(This article appeared in the 4/5/04 joke issue)In football, there's "The Catch," "The Drive," "The Play" and, above all, "The Urinal."
Under the north stands of Franklin Field rests what many consider college sports' most famous restroom, featuring the world-renowned three-walled toilet.
When Penn decided to build a football stadium in 1922, it commissioned famed urinal architect Dan Rabin to design a urinal that "would uphold the truest virtues of Benjamin Franklin."
Rabin could not be reached for comment, because he is dead; however, his memoirs reveal that he went mad trying to design the perfect piece of porcelain.
His earliest design sketches varied in shape and size.
He experimented with the four-walled urinal, only to discover that he would be trapped inside.
Convinced that he could not design the perfect urinal, Rabin traveled to Niagara Falls, committed to heaving his body over the edge in total despair.
But, as he was about to plummet into the abyss, an idea popped into his head: design the urinal like a three-sided waterfall.
Rabin then proceeded to drop to his death.
Luckily, though, he yelled out his idea as he fell, and several hundred tourists heard.
The University completed Rabin's work in 1925.
The Urinal has seen its fair share of celebrities in its time.
Former presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter all relieved themselves at the famed toilet.
But, according to University Archivist Mark Frazier Lloyd, former First Lady Barbara Bush attempted to "sneak in and pop a squat" at the urinal when she spoke at commencement in 1990.
Politicians are not the only famous people who have made visits to the lauded lavatory.
When U2 played at Franklin Field in 1997, Bono is said to have been so enamored by the urinal that he volunteered to come back several years later to speak at commencement.
"You know that song I wrote -- The Sweetest Thing?" Bono said. "It was how I felt peeing at Franklin Field. I can't wait to come back and pee again."
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