Carlson To The Playoffs

It was 9:45 yesterday morning when TigerBlog got an alert that the weekly senior staff meeting would be starting in 15 minutes.

It was the first meeting of the new year. Each year during this time, everyone in Jadwin Gym - and in offices everywhere, presumably - co-workers would greet each other with 1) "happy new year" and 2) "how was your holiday?" 

TB has always wondered how long into the new year do you still have to greet people with "happy new year?" Certainly on the first work day, but how about after that? 

Had there been an in-person work day yesterday, then the gathering in the Office of Athletic Communications would have almost certainly have included some discussion of what in the world Eagles' coach Doug Pederson was thinking Sunday night in what became a 20-14 loss to Washington.

Why not take the very short field goal to tie it at 17-17 instead of going for it on fourth-and-goal from the four? And why take Jalen Hurts out in favor of Nate Sudfeld in the fourth quarter if you were trying to win the game, as Pederson said afterwards?

There was no excuse for that. Yes, Hurts wasn't playing really well, but the Eagles don't have any dominant franchise question greater than whether or not Hurts is the answer moving forward.

Wouldn't seeing how he pushes through a tough night in what was a somewhat big game, even if the Eagles had already been eliminated? Wasn't that more important than seeing what Sudfeld can do?

So what is the answer? Why did Pederson seemingly give up?

It wasn't like a loss had that huge of an impact on the draft. The Eagles will pick sixth. Had they won the game, they would have picked ninth. It seems like a big difference, but there's no guarantee at all that the sixth pick will be better than the ninth, even if it's Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith.

So why do it? Does he hate the Giants?

Had the Eagles won that game, then the Giants would have made the playoffs. They were eliminated when Washington won.

On the other hand, the Giants were really eliminated when they started out the year 0-5, and a team that finished 6-10 can't really complain about getting robbed of a postseason shot.

TB grew up a Giants fan, but he was ready to turn his back on the team when Princeton alum Marc Ross was let go after helping build two Super Bowl championship teams. The hiring of another Princetonian, Jason Garrett, as its offensive coordinator this year certainly helped make it possible to root for the team again.

Hopefully Garrett, the longtime Dallas head coach, gets another shot to run his own team at some point, if that's what he wants (and TB saw a story yesterday that suggests that Garrett is in the running for the Chargers head coaching job). In the meantime, the Giants seem to be pointed in the right direction, and Garrett can help take them the next step forward.

Speaking of teams that have taken a step forward, there are the Cleveland Browns, who ended the longest NFL playoff drought with a 24-22 win over Pittsburgh Sunday. Cleveland reached the postseason for the first time since 2002.

Princeton's Stephen Carlson made one of the biggest plays of the day for the Browns when he recovered the onside kick after the Steelers touchdown and missed two-point conversion late in the game.

Browns fans praising the heavens that Stephen Carlson played catcher in little league at some point pic.twitter.com/TwSsry8idJ

— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) January 3, 2021

By the way, recovering an onsides kick in the NFL takes a certain degree of courage. How would you like to be on the bottom of that pile?

Carlson also had a special teams tackle in the game.

His reward for his work this season is a spot in the playoffs. The Browns will be at Pittsburgh for a rematch in the Sunday night game, which will be the sixth and final one in two days this weekend. If you think that the playoffs will go back to six teams per conference in the future, TB would have to disagree with that.

Pittsburgh, by the way, won't be resting anyone for that game like it did Sunday.

It's a great opportunity for Carlson. It gives you someone to root for in the playoffs. 

Or two someones, as you can root for Green Bay as well, with another former Tiger, John Lovett, on injured reserve. Lovett won a Super Bowl ring last year with Kansas City. 

Welcome To 2021

Happy 2021 everyone.

TigerBlog hopes you had a great New Year's. For his part, he texted his children at midnight to wish them Happy New Year. 

Miss TigerBlog responded at 12:14. TigerBlog Jr? He texted at 1:16 - the next afternoon.

Oh well. Hopefully 2021 is a great one for them, and for all of you.

Do you make resolutions? Do you know anyone who does? 

TB doesn't make resolutions based on the flip of the calendar. If there's something that needs to be resolved in, say, April, that's fine too. 

If you do make New Year's resolutions, do you follow through on them? TB wonders what the stats on that are.  

TB did make one resolution about 10 years ago or so. He resolved to give up the third person persona he enjoys here and shift simply to first person, but he never tried it. 

Maybe one day he will. 

Anyyway, today is Monday right? When you go through the holidays, it's very easy to lose track of what day it is. It never seems like it's the actual day that it is, and this was really true Saturday, which certainly felt like a Sunday.

So where to start for the new year? Well, where else would the Princeton Athletics blog begin this year.

With Colorado State-San Diego State men's basketball of course.

If you missed this one, Colorado State defeated San Diego State 70-67 Saturday. What does that have to do with Princeton?

TB didn't even know that the game was played, and he has no interest at all in who wins between Colorado State and San Diego State. He was taken in, though, by a headline that included the words "record comeback."

When he saw that, his first instinct was to check what record it exactly was. As it turned out, it was the Mountain West record.

It was also from 26 points down. As any Princeton fan knows, that's nothing.

Princeton, just short of 22 years ago, came from 27 points back, at the Palestra, to beat Penn. If you don't remember (and TB has a hunch that if you were there, you do remember), Princeton led 3-0 before a 29-0 Penn run.

It was 33-7 Quakers at the half and then 40-13 Penn with just under 16 minutes to go. Then the comeback happened. 

Final score: Princeton 50, Penn 49. 

So where does that comeback rank all time?

According to the NCAA record book, Princeton's 27-point rally that 1999 night in February is tied for the sixth-best comeback ever. The record belongs to Drexel, who in 2018 came from 34 points down to defeat Delaware. 

The Colorado State-San Diego State game marked the 26th time team has rallied from at least 25 points down to win the game. So why is Princeton's comeback the most impressive of them?

Well, for one reason, it's because this is TB who is writing and he gets to decide what's the most impressive. Beyond that, though, there are some statistical reasons that support his claim.

Start with how much time was left. Princeton trailed by 27 with 15:11 to play. Only five of those other 25-plus point comebacks started later.

Couple that with the fact that Princeton had to rally from that 27-point deficit in a game that had fewer than 100 combined points is extraordinary. In none of the other games did the winning team even score fewer than 60, let alone alone 50, and in only five did the winning team score fewer than 70.

In other words, most of those great comebacks came in very high scoring games where the team who was down fell behind early. In the Princeton comeback, it happened on a night where there were so many fewer possessions, which put so much more pressure on every one of them as the Tigers needed to execute nearly flawlessly in the second half. 

Whether or not that was actually the most impressive comeback in college basketball history is a matter of speculation. What it was, without question, was one of the most special nights TB has been a part of in all his years with Princeton.

He has so many incredibly vivid memories of that game, both during the surreal first half, when the Quaker fans were merciless, and then the equally surreal second half, when the building was almost eerily silent at times.

Remembering back to that game is a pretty good way to start out 2021. 

Hopefully this is a great year for everyone.

Happy New Year, everyone.

The Year In Review Part II

There is nobody who will ever be able to convince TigerBlog that Princeton Athletics would not have won at least one national championship in the 2019-20 academic year.

In fact, there could have been more than one.

Who would it have been? Women's hockey? A wrestler? Men's lacrosse? Men's lightweight rowing? Women's lightweight rowing? Someone else?

Sadly, that will remain unanswerable, just as TB's deep belief that it would have happened will remain unwavering.

As TigerBlog said yesterday, the biggest story of 2020 in Princeton Athletics at everywhere else was the COVID pandemic. It was the virus that limited the 2020 portion of the athletic calendar to slightly more than two months, nearly weeks of which also included the final break for first-semester exams in advance of the switch in the academic calendar.

Princeton has 37 varsity teams, but only 22 of them were able to compete at all in the year 2020. The last time Princeton had fewer than 22 teams compete in one calendar year was 1971, just as women's athletics were getting started.

Still, there were some incredible moments in Princeton Athletics in 2020. And, as TB does on the final day of every year, here are some of the top ones (unlike most years, these are in no order, so you can decide which was biggest):

* the women's hockey team won its first ECAC championship, defeating Cornell 3-2 in overtime on Mariah Koepple's goal 58 seconds into overtime back on March 8. Cornell came into the game as the No. 1 ranked team in the country and played like it in the first three minutes, scoring two quick goals and threatening to run Princeton out of Lynah Rink. Instead, the Tigers toughened from there, as Steph Neatby stopped the final 31 shots she faced and Sarah Fillier and Carly Bullock scored second-period goals to tie it. Princeton would have entered the NCAA tournament at Northeastern the following weekend, and the 26-6-1 Tigers would have had as good a chance as anyone to win the championship.

* the wrestling team defeated Cornell 19-13 on Feb. 9 in Jadwin Gym, and in doing so all of the following happened: 1) Princeton won its first Ivy League title since 1986, 2) Princeton ended Cornell's 17-year run as Ivy champs and 3) the wrestling team made Princeton the first school to reach 500 Ivy League championships. Trailing 10-4, Princeton won five straight matches, clinching it when Travis Stefanik went from down 4-3 with a minute to go to up 6-4 with a takedown with 10 seconds left and then finally 10-4 at the end with back points. When the NCAA championships were cancelled, it left Princeton to wonder if Patrick Glory (EIWA champ, unbeaten on the year) or Matthew Kolodzik (EIWA champ) would have won an individual national title.

* The women's basketball team rolled through the Ivy League, becoming the first team to win all 14 league games by double figures. Princeton, under first-year head coach Carla Berube, went 26-1 overall and had an RPI near the top 10 nationally. There was no NCAA tournament, but Princeton would have been looking at a seed around No. 5 and would have had a legitimate chance to reach the Sweet 16. On what proved to be the final weekend of the year, Bella Alarie broke the 30-year-old school career scoring record and finished her career with 1,703 points before being the No. 5 overall pick in the WNBA draft. Alarie became a three-time Ivy League Player of the Year and Carlie Littlefield, who on the same night that Alarie broke the scoring record reached the 1,000-point mark for her career, was named a first-team All-Ivy League selection for the second time.

* the women's swimming and diving team easily won the Ivy League championship at Brown (Feb. 19-22). The Tigers were led by freshmen Ellie Marquardt and Nicole Venema, who were two of the three high-point Swimmers of the Meet with 96 points each, while Mimi Lin was the career high-point diving champion. The Ivy title was the 23rd for the women's swimming and diving program.

* the men's indoor track and field team won its sixth-straight Ivy League Heptagonal championship, which was also the program's 23rd overall. Princeton had six event winners on the final day of the meet, held Feb. 29-March 1 at Cornell. Joey Daniels won his third-straight 60 hurdles title, this time in school- and meet-record time. Andrei Iosivas, also a wide receiver on the football team, won the Heptathlon and earned Outstanding Field Event Performer honors. 

* Julian Knodt, May Tieu, Daniel Kwak and Alexis Anglade all won NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional titles on March 8 at Duke as Princeton won four of the six weapons and had the runner-up in the other two.

* Reid Yochim and Mark Paolini scored overtime goals to lead Princeton to a sweep of Dartmouth in the opening round of the ECAC playoffs.

* The men's lacrosse team raced out to a 5-0 start to earn a ranking in the top three of every major national poll. The Tigers defeated defending NCAA champion Virginia 16-12 in Charlottesville on Feb. 22, and there were also wins over Big Ten rivals Rutgers and Johns Hopkins. The four-goal win over UVa would actually be the closest game of the season, and the Tigers would score at least 16 goals in each of the five games.

It's up to you to decide what the No. 1 moment of the year was.

That Princeton had that many moments in such a small window tells you a lot about the success that Tiger teams traditionally enjoy.

Lastly, Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks for being such loyal Princeton fans, and here's to hoping that everyone stays safe and healthy.

The Year In Review Part I

Every year at this time, TigerBlog goes through a list of the top moments of the previous 12 months in Princeton Athletics.

Each time he does it, he's amazed at a few things.

First, it never seems possible that another year has come and gone. Second, if you went back 12 months, you would have no way of knowing what the top stories were going to be.

It's part of the great charm of Princeton. You never know which team is going to step up and have a season for the ages. It could be, and often is, anyone.

TB also seems to mention in his Year in Review stories that another great part of working at Princeton is that each year brings a large number of great moments from which to choose. And, he adds, this is something that nobody at Princeton ever takes for granted.

Those two things are even more relevant as 2020 comes to a close.

One, even in an abbreviated athletic year, Princeton still had some great on-field moments, even if they all happened in slightly more than two months. Second, if there was anything that came out of 2020, it's that nothing should ever be taken for granted.

There's no doubt at all as to what the top story for 2020 was, in Princeton Athletics and everywhere. It was, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even as he thinks back to it, TB is still shaking his head at how quickly things went from "normal" to "completely shut down." 

In very short order, there were 11 Princeton events on Saturday, March 7, including the last two regular season basketball games, a stunning overtime win by the men's hockey team in the ECAC playoffs and another huge performance by the men's lacrosse team.

There were six more events the following day, including an amazing OT win by the women's hockey team in the ECAC final. 

TB was at the women's lacrosse game at Stony Brook that Sunday. He went to the team's postgame tailgate afterwards. He had plane tickets for Jacksonville for the team's upcoming trip there.

It all seemed so normal. That was Sunday.

There were still some other events contested as the week started (women's golf and men's and women's diving). There were also, beginning that Monday, some rumblings.

It started with the idea that fans might not be permitted to attend the Princeton-Penn men's lacrosse Ivy League opener that was coming up Saturday. That was Monday afternoon or so.

There was a coaches' meeting Tuesday - where everyone gathered in the Jadwin Zanfrini Room, all maskless - to update the situation, including the news that the Ivy basketball tournaments had been postponed and that no fans would be allowed at any events. Other winter teams, including both hockey teams, were getting ready to get on buses for postseason competition.

By Wednesday, Princeton president Chris Eisgruber was in Jadwin Gym, meeting with the entire athletic department to break the news personally that all athletic events for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year had been postponed. Nobody was permitted to sit within six feet of anyone else at that meeting.

It was shocking. It still is as TB thinks back on it.

In a blink, the unimaginable had happened. TB would never have guessed that he was watching his final Princeton athletic event for a long time when he was at that women's lacrosse game that Sunday. 

Since then, Princeton Athletics has worked tirelessly to maintain the education and social connection that binds the students and teams together. It's been one hurdle after another, one more time where the answer had to be "no" instead of the "YES!!!" that everyone wanted to scream.

TigerBlog will be back tomorrow with a list of the top on-field moments from 2020. Hopefully it serves as a reminder of what it's always been like.

Before that, though, he does want to take a moment to salute all of the members of the Department of Athletics, all of his colleagues, all of whom have done so much these last nine months or so to support the athletes, to be there for each other and to be involved in the communities that needed the help so much. 

And he especially wants to salute all of the alums who have worked on the front lines and done as much as they could to fight the virus up close. 

This wasn't even remotely close to the year that everyone wanted or expected or became used to, but it's been the year that everyone has been forced to deal with and accept. 

TB's colleagues have shown their remarkable true colors through all of it, and he considers himself as fortunate as he ever has to be one of them.

A Little Ballet, A Little Women's History

TigerBlog stumbled on "The Nutcracker" on TV the other day (it was Christmas Day actually), and he ended up watching all of it. 

The work of Tchaikovsky dates to 1892, and it plays out in two acts. The first is set on Christmas Eve and revolves around gifts, including a nutcracker, that are given to children by a magician. The second is set in a land ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy and includes a lot of the music known as "The Nutcracker Suite."

TB has always loved the music from "The Nutcracker." In fact, he remembers buying a version of it in a record store in West Lebanon, N.H., in a strip mall opposite the hotel where Princeton teams stay when they play at Dartmouth.

In fact, TB walked over to the music shop with none other than Pete Carril, a few hours before a Princeton-Dartmouth game. Pete wanted to buy some Spanish music.

This was when TB was still in the newspaper business. To give you a sense of how long ago that was, TB bought a cassette of the "The Nutcracker," not even a CD, let alone a download.

The ballet, of course, is a Christmas staple. It's incredibly impressive to see it performed by the top dancers in the world, who make something really difficult seem easy.

There would seem to be a lot of overlap between being a great ballet dancer and a great athlete. They both require, among other things, strength and endurance, as well as mental toughness to push through when fatigue starts to set in.

Then there is the teamwork involved. And the concept of how much preparation is necessary to reach the highest levels. And of course how all of the practice leads to a public performance.

About the only difference is that there's no score kept in ballet.

TigerBlog has seen it at McCarter Theater. So have a lot of other people.

As near as TB has been able to figure, "The Nutcracker" first played at McCarter in 1935. The theater was five years old at the time.

There were still several decades between when McCarter opened and when women were first admitted to Princeton. This year has been the 50th anniversary of when women first competed for Princeton in intercollegiate athletics, and TB was asked a very interesting question the other day.

What was the first intercollegiate event for women and when was it? Not Princeton women. That he knows well - it was Oct. 17, 1970, when Helena Novakova and Margie Gengler Smith represented Princeton in the Eastern tennis championships.

No, when was the first time women competed anywhere in intercollegiate competition.

TB found this in "The Sport Journal":

Women were not active in intercollegiate sport until basketball was introduced at Smith College in 1892. Basketball quickly spread to other colleges, and students began to clamor for intercollegiate play. Women’s physical educators opposed such competition because they were not ready to lose control over their programs (as they perceived the men had). The first intercollegiate competition among women was a scheduled tennis tournament between Bryn Mawr and Vassar. It was canceled because the Vassar faculty did not allow their women’s athletes to participate in competition between colleges. The honor of being the first teams to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics belongs to the basketball teams of the University of California, Berkeley vs. Stanford and the University of Washington vs. Ellensburg Normal School; they played in 1896.

It doesn't say what year that tennis match would have been between Vassar and Bryn Mawr.

Still, that goes back further than TB might have guessed. That was pretty advanced for the times, he would think, to have allowed women to compete. 

Intercollegiate men's basketball only began three years earlier. There is some doubt as to what should count as the first game, but it seems like it was between Drexel and Temple on Nov. 22, 1893. 

That game, which Drexel won 26-1, was played with nine players on the court for each team at a time. 

It would be a few years before Princeton would first play basketball. The first game for the Tigers was on Jan. 26, 1901.

Anyway, that's your story for today. 

Some ballet. Some women's athletic history.

Coming tomorrow and Thursday? TB offers some 2020 Year in Review stuff.

Guess what the top story was.

Rooting Interest

Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for more yards in the fourth quarter Saturday night against the Las Vegas Raiders than he did in any game in his Harvard career against Princeton.

By the way, typing "Las Vegas" before "Raiders" still seems a bit strange.

If you missed the game (and TigerBlog did, as he was actually watching one-loss Liberty's thrilling OT win over previously unbeaten Coastal Carolina at the time), Fitzpatrick came off the bench to complete 9 of 13 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown while playing only in the final quarter. 

The Dolphins, led by Fitzpatrick, won 26-25 on a 44-yard field goal on the game's final play.

The FitzMagic part came on a 34-yard completion, which actually was more of a no-look heave, the no-look part courtesy of the fact that his facemask was being yanked as he threw, adding another 15 yards and setting up the game-winning kick.

Las Vegas coach Jon Gruden is being criticized for his decision in the final minute to not score a touchdown but instead have a running back intentionally stop at the 1 and then have a quarterback kneeldown to set up the go-ahead field goal with 19 seconds to play. The criticism is unfair, since Las Vegas (still weird) did the 100 percent correct thing in that situation.

Fitzpatrick had only 19 seconds to get his team, with no timeouts, in position for a field goal. It took the miraculous play - one nobody has ever seen before - to make that happen. The bottom line is that is that if you can't prevent a team from doing what Miami did in 19 seconds, then you deserve to lose. 

Josh Jacobs stopped himself at the 1 with 1:50 to play. Had he scored there, then Miami would have had all of that time to drive for the winning touchdown (though no timeouts). Instead, they got the ball back with 19 seconds left.

You're going to win so many more times doing what Gruden did than you will taking the touchdown.

The bottom line, people, is that the outcome does not make the decision right or wrong. It's the logic that originally goes into it.

Meanwhile, speaking of Fitzpatrick, he never threw for more than 172 yards in a game against Princeton before graduating in 2005. TB has two questions about him.

First, is he a Hall-of-Famer? Don't laugh. He is the only player to throw a touchdown pass for eight teams. He is 30th all-time in NFL history in career passing yards and 35th all-time in passing touchdowns. 

And he was also the first player in NFL history to throw for more than 400 yards in three straight games. Yes, often playing for a lot of teams is a sign that you were expendable by all of them, so it argues against greatness, but isn't there something different about him compared to other "journeymen?"

Second, is he the non-Princeton Ivy League athlete in one of the four major professional sports who is the easiest for Princeton fans to root for? TB is trying to think of someone else who fits that description. Jeremy Lin maybe? 

Is there someone else obvious?

TB has written this before, but the list shouldn't be very long. When you have such great, and longstanding rivalries, it's hard to dial up excitement for someone from the other side.

But this is a bit different. This isn't the same as rooting for the Ivy League champion in the NCAA tournament, though TB would love to know if most Princeton fans do that or don't do that. The results would be fascinating.

This isn't even rooting for an athlete on another Ivy team while they're still an Ivy athlete. This is rooting for someone who once was an archrival - and someone who has a big-time beard and seemingly big-time personality.

In the case of Fitzpatrick, he comes across as tough to root against, especially when he does things like he did Saturday night.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

TigerBlog has a large collection of Christmas songs on his iTunes.

He's always been a big fan of Christmas music. He was a trumpet player in high school, and he loved when the concert band, or the jazz band, played holiday music.

What's his favorite? 

It's probably not a shock to anyone who has read this for awhile to learn that it's "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band version, of course. That's a big sticking point with TB.

It's the song, but it's also the artist. He's not interested in hearing anyone sing "Silver Bells" except for Dean Martin. The same goes for "Silent Night" and Emmylou Harris. 

It has to be Darlene Love's version of "Winter Wonderland," though his high school jazz band did do its own great version of the song.

"The Christmas Song?" If it's not Nat King Cole's voice that starts out with "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," it's likely TB won't even make it to "Jack Frost nipping at your nose." 

And does he even have to mention "White Christmas" and Bing?

He has his favorites. 

Having said all that, he does have to give honorable mention to the Beach Boys jazzed up version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town."

Oh, and you know what he cannot stand, not even a little bit? TV commercials that substitute its own lyrics for classic Christmas songs. TB would rather listen to fingernails on blackboards.

Today, of course, is the day before Christmas. As he said last year (and the year before that and the year before that and so on and so on):

The surest way to get TigerBlog to tear up is invite him over, click HERE and to fast-forward to the 7:00 mark.

Never fails.

If you don't want to go through all that, then the link takes you to the last scene of the Christmas classic "It's A Wonderful Life."

The line that always, 100 percent of the time, brings a tear to TB's eyes is Harry Bailey's toast to his brother. TB could watch it in early July on a day far removed from Christmas and still it'll have the same effect.

Want to see some more of TB's favorite Christmas clips? Then watch one of these:

* the end scene from "A Christmas Story"

* bonus scene from the same movie

* Charlie Brown makes a bold purchase

* the Grinch's heart grows

* this one is more serious (go to the 20:00 mark)

* this one is the greatest ever version of any Christmas song ever performed 

* this one is second

* this is really cute

* and you can't watch the last one without this one

* oh, and here's one more. Is this a Christmas song, or a showtune? It's both.

As with everything else in these surreal times, holiday plans in 2020 have been impacted significantly by the COVID pandemic. 

Also as with everything else, TB hopes it's a one-off and that next year things will be back to normal.

Of course, normal means a return to competition for Ivy League athletics. 

For now, click on the links and enjoy them.

And Merry Christmas everyone. Hopefully it's safe and happy. 

And he'll leave you today with this, which, unfortunately, not available on iTunes, at least not by these guys.

And this one especially has to be these guys.

Lussi And Shon

The "First 50" Podcast With Tyler Lussi And Kelly Shon

TigerBlog starts your day with some good news.

The days are getting longer.

This week marked the shortest days of the year. Sunset was at 4:33 Monday in Princeton. That was the day of the Winter Solstice.

Monday night was also the night of "The Great Conjuction," an anomaly in the world of astronomy in which the planets Saturn and Jupiter appear very closely to each other in the night sky. Sadly, the night sky in Princeton Monday night was cloud-covered.

Not to worry, there will be another "Great Conjunction" on Nov. 4, 2040. 

Weirdly, 2040 seems so far away, like some sort of futuristic time, whereas 2000 doesn't seem all that long ago. 

Since Nov. 4, 2040, will be a Sunday, you'll have to wait a day to read about TB's thoughts about the "Great Conjunction." It'll probably start like this: TB waited 20 years for another Great Conjunction, and it was cloudy again? What the heck?

Anyway, even though winter has just started, the days will slowly and surely get longer. By the Summer Solstice, the sun won't set until after 9 at night. That'll be this coming June 20.

That day will also be Fathers' Day. You know what will make a great gift this coming Fathers' Day? TigerBlog's book on the first 50 years of women's athletics.

Okay, it's not done yet. But it's getting there.

And TB is very happy with how it's going.

Of course, instead of writing his own book, maybe he should have just borrowed the senior thesis of Tyler Lussi, the all-time leading scorer in soccer history at Princeton (that's men or women). 

Lussi, a member of the Class of 2017, wrote a thesis entitled "EXERCISING THEIR EQUALITY: COEDUCATION AND ATHLETICS AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AFTER 1969."

It includes this line on Page 1:

How would women’s soon to be discovered in 1969, but still unknown, voracious appetite to compete in college athletics affect Princeton’s plunge into coeducation?

Lussi shared her thesis with TB after he and Mollie Marcoux Samaan had Lussi and fellow Princeton alum Kelly Shon on the "First 50" podcast, a series that TB and Samaan are doing as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of women's athletics at Princeton.

The short answer to Lussi's question, as TB has learned in his book interviews, is this: "a lot."

In fact, it was one of the first things that Merrily Dean Baker, who started the women's programs 50 years ago, said to TB when he met with her. To quote her directly, 

“It worked because the Princeton women were successful in everything they did. We were lucky. I honestly believe the success of women’s athletics had a major impact on the success of co-education in general.”

TB is looking forward to reading the rest of Lussi's thesis.

The earliest pioneers of women's athletics seem to have a few common denominators. First, they did what they did not necessarily to be pioneers but simply because they loved to play. Second, they are thrilled at what the modern Princeton athletes have become.

And that group includes wildly impressive women like Lussi and Shon.

The two of them were dominant Princeton athletes in their sports, Lussi in soccer and Shon in golf. Beyond that, they both have gone on to compete in arenas that weren't available in the early days.

They both went from Princeton to become successful professional athletes.

As with all of the episodes of the podcast, TB finds himself listening in awe to what the guests say as much as he does thinking of his next question. Also, it was again fascinating to hear their stories, about how they came to excel at their sports, how they came to Princeton and in this episode, what it's like to be a professional athlete.

Shon, of course, played on the LPGA tour, making the cut in 51 tournaments in four years. Shon, a two-time Ivy Player of the Year and the 2013 Ivy champion, was the third league player to play on the LPGA tour.

Lussi was a two-time Ivy Offensive Player of the Year. She finished her Tiger career with 53 career goals, and only one player, male or female, is within 10 of her total.

Their podcast, as well as all of them, is definitely worth your time to hear.

Guest TigerBlog - Jim Barlow Talks About Bob Bradley And Jesse Marsch

TigerBlog was going to write about how Princeton alum and former head soccer coach Bob Bradley was coaching tonight in the CONCACAF Champions League final tonight, somewhat ironically against Tigres of Mexico.

On the heels of the run by another Tiger alum turned coach, Jesse Marsch, it seemed interesting to TB to see if there was any commonality between the two. To find out, he turned to Jim Barlow, the current Princeton head coach who played for Bradley at Princeton and on whose staff Marsch once coached. Here is what Jim had to say:

I am so lucky to be able to call two of the giants of World Soccer my friends, and to consider them such an integral part of the Princeton Soccer Family as they both played for and coached in our program. To see the success they have enjoyed, and continue to achieve, on both the domestic and international stages is truly inspiring.

Bob Bradley has won an MLS Cup, a Supporter’s Shield, two U.S. Open Cups, a CONCACAF Gold Cup title and three MLS Coach of the Year Awards. As the Coach of the USA National Team, he won the CONCACAF Gold Cup and was a runner-up twice, and also finished second to Brazil at the 2009 Confederations Cup after beating Spain (the best team in the world at the time) in the semis. He then advanced the USA out of their group at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. After that challenge, Bob had successful stints coaching the Egyptian National Team and professional teams in Norway and France. He also become the first American to coach in the English Premier League. Now, back in MLS after returning to coach the expansion Los Angeles Football Club in 2017, he has the team on the brink of the biggest title for North and Central America, the CONCACAF Champions League (the final is against Tigres from Mexico tonight at 10 pm EST).

 

Jesse’s path has been a little different. After a great playing career at Princeton, Jesse won three MLS Cups and four U.S. Open Cup titles as a player for DC United, the Chicago Fire, and Chivas USA over a 14-year career. After he retired as a player, Jesse quickly transitioned into coaching as an assistant for Bob with the U.S. National Team at the 2010 World Cup, then as manager for the Montreal Impact. In 2013 and 2014, Jesse returned to Princeton as a volunteer coach for our team that captured the 2014 Ivy League title. He then returned to MLS, coaching the NY Red Bulls from 2015-2018. In that short time, Jesse won the 2015 Supporter’s Shield and was named MLS Coach of the Year. In 2018, he decided to go to Europe to become an assistant coach for Bundesliga side RB Leipzig before being named head coach for Austrian side RB Salzburg in 2019. In his two years at Salzburg, Jesse has won both the Austrian Bundesliga and the Austrian Cup, and he has coached into the group stage of the European Champions League twice. He is now preparing his side for a run in the Europa League this spring.

 

Just rattling off these accomplishments makes me realize how much these two have done for our sport on our campus, in this country and around the world. What is even more amazing, however, is the kind of people Bob and Jesse are. 
 

I have learned so much from them. They both create environments that get the balance right between competitive and fun. Their culture is grounded in strong relationships and a love for the work that is being done. Both never stop learning. Both also balance the big picture with an incredible eye for the smallest details that matter. 

 

Neither avoids confrontation or hides from difficult conversations. Both ask you to put yourself out there, to take risks, to “go for it.” Both have taken some huge risks themselves, including going to countries where they don’t even speak the language to take over huge clubs. They both live in the present, enjoy the moment and value every person at their clubs.

 

Both have incredibly strong and unique spouses who have helped them get where they are. Both have children who have learned similar traits from their parents and fearlessly challenge themselves in different ways.

 

But Bob and Jesse are not the same person, nor the same coach. 

 

Their soccer philosophies differ, their teams play differently, they value different team traits as more or less vital to their team’s success. They communicate differently. 

 

While they both strive to create “originals,” rather than copies, on the field – they have both emerged as originals in the world of coaching. And they have become among the best in the world at what they do.

 

With some huge games coming up, the Princeton Soccer Family wishes Bob and Jesse good luck – you two have made us all proud to be associated with Princeton Soccer!

 

Thanks For The Memories, MLL

Back in 1960, Princeton defeated Cornell 6-5 on the final day of the season to win the Ivy League men's lacrosse championship. 

The deciding goal was scored by Cookie Krongard, then a junior. It was his only goal of the game, or, more accurately, the only goal of his career.

Then again, he did make 20 saves in that Cornell game. Cookie was the team's goalie.

In fact, he was a three-year starter for the Tigers, from 1959-61. He was a two-time first-team All-Ivy League selection and a 1961 first-team All-American. 

Princeton went 14-0-1 in Ivy League games in his three years. In 1985, he was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, a few years after his older brother Buzzy had been.

That, however, was hardly the end of his lacrosse career. 

To this day Cookie can be found jumping into the cage at an alumni game. And, back in 2008, when he was 67 years old, he tried out for Major League Lacrosse.

Seriously.

In fact TigerBlog stumbled on a quote from Rob Scherr, who played at Johns Hopkins and was the starting goalie at the time for the New Jersey Pride, the team for which Cookie auditioned.

“I was very surprised in how he stepped in there and took the shots. He was getting knocks all over the place and stayed in. A lot of people don’t have the guts to even get in there at the level we do. But a 67-year-old guy coming in, that’s pretty interesting and pretty spectacular.”

Cookie's attempt to play in Major League Lacrosse at the age of 67 is one of the better stories of Princeton's history with the league. 

The news came last week that MLL is to be no more, after its 20 year run as a groundbreaking outdoor professional lacrosse league. MLL has technically merged with the Premiere Lacrosse League, which came on the scene two years ago, creating two outdoor leagues.

From the start it seemed like two leagues was one too many. And, once the PLL took almost all of the best players and with its NBC contract and corporate sponsorship, it seemed like a real uphill battle for MLL.

With the merger, the Boston Cannons will become the eighth PLL team and will become the Cannons LC. The current Cannons roster won't make up the new one, which instead will be set the same way that the Waterdogs were last year, as an expansion team. 

TigerBlog, for one, will miss MLL. He's enjoyed following the league all these years, which isn't that surprising.

Princeton had a very strong impact on the old league. TB made a list of about 20 players who competed in MLL, and he's pretty sure he's missing a few.

The very first MLL player was a Princeton alum, Ryan Mollett, who was the first pick of the first MLL draft back in 2001. Jesse Hubbard at one point was the league's all-time leader in goals scored; Ryan Boyle at one point was the league's all-time leader in assists and points.

Kevin Lowe scored an overtime goal in an MLL championship game for the Long Island Lizards, making him the only player ever to score an OT goal in both an NCAA final and an MLL final. Boyle and Matt Striebel won three championships together with the Philadelphia Barrage, and Boyle added another with the Cannons.

Tom Schreiber was a league MVP and champion, with the Ohio Machine. Zach Currier also won a championship with the Denver Outlaws. Josh Sims won two championships with the Chesapeake Bayhawks.

Chris Aslanian, last year's volunteer assistant coach, was an MLL Rookie of the Year. 

That's all off the top of his head. He must be forgetting others.

When the news came, TB felt badly for all of the players who would have been playing professionally but now won't, not to mention all of the others who worked and coached in the league. 

The PLL is a cutting edge professional league, polished in every way. MLL wasn't quite as polished, but it was a lot of fun.

It was more than that, though. It was also important. It was a hugely important first step for professional outdoor lacrosse in this country.

It leaves behind a very solid legacy.

And it also leaves behind a lot of great memories for the Princeton players who were such a huge part of Major League Lacrosse during its 20 years.