After the game, Princeton coach Bill Tierney-Trevor and Brendan's dad-was
asked how he managed to stay so composed during the final furious minutes.
"You must not have had the camera on me," he said, breathless
and grinning.
From the Editor - July 5, 2000
I have a confession to make: I did not go to the P-rade this year. While thousands of alumni were greeting each other across Cannon Green, shouting out locomotives-Tiger, tiger, tiger, sis, sis, sis-driving orange-and-black-festooned golf carts, pounding drums, waving signs, and generally celebrating their shared connection to Princeton with family and friends, my family was inside, in front of the television.
We were watching, on that cool and cloudy day, another group of friends and family celebrate Princeton in a very different, but equally thrilling, way: We were tuned in to Princeton and Virginia in the semi-finals of the men's lacrosse national championship tournament.
It was a riveting contest. Down most of the game, holding on only by the strength of Trevor Tierney '01's masterful goaltending, heavy underdogs to the defending champion Cavaliers, the Tigers nonetheless managed to tie the game late in the fourth quarter. And then, with just under four minutes left, Brendan Tierney '02, Trevor's brother, scored to put the Tigers ahead, 12-11. It was enough. Almost miraculously, it seemed, Princeton won the right to play in the final.
After the game, Princeton coach Bill Tierney-Trevor and Brendan's dad-was
asked how he managed to stay so composed during the final furious minutes.
"You must not have had the camera on me," he said, breathless
and grinning.
For this issue we asked some well-known alumni writers, 20, 25, and 30 years out, to reflect on their Princeton experience. They wrote movingly about classes, professors, and Reunions, and how their time on campus affected the rest of their lives.
I suspect the memories of the few seniors on the men's lacrosse team will be very different. The Tigers went on to lose the national championship game, and that Monday loss may have dampened their Saturday joy. But I hope that when they return to campus for their first, fifth, 25th reunions, those graduates of 2000 will remember only that on the day their classmates were celebrating Princeton with family and friends in the P-rade, they were celebrating and honoring Princeton by playing their guts out on a field in Maryland.
Here's sending you that locomotive you missed. Congratulations.
--JCM
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