Princeton University Athletics
Thursday TigerBlog - The Mayor Of The Ivy League Women's Soccer Tournament
November 06, 2025 | Tiger Blog
TigerBlog was waiting to get on the field hockey bus to Harvard yesterday for the Ivy League tournament when he saw his colleague Andrew Borders as he walked into Jadwin Gym.
Andrew is the second-longest tenured person in the Office of Athletic Communications. He's also reached the rarefied air of working in the OAC for 20 years, something that happened back on Sept. 19 of this year.
In typical Andrew style, he didn't mention it to anyone. Personal glory, or really any attention, is completely not what Andrew Borders is about.
TigerBlog has worked in the OAC longer than anyone else ever has. This is Year No. 31 for him on the Princeton payroll, which doesn't count the five years before that when he covered Princeton sports for the old Trenton Times.
The great Bill Stryker became the sports information director at Princeton in 1958. Like TigerBlog, Stryker was a New Jersey public school kid, in Stryker's case having grown up in Somerville.
Their backgrounds diverge quite a bit from there. Stryker went into the Navy during World War II after graduating from Somerville High School and then attended Princeton after the war as a member of the Class of 1950. After graduation, he spent the first part of his career at Western Union before coming to Princeton.
He remained there from 1958 until his death in 1986, at the age of 59. Stryker's 28 years in the OAC rank second (his final title was Director of Athletic Relations).
As near as TB can figure it, nobody else other than Andrew Borders has reached the 20-year mark. Craig Sachson came close but left after 19.
TB offers a belated congratulations Andrew. He's been the sport contact for a whole bunch of Princeton's teams, and he's been the contact for women's soccer and softball since Day 1. He has worked tirelessly in all these years to make the best possible experience for the athletes on all of his teams.
Much like TigerBlog, Andrew has never lost the one thing you need to keep going in this business: the joy of being a part of it. You have to look forward to Gamedays, and Andrew certainly has.
So far this fall, Andrew has referred to himself with two very endearing nicknames during OAC weekly meetings. The first was when he said he was "NOT the Arbiter of Cool" when it came to what the current generation of athletes would find to be to their liking on social media.
TB prefers to drop the "NOT" part of that.
This week, he referred to himself as once again "The Mayor of the Ivy League Women's Soccer Tournament." It's fitting. As the outright Ivy League champion, Princeton will again be the host for the tournament, for the third time in the three years of its existence.
The tournament begins today, with the opening semifinal between No. 2 Dartmouth and No. 3 Columbia at 3:30 and then the second semifinal between the Tigers and No. 4 Brown at 7. The final will be Sunday at 1.
All three games will be on ESPN+. Tickets are available HERE.
To the winner will go the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Good luck to the Tigers. And good luck to Andrew.
Why talk about him today? Well, this is College Sports Communicators Appreciation Week.
The OAC has seven members. In addition to TigerBlog, they are Andrew, Elliott Carr, Warren Croxton, Chas Dorman, Alex Henn and Joanna Dwyer.
They'll all be busy this weekend, with the crossover season that TB mentioned yesterday. You'll be able to find them spread out all over.
Warren will be at Dartmouth and Georgia Tech on consecutive days for football and women's basketball. That's not an easy doubleheader.
TB will be at Harvard. Chas will be with men's hockey at Brown and Yale. Elliott is heading to Akron with men's basketball. Alex and her men's soccer team will be at Penn. Joanna has two home women's hockey games.
And that doesn't take into account all the other teams who are playing — 16 of them this weekend — who need preview stories, in-game social media, game recaps and whatever else is part of what the OAC does.
So yes, this was a good day to mention Andrew, and all of TB's colleagues. TB appreciates them all.
You do as well, if you're a Princeton fan.
