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It was a suffocatingly humid July afternoon in the summer of 1987, and I was on the last leg of my week-long prospective college tour. My Princeton tour guide let a friend accompany him as he led our group across campus, and that friend personified every darned stereotype that exists about obnoxious, elitist Princetonians. I learned a lot during my trek from Boston to Michigan, and one thing was certain--I did not want to attend Princeton. As fall rolled around, I filled out applications for five schools: UMass, Cornell, Chicago, Michigan State and Yale. The final deadline was approaching when my mom asked if I wanted to apply to Princeton. I initially said no, but after some coaxing and the realization that the essays would require little re-work from my previous applications, I went ahead and applied. A second, more "spirited" visit to Princeton in April and my mom's arguments about the value of the Princeton network (combined with a Yale rejection letter), and suddenly I was singing a different tune, one called "Old Nassau." Freshman and sohomore years I spent in "The But," a residential college otherwise known as Butler College. Built in the post-W.W. II years, Butler had less charm than exits 13A to 16W on the New Jersey Turnpike. But it had one key benefit: proximity to the hockey rink, where I would spend countless hours over the decade as an intramural referee, JV hockey player, PR rep, and rink rat. The rink was named for Hobart Amory Hare Baker '14. Hobey Baker was the first great American hockey player, and the Heisman Trophy of college hockey is known as the Hobey Baker Award. Hobey was an ace fighter pilot in W.W. I, leading a squad known as the "Flying Tigers." He perished while test piloting a damaged plane at the end of the war. In addition to the trophy, he is immortalized twice in the classic This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald '17. The character of Allenby is based on Hobey. Also, the lead character is named Amory in tribute to Hobey. Although I have yet to become a character in a major American novel, my Princeton years were at least exciting enough to fill a web page. I involved myself in numerous activities, from broadcasting sports events on WPRB-FM to writing about them in The Daily Princetonian. As a freshman, I even served as president of the College Bowl organization (I was much more valuable as the organization leader than as an actual competitor). Academics naturally occupied a large chunk of my time. Many of my professors were among the most distinguished scholars in their area of expertise. My "Soviet Politics" professor Stephen Cohen frequently appeared on CBS News, in large part because the subject of of our class ceased to exist by the end of the semester. Author Joyce Carol Oates led a discussion one week in my "Sports and Society" seminar. And my "Civil War and Reconstruction" professor James McPherson won a Pulitzer in history. To me, however, that all paled in comparison to the fact that my phys-ed instructor, Jan van Breda Kolff, was a former New Jersey Net. There were, of course, numerous memorable events throughout my four years: personally attending three NCAA Basketball Tournament games, including one pitting a billion-to-one shot against mighty Georgetown in 1989; participating in a midnight fun run known as the Nude Olympics; seeing the Kinks at Dillon Gym; playing second base for the best intramural softball team never to win a championship (three straight championship losses); having a classmate named Lyle Menendez (who was forced to withdraw during sophomore year); visiting Chris Peckham's Pleasure Dome for the first time; welcoming the return of national television for a hoops game at Jadwin against Loyola Marymount; quarterbacking my upstart Cloister Inn eating club team to the semifinals of the 1991 flag football B playoffs; driving with Bart Kalkstein and Jesse Reiner to four baseball parks in a week--even interviewing Twins catcher Brian Harper on the field at County Stadium--under the guise of putting together a WPRB feature; joining the Musk Oxen Club on a winter night at Cloister; playing a role in the coaching coup d'etat at Baker; rolling and rocking in the summer of '91 with Tender at Marita's; carving my initials into the fireplace in 64 Little; witnessing the rise to prominence of the lacrosse team, capped by the stunning upset of Syracuse at Franklin Field, just days before our graduation in 1992. I enjoyed Princeton so much, I refused to leave. No, they didn't deny me my diploma. Instead I took two different jobs post-graduation that kept me in the Princeton area from 1992-94 and 1997-99. It helped me build and sustain a streak of attending every Reunions since graduation, although I have yet to top my story from the 1993 Reunions, which involves Dean Cain '88 and can be told only in private company. I also have continued my contribution to my alma mater by playing several years for the Princeton alumni softball team in Boston. We never win the title, but we have more fun than most teams, especially Yale. The people are tremendous, spanning some 30 years of graduating classes. One summer I found myself playing the left side of the infield with the undergraduate club hockey captain. We started talking, and a few months later, in October of 2000, I was making my triumphant return to Baker Rink with my Georgetown Hoya teammates. I guess that's what my mother meant by the value of the Princeton network.

Princeton

Princeton

It was a suffocatingly humid July afternoon in the summer of 1987, and I was on the last leg of my week-long prospective college tour. My Princeton tour guide let a friend accompany him as he led our group across campus, and that friend personified every darned stereotype that exists about obnoxious, elitist Princetonians. I learned a lot during my trek from Boston to Michigan, and one thing was certain--I did not want to attend Princeton. As fall rolled around, I filled out applications for five schools: UMass, Cornell, Chicago, Michigan State and Yale. The final deadline was approaching when my mom asked if I wanted to apply to Princeton. I initially said no, but after some coaxing and the realization that the essays would require little re-work from my previous applications, I went ahead and applied. A second, more "spirited" visit to Princeton in April and my mom's arguments about the value of the Princeton network (combined with a Yale rejection letter), and suddenly I was singing a different tune, one called "Old Nassau." Freshman and sohomore years I spent in "The But," a residential college otherwise known as Butler College. Built in the post-W.W. II years, Butler had less charm than exits 13A to 16W on the New Jersey Turnpike. But it had one key benefit: proximity to the hockey rink, where I would spend countless hours over the decade as an intramural referee, JV hockey player, PR rep, and rink rat. The rink was named for Hobart Amory Hare Baker '14. Hobey Baker was the first great American hockey player, and the Heisman Trophy of college hockey is known as the Hobey Baker Award. Hobey was an ace fighter pilot in W.W. I, leading a squad known as the "Flying Tigers." He perished while test piloting a damaged plane at the end of the war. In addition to the trophy, he is immortalized twice in the classic This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald '17. The character of Allenby is based on Hobey. Also, the lead character is named Amory in tribute to Hobey. Although I have yet to become a character in a major American novel, my Princeton years were at least exciting enough to fill a web page. I involved myself in numerous activities, from broadcasting sports events on WPRB-FM to writing about them in The Daily Princetonian. As a freshman, I even served as president of the College Bowl organization (I was much more valuable as the organization leader than as an actual competitor). Academics naturally occupied a large chunk of my time. Many of my professors were among the most distinguished scholars in their area of expertise. My "Soviet Politics" professor Stephen Cohen frequently appeared on CBS News, in large part because the subject of of our class ceased to exist by the end of the semester. Author Joyce Carol Oates led a discussion one week in my "Sports and Society" seminar. And my "Civil War and Reconstruction" professor James McPherson won a Pulitzer in history. To me, however, that all paled in comparison to the fact that my phys-ed instructor, Jan van Breda Kolff, was a former New Jersey Net. There were, of course, numerous memorable events throughout my four years: personally attending three NCAA Basketball Tournament games, including one pitting a billion-to-one shot against mighty Georgetown in 1989; participating in a midnight fun run known as the Nude Olympics; seeing the Kinks at Dillon Gym; playing second base for the best intramural softball team never to win a championship (three straight championship losses); having a classmate named Lyle Menendez (who was forced to withdraw during sophomore year); visiting Chris Peckham's Pleasure Dome for the first time; welcoming the return of national television for a hoops game at Jadwin against Loyola Marymount; quarterbacking my upstart Cloister Inn eating club team to the semifinals of the 1991 flag football B playoffs; driving with Bart Kalkstein and Jesse Reiner to four baseball parks in a week--even interviewing Twins catcher Brian Harper on the field at County Stadium--under the guise of putting together a WPRB feature; joining the Musk Oxen Club on a winter night at Cloister; playing a role in the coaching coup d'etat at Baker; rolling and rocking in the summer of '91 with Tender at Marita's; carving my initials into the fireplace in 64 Little; witnessing the rise to prominence of the lacrosse team, capped by the stunning upset of Syracuse at Franklin Field, just days before our graduation in 1992. I enjoyed Princeton so much, I refused to leave. No, they didn't deny me my diploma. Instead I took two different jobs post-graduation that kept me in the Princeton area from 1992-94 and 1997-99. It helped me build and sustain a streak of attending every Reunions since graduation, although I have yet to top my story from the 1993 Reunions, which involves Dean Cain '88 and can be told only in private company. I also have continued my contribution to my alma mater by playing several years for the Princeton alumni softball team in Boston. We never win the title, but we have more fun than most teams, especially Yale. The people are tremendous, spanning some 30 years of graduating classes. One summer I found myself playing the left side of the infield with the undergraduate club hockey captain. We started talking, and a few months later, in October of 2000, I was making my triumphant return to Baker Rink with my Georgetown Hoya teammates. I guess that's what my mother meant by the value of the Princeton network.

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