From the Editor - March 8, 2000


Acouple of years ago I was at a cocktail party in Singapore, chatting with a neighbor about her son. He was in college in the States, she said. "Oh?" I asked politely. "Where?"

"New Jersey," she said, her eyes averted.

I knew immediately she meant Princeton. When I called her on it, explaining that I was an alumna, she laughed.

"I'm under strict instructions," she said with a wail. " 'Mom, you never say Princeton.' "

We never said Princeton, either, when I was an undergraduate in the late 1980s. It was another honor code, passed down from class to class. It's a ritual that dies hard-recently my husband, also Class of 1989, was asked where he had gone to school. His answer? "Locally."

It is bad form to brag, and maybe that's what started this mass denial. But I suspect there's more to it than that. There's a hint of false modesty, a sort of "Yes, I go to Princeton, but I'm really no better than you-well, a little smarter, of course, but no better." Or perhaps we're trying to avoid being typecast as latter-day Jay Gatsbys, with ears only for money. In my day, we were certainly looking for a way around the inevitable follow-up: "Oh, do you know Brooke Shields?"

For all the times I've said New Jersey, though, there was one evening during my senior year I gladly would have revealed my Princeton affiliation Brandi Chastain-style if I'd had a suitable orange and black undergarment. It was March 17, 1989, and the Princeton men's basketball team had just played perennial juggernaut Georgetown to within one tiny point. The once-indifferent crowd had turned uproariously pro-Tiger, and as we fans left the Providence Civic Center-feeling joy, pride, disappointment, and righteous anger at an uncalled foul-there was a sense that we'd shown them.

As it turned out we had shown them, or at least that grossly underestimated team had. Princeton's narrow loss actually saved the NCAA tournament for all the teams that didn't have a chance. For the next few years ESPN announcer Dick Vitale would ask his national audience who would be this year's Princeton-the underdog, the spoiler, the fighter.

For my first issue, I couldn't resist reflecting on that game and its surprising outcome. And in keeping with the theme, we also take a look at a group of alumni doing the unexpected: They're making a living with their hands in trades such as plumbing, masonry, and construction.

It's good to be back here in New Jersey.


GO TO the Table of Contents of the current issue

GO TO PAW's home page

paw@princeton.edu