Tigering: Memoir of an Ivy League Mascot

One night the cheerleading coach and Kelly pulled me aside. Kelly said, "Next weekend are two big games, and we're expecting huge alumni crowds. Do you think you can come to both games? Well, we really, really need one more person for the spirit squad-" My brain overflowed. Nerdy, tomboyish me? In a short skirt, all dolled up, and trying something more acrobatic than hopping on one foot? I was set to explode with laughter when Kelly finished the sentence, "Someone to wear the Tiger costume-and you'd fit." That little favor turned into almost four years of hiding in the spotlight as the Princeton Tiger. The secret identity let the wearer do things nobody else would dare-and brought out pranks and dangerous rivalries I never expected would be part of my Ivy League experience.

Blanche left high school after her junior year to attend Princeton University, where she majored in economics. She has an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, where she met her husband. She is a freelance editor, writer, and ghost writer with a variety of clients. Her family splits its time between Arkansas, Virginia, Florida, and Uzbekistan. Blanche’s nearly four years as the Ivy League’s Princeton Tiger mascot were filled with the unexpected. When she left Gulf Breeze, Florida, she expected her Ivy League experience to be entirely academic. She never expected to become an ＂athlete＂ and most certainly not to become the mascot who seemed to draw pranks, fights, and silliness like a magnet.