Town & Gown: University draws local athletes

These students, many of whom are from Princeton High School (PHS) and the nearby Lawrenceville School, come to the University to play a wide variety of sports. Though all come from central New Jersey, their experiences have been fairly varied.

Some of them — like Doug Davis, the star freshman men’s basketball point guard from the Hun School of Princeton, or Antoine Hoppenot, a freshman men’s soccer midfielder from the Princeton Day School — started playing from day one as highly touted recruits. Others, like senior football punter Ryan Coyle from Lawrenceville, were walk-ons to their respective teams.

“I had been recruited by some other Division I schools, so I had the talent to play — I just didn’t really pursue it here,” Coyle said. “I kind of wanted to get away, so I didn’t put much effort to getting recruited at Princeton. When I was accepted, I sent my recruiting video in and joined the team.”

The theme of initially wanting to avoid going to school nearby is a common one.

“I never intended on coming here, just because it was right in my back yard,” freshman field hockey player May-Ying Medalia said. “But the coaching staff and the team were obviously really good, and I had gone to all of the Princeton camps when I was younger.”

Medalia, who went to PHS, emphasized that she had other options for college but added that the lure of Princeton was simply too strong.

“It just turned out that this was the place where I felt most comfortable and compatible,” Medalia said.

Tyler Moni, a sophomore men’s lacrosse midfielder who also attended PHS, explained that he was choosing between Princeton, Harvard or Yale. Despite what might seem like tough competition from the institutions in Cambridge and New Haven, Moni’s top choice was Princeton.

“I grew up watching the lacrosse here and seeing all the students around. So when Princeton became an option, I jumped on the opportunity,” he said.

Moni’s situation is similar to that of Morgan Dever, a junior rower. Dever said that she always knew she wanted to come to Princeton, even before she began rowing.

“I started rowing my freshman year of high school,” she said. “Princeton happened to have one of the top crew programs, and everything started to fall into place.”

For many locals, the transition to campus hasn’t been too rough, as several of them said they felt Princeton’s presence throughout high school.

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Moni explained that when he was down the road at PHS, Princeton coaches sometimes would show up to his games, and that his team would go watch the Tigers’ games at Class of 1952 Stadium after its own games were done.

Now, he said, his high school coaches come watch him play in college, as do members of younger PHS classes.

Dever also explained that her transition to Princeton was a smooth one.

“The rowing world is pretty small, in that the national team even rows out of the Princeton boathouse. I knew who those girls were and who the coaches were,” she said. “[Being nearby] helped, in the sense that I was able to come talk to the coach whenever I needed to or come see a race.”

Dever added that now she occasionally goes back to watch the Lawrenceville crew teams compete and that she still keeps in touch with some of her coaches.

Medalia, who added that she could bike home if she needed to, was in downtown Princeton nearly every day in high school but “only came on campus a few times per month.” While in high school, Medalia would often watch the girls who are now her teammates during their games.

None of these players treated the transition as anything extraordinary.

“Since I lived so close to Princeton,” Coyle said, “I am very familiar with the school, and I didn’t feel like I needed to visit it. I didn’t come to [April Hosting] because I had a golf tournament.”

The stories of Coyle, Medalia, Moni and Dever are fairly common as far as local athletes go. Some are a little more exciting, like the saga of Luke Armour’s journey to Princeton.

Armour, currently a senior at Lawrenceville, will play lacrosse as a Tiger next year. He said that from roughly day one of his lacrosse career, he knew he wanted to go to Princeton.

“I grew up in Montclair, N.J., which is about an hour north of Princeton. Growing up, my parents would always take me to the Princeton campus and the area, and we went to all the sporting events,” Armour said. “Even though my dad went to Penn and my mom went to school in Boston … there are lots of pictures of me, at a very young age, wearing all Princeton gear.”

Armour explained that when he was in fifth grade, he became the official ballboy for the New Jersey Pride, a professional lacrosse team.

“I ended up loving it so much that I continued until eighth grade,” he said. “I was basically a team mascot.”

What makes this story remarkable, however, is that the Pride was largely populated by Princeton lacrosse legends at that time.

“During those years, the players on the team were Jesse Hubbard ’98, John Hess ’98, Christian Cook ’98, Trevor Tierney ’01 and Rob Torti ’01, amongst other Princeton grads. What really made me ‘all about Princeton’ was how amazing they were as mentors to me,” Armour said, rattling off the respective class years. “I was greatly influenced by them, and it was mostly because I looked up to all of them so much. To this day, I keep in touch with them, and they’ve given me counsel and guidance over the years.”

“It’s a funny thing we joke about with the Princeton coaches, that they would often see this little chubby kid getting hit by Jesse Hubbard’s shots, and [that was me],” Armour added.

Hubbard was Armour’s “direct mentor, like my idol,” and that while Armour was a ballboy, if Hubbard would use one kind of stick, Armour would go home and buy that kind the same day.

The older Tigers’ warmth is what really drew Armour to Princeton.

“They were the ones on the team who were the most friendly and most upbeat and the most receptive to this little kid who was running around asking them thousands of questions,” he said. “Every day, I would say, ‘That’s what I want to be like, like those guys who went through the Princeton program.’ The culture of the Princeton program is so phenomenal, and it produces such great people.”

Armour said he chose to go to Lawrenceville because of its strong ties to Princeton and that he anticipates maintaining his connection to his high school in college.

“I’m excited about being able to stay close to friends of mine and faculty members at Lawrenceville. I know they’ll come to my games, and it’ll be exciting,” he said.

Moni, Armour’s soon-to-be teammate, also pointed out some of the more superficial positives of going to school so close to home.

“Now that I’m here, I have no regrets,” he said. “My mom does my laundry.”