Football lectures, band celebration

Published in the Sept. 23, 2009, Issue

Oct. 3 marks the beginning of the Alumni Association's annual Fall Football Lectures, which will be held before Princeton football's home dates against Columbia, Cornell, and Yale.

History professor Paul Miles begins the series Oct. 3, speaking about Woodrow Wilson 1879's role as commander-in-chief during World War I (11 a.m. at the Lewis Library, room 120). On Oct. 31, Halloween morning, psychology professor Bart Hoebel will discuss the neurochemical evidence for sugar addiction (10 a.m. at the Lewis Library, room 120). And the Woodrow Wilson School's Harold Feiveson will draw on his popular freshman seminar when he speaks about dilemmas in athletics in the final lecture Nov. 14 (10 a.m. at Guyot Hall, room 10).

For alumni who cannot make it back to campus, the Alumni Association archives the Fall Football Lectures online.

In October 1919, a group of students posted an advertisement in The Daily Princetonian urging "any man who can play any band instrument at all" to join a new University band. A few weeks later, the Princeton University Band led triumphant Tiger fans through the streets of New Haven after the football team topped Yale, and the band has been marching (and scrambling) its way around the Ivy League ever since.

The Friends of Tiger Band will celebrate the band's 90th anniversary with a reception for alumni and friends on the front lawn of Campus Club after the football team's Oct. 3 game against Columbia. Alumni also are encouraged to play with the band in the halftime show and in the stands during the game.