Best seat in the house

When senior Catie Draper arrived at Princeton for her freshman year, fresh off an accomplished high school and club volleyball career, she expected to be a starter on the Princeton women's team. After all, Draper had always been the "goto" player, the team leader, the player who coaches asked for advice.

Little did she know the majority of her four years at Princeton would be spent the one place she had never been: on the bench.

"I remember asking when I was recruited if freshmen got to play," she recalls, her career now complete. "I just never considered being the player that would be sitting the bench for the whole season, let alone for the majority of four years."

Draper's story is not unique. For every Princeton athlete who carries his team at crunch time, there is one who only sees playing time when the outcome has been determined. For every athlete whose name graces the pages of the Princeton record books, there is one whose name is rarely mentioned.

While some of those unheralded Tigers, including Draper, were once heavily recruited, the majority of those who never see playing time were either lightly recruited or walk-ons.

But regardless of how they arrived at Princeton, all the benchwarmers still make the same sacrifices that their more successful teammates do, pushing themselves through brutal training regimens and missing out on academic, extracurricular and social opportunities.

Many observers would say it makes no sense.

To the athletes themselves, though, the rationale is simple: they love their sport, they love their teammates and they love the chance to compete.

A new role

A love of the game doesn't necessarily make sitting on the bench easy, though. For some reserves, self-doubt and emotional heartache become a large part of life as they struggle to come to terms with their new role.

Draper's athletic transition from high school to college was difficult. She admits her love of the game was questioned, at times, when things did not work out as she had expected them to in college.

While she says she was excited to begin each new season — "I would start each year hopeful that this year was the year I would get to play" — by the end of another year on the bench, she often found herself disenchanted with the sport.

Still, she didn't quit.

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"That would have been the wrong reason to quit, just because I wasn't getting playing time," Draper says. "Being a part of Princeton's volleyball team has taught me far more than volleyball skill. I wouldn't give up my time on the team for anything."

Draper's disappointment represents one end of the spectrum. Many Tiger benchwarmers came to Princeton without any expectations of stardom, an attitude which, not surprisingly, seems to make it easier for them to accept a role outside the spotlight.

Senior basketball player Jon Berger, sophomore lacrosse player Dan Brown and sophomore cross-country runner Monica Wojcik all fall into the latter category. Each came to Princeton for reasons other than athletics, knowing full well that they would likely never see significant playing time for the Orange and Black.

Brown, a star on his high school team that won a league championship in the lacrosse hotbed of Syracuse, N.Y., describes his high school career as being one in which he was the "team leader" who was "depended on to score." He was recruited by several less prestigious schools — both athletically and academically — but decided to attend Princeton for his love of aspects of the school other than lacrosse.

"I love lacrosse," he says, "I love the competitiveness of the game — the speed, its physical components. Sometimes, I guess you wonder what else you could be doing [in all those hours spent at the field], but quite honestly, I'd rather be playing lacrosse."

For Wojcik, coming to Princeton was also not about her sport. The best runner on her high school team in Brookline, Mass., she briefly considered Harvard and MIT — two schools where she would have been a more significant team contributor — before deciding on Princeton.

"I didn't come here to feel good about myself running-wise," she says. "I wouldn't go to Harvard or MIT and trade the Princeton experience for anything, even if I would be one of the faster runners on the team there."

Because of the essentially individual nature of her sport, Wojcik still participates in many meets but rarely factors into the team outcome.

"I keep running because I've been doing it for so long," she says. "I can't imagine not doing a sport competitively — there's such an emotional payback when you run a good race."

Berger arrived at Princeton with even lower athletic expectations. An outstanding three-sport athlete at Radnor High School in suburban Philadelphia — he was a state finalist in tennis and finished second in the league golf championship — he never considered basketball his best sport, though it was his favorite. Describing himself as a "solid" high school basketball player, Berger admits he wasn't even the best player on his team.

"I didn't even consider playing basketball in college when I applied," the lanky, six-foot, two-inch Berger says. "I mean, basketball was probably my third best sport in high school, but when I got here, I tried out for the JV team and made it."

As a sophomore, Berger made the rather unexpected jump to Varsity.

"I guess my timing was just right," he says. "There were some injuries on the team and I had been around for summer camp, so I guess Coach [John] Thompson ['88] saw me play. I've just stuck around ever since."

It was Berger's work ethic that caught Thompson's attention. He quickly became a favorite of the former head coach, who left Princeton to take over the Georgetown program last April, and earned the Paul Richard Friedman Memorial Award for hard work.

Scout team star

Indeed, hard work is the key part of a reserve's role. In team sports, benchwarmers are expected to push the starters in practice.

In Berger's case, that means leading the Tigers' "white" scout team that is charged with mimicking upcoming opponents' offensive and defensive sets.

"I would say I'm captain of the practice team," he says with a laugh.

Berger is quick to point out that he, too, improves from the practice sessions, thanks to the opportunity to go head-to-head with stars like senior guard Will Venable and senior center Judson Wallace.

"How often do you get to play against players like Will and Judson? And here I am, playing against them," Berger says. "If I wasn't on the Princeton varsity team, I would still be playing at Dillon every day — and not against nearly the same level of competition."

Brown feels the same way toward the men's lacrosse team, a squad which regularly contends for the national championship.

"I would much rather be a member of Princeton's team and not play than be a star player for a rinky dink team that doesn't really do much," he says. "It's like we're all working towards a common goal: winning the National Championship. I can push those guys on the field every day in workout to help achieve that goal."

Draper, too, talks fondly of the life lessons she learned from her teammates and the joy of pushing one another to improve.

In the more individual sport of running, on the other hand, it's harder for lesser athletes to push the stars.

"They [the cross-country team's stars] are physically much faster," Wojcik says, "so it isn't as if I go with them on their runs and push them to be better runners."

She does believe, however, that her work in practice contributes to the track team's unity, as each individual member pushes the rest of her teammates.

"It's exciting to be part of such a fast team," she says. "Sure, I could just go running around campus on my own time. But training with people around your own ability is what really makes my experience on the team great."

Ultimately, despite not directly contributing to the points scored during competitions, Berger, Brown, Draper and Wojcik's all have valued roles on their respective teams, both in their teammates' minds and in their own.

Perhaps the greatest reason they choose to continue their athletic careers, even when their days of stardom have passed, is that they continue to make lifelong memories.

"I've thought about not playing," Berger says. "But I really would regret giving up Princeton varsity basketball. It's funny because it's probably the thing that I'm most mediocre at here, but it's also the thing I'll remember the most."