Best of On Tap: Fall 2011

Senior attack Nick Pugliese and sophomore attack Matt Pugliese, Sept. 21:

Q: What is your most embarrassing moment at Princeton?

Matt: I tried searching for a girl’s Facebook one time and accidentally made her name my status. I don’t really get embarrassed that easily.

Q: What is it like having a brother on the same campus and same team?

Nick: The constant joy of people coming up to me and saying “I met your brother last night” and not knowing quite what to expect. I don’t like that people call him by my nickname.

Junior right side hitter Jennifer Palmquist, Sept. 28:

Q: How long have you been playing volleyball, and how did you start?

A: I started playing in eighth grade because that’s what tall girls do in southern California — they play volleyball.

Sophomore distance runner Clare Gallagher, Oct. 5:

Q: What was your “welcome to college” moment?

A: When I got to campus, I whipped out my compass and I looked west, and there were no mountains! It’s so weird without mountains. But my most memorable welcome to college moment was after our first set of mile repeats, junior Alexis Mikaelian pushed me into a locker and said, “Welcome to college, bitch.”

Q: What’s the best cross country joke you’ve heard?

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A: Question: How many cross country runners does it take — I’m actually making this up right now — to destroy a golf course? Because that’s what happens in races. Answer: Not many. Ok, that was the worst joke ever. Not many, with spikes. Ok, maybe that wasn’t a joke — it was more of a riddle. A lot of our races are on golf courses, and we run on the fairway with quarter-inch spikes.

Senior golfer Patrick Wasserman, Oct. 12:

Q: Who is your quirkiest teammate?

A: I’m definitely the quirkiest on the team. My left-wing hippie tendencies often leave the rest of the team in laughter and/or scratching their heads.

Junior goalkeeper Max Gallin, Oct. 18:

Q: What do you like most about playing soccer?

A: What do I like about playing soccer? It’s fun. Especially from my position, it’s a sport in which you have a lot of individual responsibility, you have a lot of opportunity to really take control of the game. At the same time, you’re playing with 10 other guys and you have to work together to achieve a common goal. A forward would probably be like, “Yo, I’m just trying to score some goals and shit like that.” But I’m a goalie, so I don’t have to do any running.

Senior distance runner Peter Maag, Oct. 26:

Q: Do you have any strange pre-race rituals?

A: Anything I said here would pale in comparison to [junior] Peter Callahan’s rituals. The inside of that dude’s head is a scary place come race time.

Senior swimmer Colin Cordes, Nov. 9:

Q: What’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened during a race?

A: When I was younger, I got really nervous and thought I missed my race. I ended up jumping and swimming with the girls’ heat. I looked really ridiculous.

Senior squash player Clay Blackiston, Nov. 17:

Q: Do you like the vegetable squash?

A: No.

Q: Do you occasionally squash things?

A: Shut up.

Sophomore guard Chris Clement, Nov. 23:

Q: Can you dunk?

A: Nah. That’s one of the jokes on the team: “Go throw Chris an alley-oop.”

Junior wrestler Luis Ramos, Nov. 30:

Q: Does the wrestling team have any traditions?

A: We have a few, but because Public Safety may read this, I can’t disclose our unilluminating feats. We do, however, blast techno in the wrestling room. Coach thinks it sounds like power tools.

Senior swimmer Charley Wang, Dec. 7

Q: What’s the funniest story you have about your coach?

A: Early our freshman year, [head coach] Rob [Orr] had our assistant coach wrap him up in tin foil during one of our long course practices. He then ran around on deck yelling at us during a kick set. It was confusing as a freshman because we couldn’t figure out why anyone would do that.

Sophomore squash players Dylan Ward and Ash Egan, Dec. 14

Q: What’s your least favorite thing about squash?

Ash: Is that my name is in it. Everyone’s like, “Did you do that on purpose?” and I’m like, “No, I didn’t.”

Dylan: Oh! I just thought of that. That’s nice!