The Princeton Football Association committed to a special fundraising effort that improved the...experience of attending a Princeton Football game. The PFA raised $500,000 to reimburse the University for the state-of-the-art scoreboard; which is unmatched in the league--December 2009 letter from Anthony P. DiTommaso, Jr. '86, President of the Princeton Football Association
It's been a difficult year for America and particularly for our Tigers. Just as many in our nation are hurting, our team also suffered some tremendous setbacks with numerous injured players and tough losses on the field. When a restaurant has problems, it seeks a new chef; rest assured, we have begun the search for a new head coach.
This is our final solicitation of the year and I would like to take this opportunity to remind you why supporting football at Princeton should be your highest priority. How often has someone remarked in a tone of astonished delight, "You went to Princeton?" (Particularly if that person is also an alum.) Some of the highlights of my life have been spent in the elevator at the Princeton Club on West 43rd Street reminiscing about all that makes our alma mater such a distinctive place: eating clubs and the bickering process by which prospective candidates are excluded from them, old Nassau Hall, and of course, football.
Show me a young man who can kick a pig's bladder between two uprights from a distance of 45 yards and I'll show you a future senator. Show me a running back who can carry for 37 yards on 4th and eight and I'll show you a future president. Show me a quarterback who can thread the needle and find an open man in the end zone amidst a swarm of Dartmouth defenders and I'll show you someone who will someday put this entire planet in his back pocket and sit so firmly upon it that the noise released from this collective human whoopie cuishion will blow the biggest of holes through the ozone layer.
Hunger is important; health care is important; housing is important. But what's truly important? Princeton Football! Who bleeds black and orange? We do! Who wants a new coach pronto? We do! We're going to provide our coaches with the enhancements necessary to compete for student-athletes and get the Tigers back to the top. We're going to fund spring recruiting and opponent scouting. We're going to furnish program enhancements for players and coaches. We're going to enhance the Bejesus out of all seven other teams in the Ivy League.
The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. And that's just a high school! The CEO of an average S&P 500 company earns 319 times more than a production worker. The mean compensation for a Princeton grad in such a position is 412 times greater and the amount earned by a Princeton-educated CEO who played football on campus is 586 times greater. Are we building leaders or are we building leaders?
You're at the Game: Princeton vs. Yale. You care more about its outcome than any future verdict you'll help render while serving on the Supreme Court, any inoculation you'll patent, any museum you'll design. It's pouring rain; the field is a pit of mud. The distant stands are a sea of blue and white umbrellas held by the wimps from New Haven. We wear our black and orange raingear but we do not protect our heads. We show solidarity with our warriors on the field: men with noble Princeton names from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country: Maliszewski, Iacavazzi, Vuono, and Avallone.
Our soldiers are on their own 16. All odds are against us when a slow roar begins to build, a deafening chant of commitment and determination: Tigers! Tigers! Tigers! A completed pass. You squeeze the arm of the gorgeous woman next to you: raven-haired, dark-eyed, from a prominent Houston family. You will someday marry this woman and inherit one of the leading liquor distributorships in the Southwest. All made possible by a chance encounter during Freshman Orientation at Princeton! But you do not care: all is dross. Another completed pass, quarterback sneak, out of bounds, the clock is stopped.
The clock is stopped because Princeton players are agile, swift, and tough, but above all, Princeton players are smart. When we're behind by two points and there are 34 seconds left in regulation time, we stop the clock. (Of course, we are playing Yale so they're intent on our not stopping the clock.)
Your chest is pounding. There are 2,783 institutions of higher learning in America, four of which are any good. You're at one of them! You are at (given the high incidence of TAs at Harvard) the best! But it doesn't matter: if we lose today, we're doomed.
You glance at the raven-haired creature beside you, at the woman you adore and you cannot remember her name. You're in a trance. Pick-up of six. Lateral pass: gain of eleven. Your face is wet: rain, tears, sweat. This is your Waterloo. Nine seconds left. We're on their 24. Out comes Blaschewski. First name or last? You're not sure.
Then your eyes turn to the most beatific sight on God's earth: Princeton's new state-of-the-art scoreboard. They ain't got one of them in Cambridge. Through the pelting rain, you note the nostril-width of the Yale fans. They actually resemble bulldogs.
The name flashes on our glamorous new scoreboard: Czeslaw Blaschewski. Go Czeslaw! Make us proud! Boot that pig's bladder through the goal posts and ensure your future in global arbitrage at one of the three remaining Manhattan investment banks. The ball is snapped, the bladder is booted, and like the perfect ending to a much-loved fairy tale, the ending is oh, so very happy. You kiss Daphne (you've remembered: Daphne Huntington) and wrap your arms around her. Christ Almighty, life is good.
