Princeton University Athletics
Friday TigerBlog - Beneath A Bigger Picture, There Are Ivy Titles To Be Won
April 21, 2023 | Tiger Blog
For anyone who is an Ivy League sports fan, the news about Dartmouth football coach Buddy Teevens hits hard.
There are some things that are bigger than rivalries and games and championships. Ivy League athletics are unique, and the people who compete in them, coach them, administrate them and root for them buy into a different brand of college athletics than exist anywhere else.
Teevens, if you missed it, was involved in a terrible bicycle accident in Florida. His wife announced earlier this week that Teevens has had one leg amputated and has suffered spinal chord injuries as well.
The Princeton-Dartmouth football rivalry has been a great one in recent years. Teevens and Princeton head coach Bob Surace threw out the first pitch at a Yankees game in 2019, before the teams played at Yankee Stadium to commemorate the 150th anniversary of college football. The 2018 game between the teams in Princeton is one of the greatest Ivy football games ever played.
There is no one at Princeton, or anywhere in the league, who isn't rooting for Teevens. TigerBlog has never met him, but the people he knows who know him have only good things to say about him.
This is a quote TB saw from Eli Manning:
"Thoughts and prayers are with Coach Teevens and his family. I have known Coach since I was 12 years old when I attended Tulane football camp. There is not a better man."
If you'd like to send an electronic get-well message to the coach, you can do so HERE.
TigerBlog sent him one. He's sure thousands of others have as well.
It's hard to segue from Coach Teevens into this weekend, so TigerBlog will just get right to it.
There will be Ivy League champions crowned this weekend. The question is how many?
There will definitely be at least three, probably four and possibly five. Princeton figures in the mix for four of those.
The definites are men's and women's golf and women's tennis.
The Ivy League golf tournaments begin today and run through Sunday. The women are at Purchase Golf Club, a bit north of New York City, while the men are at the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn.
Princeton is the defending champion on the women's side and has actually won three of the last four. The Tigers also return the individual champion from last year, Victoria Liu.
On the men's side, Princeton's last win came in 2019. The Tigers finished fourth a year ago.
The Ivy women's tennis season reaches its final weekend (the men's side has two additional matches next weekend, though at least a share of the championship could be clinched this weekend if Harvard defeats Penn).
The Princeton women are the lone Ivy unbeaten at 5-0, followed by 4-1 Brown and 4-1 Columbia, both of whom have already lost to Princeton. Harvard is next at 3-2.
Princeton is at Dartmouth tomorrow and Harvard Sunday. Brown and Columbia meet Sunday in Providence, after Brown hosts Cornell and Columbia is at Yale tomorrow. The Tigers would clinch at least a share of the championship and the Ivy League's automatic NCAA bid with one win this weekend. Two wins would mean an outright title.
Princeton has dominated Ivy women's tennis, having won six of the last seven titles, including three straight.
The fifth sport that could have produce a champion this weekend is men's lacrosse, where Princeton and Cornell are tied for first at 3-1, followed by 3-2 Penn, 2-2 Harvard, 2-3 Yale, 1-3 Brown and 1-3 Dartmouth.
Princeton has clinched its spot in the Ivy League tournament and is the only team so far to do so. None of the other six teams has been eliminated yet, though much will change this weekend.
Princeton hosts Harvard tomorrow at 1, an hour after Cornell's game at Brown begins and the same time as Dartmouth is at Penn.
Should either Princeton or Cornell win its game while the other loses, then the team that wins will be assured of no worse than a share of the league championship. The winner of next year's Princeton at Cornell game will have a share of the championship regardless of what happens this weekend.
Cornell and Penn would sew up Ivy tournament spots with wins tomorrow.
These are the kinds of weekends that define the Ivy League, with hundreds of athletes across any number of sports all in competition.
This weekend, though, it all happens under a darker cloud, and that has nothing to do with the weather.
