By Roscoe Nance, USA TODAYPrinceton traditionally fills its non-conference football dates with opponents from the Patriot League, the same as other Ivy League members, because of geography and similar academic philosophy.
Saturday the Tigers will set tradition aside when they host Hampton, the defending champ of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. It will be Princeton's first game against a historically black college or university and only the second time for an Ivy League school to play an HBCU. Yale defeated Morgan State 41-0 in 1984.
The historic meeting between Princeton (2-1) and Hampton (3-1) is part of Tigers athletics director Gary Walters' effort to add "some flavoring" to the defending Ivy League champ's non-conference schedule.
"In the Ivy League, we don't play in the postseason," Walters says. "As a result, we would like our student-athletes to have at least one game during their four years that takes place outside the region. That provides players with a cultural education experience they wouldn't have. We think that compensates for no postseason."
Princeton played San Diego in 2004 and 2005 and will play The Citadel next season. The Tigers play at Hampton in 2011.
Walters says the idea of playing an HBCU came to him during his tenure as chairman of the Division I men's basketball tournament committee. Hampton was one of the two or three HBCUs that he considered and the first he called because of quality of the university.
Hampton President William Harvey says the game is a natural, given the schools' academic and athletic reputations.
"Hampton is objectively recognized as having an outstanding academic program," Harvey says. "Princeton and other Ivy League schools are objectively recognized as having outstanding academic programs. Hampton is known in the last couple of decades as having an outstanding athletic program."
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