If I remember correctly (and I usually do), only the second half of this game was shown to the majority of the nation, so many of these plays are being seen for the first time unless you were in Austin that evening two decades ago. A great find.
This afternoon's flash thunderstorm means less time spent weeding the front walk and more time spent scanning Princeton basketball programs from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Anyone know when Sean Jackson wore #31 during a game at Jadwin Gym? My guess was a JV game his "freshman" year, but the cheerleaders in the background poke holes in this theory.
Seven additional images after the jump.
A picture of the stands from Matt Lapin's final game at Jadwin Gym - the debut of the first ever Senior on a Stick.
Scans of three Princeton pocket schedule cards, each sponsored by Budweiser.
Kit Mueller.
Matt Lapin.
Bob Scrabis.
The first Senior on a Stick paid tribute to the lone member of Princeton's class of 1990 - forward Matt Lapin.
Lapin led the nation in three point shooting his senior year, hitting 53.4% of his attempts. His 71 triples are sixth-most in a season by a Tiger, which included eight in a game at Harvard on a team record 15 attempts.
The initial Senior on a Stick was poster-sized, hand-colored and hand-numbered (this one is #181 out of 200).
The text written under the image reads:
"Slapper on a Stick" 181/200 A "14 Club" Production PJB/SGC
How did Matt Lapin get the nickname Slapper anyway?
Well before there was princetonbasketball.com, there was The 14 Club, one of this site's biggest influences. The 14 Club was a couple from Princeton who traveled to Princeton games from coast to coast (I remember seeing holding a banner on TV when the Tigers played at #1 UNLV), printed the original Seniors on a Stick, hoarded NCAA Tournament tickets for fellow fans and worked tirelessly to support the orange and black.
As if the above wasn't enough, starting in 1990 they self-published an annual bound "Recruiting Wrap-Up" full of photocopied articles about the incoming freshman class with additional pieces they had culled regarding the next season's Princeton schedule and other news of interest. Pre-Internet, this was the best/only way to know about the incoming freshman class.
I recently uncovered their first book, and wanted to share some bullet points based on stories that are almost two decades old.
TigerBlog supplements the above with additional thoughts on the 20th anniversary of Princeton/Georgetown.
For interviews with Pete Carril and Tiger captain Bob Scrabis recorded in the days leading up to this game, see this post.
Someday I hope to write up my memories of that bus trip to Providence.
In the second half, there's a sweet George Leftwich screen to set up a Matt Lapin three point shot I had never noticed before.
Want to see this game in a far-higher resolution? You can buy it on DVD here.
While on Flickr one recent evening, I discovered a huge repository of late 80s/early 90s photos taken by former Princeton band member Peter Dutton.
Dutton was kind enough to give me permission to share a few of his shots, clicked from the stands at various Princeton games, including four straight trips to the NCAA Tournament.
They're not expert sideline snaps by any means, but that's not the point. These photos bring me back to a time almost two decades previous that was a whole lot of fun. I hope they'll stir up similar memories for some of you and give people who weren't there an idea of what it was like to follow the team back then.
Hopefully these .jpgs will also get me off my duff and scanning the archived material gathering dust at my parents' house!
Peter has thousands of additional photos on his Flickr page.
If you have any Princeton basketball photos you would like to be similarly shared, please get in touch!
December 1989. That's certainly Kit Mueller (#00), Bob Scrabis (#34) and Jerry Doyle (#5). Fairly confident Marv Williams (#22) is also on the floor. Is #40 Anders Vestergaard?
The Tigers' last lead against Georgetown. 1989 NCAA Tournament.
Princeton band. Providence Civic Center. Gorilla costume?
Georgetown shooting a free throw in the first half. I see George Leftwich (#22), Matt Lapin (#33) and Bob Scrabis (#34) ready to box out.
Second half of the 1992 NCAA Tournament. Chris Mooney (#21) is at the top of the arc. Are those Leftwich and Rick Hielscher (#33) on the floor with him?
The band does "Rock Lobster" after a game at Jadwin. Note the Matt Lapin "Senior On A Stick," which most likely means this came from the final home game of the 1989-90 season.
The Tiger unmasked!
The Princeton band plays towards the end of the first half of Princeton's 1991 NCAA Tournament game versus Villanova - a game I've never been able to bring myself to watch on tape after suffering through it live.
If you attended Princeton's final home game of the season in the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, you would have seen them.
Large posters of each of the Tigers who were playing their final contest at Jadwin Gym, stapled to pieces of wood, held in the air by fans like they were delegates at a political convention.
These signs (dubbed "Seniors on a Stick") were made by a group of fans called The 14 Club, who were a big influence on me as a young basketball fan growing up in Princeton. I remember fondly spending many hours before the Loyola Marymount game behind the bleachers helping them assemble that year's Seniors on a Stick.
While in New England for the Brown / Yale weekend, the idea to bring back Seniors on a Stick hit me.
If princetonbasketball.com wasn't going to do this, who would?
The five seniors on the 2007-08 Princeton basketball team had been through a rough four years, which didn't go at all like they expected when they arrived on campus. They each deserved some recognition from the fans for the work they put in wearing orange and black before college basketball was no longer a part of their lives.
A plan was formed.
First, I wanted to get the go-ahead from The 14 Club and Coach Johnson. Both swiftly responded that this sounded like a great idea.
Then, it was time to lay out the designs.
With a Chris Marquart SoaS my parents found tucked away in their home as the prototype, I laid out five designs in Photoshop, using some of the great photos Stephen Goldsmith had taken for princetonbasketball.com this season.
Found the right wood at Home Depot and orange 11"x17" paper at Pick Quick. Kinko's ran off proofs and did the printing from files on my key drive.
With all the parts in place, it was on to assembling!
We brought all the sticks into my parents' basement on Sunday afternoon.
...where my dad and I split time sawing them in half, three at a time.
The end result was ~200 pieces of wood, each about two feet long.
In the basement there were several sources of inspiration from past posters, like Matt Lapin - who may have been the first senior featured as a Senior on a Stick.
Kit Mueller.
The 1991 graduating class.
We moved the wood onto the porch, where they were stapled to the posters by various Solomons, Schellers and Solomon-Schellers.
Piled our work in the kitchen, putting tape over the ends to avoid splinters.
The finished products went in six shopping bags for easy transport to Jadwin.
Then on gameday, we rushed them into the building about an hour before tipoff, giving a Senior on a Stick to every kid we could find. Having young fans run up to me and breathlessly say "do you have any more Noahs?!," watching the Princeton mascot wave his Kyle Koncz poster on the sidelines, being told by older Tiger fans that they were glad to see these placards again or observing people trading with one another in the stands to try and get a complete set of all five seniors brought me back two decades to when I had just discovered Princeton basketball. I hear players were even asked to autograph their respective signs by young fans after the game.
While the night did not end as I had imagined, with Seniors on a Stick held high as the victorious Tigers headed off the floor one final time, the experience did made me feel better about the season, regardless of the wins and losses. Hopefully this is a tradition that can now happen again every year at Jadwin, sending Princeton's seniors out of Jadwin with something extra to feel good about at the end of the year.
