympics.

As for U.S. field hockey, this time around, it appears that the team is looking to make a run into next week. There are three more group games to play, and then the quarterfinals will begin Monday.

It's possible the U.S. team has already clinched a spot in the quarterfinals. Six points are a lot in a six-team group.

On the other hand, being 2-0-0 is a huge jump start on getting a good seed out of the group and making a run to a medal. The U.S. has won exactly one field hockey medal, a bronze in Los Angeles in 1984. The Australians, the team that the U.S. beat yesterday, has won three gold medals (field hockey first appeared in the 1980 Olympics).

As an aside, men's field hockey first was held in the 1908 Olympics. The U.S. has won one bronze medal on the men's side, that one back in 1932, also in Los Angeles.

The Canadian women's soccer team has also won one medal, a bronze, in its Olympic history. That one came four years ago in London, courtesy of a goal in stoppage time by Princeton alum Diana Matheson.

Canada's women's soccer team, like the U.S. field hockey team, is 2-0-0 in the group stage. Matheson, like Sharkey and the Reinprechts, is playing a huge role for her team.

The difference between women's soccer and field hockey is that there are only four teams in each soccer group. Canada, who plays Germany this afternoon, has already clinched a spot in the quarterfinals. A win or tie would give Canada the group championship; a loss would mean Germany wins the group.

Either way, Canada has already accomplished something big. No matter what happens today, Canada will be on the opposite side of the bracket from the Americans, who have won three straight gold medals and who beat Canada 4-3 in an epic semifinal four years ago.

Another Princeton athlete competes for the first time today, and that's Ashleigh Johnson, the goalie for the women's water polo team. The U.S. team, favored for the gold medal, plays its first game this morning at 10:40 against Spain.

In addition to the field hockey win, yesterday was a busy day for Princeton's rowers. Glenn Ochal, Kate Bertko and Lauren Wilkinson all raced, and none was able to advance directly to the finals. They all, however, still have a chance to get there.

So does Meghan O'Leary, the former Princeton contact with ESPN, who is in her first Olympics as a rower. She advanced to the semifinals as well. 

Today will be even busier on the water, with Bertko in an elimination race, Gevvie Stone in the quarterfinals and Tyler Nase and Robin Prendes in the semifinals. TigerBlog watched Nase and Prendes yesterday, and that is grueling stuff.

The worst part of the Olympics is the primetime, pre-packaged, over-promotion-of-certain athletes, mostly-tape-delayed stuff that is rammed down the viewers' collective throats. And it's so simplistic.

Michael Phelps? He's "good." Make sure there's a shot of his mother too. American gymnasts? Also "good." They all have such great back stories too, right? They all said they'd be Olympians when they were six. They all had to have incredible sacrifices by their families. They all had to overcome everything everywhere every day.

Now go away for four more years and then you can have new "heroes" shoved down your throat. On tape delay.

It's enough already. And apparently the ratings reflect it.

The best part of the Olympics is everything else. Just the competition, all day, in sports that aren't usually at the forefront.

And, for TigerBlog, the Princetonians.

Go Tigers!!!!!!!

Guest TigerBlog - Opening The Olympics

Okay, whoever is organizing the Opening Ceremonies for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, TigerBlog is going to save you a lot of time, money and headaches. And you'll get way better reviews than you'll get if you don't listen to him.

Here's all anyone wants to see: 1) a short video introduction of the Olympics and the host city, 2) the parade of athletes, 3) the lighting of the torch by a local athletic hero. That's it. Nothing else.

The Opening Ceremonies for the current Olympic Games in Rio were, well, awful. They took forever. The packaging on TV was brutal. They got destroyed on Twitter and in the media.

The best part was seeing the Princeton athletes who are competing as they came into the stadium. The worst part was everything else.

So yeah, just follow TigerBlog's script, Tokyo, and you'll be all set. 

TigerBlog didn't get to see that much of the first few days of the Olympics, for reasons he'll get into tomorrow or Wednesday. As a result, he's turned the floor today over to his OAC colleague Kristy McNeil, who offers her thoughts on the Opening Ceremonies and the start of the Rio Games.

As I was watching the Opening Ceremonies Friday night, I thought briefly of live tweeting it.

Live tweeting has been something that has become second nature for us SIDs to do during games. Our office has to be one of, if not the most, sarcastic OAC offices in the Ivy League. In a good way.

So what would I have tweeted?

"Metal bugs trot out. I can see you people carrying them! Why aren't you even trying to hide?"

"Men in THONGS."

"Brazil are you really claiming first in flight?! Did you walk on the moon first too!"

I checked on Twitter to compare my imaginary tweets to what others were saying, and surprise - the opening ceremonies weren't live. Why this never dawned on me I don't know... my excuse: It was Friday, my office was flooded, it was a long week.

On Twitter, I was getting updates on what was actually going on, live. For instance, I saw Gisele walk in her silver lamé dress 15 minutes before NBC showed it. Why did NBC say this Gisele segment was going to be so amazing? All she did was walk a catwalk, like she's done a thousand times before. I mean, I get it - she's pretty. Even better looking now with her plastic surgery (yea she did, I read it in US Weekly. Google it if you don't believe me).

The best part of the Opening Ceremony is the Parade of Nations. This year we didn't have to wait as long to see the US contingent, as they came out under "E" in the Portuguese language as Estados Unidos.

It’s great to see the pride on these athletes' faces, when you can see their faces when they aren’t obscured by their own cameras capturing the experience themselves #selfiestickgalore.

Princeton women’s track & field assistant coach Priscilla Frederick was the first athlete I recognized. She is the only female to represent her country of Antigua & Barbuda, and her purple hair made her stand out even more. Best of luck to her in the high jump.

Listening to the trio of Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Hoda Kotb was slightly painful. It reminded me of the SNL skit with Will Ferrell on the keyboard, as Marty & Bobbi Culp who head the music department at Alta Dena Middle School. You can see it HERE.

As the US came out, I was on high alert to try to spot as many Princetonians as I could (Princeton has 13 athletes in Rio, by far the most of any Ivy school, if TB hasn't mentioned that yet), though our three field hockey players, Katie and Julia Reinprecht and Kat Sharkey would not attend the ceremony because they had a game the next day.

After I spotted THE Donn Cabral, took a snap and posted on social media, the parade of nations was on to letter M. Now it was 11:30 p.m. I couldn’t do it any longer. Sorry Nauru, Suriname, Tuvalu and others. Blame NBC and their commercials every eight minutes.

If there were a drinking game every time NBC mentioned Michael Phelps, Alyson Felix or the women’s gymnastics team….

We have more athletes competing than any other nation, yet NBC wants to keep mentioning these select few. Why? Do you think we’re dumb and don’t know anything about sports?

One of my favorite moments of the weekend came during women’s beach volleyball.

It was the Swiss vs. China. (Don’t get me started on why I think this is on in prime time). There was a controversial call made on China’s match point. Video review officials gave the point to China. The Swiss go to the net and argue with the officials. You can see for yourself on the video review that the Swiss did have a legitimate claim. The Chinese are signing volleyballs and tossing them in the stands in victory.

NBC goes back to the studio with Bob Costas, who says something to the effect of ‘wow that’s something,’ and then NBC goes into a pre-taped segment on the Amazon. After two or three minutes, they cut back to beach volleyball, where the officals have decided to have a re-do of the match point after the Swiss lobbied hard enough. The Swiss win the next point, but China finishes it off on the next serve and the match is NOW officially over. Seriously NBC. If I wanted to watch a segment on the Amazon, I’ll turn on Nat Geo. I’m here to watch sports. Sports.

Thankfully there is live streaming. That is where I had to turn to watch the US women’s field hockey team defeat the favorite to win the gold, Argentina, thanks to Katie Reinprecht's giving the US a 1-0 lead and Kat Sharkey's having the wherewithal to jump up so the penalty corner shot could make its way into the goal for a 2-0 lead.

And where I got to watch a peaceful women’s soccer game sans commentators. Canada vs Zimbabwe, where Canada dominated. Princeton’s Diana Matheson played a huge role in the win. She nearly put one away at the near corner in the 15th minute and four minutes later drew a penalty kick after getting crushed by the goalkeeper. That set up Christine Sinclair (one of my personal favorite soccer players, out of Portland) to make it 2-0 Canucks. In the 42nd minute Matheson had a goal waved off due to offsides.

I read that viewership of the primetime coverage in its nice little packages is way down. And I know why. The live streaming is way better. It’s live. It doesn’t have annoying commercials and commentators who speak as though you’re an idiot. And it’s where you can actually see sports.

Live streaming is where I watched the first ever Olympic rugby game, which was the US women vs. Australia. There’s a lot of parts of the game I enjoy but the constant touching I’m not a fan of. Like the scrums. They’re all sweaty and putting their arms around each other – bleh!

Then there’s the intensity of the table tennis serve as the hand goes way up and you expect a big blast and it’s a perfectly placed little bounce.

There were commentators doing the men’s kayak yesterday and they were hilarious. “Whoah, that was a terrible start!” “It says here he practices yoga. That should help his mind after this finish.” Just awesome. I think the accents just make it better too.

For the most part, though, the announcers aren't making the events any better. They're too scripted. They're trying too hard to sell a product, and you can't do that in sports, let alone at the Olympics. The outcome dictates the story, not the other way around. And it can come from any athlete or any sport.

If I want the full Olympic experience of watching an array sports from athletes from all different countries, not just Michael Phelps, Alyson Felix or the women’s gymnastics team, I’ll be turning in online.

Just like my grandparents did.

Olympic Village

TigerBlog recently learned that the prime sunburning hours are between 2 and 4 in the afternoon.

This is sort of contrary to what he's always believed. He figured the prime sunburn time would be between 10 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.

As a result, he's often gone without sunscreen after 2. Turns out that's been a mistake.

The two worst places TigerBlog has ever gotten sunburned have been the top of his feet and the top of his head. The sunburned feet came in North Carolina in the early 1990s and was awful; TigerBlog has never again made the mistake of not putting copious amounts of sunscreen on his feet.

As for the top of his head? Well, let's just say that TigerBlog hasn't really need a hair brush in a few decades, which is good in some ways (he can get his hair cut in six minutes) and bad in others (his head will get badly burned if it's not covered in sunscreen or covered by a hat).

As an aside, TigerBlog had really, really long hair in the 1970s. He looks way better now.

TB packed plenty of sunscreen for his trip this weekend to Lake Placid. He's here for the Olympics.

Well, not quite. He's here in the Adirondacks as the Olympics begin.

Lake Placid as you might know has hosted the Olympics twice, both times the Winter Olympics. The first time was in 1932, when Canada won the gold medal in hockey and the U.S. won the silver medal.

The second time was in 1980. You don't need TigerBlog to tell you who won the gold medal in hockey that year.

Until yesterday, TigerBlog had never been to Lake Placid. Why now?

Well what else? Lacrosse. The Lake Placid Lacrosse Summit, to be exact.

TigerBlog Jr. is playing, reuniting with the guys who played together for seven summers as kids up through high school for this tournament.

TB has never been to this event, which appears to have brought basically anyone who owns a lacrosse stick to this small village. There are events for high school boys and girls, all the way up to grand masters. TigerBlog should have brought his stuff and gotten on a team; it's been awhile since he's had a knee operation.

There will be a ton of Princeton lacrosse players who will be here as well on various teams in various divisions, including several who will play tonight in the Major League Lacrosse Legends Alumni Game. Princeton will be represented by Damien Davis, Josh Sims, Jon Hess, Matt Striebel, Ryan Mollett and Chris Massey, who between them have 13 NCAA championship rings. That's a lot of winning.

Jeff Froccaro will be here as well, with a team that will be playing to help raise funds for the Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund, in memory of former Duke lacrosse player Jimmy Regan, who lost his life in Iraq in 2007. For more information about the project, click HERE.

If you want to see a great picture, by the way, go to the women's hockey page of goprincetontigers.com. Or click HERE.

The picture is of Kelsey Koelzer, who will be arriving here when TigerBlog leaves. Koelzer will be here as part of a festival that saw 95 players invited, and they will be competing for spots on the U-22 and U-18 national teams.

So the sports scene in Lake Placid is always a busy one. And TigerBlog will do his best to see some of the Olympic sites, though he can't guarantee he'll be heading down the bobsled while he's here.

Still, this is the site of Olympics past.

The current Olympic Village is in Rio, where the Opening Ceremonies are today. The soccer competition has already started, though, and Canada - with Princeton alum Diana Matheson - got a big 2-0 win over Australia Wednesday that almost assures a spot for the Canadians in the quarterfinals.

Tomorrow is a huge day for Princeton at the Olympics, as more than half of the 13 Princeton athletes will be competing, in field hockey, rowing, soccer and fencing.

Again, you can follow all of the Princetonians in the Olympics right HERE.

The start of the Olympics means that there are also three weeks until the first Princeton athletic event of the academic year. But hey, that will be here soon enough.

For now, it's time to enjoy the start of one of the greatest sporting events in the world. You know, the Lacrosse Summit.

Or the Olympics.

Either one.

Four Princeton Alums Pitch In One Night

TigerBlog isn't sure if he ever mentioned this before. Maybe he'll go back in the archives and check.

Yes. Yes, he did mention that he went with the baseball team to Louisiana for the NCAA Regional in June. And yes, as he thinks back on it, he may have also mentioned that he enjoyed his time there very much.

Princeton was there with Arizona, who finished as the national runner-up, Sam Houston State and Louisiana-Lafayette. They are all baseball powers.

As TigerBlog pointed out to the assembled media there, Princeton had three players in the Major Leagues at the time. The other three combined had none.

As it turns out, that number has since doubled.

Princeton has had an incredible six players in the Major Leagues so for this season: Chris Young, Ross Ohlendorf, Matt Bowman, Will Venable, David Hale and the newest member of the club, Danny Barnes, who was called up Tuesday by the Blue Jays.

Even more amazingly, four of the pitchers pitched in games Tuesday night.

Let's start with Barnes.

Rather than have a chance to soak it all in, Barnes was thrown to the wolves instead. The Blue Jays, who are one game back of the Orioles for first in the AL East, led Houston 2-1 heading to the bottom of the eighth.

In came Barnes, for his Major League debut. And how did he respond? With a scoreless inning, including a pair of strikeouts.

As for the rest of the Tigers?

Young picked up a win for the Royals in relief. Young, as you might recall, played a huge role in Kansas City's World Series championship last fall.

Bowman pitched two-thirds of an inning of scoreless relief for the Cardinals. When TB clicked on Bowman's bio, he learned that he is a native of Chevy Chase, Md.; maybe Bowman liked to go the same Houlihans in Mazza Gallerie that MotherBlog did.

Also, Bowman has now pitched in 37 games for the Cards, with a 2.96 ERA, with 34 strikeouts and 12 walks. St. Louis is probably not going to catch the Cubs for the division title but will be right there for the wild cards.

Oh, and on the other side of the field from Bowman Tuesday night was Ohlendorf, who pitched an inning in relief for the Reds in that game. Cincinnati won 7-5.

Four Princeton alums who pitched in the Major Leagues in one night?

TigerBlog considers himself a Princeton Athletic historian as much as anything else, and the idea that Princeton had four alums who pitched in one night is way, way up there on the list of major accomplishments that he's ever heard of here.

The Olympics are the big story for now in the world of sports.

TigerBlog saw a graphic the other day that said that Princeton ranked sixth among American colleges in number of Olympians. Of course, the same graphic said Princeton has 12 Olympians, when the correct number is actually 13. That would actually tie Princeton for fourth, behind Stanford, Cal and USC.

That same graphic, though, didn't include some other schools that TB knows should have been there, and of course it had the mistake in Princeton's total. Still, Princeton is close to the top nationally in producing Olympians.

It also made TB wonder how many other schools have had more than six players in the Major Leagues this year. Or had four alums pitch on the same night this year - or any other year, for that matter.

It's all a tribute to Scott Bradley and the way he runs his program at Princeton.

Bradley himself was a longtime Major League player (a catcher), and he clearly knows how to develop Major Leaguers as a coach. When TB was in Louisiana, he saw first-hand why, and it's because Bradley's Princeton team has the feel of a professional team, with trust, respect and accountability at the forefront.

He has also done an incredible job of bringing in players - especially pitchers - who understand that the value of the academic side of Princeton doesn't mean having to sacrifice the Major League opportunity. If anything, it enhances it, since a high school pitcher can come to Princeton, mature, get the kind of education that Princeton offers and not get his arm burned out in the process.

It works the same way with the Olympians. Princeton in no way provides a roadblock to any athletic opportunity.

That, of course, is the best part. The combination of both, and the people who come here who value both.

Diana Matheson Goes Back To The Olympics

GoPrincetonTigers.com Olympic Page

TigerBlog is about halfway through Season 4 of "Wentworth" on Netflix.

The show is the Australian version of "Orange Is The New Black." Actually, it's way better than "Orange Is The New Black."

TigerBlog isn't sure that "Orange Is The New Black" knows exactly what it is trying to be. Is it funny? Serious? The mix doesn't always work.

"Wentworth" has no illusions of being a comedy. It is exactly what a prison drama should be, with its sense of the fear, frustration, boredom, loneliness and helplessness that the inmates live with everyday. And with a constant reminder of why these women are in prison in the first place.

It's a tough trick, to make sympathetic characters out of people who are criminals and in prison. If you look at "The Sopranos," for instance, it's easy to forget that Tony, one of the most lovable characters in TV history, is actually a sociopath and mob boss.

In Wentworth's prison, the line blurs between "good" and "bad." Yes, Bea - the leader among the prisoners - tried to kill her husband and did actually kill someone else, but she does have the best interest of the other inmates in mind. And she is painted as a person who never set out to hurt anyone but was forced into circumstances that led her down this path.

Yes, there are some inmates who have absolutely no sense of right and wrong and were destined to end up where they are. Then there are the rest, who, like Bea, made bad choices along the way and now are dealing with the awful consequences while trying to let their "good" side win out over their "bad" side.

The dynamic of the relationship between the prisoners and the guards is also portrayed well. There is a hint of friendship between them, coupled with a constant need on the part of the guards to remind the inmates of the reality of their situation, which is that the guards can go home when their shifts are over but they'll be here for years or, in Bea's case, forever.

The best character on the show is Frankie, who was paroled at the end of Season 3 and who hasn't figured prominently in the first half of Season 4. Frankie is something of a hybrid between the two kinds of inmates - she has a big heart and is a bit of a psycho who thinks nothing of lashing out (in a big way, like a "throwing a pan of hot oil on someone on live TV" sort of way).

TigerBlog senses that there will be more of Frankie in the second half of the season. He hopes it's not because she's sent back to the prison, though.

And then there's Ferguson, the former governor of the prison who is now an inmate. That part is a bit contrived, but it doesn't take away from just how evil a character Ferguson is.

TigerBlog figures that her character is so evil that the other actors on the show must hate her in real life too.

If you have seen "Orange Is The New Black," which is basically everyone with Netflix, but haven't seen "Wentworth," which is also basically everyone with Netflix, then you've been watching the wrong show.

"Wentworth" is a big hit in Australia, and it has won numerous awards there. In fact, the actresses who play Bea, Frankie and Ferguson have all won Best Actress in a drama awards, which has to be unique among any show in any country.

And now, for the easiest segue in TigerBlog history: 

While we're on the subject of Australia, it will be Canada vs. Australia in women's soccer as the Summer Olympics begin today, actually two days before the Opening Ceremonies.

Canada features Princeton grad Diana Matheson, who four years ago in London scored the biggest goal in Canadian women's soccer history, when she gave her country the bronze medal with the goal in stoppage time of a 1-0 win over France in a game in which Canada was outshot 28-4.

The biggest goal came from the shortest player, as Matheson barely reaches five feet tall. It also came from the fittest player. TigerBlog has seen very few athletes who have ever come through Princeton who had Matheson's motor.

Or, for that matter, field vision. It's how she's managed to be a huge part of Canada's international women's soccer efforts for more than a decade now. In fact, Matheson, now 32, could be playing in her final major event for the Canadians.

It's been 12 years since she exploded onto the Princeton Athletics scene and helped Princeton to one of the greatest accomplishments in its entire athletic history. Back in 2004, Matheson was the glue of a women's soccer team that went all the way to the NCAA Final Four, and those Tigers remain the only women's soccer team in Ivy League history ever to do so.

Matheson was named a first-team All-America, which is a bit ironic. You know. Because she's Canadian.

Her team has a tough group, with Australia and Germany, though the Canadians could still come in third in the group and reach the quarterfinals. The fourth team in the group is Zimbabwe.

The Olympics begin today with Diana Matheson.

Against Australia. Which produces a great TV show.

Sigh. All segues should be that easy.

Ashleigh And Kat

TigerBlog had the song "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" in his head for most of yesterday.

You know the song. It's by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.

It's probably because TB wrote about "An Officer And A Gentleman," which is featured prominently in the movie. An instrumental version plays at the end, when Richard Gere carries Debra Winger out of the factory in one of the most romantic moments in movie history.

Don't believe TB? You can see it HERE for yourself.

The one HERE is a bit less romantic.

Anyway, this got TigerBlog thinking about what the single most romantic moment in movie history is (note - musicals don't count, because they would have the top 50 or so).

He came up with THIS. 

Or maybe THIS.

Definitely not THIS.

On further consideration, TB will put the Richard Gere/Debra Winger scene is in the top three.

By the way, if you didn't recognize the movie clips from above, the romantic ones were from "Notting Hill," which TB saw for the thousandth time Sunday morning and "The Best Years Of Our Lives," which TB has also seen way more than once.

"The Best Years Of Our Lives" is from 1946. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, who was actually a World War II vet who lost both of his hands and had to use the hooks that are featured in that scene.

Anyway, all day yesterday, there was TigerBlog, with the song in his head. "Love lift us up where we belong, where the eagles cry, on a mountain high."

TigerBlog thought it was "where the eagles fly," not the "eagles cry." But it said "cry" when he double-checked the lyrics online. And when he listened to the song again, it's definitely "cry." Why would the eagles be crying? Wouldn't they be flying?

Anyway, that lasted until late afternoon, when it suddenly was replaced by "Badlands," a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band song. "Badlands" is off the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" album, though the best versions of it that TB has ever heard have been live versions.

So there was TB, switching to "I believe in the love that you gave me. I believe in the faith that can save me" in no time. And he didn't have to check those lyrics.

Luis Nicolao, the head women's and men's water polo coach at Princeton, is probably a bigger fan of the Boss than TigerBlog.

It was Luis who sent TigerBlog a picture yesterday of his goalie, Ashleigh Johnson, and fencer Kat Holmes. The two were on a shuttle in Houston, about to board a flight to Rio.

Johnson and Holmes are two of Princeton's 13 athletes who will be competing in the Summer Olympics, which begin later this week. They are unique among Princeton's contingent in that they are the only two who are current undergraduates, both of whom took the past year off from school to focus on getting to Rio.

Johnson is the goalie on the U.S. women's water polo team. She is among the best, if not the best, water polo players in the world, and she is one of the main reasons that the Americans are heavy favorites to win gold.

Holmes, whose weapon is the epee, will be competing in the individual and team competition.

And there they were in the picture Luis sent. Beaming.

Why wouldn't they be? They're off to the Olympic Games.

There are so many millions (billions even) of kids around the globe who play sports. So many of them dream of getting to the Olympics. And so few of them actually do.

TB's friends in the University Office of Communications put a story up yesterday about the Princeton athletes in the Olympic Games. You can read it HERE.

The story includes this quote from Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan:
"The success of our current and former athletes at, in many cases, the highest level of their sports speaks to both the breadth and the quality of our athletic program and the pride the University takes in its athletics programs. These athletes are shining examples of the ability of Princetonians to balance their pursuit of academic excellence with their desire to realize their athletic goals."

That's really it in a nutshell.

It's the ability of Princetonians to balance their pursuit of academic excellence with their desire to realize their athletic goals. And nowhere is that more true than when the Summer Olympics roll around.

The look on their faces shows that they are giddy kids, about to compete on the biggest stage.

It's what's inside that really makes them different. TigerBlog has said this a million times, but he often looks at the athletes with whom he works and wonders where people like this come from.

It makes them the easiest athletes in the world to root for, especially for the next two weeks.

Here Come The Olympics

TigerBlog loves some of Woody Allen's early movies.

"Bananas?" Hilarious. "Sleeper?" The same. You can add "Love and Death" and "Take the Money and Run" to that list.

What else? "Manhattan?" Outstanding. And, of course, the best Woody Allen movie of them all, "Annie Hall."

All of those movies were before 1982. Since then, he's had three movies that TigerBlog thought were great, in different ways - "Broadway Danny Rose," "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors," which TB would put second behind "Annie Hall" on the list.

Nobody has ever made movies that make New York City look prettier than Woody Allen. His love for the city shines though. Yes, he's become a rather polarizing figure and that he's made a lot of movies that have fallen a little flat, but that doesn't change the fact that he's made some of the best movies TB has ever seen.

The movie "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" is not on the list of great Woody Allen movies that TB has seen. But he did see it, in the movies, in July of 1982, back when he went to the movies a lot.

Even though that was nearly 35 years ago, TB remembers two things about it. First, the movie wasn't good.

And second, he saw a trailer for a movie that he would be coming out two weeks later, one that looked a lot better than the one he was about to see. The movie? "An Officer And A Gentleman."

 So there TB was, two weeks later, visiting MotherBlog when she still lived in Chevy Chase, Md.

MB was at work, and TB had the afternoon to himself. He looked in the newspaper (that's what you used to have to do back then) and saw that "An Officer And A Gentleman" was playing at a theater that he figured was near MB's house.

He didn't have a car to use, so he had to walk. He unfolded a map (that's what you used to have to do back then) and measured the distance like people did back then, by holding his thumb and forefinger against the map and then against the part that showed you how much distance on the map a mile was and so forth.

Of course, that was never accurate. And it wasn't that day, when TB figured a one or two mile walk actually was four miles, each way.

TigerBlog walked up Willard Avenue, where MotherBlog lived, to Wisconsin Avenue and made a right. As soon as he crossed the street, he went from Maryland into the District of Columbia.

If you've ever been in that area, it's where the Mazza Gallerie Mall is.

He walked on Wisconsin to the movie theater, past the mall, past the Cheesecake Factory, past a bunch of other restaurants that he and his mother had been to - all the way to the movie theater. He was a bit sweaty by the time he got there.

As for the movie itself, well, TB never saw "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" again, but he's seen "An Officer And A Gentleman" a lot. And why not? It's a great movie. Louis Gossett Jr. won a very deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as Foley, the drill instructor who started out the trailer by saying "why would a slick little hustler like you want to sign up for this kind of abuse."

MotherBlog would move from Chevy Chase to Georgia, first Augusta for a year and then Atlanta, where she lived until her death in 1994. It was four years after Atlanta had been awarded the big for the 1996 Summer Olympics, and, sadly, two years before the Games actually came to her city.

TigerBlog's mother was all in on the Atlanta Olympics. She would have gone to anything and everything and was already making plans to have her son join her. When the Games were actually going on, TigerBlog wondered what events he would have gone to with his mother.

Princeton had five Olympians in 1996 and won no medals. In the most recent Summer Games in 2012 in London, Princeton had 15 Olympians who won seven medals.

The 2016 Olympic Games begin with the Opening Ceremonies Friday night in Rio. Actually, by the time the Opening Ceremonies roll around, one Princetonian will have already competed.

Diana Matheson, who scored the game-winning goal for Canada in the 2012 bronze medal women's soccer game, will have already played one game - Wednesday, against Australia.

Princeton will be represented by 13 current or former athletes, as well as two current assistant coaches. The Games will kick into high gear for Princeton Saturday, when seven of the 13 Princeton athletes compete.

As these athletes compete, goprincetontigers.com will have full coverage, as will Princeton's athletic social media outlets.

Here, by the way, is the schedule of when Princetonians will be competing in Rio:

Field hockey
Katie Reinprecht, Julia Reinprecht, Kathleen Sharkey
Pool B
USA vs. Argentina • Aug. 6, 4 pm
USA vs. Australia • Aug. 8, 9 am
USA vs. Japan • Aug. 10, 4 pm
USA vs. India • Aug. 11, 6:30 pm
USA vs. Great Britain • Aug. 13, 5 pm
Quarterfinal • Aug. 15, TBA
Semifinal • Aug. 17, TBA
Gold medal/Bronze medal games • Aug. 19, TBA

Women’s soccer
Diana Matheson (Canada)
Group F
Canada vs. Australia • Aug. 3, 2 pm
Canada vs. Zimbabwe, Aug. 6, 2 pm
Canada vs. Germany, Aug. 9, 3 pm
Knockout round begins Aug. 12

Track and field
Donn Cabral
Men’s 3,000 meter steeplechase
First round - Aug. 15
Final – Aug. 17

Robby Andrews
Men’s 1,500 meters
First round – Aug. 16
Semifinals – Aug. 18
Final – Aug. 21

Priscilla Frederick
Women’s high jump
Preliminary – Aug. 18
Final – Aug. 20

Fencing
Kat Holmes
Individual epee
Aug. 6
Team epee
Aug. 11

Water polo
Ashleigh Johnson (USA)
Group B
USA vs. Spain • Aug. 9, 10:40 am
USA vs. China • Aug. 11, 10:40 am
USA vs. Hungary • Aug. 13, 12 pm
Quarterfinals • Aug. 15, TBA
Semifinals • Aug. 17, TBA
Finals • Aug. 19, TBA


Rowing
Gevvie Stone (USA W1x)
Heats • Aug. 6 – 8:30-9:20
Repechage • Aug. 7 – 8:00-8:20
Quarterfinal • Aug. 9 – 8:10-8:40
Semifinal A/B • Aug. 11 – 8:30-8:40
Final • Aug. 12 – 7:40-9:44 (A at 9:44, B at 9:20)

Kate Bertko (USA LW2x)
Heats • Aug. 7 – 9:40-10:10
Repechage • Aug. 8 – 8:20-8:30
Semifinal A/B • Aug. 10 – 7:50-8:00
Final • Aug. 12 –A at 8:52, B at 8:10)

Lauren Wilkinson (Canada W8+)
Heats • Aug. 8 – 9:30-9:40
Repechage • Aug. 10 – 8:50
Final • Aug. 13 – 10:04

Tyler Nase, Robin Prendes (USA LM4-)
Heats • Aug. 6 – 11:00-11:20
Repechage • Aug. 7 – 9:00
Semifinal A/B • Aug. 9 – 9:50-10:00
Final • Aug. 11 –A at 9:44, B at 8:00

Glenn Ochal (USA M8+)
Heats • Aug. 8 – 9:50-10:00
Repechage • Aug. 10 – 9:00
Final • Aug. 13 – 10:24

Getting Excited About "Gilmore Girls" And Other Thoughts Before A Busy August

If the words "Gilmore Girls" get you excited, then you already saw the big news.

"Gilmore Girls, A Year In The Life" will be released on Netflix the day after Thanksgiving. The sequel will be in the form of four 90-minute episodes, entitled "Fall," "Winter," "Spring" and "Summer."

The original series ran seven seasons, ending in 2007. The concept of reuniting the entire cast nearly a decade later to update what has happened to them is fairly unique, TigerBlog suspects. He can't think of another series that did this.

Okay, okay. "Gilmore Girls" isn't quite "The Sopranos" or "Hill Street Blues" or "Breaking Bad." It was still an entertaining show with some really good characters, and it was usually good for a laugh or two while having a few intriguing storylines, even tackling some fairly serious issues along the way.

The original series ran 153 episodes, and TigerBlog has seen them all, most of them more than once. It's similar to "Parenthood," another show that TigerBlog binge-watched, though it's not quite as serious.

And now it's going to wrap up all of its loose ends. TigerBlog is intrigued.

He's going to be annoyed if Rory ends up with Logan. And if it didn't work out with Lorelei and Luke. And if Lorelei ends up with Christopher? TigerBlog will be downright pissed.

One intriguing piece is that Edward Hermann, the actor who played Lorelei's father Richard Gilmore, passed away earlier this year. How will they deal with that? How will it affect Emily?

What else? Luke's daughter would be 23 or so by now. She was a really smart middle schooler. Maybe she went to Princeton? She was pretty unathletic in the original series, so if she did go to Princeton, she probably wasn't an athlete. Maybe she was a student worker?

Anyway, the four episodes will be on Netflix on Nov. 25. TigerBlog figures he's going to knock them out in one day.

By that time, the fall season at Princeton Athletics will be over and the winter season will be well underway.

The first athletic event for the 2016-17 academic year is four weeks from today, with women's soccer at home against Fordham. The Tigers are home two days later  (Sunday, Aug. 28) against Villanova in a game that will be televised live on ESPNU.

Wait? Four weeks? Is that possible? It's going to be August already?

Where does the time go?

Like TB said, the first athletic event is four weeks from today. It doesn't mean that August will be quiet.

The Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics are a week away. NFL training camps are getting underway.

Princeton figures prominently in both.

There are 13 current or former Princeton athletes, plus two current coaches, who are competing in Rio. You'll be able to follow when they compete, how they're doing and everything else on goprincetontigers.com.

As for the NFL, there are three Princeton alums in training camps right now. Caraun Reid (Detroit) and Mike Catapano (Jets) are veteran defensive linemen. Seth DeValve is a rookie tight end (and fourth round draft pick) with the Cleveland Browns.

A year ago Reid became the first Princeton alum in 30 years to score an NFL touchdown. Will DeValve match that feat this year?

TigerBlog would say that it's not easy to be a Cleveland Browns fan. It's probably easier this year, after the Cavaliers won the NBA title. And the Indians are in first place, with the second-best record in the American League, behind only the Baltimore Orioles.

And who has the worst record in all of Major League Baseball? The Braves. TigerBlog didn't realize that until he looked at the standings yesterday.

It also dawned on TB yesterday that he's only been to four stadiums that are currently in use by Major League Baseball teams: Citizens Bank Park (Phillies), Fenway Park (Red Sox), Camden Yards (Orioles) and Safeco Field (Mariners). Can that really be true? He's never been to Citi Field or the new Yankee Stadium.

He's been to a lot that no longer exist, including Shea Stadium (Mets), the old Yankee Stadium and Veterans Stadium (Philadelphia; TB is the only person who actually liked that stadium). And Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. He really liked that one.

Another stadium he really liked was Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. He went there a few times while visiting MotherBlog, who lived the final years of her life in that city.

TigerBlog remembers going to a game there while the Olympic Stadium was being built in advance of the 1996 Olympics. The stadium was built on the parking lot of Fulton County Stadium, which meant that nobody could drive a car to the game. Instead, fans had to go a gathering spot and ride shuttle buses, from a few miles away.

Did TigerBlog see chaos there? Nope. He saw orderly lines, as people waited for the next bus. People calmly waited there turn. When one bus would leave, another would pull up. There was no pushing, shoving, fighting, nothing.

If anything, there was just pleasant conversation among strangers as they waited for the bus. It was even more amazing on the way out, when all 40,000 people waited in one line. TigerBlog has never seen anything like it.

Years later, TigerBlog figured that if they had tried that while building the new stadiums in New York, it might not have gone so smoothly.

No wonder MotherBlog loved living in Atlanta. 

As for the stadium in Seattle, TigerBlog was there three years ago, on, like this, the final Friday in July. The occasion was BrotherBlog's wedding, and yesterday was the third anniversary for BB and Joe, the official brother-in-law of TigerBlog.

Happy anniversary to them.

And so this brings us to another Friday in the summer. Have a great weekend everyone.

Princeton Athletics will be playing soon enough. Four weeks, to be exact.

The Fan Poll

TigerBlog saw the backup at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel about a second too late to get over to the far right, which was zipping through without so much as one brake light.

TigerBlog? He sat there for 20 minutes without moving. Eventually, traffic began to creep forward, revealing a minor three-vehicle (two cars, one van) accident that brought the left lane to a stop.

As he sat there, TB tried to remember if his Uncle Milton had been part of the engineering team that had designed the tunnel. He was pretty sure that Milton was an engineer and that he had worked on the construction of one of the big tunnels along the Northeast Corridor.

TB would text BrotherBlog for confirmation. The response he got was "Dunno. You stuck in it?" And he's a lawyer.

While TB had his brother on the line, as it were, he asked him another question that he'd been wondering of late. Where in Russia did their family call home?

Odessa, possibly. "Or," BB said, "that may have just been the departure point. Generally the area was referred to as 'Beyond the Pale,' an area where Jews were relegated to."

Then he suggested a book that TB had not heard of before - "The Family," by David Laskin.

That was an enlightening few text messages.

The stop at the Harbor Tunnel was the only real non-DNC convention traffic TigerBlog ran into on his trip back and forth to Maryland on his trip to retrieve Miss TigerBlog from the Terps' field hockey camp. Maybe that's because he left before 6 am, but even the traffic two hours later through that same tunnel wasn't too bad at all.

TigerBlog saw Dina Rizzo, the incoming assistant field hockey coach again. TB has now spoken to her twice, and he can tell she is going to be a great addition to Princeton Athletics.

Oh, and the funniest part of the day? It was about a thousand degrees on the turf field where MTB's team played its final game. One of the players went to hug her mother, who put a towel that she had been sitting on between her and her daughter, presumably to avoid becoming soaked herself. TB then told MTB that she didn't have to hug him, and she rolled her eyes and said "I wasn't going to."

Ah, TB missed her. 

Anyway, in addition to Rizzo, TB would also like to figure out a way to bring the Xfinity Center from Maryland to Princeton as well. That is a great building. Beyond its aesthetic quality, it's also the place where the Princeton women's basketball team won its NCAA tournament game against Green Bay two years ago.

Maybe it can be towed away from its current spot and dropped down nicely on Princeton's campus?

Meanwhile, back at the Harbor Tunnel, this was one of those traffic delays where people got out of the cars, tried to figure out what was going on. TigerBlog decided to check out Twitter.

And what did he find? Bob Surace, Princeton's head football coach, is almost as good an athlete at Mike Trout, one of the best players in Major League Baseball.

It must be true. It says so HERE.

Apparently, there's a voting underway to choose the Mt. Rushmore of great athletes at any number of New Jersey high schools. Surace came in second in the voting for Millville High School to Trout, and it was really close. Trout had 10,078, to the 10,013 Surace got.

As an aside, Millville has a population of 28,400. If Surace could get 10,013 residents to vote for him, that would probably be more than enough to make him the mayor.

Jim Barlow, the men's soccer coach, got 29,165 votes in the Hightstown High voting, but it was only good for sixth place. As three of the top four from Hightstown share the name "Greczyn," TB senses the fix was in.

Besides, the greatest athlete in Hightstown High history is without question Vicky Picott, who finished in 17th place with 1,152 votes. Barlow, though, should definitely be in the top four.

It all reminds TB of when goprincetontigers.com used to have a fan poll. This was a long time ago.

TigerBlog loved the fan poll. It was fun to come up with creative and engaging questions.

The problem was that somewhere along the line, someone - or multiple someones - figured out how to rig the voting. And those someones were in the pool, since swimming and water polo would always win.

And would it be close? No. Everyone else would have 100 combined votes. The swimming or water polo choice would have somewhere around a million or so.

So yeah, that was the end of the fan poll.

All because of some computer genius in the pool.

Thanks a lot, Luis.

Aspiring

It's an early morning for TigerBlog.

He has to go back to Maryland today to get Miss TigerBlog from field hockey camp. And he has to be there (or had to be there, depending on what time you read this) before 11. Maybe as early as 9.

To get there at 9, he figured he'd have to leave at, well, very early. Hey, it's possible he's on I-95 now as you read this.

The problem with getting to College Park in the mid-to-late morning is that there is inevitably going to be rush hour traffic somewhere. And with the Democratic convention still in Philadelphia, he was thinking maybe 295 to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Or at least to the Commodore Barry Bridge and then back across the river.

Commodore Barry, by the way, was an officer in the Continental Navy during the American Revolution and then again in the young Navy of the United States after the war. Why a bridge that connects South Jersey and Delaware County in Pennsylvania and was built in the 1960s chose his name isn't quite clear, but TigerBlog is okay with it. 

Traffic is a big deal to TigerBlog's people. He learned this at family events at a young age, where the elders of his family would debate the merits of a given tunnel or given bridge, factoring in day of the week, time of day, tolls, etc. Some would be openly mocked and threatened with expulsion from the tribe for making incorrect decisions.

When there's bad traffic, the tendency is to get off that road and find any other road that helps you keep moving. Even if it isn't faster, it makes it seem like it is, just because you're moving. Deep in his heart, TB buys into this way of thinking.

For some reason, Delaware, a tiny state, is a terrible state for traffic. TB got stuck there badly on the way back Sunday after dropping MTB off.

TigerBlog took his car in to get the oil changed yesterday, leaving it in the capable hands of Ron, the official mechanic of the Office of Athletic Communications. Pretty much everyone who has worked here for the last 20 years or so has gone to Ron's place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and he has never let anyone down.

The best thing about Ron is that he'll tell you what your car needs and doesn't need as far as service goes. And if something major is wrong? At least he's nice about it.

TB picked his car up yesterday (after another bike ride with John McPhee that ended with TigerBlog well off the pace as Mr. McPhee churned up a steep hill; at least he waited to take TB back to get his car) and then drove to Princeton. By the time he got to the Jadwin Gym parking lot, his car was smoking, there was oil splattered on the grill and hood and he could smell something was up. TigerBlog doesn't know a lot about cars, but he had a sense this wasn't quite how it was supposed to be.

As he got out of the car, he reached for his phone to call Ron when Ron actually called TB. Hey, Ron said, funny thing, I forgot to put the oil cap back on.

In true Ron fashion, he made the drive up to Princeton to put the oil cap on, after refilling the oil and cleaning up the spill. One problem in nearly 20 years or so. TigerBlog can live with that.

Plus he came up here to fix it.

The funny thing is that this was Ron's first time on Princeton's campus, despite the fact that he lives less than 30 minutes away. And, with a daughter who is around 10, he and his family are the exact demographic that Princeton Athletics is seeking for its events.

TigerBlog has asked the same questions for years.

Is Princeton attendance good? What is reasonable to expect? Do people who don't come not come because they're not interested or because they would be interested but don't realize there are events here and how close it is to them?

Do they think that games are sold out? Do they think tickets are expensive? Do they not realize that 32 of Princeton's 37 teams have no admission charge?

Princeton announced yesterday that it's partnering with the Aspire Group. The official release can be found HERE.

This is about fan experience here. And it's about getting answers to TigerBlog's questions, which in turn would lead to increased attendance and better experience.

TigerBlog is fascinated about what Aspire will learn through its work. And what suggestions the group will make.

Princeton Athletics provides something that is different than what most people think of when they think of college athletics. For one thing, as TB said, almost everything is free. For another, the games that do charge admission are hardly breaking the bank for anyone.

And the athletes are inviting to the spectators. They love to mix with the fans, especially the families with kids who are such a huge part of the crowds here.

The agreement with Aspire will only make this better. And, at the same time, it will also show Princeton the areas it needs improving, and specific ways to do so.

TigerBlog's theory is that anyone who comes to a Princeton athletic event will come back.

They'll see what goes on here, and they'll want to be part of it again. Who knows? Maybe even Ron will come back, this time for a game, and not to clean the oil off TB's engine.