Need for speed

Ask senior defensive back Jay McCareins who is among the top five or six fastest guys on the football team are, and he'll give you a definite response.

"Me," he says.

But a few others might beg to differ.

Senior wide receiver Greg Fields has recorded the fastest 40-yard dash time, while junior wide receiver Brian Shields and sophomore quarterback Bill Foran also can each claim a set of wheels. And don't forget junior defensive back J.J. Artis, junior wide receiver Brian Brigham. There's also senior defensive back Derek Davis, who runs track in the spring with Shields.

"It really is an ongoing joke, as far as the five or six guys who are really fast," said McCareins, who readily acknowledges that he's not the only hare on the team.

The team's focus onspeed and endurance during preseason training has given the Tigers a competitive edge that has helped them to a 3-1 record to start the 2005 season.

As a team, the Tigers seem to have an improved stamina which carries them through the full four quarters. And individual competition only fuels Princeton's emphasis on speed.

Indeed, ranking the fastest players is a challenge — as Shields pointed out, all they have to judge speed on at this point are tapes from practices. He included Foran and Brigham in his short list of the speediest players. Foran had a similarly balanced assessment.

"Brian's had a lot of success in Ivy League track, and Greg looks pretty fast on Saturday, as does Jay," Foran said.

If nothing else, McCareins, who Foran described as an "elder statesman" of the team, has a solid place in the elite speed list. He described a key factor in his quickness: the attention to detail he pays to his form.

"I think it's that reinforcement of being efficient when you run — little things like hand placement, rotating your shoulders," McCareins said.

Training for speed

Every successful football team needs to have speed, and the Tigers do plenty of training and conditioning to make sure they have their legs under them by the time the season starts.

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During the off-season, the team does mostly speed training, including some track workouts. The speed training is often incorporated into basic agility-type training.

This year, the team also did some work with stretch bands in preseason training. Similar in consistency to surgical tubing, the band is wrapped around one man's waist as another holds the other end of the band about four yards away. It's effectively over-speed training, since the band pulls the runner forward faster than he would if running entirely under his own power.

Once the season begins, though, the training regimen changes.

"During the season, we don't really have time to do speed work because we're busy running plays and stuff like that," Shields said.

The reduced amount of speed training during the season mostly takes more specific forms, like running routes, form running and plyometrics, which harnesses explosive movements like hopping, jumping and bounding to develop muscular power.

Additionally, the team has started running sprints this year in the middle of practices as a form of conditioning to ensure that the team doesn't experience a drop-off in energy level in the fourth quarter. So far, it seems to have had a positive impact on the team's performance this season.

"In the past, we've lost a lot of games in the fourth quarter, but this year we're hanging on," Shields said.

Faster than ever?

It's always hard to gauge relative speed over the years, but with the addition of sprints to this year's practices, the team seems to be a bit quicker.

"I'd say we have a really fast team [this year]," Foran said. "Probably one of our strengths overall is our athletic ability and speed. I think historically we've always been kind of fast, [even though we] haven't always been the biggest."

While it's certainly a serious affair for these players and coaches, who dedicate an enormous amount of time and effort toward a successful season, there is always some lighthearted joking among players as to who can claim the title of fastest man.

"When you talk about running, it's like one-on-one in basketball — everyone says they can beat everyone," Foran said.

Except so far, only trash talking has been exchanged. Plans for the ultimate showdown have yet to be made.

"There's never been an actual, official race, because I don't think anyone wants to know the truth — it is me," McCareins said with a laugh.

But regardless of who the fastest man actually is, as several of the players pointed out, the team this year is pretty fast in general. This speed bodes well for the 2005 season, as long as there isn't a tortoise-and-the-hare-like repeat of last year's season.