September 10, 2003: Sports
Tigers
eye the prize
After a winning season, an outside shot at Ivy title
Sports Web Exclusives! P-nut Gallery column
Tigers
eye the prize
After a winning season, an
outside shot at Ivy title
By Phillip R. Thune ’92
Photo: All-Ivy Joe Weiss ’04, above, and Tim Kirby ’04 power the league’s best defensive line. (Bevery Schaefer)
Yes!” Whether it is said by N.B.A. announcer Marv Albert after a crucial shot, or written in an acceptance letter to a Princeton applicant, that one short word conveys excitement like no other.
As Princeton football coach Roger Hughes enters his fourth season, “Yes!” is the answer to many questions about his program.
Yes, Hughes can deliver a winning season. The 2002 team finished with a record of 6—4 (4—3 in the Ivy League), its first winning campaign since 1997 and its first top-three finish in the Ivies since 1995.
Yes, the team can win close games. In Hughes’s first two years on the job, the Tigers lost six contests by less than a touchdown. But in 2002, Princeton won several tight games, coming from behind to beat Cornell in overtime and capitalizing on late rallies against Columbia and Dartmouth.
Yes, Hughes knows how to design a passing game. In his first three years at Princeton, the Tigers posted two of the 10 highest season passing totals in team history, including last fall, when David Splithoff ’04 and Matt Verbit ’05 combined for 2,172 yards.
And yes, the team can get it done on defense, too. The Tigers allowed the fewest passing yards in the league last year, and the second-fewest rushing yards.
Unfortunately, while “yes” is the answer to more questions about Princeton football than it has been in years, the dreaded “but” remains. Yes, Princeton has a core group that has played together for a couple of years, especially at quarterback, tailback, wideout, and the defensive line, but other Ivy teams look stronger, including defending champions Penn (9—1, 7—0 Ivy) and Harvard (7—3, 6—1 Ivy).
Yes, Princeton returns 12 starters and has solid talent, but weak areas will be difficult to overcome, namely on the offensive line, at linebacker, and in the secondary. The team was stung when three All-Ivy players – linebacker Zak Keasey ’04 and defensive backs Brandon Mueller ’04 and Jay McCareins ’05 – were ruled academically ineligible and required to take a year off from school.
Splithoff is a big-play quarterback – he has 11 career touchdown passes of more than 50 yards – and a dangerous scrambler, but the Tigers graduated four seniors from the offensive line. Splithoff must both create offense and preserve his health. He has suffered serious injuries in two of his three seasons, and an inexperienced line may not be able to keep him out of harm’s way. Verbit performed well as a replacement last year and took all of the snaps in spring practice. “Both kids are good players and can run our whole offense,” says Hughes, who may use both during games.
Linebacker traditionally is one of Princeton’s strengths, but this year will be the exception, especially with the loss of Keasey. Yes, the Tigers have plenty of candidates for starting linebacker, but many of the hopefuls have thin bona fides. All-Ivy players Joe Weiss ’04 and Tim Kirby ’04 will power the league’s best defensive line, but that may not be enough to compensate for the inexperience behind them.
The media expect Princeton to finish fifth in the Ivy race this year, behind Penn, Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth. The Tigers face all four in the second half of the season, meaning Princeton will need successive upsets to contend for the league title. “The way this league is, I don’t think there is a whole lot separating the bottom from the top,” says Hughes, who is optimistic. “If you look over the last 10 years, six different teams have won the league. An injury here, a bad break there; I think it’s anybody’s race.”
Yes, the Princeton program has an outside shot at a league title, but
it appears more likely that this season will be just another step forward,
instead of a coronation, for Hughes and his program. 
Phillip R. Thune ’92 is COO/CFO of Internet marketing company FindWhat.com in Ft. Myers, Florida.
Click here for Phil Thune '92's Positional and Game by Game Analysis for the Tigers 2003-04 season.
Football schedule
September 20 Lehigh 7:00 p.m.
September 27 at Lafayette 1:00 p.m.
October 4 Columbia 7:00 p.m.
October 11 Colgate 1:00 p.m.
October 18 at Brown 1:00 p.m.
October 25 at Harvard 1:00 p.m.
November 1 Cornell 1:00 p.m.
November 8 at Pennsylvania 1:00 p.m.
November 15 Yale 1:00 p.m.
November 22 at Dartmouth 12:30 p.m.
Tennis
farewells
Princeton great
Louise Gengler ’75 retiring; pagoda courts
getting replaced
By Argelio R. Dumenigo
Photos: Louise Gengler ’75, above right, is retiring as women’s tennis coach after 25 years. Right, Gengler in her senior season. (Beverly Schaefer). Maureen Curran ’76 takes on Cornell on the pagoda courts in 1974. (Office of Athletic Communications)
Princeton tennis is saying goodbye to two program mainstays this academic year. Louise Gengler ’75, whose tennis career at Princeton as a player and coach has spanned four decades, will retire as head coach of the women’s tennis team after the spring 2004 season.
Gengler spent most of her playing and coaching hours on the University’s pagoda courts. But with the construction of Whitman College beginning next month on the site, the courts are being removed. New courts at the University’s Lenz Tennis Center will replace them. The University plans to move the Mathey Tennis Pavilion, which gave the pagoda courts their nickname, to the site of the new courts. The pagoda courts have been the center of the University’s and the Princeton community’s tennis activity for 43 years.
Gengler will have served 25 years when she leaves, the longest tenure for any female coach in Princeton history. A three-sport athlete in the early days of coeducation at Princeton, Gengler says she will remain in the Princeton area and stay involved with tennis, but has no specific plans.
“It’s a nice time to wrap it up, and I’ll still have time to add something else to my life,” she says. “Princeton continues to attract amazing kids. That’s one reason I’ve stayed here so long, and one reason it will be difficult to leave.” Gengler led the Tigers to seven Ivy League titles and four E.I.T.A. championships, and has a career record of 323-174 entering her final season.
Before her exit, Gengler and the Friends of Princeton Tennis are planning PagodaFest, September 12—13, a weekend-long farewell to the 27 tennis courts built in 1960 on the area known as Brokaw Field. The courts are considered the birthplace of women’s varsity sports at Princeton, which began on the pagoda’s clay courts in 1971. The team did not lose a match on the courts from 1971 to 1975, winning 39 straight overall.
The courts also played a central role in the birth of one of the country’s first community tennis programs, the Princeton Community Tennis Program, which was started by Eve Kraft, the University’s first women’s tennis coach, and former men’s coach John Conroy. Conroy, who coached from 1946 to 1971, did not lose a match on the pagoda courts from 1960 to 1965, as the team won 54 consecutive matches.
PagodaFest activities include instructional clinics for students, faculty,
staff, and their families; men’s and women’s tennis-team alumni
tournaments; an inaugural women’s tennis alumni reunion, and a dinner
reception. For more PagodaFest information, go to http://friendsofprincetontennis.com/pagodafest.html.
Argelio R. Dumenigo is a writer in Philadelphia and a former PAW associate editor.
sports SHORTS
Photos by Beverly Schaefer
Hank Towns
h’82, who touched the lives of thousands of Tiger students since
he began working for Princeton athletics in 1970, announced in July that
he would retire from his position as head equipment manager this year.
Over the years, Towns served as a confidant, adviser, and cheerleader. “Hank Towns is as great a teacher as we have in this University,” head football coach Roger Hughes told the Trenton Times. Towns is one of only two people to have worked with all four directors of athletics in Princeton history: Ken Fairman ’34, Royce Flippin ’56, Bob Myslik ’61, and current A.D. Gary Walters ’67. “Hank Towns is a legendary part of Princeton athletics and will be missed by the many athletes who passed through Caldwell Field House during his tenure,” said Maryland Governor and former football captain Robert Ehrlich ’79.
Men’s soccer alum Mike Nugent ’02, the 2001 Ivy League Player of the Year, has joined the M.L.S.’s MetroStars. He is now playing for another Princeton soccer star and former Tiger coach, Bob Bradley ’80, the head coach of the MetroStars, who play in New Jersey.
On the
football alum front, the N.F.L.’s Baltimore Ravens invited wide receiver
Chisom Opara ’03 to the team’s camp this summer, and the Buffalo
Bills picked up offensive lineman Ross Tucker ’01 after he was let
go by the Dallas Cowboys. Tucker started the final seven games of the
2002 season at left guard for the Cowboys after playing with Washington,
where he began his pro football career in 2001.
Women’s soccer’s freshman recruits were ranked 19th nationally in Division I by SoccerBuzz, an online women’s soccer magazine. The four freshmen – Christina Costantino, Meghan Farrell, Amanda Ferranti, and Diana Matheson – topped the Ivy League and were ranked third in the Mid-Atlantic region. Matheson already has competed internationally as a member of the Canadian national team, scoring a goal last spring against Mexico. Princeton went 13—3—1 a year ago and won the Ivy League title while advancing to its fourth straight N.C.A.A. tournament.
The freshman
heavyweight “A” crew defeated the Princeton varsity lightweight
“B” crew to claim the Temple Cup at England’s Henley Royal
Regatta in July. The freshman crew, which went undefeated this past season
and claimed a national title, outdistanced its fellow Tigers by two-and-a-quarter
lengths.
Former men’s basketball coaching great and Hall of Famer Pete Carril
will resume his role as a full-time assistant with the N.B.A.’s Sacramento
Kings after spending last season as special assistant to team president
Geoff Petrie ’70. Carril, who coached Petrie at Princeton, spent
last winter on the East Coast, but his desire to return was obvious from
his enthusiasm during the 2003 playoffs, according to an interview with
Kings’ head coach Rick Adelman in the San Francisco Chronicle this
summer. “I think as he was away during the year and he came back,
he didn’t like the way it was. He wanted to be around more,”
Adelman told the newspaper. “We talked about it, and I think it’s
terrific. He does a great job with the players, he’s a great influence
on me, and his input is terrific.”
By Argelio R. Dumenigo
Fall
schedule
Home games in italics
|
Men’s Teams CROSS-COUNTRY Oct. 18 Lafayette College Oct. 31 Heptagonal Championships Nov. 15 N.C.A.A. District II SOCCER Sept. 12 Villanova Sept. 14 Lehigh Sept. 19 Loyola Sept. 21 Towson Sept. 27 Hartwick Oct. 1 Seton Hall Oct. 5 Dartmouth Oct. 8 Adelphi Oct. 11 Brown Oct. 15 American Oct. 18 Columbia Oct. 25 Harvard Oct. 28 Rutgers Oct. 31 Cornell Nov. 2 Fairleigh Dickinson Nov. 8 Penn Nov. 15 Yale SPRINT FOOTBALL Sept. 26 Cornell Oct. 3 Penn Oct. 10 Army Oct. 17 Cornell Oct. 24 Navy Nov. 7 Penn WATER POLO Sept. 12—14 North/South Tournament Sept. 19 George Washington Sept. 20 Johns Hopkins/Navy Sept. 21 Bucknell Sept. 26 M.I.T. Sept. 27—28 E.C.A.C. Championships Oct. 2 St. Francis Oct. 9 Queens College Oct. 10 U.C.—Berkeley Oct. 11 U.C.—Davis Oct. 12 Pacific Oct. 17—19 Interregional competition Oct. 25—26 Southern Championships Nov. 15—16 Eastern Championships
|
Women’s Teams CROSS-COUNTRY Sept. 13 Battlefield Invitational Sept. 27 Iona Oct. 3 Harvard/Yale Oct. 18 Prenational Invitational/Lafayette Invitational Oct. 31 Heptagonal Championships Nov. 15 N.C.A.A. Regionals
FIELD HOCKEY Sept. 5 Virginia Sept. 6 Drexel Sept. 13 Yale Sept. 14 Penn State Sept. 20 Dartmouth Sept. 26 Maryland Sept. 28 Columbia Oct. 4 Cornell Oct.11 Connecticut Oct.12 Rutgers Oct.18 Brown Oct.19 Old Dominion Oct. 25 Harvard Oct. 26 Boston U. Oct. 31 William & Mary Nov. 2 Old Dominion Nov. 7 Penn SOCCER Sept. 6 American Sept. 12 U.N.C.—Greensboro Sept. 14 St. Louis Sept. 19 Sacramento State Sept. 21 U.C.—Berkeley Sept. 24 Hartford Sept. 27 Yale Oct. 5 Dartmouth Oct. 7 Rutgers Oct. 11 Brown Oct. 13 Boston U. Oct. 17 Columbia Oct. 25 Harvard Oct. 29 Syracuse Nov. 1 Cornell Nov. 4 S.U.N.Y.—Stony Brook Nov. 8 Penn VOLLEYBALL Sept. 12—13 St. John's Classic Sept. 19—20 Colgate Invitational Sept. 26—27 Juniata Tournament Oct. 3 Penn Oct. 8 St. Francis Oct. 10 Brown Oct. 11 Yale Oct. 17 Dartmouth Oct. 18 Harvard Oct. 24 Cornell Oct. 25 Columbia Oct. 31 Yale Nov. 1 Brown Nov. 7 Columbia Nov. 8 Cornell Nov. 14 Harvard Nov. 15 Dartmouth Nov. 19 Penn |
