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Since Ivy League colleges do not award athletic scholarships, recruits for Princeton’s football team are not asked to sign the NCAA’s letter of intent. But even without the paperwork, several high school seniors announced their intentions to join head coach Bob Surace ’90’s first crop of Tigers on or before “signing day,” Feb. 3. The following 13 players were mentioned as Princeton recruits in published reports:

Robert Basile, linebacker, Quakertown H.S., Quakertown, Pa. [PhillyBurbs.com]

Connor Clegg, defensive end, Chagrin Falls H.S., Chagrin Falls, Ohio [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

Max Coale, offensive lineman, River Hill H.S., Clarksville, Md. [Baltimore Sun]

From Feb. 3 through Feb. 11, The Weekly Blog is posting audio from Back Story, a radio show produced by undergraduates in Dan Grech ’99’s fall journalism course, “The New Audio Age of Journalism.” Complete episodes of Back Story will air Feb. 7 and 14 at noon on WPRB.

Princeton’s eating clubs are campus institutions. Fraternities and sororities, on the other hand, are openly opposed by the University. They don’t even have their own buildings. But 15 percent of freshmen join them anyway. Cooper Gegan ’12 tells the story of one student who pledged — and left — a fraternity in his freshman year.

CLICK HERE TO OPEN AUDIO IN A NEW WINDOW.

(Courtesy PicApp.com)

Georgetown’s Jan. 30 men’s basketball contest against Duke brought a big-game atmosphere to Washington, D.C. More than 20,000 fans came to the Verizon Center, including President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who watched from the front row as coach John Thompson III ’88’s Hoyas took a 13-point lead before halftime and held on to win 89-77.

Thompson told the AP afterward that he was “extremely happy that the president was there. … But we were more nervous about the guys sitting on the other bench.”

With the victory over Duke, Thompson now has 200 wins as a collegiate head coach — an impressive figure considering that he’s only in his 10th season. Princeton can claim at least a small part in Thompson’s coaching record. After playing for the Tigers and serving as an assistant to Pete Carril and Bill Carmody, Thompson won 68 games and three Ivy League titles in four seasons as Princeton’s head coach, from 2000-04.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

From Feb. 3 through Feb. 11, The Weekly Blog is posting audio from Back Story, a radio show produced by undergraduates in Dan Grech ’99’s fall journalism course, “The New Audio Age of Journalism.” Complete episodes of Back Story will air Feb. 7 and 14 at noon on WPRB.

In the Princeton sports world, there’s a new game in town. But the playing field isn’t a court or a stadium. It’s a computer screen. Members of the Smashcraft Heroes, Princeton’s gaming club, play competitively in tournaments, and club co-founder Mona Zhang ’12 has created a new intercollegiate computer-gaming league. Gabriel Chen ’12 talks with Zhang and the Smashcraft Heroes about the future of e-gaming.

CLICK HERE TO OPEN AUDIO IN A NEW WINDOW.

Princeton’s winter teams returned from the January exam break and posted a near-perfect weekend that included big wins for men’s and women’s swimming and a combined 7-0-1 record for the basketball and hockey teams.

MEN’S and WOMEN’S SWIMMING swept Harvard and Yale at the annual H-Y-P meet, held in DeNunzio Pool Jan. 29-30. The Tiger men opened the action Friday night and sealed victory by winning six of the nine races held Saturday. Jon Christensen ’12 won three individual events in the meet. In the women’s competition Saturday night, Meredith Monroe ’12, Courtney Kilkuts ’10, and Alicia Aemisegger ’10 each set school or pool records. Those three also joined Megan Waters ’11 to break the Princeton record in the 200-yard medley relay.

MEN’S BASKETBALL opened Ivy League play with wins at Brown (63-46, Jan. 29) and Yale (58-45, Jan. 30). Douglas Davis ’12 led Princeton in scoring in both games. The Tigers improved to 11-5, including nine wins in their last 10 games.

Republican Chris Cox ’01, the son of New York GOP chairman Ed Cox ’68 and grandson of President Richard Nixon, announced Jan. 28 that he is running for Congress in New York’s first congressional district. [FoxNews]

Golf Magazine published a Jan. 18 feature story about Rick Hyde ’75 and Burton Smith ’77, the Ivy League’s first African-American golfers. [Golf.com]

A Jan. 24 New York Times article marked the 35th anniversary of the 1975 NHL All-Star Game, where hockey reporter Robin Herman ’73 became one of the first two women to be granted entry to the locker rooms of a North American pro sports league. [The New York Times]

Few people in the travel and tourism industry know more about Haiti than Adam Goldstein ’81, the president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, which owns and operates a resort at Labadee, on the country’s north coast. And when the disastrous earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince Jan. 12, few were better equipped to send relief supplies to the Haitians affected.

Since Jan. 15, four of the company’s cruise ships have unloaded 40 to 60 pallets of water and food with each visit, Goldstein said in a recent interview with NPR. The supplies are being distributed by Food for the Poor, a local non-governmental organization. Royal Caribbean has pledged at least $1 million in humanitarian aid, and Goldstein has posted updates about the relief effort on his blog.

The cruise line also has continued to bring tourists to Labadee, which was unaffected by the earthquake. That decision drew some criticism, but Goldstein said the Haitian government supported the day trips. As he told NPR, “We actually felt it was a pretty easy decision once we realized that the physical site at our property at Labadee was unaffected by the earthquake, and second, after the Haitian government made it clear that they wanted to continue to have our ships visit, both for the economic benefit that they normally bring, as well as the humanitarian aspect of delivering relief supplies.” Net proceeds from the Labadee visits are being donated to the aid effort, Goldstein said.

(Photo courtesy of Royal Caribbean)

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

By Katy Pinke ’10

In March 2009, VH1 television contacted the Princeton debate team. The network was planning to shoot a new week-long program called “The Great Debate,” and the producers wanted to do an “All Stars vs. Ivy Leaguers” episode. The show would premiere in early July as a miniseries in which D-list celebrities debate issues related to pop culture.

Anthony Loring ’11, Charlie Metzger ’12, and Jim Hao ’12 were selected to represent the team in this uncharted forum for debate. Once the three students had agreed to participate, they were provided with a list of topics and possible points and counterpoints.

Their topic: “Which is the better Hulk?” The intimidating opposition — wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan — positioned himself in favor of … himself. The Princeton debaters, on the other hand, argued resolutely for the superiority of a comic-book superhero, the Incredible Hulk.

Click here to view the full image of Francis Nimick’s fall 1910 tuition bill.

Each January, Princeton’s trustees meet to approve the University’s operating budget, including tuition and fees for the coming academic year. According to a Jan. 25 University news release, the total cost of a year at Princeton will be $48,580 in 2010-11.

This announcement reminded us of a recent piece of mail that David Nimick ’46 sent to PAW with the simple message that “things were different 100 years ago!” Attached was a copy of the tuition bill that his father, Francis, Class of 1913, received in August 2010, for the fall semester of his sophomore year. Tuition, room, board, and fees added up to a grand total of $271.25. The full year — less than $550 — converts to about $12,000 in today’s dollars.

Incidentally, the elder Nimick knew something about tuition bills: Five of his sons attended Princeton between 1935 and 1950.

Congratulations to our four prizewinners for The Weekly Blog’s basketball trivia quiz: Stuart Schulman ’84, David Taylor ’02, and Robert Comfort, who each scored a perfect 10-for-10; and Al Kaemmerlen ’62, who had nine correct responses.

Kaemmerlen, a former Tiger basketball captain, had a distinct advantage on the first question: He played in Princeton’s 1961 NCAA tournament win over George Washington, scoring 16 points as the Tigers topped the Colonials 84-67 at Madison Square Garden.

Answers to the quiz are included below.

1. Princeton has won 13 NCAA tournament games, most recently in 1998. In what year did the Tigers pick up their first postseason victory? 1961, vs. George Washington

2. Princeton and Penn have tied for the Ivy League title four times (including once in a three-way tie with Yale). Which team has the upper hand in head-to-head Ivy playoff games? Princeton, 2-1

3. Which quotable coach explained his switch to zone defense by telling reporters, “It seems that as the cost of attending Princeton increases, so does the slowness of our team”? Pete Carril

4. Fill in the blank: Bill Bradley ’65 made headlines at Princeton before he even played a varsity game, sinking 57 consecutive free throws for the Tiger freshman team.

By Brittany Urick ’10

Despite the stress surrounding exam period, students have joined together to support the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti Jan. 12. Almost immediately after the crisis made headlines, e-mail inboxes and Facebook feeds were flooded with information about how to donate to Haiti through various channels.

On the evening of Jan. 13, Rev. Deborah Blanks and Rev. Paul Raushenbush, the associate deans of religious life, and Catholic chaplain Father Tom Mullelly led a prayer service that included readings and songs delivered in Creole. Two students, Marlise Jean-Pierre ’12 and Esther Clovis ’12, helped to organize the gathering, and 80 students attended. The following day, a vigil in the University Chapel drew hundreds of students and members of the campus community, including staff who have relatives in Haiti. On Jan. 19, students were encouraged to wear red to show support for Haiti, emphasizing that the victims and their families have not been forgotten.

Alexandra Baptiste ’13, whose parents were born in Haiti, felt comforted by the concern from her peers during this difficult time.

“I think Princeton students have been really supportive and understanding thus far,” Baptiste said. “They have been really eager to help, which is fantastic. I only hope that the drive I see in them does not die. This is going to be a long process for Haiti, and a lot more support will be needed.”

On the morning of Jan. 12, musician, writer, and hotelier Richard Morse ’79 was using Twitter to communicate with friends and send updates for fans of his band, RAM. But by evening, his posts took on a much more serious tone as Morse, his family, and guests of his Port-au-Prince hotel, the Hotel Oloffson, coped with the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. The dispatches, which began an hour and a half after the quake, capture the scene from Morse’s vantage point:

were ok at the oloffson..internet is on !! no phones ! hope all are okay..alot of big building in PAP are down ! (6:23 p.m., Jan. 12)

another aftershock..people are screaming and freaking out down towards the stadium..much singing and praying in large numbers (7:45 p.m., Jan. 12)

the singing and praying is getting more intense..you have to believe!! From what I’m hearing, this is worse than anyone is imagining (9:18 p.m., Jan. 12)

In the last eight days, Morse has posted frequent updates of news in Port-au-Prince (including this morning’s earthquake: “last night I went to bed wondering why I was still sleeping outside.This morning I found out why.”), and he also has attempted to connect family members with loved ones in the city. His hotel is hosting several journalists who have come to Haiti to cover the ongoing humanitarian crisis. More than 11,000 Twitter users are now following Morse’s tweets (@RAMhaiti), which have been quoted by CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and scores of other news outlets.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.