Princeton University Athletics
Tuesday TigerBlog - Happy 100th
December 09, 2025 | Tiger Blog
TigerBlog learned that yesterday would have been his Uncle Herbie's 100th birthday.
Sadly, Herbie passed away back in 1977, after a lifetime that saw him leave Brooklyn almost never — except to fight in the Pacific in World War II. When he returned, he ran a drugstore on the corner of Flatbush and Flatlands until the day he died of cancer at age 52.
His favorite vacation spot was the Rockaways, where he'd have a bungalow every summer, sitting out front playing pinochle while wearing his omnipresent sailor's hat. He could play cards, kibitz and slice his nephew's bagel without missing a beat in any of those activities.
Now, 48 years later, his memory still can make TigerBlog smile.
It's easy to think of him simply as Rob Petrie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show," but that sells him way, way short. Van Dyke is as talented as anyone who has ever danced on stage or in a movie. If you disagree, watch "Mary Poppins" or even better, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."
TigerBlog went back into the Daily Princetonian archives to see what was going on back during the week of these two birthdays.
He found some interesting stories. The football banquet for the 1925 national championship team had just been held at the Princeton Inn. Each player was awarded a golden football, a gift from Edgar Palmer of the Class of 1903.
He's the same Edgar Palmer for whom the then-11 year old football stadium had been named.
Albert Noyes did a poetry reading? Who was he? He was England's Poet Laureate, but before that he was an Oxford rower who was also the referee of the famous Princeton-Harvard 1916 race. Princeton and Harvard came to the line in the same time of 9:12.5, and it was Noyes who thundered to the crowd that it was "Princeton, by the width of a butterfly's wing."
Princeton's coxswain that day was named Gordon Sikes, for whom a meeting space in the Shea Rowing Center is named. Sikes contracted polio at the age of 3 and never walked without crutches or braces again, but he did become a coxswain and later the first lightweight rowing coach at Princeton (volunteer) while also spending 45 years as the head of what became Career Services.
Oh, and while TB has your attention, he'd like to share with you these two contradicting statements on the value of college football:
Statement No. 1: "In my opinion the exploitation of college football stars this season by the promoters of professional football has had , a disastrous effect upon the amateur spirit of all sport in America."
Statement No. 2: "College football is being too freely criticized by incompetent judges in the present controversy. It is one of the most important features in college life and shows no serious effects from commercialism."
Was that this week, after the College Football Playoff selections and the insane amounts of money being thrown at fired coaches?Nope. Those were statements in the Daily Princetonian 100 years ago this week, the first by then-University president John Hibben and the second by then-head football coach Bill Roper.
Elsewhere, the basketball and hockey teams were practicing in advance of their season openers, which had not yet happened. Did you want to buy season tickets for the 1925-26 season?
They were $7 for "townspeople," $6 for students and $1.50 for children.
Lastly, Grantland Rice released his All-American team in Colliers. Rice took over for Walter Camp, who had been the official selector of All-American teams until his death earlier that year.
Princeton had one All-American — center Edward McMillian. Only one school had more than one player on the team, and that was Dartmouth. The most famous name on the list?
That was Red Grange of Illinois.
And that was the news 100 years ago in Princeton.
Happy birthday to Dick Van Dyke.
What must it be like to be only a few days away from turning 100?
