Tiger attire: Not just for Reunions

In late spring, PAW invited alumni to share stories about when they wear Princeton attire away from University functions. Here are highlights:

MYSTERY WEAR: While some Princetonians dress to trumpet their school loyalty, others sport their gear on the sly. When spiffing up, Russ Stratton ’60 often wears an orange and black graduation rosette on his lapel. Stratton says, “When curious people inquire, I always employ the same, unoriginal line: ‘It’s from a grateful foreign government. That’s all I can tell you.’”

ON THE RUN: When suiting up for a marathon, most runners opt for a minimalist mode of dress. Not so for Bothwell Lee ’74. In Marine Corps marathons, Lee has logged all 26.2 miles with a Tiger beret on his head and a Tiger tail trailing behind him.  

When Steve Sucharski ’06 lived in Manhattan, he noticed that it was a point of pride for those jogging around the Central Park reservoir to wear their college paraphernalia. So he followed suit. “I felt like I was in some sort of Ivy League cross country meet,” he says.  

For those into the orange and the black, crimson poses a complicated dilemma. It’s a hue that Robin Herman ’73, an administrative dean at Harvard, sees a lot. When Herman goes for weekend runs, she usually wears her favorite Princeton T-shirt: “When I am tempted to slow down or amble, I instead keep up my pace — not wishing to have other runners and passersby think Princeton produces wimps.”

GETTING SNUGGER: Many alums find that their Tiger clothes just don’t fit the way they used to. While Jon Holman ’66 no longer squeezes into a rare surviving T-shirt from the long-absent Elm Club, he frequently uses his Princeton running shorts at the gym. “While I would like to say they have caused admiring glances from women,” Holman says, “I’m afraid the negative appeal of the rest of me dwarfs the positive appeal of the Princeton denotation.”

SPLIT ALLEGIANCE: Cuthbert Russell Train ’64 didn’t want to snub his Harvard-educated kids, so he counted seven days of the week and arrived at the following solution: “I wear orange corduroys, an orange sweater, and an orange and black button-down shirt four days out of seven and crimson the other three out of loyalty to my children,” he says. The color scheme, Train notes, also helps break up the long, bleak Maine winters.

WAY INTO THE FUTURE: Paul Sittenfeld ’69 reports: “As a groomsman in a preppy 1973 wedding, I received a J. Press silk Princeton jockstrap.” Sittenfeld, my portly father, explains that he is diffident about wearing it, “wanting to be admired for my mind, and not simply for my body.” Further, his most valued Tiger possession is an orange Princeton fleece blanket. It covers him during naps, and — this is true — he plans to have it accompany him posthumously to the Old Nassau in the Sky.