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Sports: October 25, 1995
Tosches Waffles, Tigers WobbleEvery Saturday with the 1995 Tigers has been an adventure, and so far, the team's motto seems to be "All's well that ends well." But no one is sure what to expect from Princeton (4-0 overall, 2-0 Ivy). Betting that the Tigers will find a way to prevail on the gridiron has been a winning proposition so far. Trying to predict how they will do it has been next to impossible.Even divining who will line up behind center has hardly been a lead-pipe cinch. The Tigers began the season with junior Harry Nakielny as their starting quarterback, and nobody expected that to change, since he completed 22 of 28 passes for 256 yards in Princeton's season-opening win against Cornell on September 16. But when Nikielny broke his thumb in practice the Wednesday after his impressive debut, senior backup Brock Harvey took over, leading the Tigers to a 20-3 win over Bucknell on September 23, and a 34-23 win over Colgate September 30. After the Colgate game, head coach Steve Tosches faced a dilemma. As the undefeated Tigers prepared for a critical league matchup against the Bruins of Brown, would he bring back the now healthy Nakielny? Harvey's effective brand of quarterbacking left Tosches without an easy answer to that question. So for the first half of the game against Brown, October 7 in Providence, he shuttled the two players in and out (echoing the two-quarterback attack that Columbia fielded last year with some success). But for Princeton, the tag-team strategy went nowhere; it faced a 137 deficit at halftime. In the locker room, Tosches picked Harvey to finish the game, and the Tigers pulled together to get a 21-19 come-from-behind victory. The previous Saturday, with Nakielny still injured and Harvey at the helm, the Tigers had arrived in Hamilton, New York, as odds-on favorites to beat the Patriot League's Colgate (0-4 overall, 0-2 Patriot). But on a sunny Homecoming afternoon, Colgate managed to make a game of it. The Red Raiders controlled the time of possession, capitalized when Princeton made mistakes, and minimized its own miscues. "I've got to give them credit," said Tosches. "They came out, they were excited, they were motivated, and they made some plays. We obviously had our hands full." But in the end, the Tigers had a trump card in junior tailback Marc Washington. He scored three TDs (from 19, 11, and 14 yards out) and rushed for a career-high 219 yards. With Harvey-whose arm is weaker than Nakielny's-in the lineup, Tosches knew the passing game could be little more than a decoy. So with his offensive line blasting huge holes for him, Washington found openings in Colgate's defense, then earned even more yards by breaking tackles in the secondary. It wasn't all rosy for Washington, however. By game's end, he may have learned how fine the line can be between hero and goat. Washington seemed destined to end up the latter when he gave up two fumbles at crucial points in the game. In the first half, he lost the ball on the Tigers' 26-yard line, and Colgate returned it for a touchdown. And in the fourth quarter, when his team sorely needed points-Princeton was behind 23-21 with just 11 minutes on the clock-he ended a Tiger scoring drive at the Colgate 24-yard line. But this time, linebacker Tim Greene '98 and safety Tom Ludwig '98 rescued Washington. After recovering the fumble, Colgate tried for a back-breaking score with a pass over the middle, but Ludwig tipped the ball and Greene alertly snagged it out of the air, returning possession to Princeton. Washington knew better than to let redemption slip away. It took him just two tries to rush the 30 yards to the Colgate endzone, and the Tigers went ahead for good. Seven days later, Princeton went to Providence, and with a little help from a few hundred miles away, the Tigers gave their Ivy-title chances a huge boost. Princeton made little progress with its musical-quarterbacks routine in the first half and fell behind in the second quarter. But again, the Tigers came back by getting the best of the plays that mattered most, and garnered their second straight come-from-behind win. Then came some great news: Columbia had ended Penn's 24-game winning streak, knocking the Quakers a game back in the league standings. In the first-half quarterback shuffle, neither Harvey nor Nakielny played particularly well. Harvey was on the field during Princeton's only scoring drive before halftime, but Nakielny completed just two for six passes and had a couple of fumbles. Tosches tapped Harvey for the second half. "The offense was under a lot of pressure," Tosches said. "Brown was really hugging the line. I thought Harry's rustiness was starting to show; he hadn't had a lot of practice. Keeping Brock in there and the threat of the option kept them [off the line]." Nakielny agreed. "[Harvey] was doing so well. If I'm not producing, why should I stay in?" Midway through the third quarter, Harvey responded to Tosches's confidence with a 42-yard Princeton touchdown drive. It was capped by Mike Clifford '98's one-yard touchdown run. Brown fumbled the ensuing kickoff on its own 23-yard line, and Brett Budzinski '97- who plays on special teams as well as at wide receiver-gained possession. From there, Harvey reached the end zone in four plays, finishing the drive himself with a four-yard touchdown run to put Princeton ahead, 21-13. While Harvey was leading the Tiger offense, the defense had its hands full with Brown quarterback Jason McCullough, who had burned the Tigers twice in the first half with touchdown passes. In the fourth quarter, he engineered another scoring drive, but because of a missed point-after-touchdown in the first half, Brown was still down by two points. To tie, the Bruins were forced to go for a two-point conversion. McCullough tried to lure cornerback Damani Leech '98 away from his receiver by threatening to run for the goal line himself. But Leech was patient, and when McCullough was forced to throw, Leech knocked the pass away. With four minutes left, Brown got to the Princeton 27-yard line-nearly close enough to try for a game-winning field goal. But the Tigers kept the Bruins from scoring with two sacks in the next four plays. Of the win, Tosches said, "It's the intangibles. It's experience, it's poise. [Our players] have been through situations like this before and they just aren't going to panic." If the Tigers maintain that poise through the rest of their Ivy games, including big matchups against Columbia and Penn, they'll be outright Ivy champs for the first time since 1964. -Justin Pope '97 Justin Pope is a senior sportswriter covering football for The Daily Princetonian.
Keith Elias '94 Off to "Rocky" Start for NFL's GiantsStoried running back Keith Elias '94 was the darling of Tiger fans in his career at Princeton. He shredded defenses throughout the Ivy League, shattered school and league records, and invited comparisons with Princeton legends like Dick Kazmaier '52 and Cosmo Iacavazzi '65. After he graduated, the 5'9", 200-pound Elias signed as a free agent with the NFL's New York Giants. He played in three games that season for the team, then was sidelined with a knee injury. In 1995, Elias returned to the Giants training camp and confounded football analysts. He not only made the team, but outperformed such NFL stars as Herschel Walker and Rodney Hampton. His total of 214 yards rushing (with one touchdown) in the preseason was nearly twice that of the next-best back (Hampton, with 111 yards). Early this month, Elias spoke to paw's senior editor, Paul Hagar '91, about his life as a Giant.How are you feeling? I'm pretty healthy. Especially for the NFL, I'm real healthy. My legs are great. I've got a little pinched nerve in my neck but it's no big deal. Do you worry about being injured again? You don't really worry about any of that. I think when you worry about getting hurt is when you get hurt, because it causes you to hesitate. If you're 100-percent full go, you're less likely to get hurt. How has the Giants' outstanding backfield-Herschel Walker, Rodney Hampton, and Tyrone Wheatley -influenced you? Have you learned from them? In camp, I learned a lot from Dave Meggett [a former Giants running back now with the New England Patriots] last year and a lot from [former Giants running back] O. J. Anderson this year. I really looked forward to the times O. J. would come down, because he knows how to explain the little things that help your game, make you a better player, like the best way to run passing routes against linebackers, whereas Dave Meggett helped me with my blocking. Herschel would tell me a little thing here or there. But for the most part, my two biggest influences in the NFL have been Dave Meggett and O. J. Anderson. How is your writing coming along? I've read that you've done a couple of TV scripts, and are working on a science-fiction novel. Can you give us a preview? My brother Brian, who's in college, and I, we do that all the time. When you play in the NFL, your career can be fleeting, so you have to prepare for afterward. And so we've been trying to write and put that career together. It's something we definitely want to do. The novel's on the back burner, because right now we're really working on the scripts. The plots are pretty involved, but we have a lot of fun doing it. Are you shopping the scripts? I've been in contact with one publisher and I'm going to see if we can get together after the season. Also, I send the scripts to Dean Cain ['88, former Tiger safety and star of ABC-TV's Lois and Clark]. He's hopefully going to help me with my "in" to the industry. What is your perspective on Princeton now that you've been out of school for a couple of years? What's your life like now? The only thing that's really different for me is my social life. Socially, Princeton is quite different from the real world. And I went from the Princeton social life to NFL social life. A little different. [laughs] There's a lot of other things that go into being in the NFL-it's an all-day job. People are amazed at the time we spend there, at how smart you have to be to understand all the schemes and the concepts. How much time do you spend at Giants practices? Depends on the day. Wednesdays, we'll be there all day, from eight in the morning to six at night. That's practice, meetings, and films. Since joining the Giants, you've probably made many Princetonians into fans of the team. Have you been in touch with any alumni since you joined the NFL? Just people I'd already known. I'm extremely loyal to people who were always loyal to me. But now that I'm there, I'm not so comfortable with people who jump on the bandwagon. I saw Jason Garrett ['89] after the Dallas game. I saw some friends when I went to San Francisco. When I go to a city that has friends I went to school with, we get together. I read that you now "focus on the Lord" to motivate yourself instead of relying on the pregame ritual you had in college. What made you change your focus? It's pretty much just the fact that I got tired. It takes a lot of energy to do the same thing all the time, and there are 20 games instead of 10. Plus the whole feel in the locker room is completely different. When people ask, "Is it really, really intense, like you can cut the air with a knife?", I say, "No, it's mellow, guys joke around." Because they're professionals, and when they get on the field, that's when they turn it on. Up to the point when you step on the field it's real, real mellow. Even in pregame, my friends and I on the team know we don't have to play yet, so sometimes we'll be looking in the stands, pointing out all the pretty girls. You gotta have a good time while you're there and so it's a whole different thing. I used to try to intimidate the whole league-listen to music and get myself into a frenzy. But here you can't really intimidate anybody. What happens if you ever run into somebody who's as intense as you? I never did in the Ivy League, but in the NFL there are lots of people like that. So for motivation, I went to a higher power, because if you have faith in the Lord, then nothing earthly can intimidate you, I don't care how big the dude is, how tough he thinks he is, it's only this world. Even my senior year, after I was done with my thesis, I began to think about it more and more. When I got to the Giants, I found there were a lot of Christians on the team. You'd be surprised how many guys on the team go to Bible study every week-Howard Cross, Cory Miller, Maurice Douglas, Ken Graham-and it's very, very important to me. What are your goals for the season? I really can't have any, because I never know when I'm going to play, so I just go with the flow. Did you know you'd have to prove yourself again coming into camp this year? Yeah, because I was the guy, coming into the preseason, who was the one that everyone said was the no-brainer cut. So I knew I had to perform. How do you feel about the "Rocky" nickname you've acquired as a Giant? What's it like to be labeled as an underdog? It's kinda true [laughs], you can't deny it. But I think that always having been an underdog, having been the small kid, that it's forced me to make up for it in other areas. Studying film, knowing defenses, being a smart football player, those are things I can really help other people with, like Tyrone Wheatley and Rodney Hampton. They've relied on their natural ability for so long that sometimes I'm thinking, "He could've anticipated this." I'm starting to talk to Tyrone more. And it's like, "Why would he listen to me?" Until he sees that I know what I'm talking about and I really know the game. I can definitely see myself coaching someday. Not as a full-time job, because I don't want to do the whole recruiting and year-round stuff, but I would coach high school. I definitely have some insights. My freshman year at Princeton, I was fortunate to have Judd Garrett ['90] as a sort of personal coach. He didn't make the NFL, so he came back and was at every game. I would pick up little tidbits all along the way, and these are things that I've relied upon to make my game better. When I come in contact with a player like O. J. Anderson and he tells me things, I pay attention, because it will make my game more complete. Guys see how hard I work and how gritty I guess I am, so I guess that's where the "Rocky" nickname came from. It's much better than the "Rudy" nickname I had last year, though. "Rocky" is like a respect thing. [Giants quarterback] Dave Brown said in the paper that when I first got to the Giants [last year], I was like a novelty. "Everybody's rooting for the kid from Princeton." But he said this year I improved, that I'm a real player, and that I really belong.
Wrestling Coach Wins JudgmentA former wrestling coach, Chester Dalgewicz, won $140,000 in damages when a Mercer County jury decided he had been the victim of employment discrimination. Dalgewicz, who had served as an assistant coach for 22 years, was fired in 1990.In the case, which was heard last spring, the university asserted it had let Dalgewicz go because of budget cuts. His attorney, Arthur Penn, argued that the coach had actually been targeted because of a bad back he had suffered in 1975 when wrestling with a 250-pound heavyweight. Penn said the injury had prevented his client from wrestling with members of the team in practice sessions but had not otherwise impaired his abilities as a coach. The jury found the university at fault for terminating him because of his physical handicap, even though his injury did not prevent him from performing his job. Penn also asserted that Dalgewicz had been fired because of age (he was 45 at the time of his dismissal), but on this charge the jury did not rule in his client's favor. Superior Court Judge Phillip Lewis Paley entered the judgment for $140,000 in June, after denying the university's motion for a new trial. Dalgewicz is now an assistant director of athletics at Rider College, in Lawrenceville. After the decision, he told The Times of Trenton, "I feel relieved that it's over. I'll give another sigh of relief when I finally receive my check." The Friends of Princeton Wrestling lent moral support to Dalgewicz and had offered to pay his $40,000 salary after his dismissal. Friends chairman Clay McEldowney '69 called the coach's firing "the first nail in the coffin of Princeton wrestling," which in 1993 was cut by the university from its roster of varsity sports.
ScoreboardMen's Cross Country(0-0 overall; 0-0 Ivy) New Jersey St. Champs.-1st Minnesota Invit.-11th
Women's Cross Country
Field Hockey
Football
Women's Golf
Women's Soccer
Volleyball
Lightweight Football |