A FRONT ROW VIEW: Bring back all the antics

I guess I should consider myself lucky, at least that's what the juniors and seniors tell me. You see, I have it better than they did when they were scrawny, immature freshmen like me. With a basketball team I have never seen lose an Ivy League game, I certainly entered Penn at just the right time, or at least that's what they tell me. Nevertheless, I'm still not content. Lately, my Palestra experiences have been slightly less than fulfilling. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the games themselves, I just miss all the hoopla associated with Penn football. You have to understand why I'm spoiled. During football season, I became accustomed to the nonstop entertainment. During basketball season, I feel like I'm watching a dull version of the Harlem Globetrotters, with the part of the Washington Senators being played by such basketball powerhouses as Haverford, Lafayette and perennial Final Four candidate Yale. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind watching Penn destroy the schools which I have learned to hate in my semester and a half as a Quaker. It's just that I miss the taunting, jeering and general unsportsmanlike behavior we gloriously exhibited during football season. After all, what's the point of having Princeton as a rival if we don't join together to annoy their players. Halftimes at the Palestra cannot even compare to those at Franklin Field. During football season, we listened to that funny little guy with the nasal voice ruthlessly degrade the opposing teams over the loudspeaker while the Penn band members ran around like headless chickens carrying clarinets. Now, I have to sit and watch a series of semi-coordinated fraternity brothers challenge each other as to who can make more free throws in 30 seconds –– the glorious victor usually making a whopping two baskets. OK, so maybe I could overlook the lack of halftime entertainment if all the other crowd antics carried over to basketball season. Where are the songs, laced with profanity, that detail the execution of the president of the Confederacy? Maybe they sing it, but it doesn't have the same effect without telling the other team to go engage in sexual intercourse with themselves after we score. Speaking of irritating songs that drive the visiting teams crazy, who can forget the toast and that neat little "Highball" tune that accompanies it? What's the point of having a Penn athletic event without the challenge of trying to peg the Quaker mascot from point-blank range with a piece of moldy bread? Don't try and say you never tried to pelt him, one of the cheerleaders or the fat bald guy who runs the toast picker-upper. But then again, maybe I'm just an immature freshman and shouldn't speak for all of you well-mannered upperclassmen. But then again, didn't you sophisticated juniors and seniors initiate the rush onto Franklin Field on two occasions when hundreds of the nation's top future businessmen, doctors and lawyers were hanging from the goalposts like starved monkeys? I truly enjoyed watching the spectacle from the field, but when during basketball season are all 8,000 of us going to rush the court, pull the baskets out of the ground and throw them in the Schuylkill? Whether or not the Penn student body decides to join together to vandalize the Palestra, we should instill some of our glorious football traditions into our basketball season. After all, we always know who's going to win a Penn basketball game even before we wake from our drunken stupor of the night before. So why don't we spend a little more time taunting the other team's players and fans, like we do so well at football games. To all of you upperclassmen out there, I know you had it rough, way back when, during your freshman year. In fact, a few of you (I won't mention any of your names and thus endanger your chances of getting jobs at whatever Wall Street company you applied to) have tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Back when I was a freshman, we never had the fun of seeing Penn win any games." But in a few years, I want to be able to pull some clueless first-year student (like I currently am) and tell him, "Back when I was a freshman, we never had the fun of drilling that annoying Princeton Tiger with entire loaves of stale Wonder Bread." Jason Brenner is a College freshman from Baltimore, Md., and a sportswriter for The Daily Pennsylvanian.