COLUMN: Wagner's triumph justifies 25 years of toil

Commentary: Mike Hasday Commentary: Mike HasdayAfter overcoming adversity, the Lwt. Football coach savors his first league title. In the past two years, DP sports has lost one writer and nearly lost another to Wagner's recruiting method, which is, to the best of my knowledge, unique in Quakers varsity sports. With that kind of recruiting system, one would expect that the team would be, pardon the pun, taken lightly. And for 25 years under the helm of Wagner, the lightweight squad conformed to expectations, as Wagner's troops have gone 25-121-3 coming into this season. This year appeared to be no different. Last season, Penn's top two quarterbacks informed Wagner they would not suit up this year. So the team relied on senior linebacker Matt Veneri, who last played quarterback in high school, to take over at signal caller. And several of the Quakers' top players could not make weight, even though the weight limit was moved from 159 to 165 this year. Before the season began, the team's lockers were broken into, and their money and valuables were stolen. Penn quickly upped the squad's security after the incident, but the damage was already done. Despite the adversity, Penn persevered. It took three of its first four games, easing by Princeton and twice past Cornell. On the flip side, the Quakers were also pounded by Navy, 51-14, but that was expected as Penn nearly always loses to the service academies. But when the Quakers played Army on homecoming weekend -- expected to play the role of Iraq in Desert Storm -- they took advantage of the Cadets' four turnovers and eked out a 16-13 win. The victory was the first time the Quakers had beaten Army since 1969; Wagner said at the time it was the biggest win in his reign as coach. And in a season of bad breaks, Penn finally got a good one: Navy was upset by Army last Friday, giving both service academies, along with Penn, just one loss in the Eastern Lightweight Football League. After clobbering Princeton, 46-14, in the season finale, the Quakers captured a share of the ELFL title. The last time that happened, Army and Navy got so upset that they fought in World War II to save the free world the following year (Maybe the cause-effect relationship is a bit inaccurate). When asked to describe his emotion after the final game, Wagner, who is beloved by his players, said that the emotions that came out of him "represented all those years that we struggled and lost to those teams." A realist, though, Wagner knows that despite this year's success, lightweight football will remain at the bottom of the Penn athletic hierarchy. The team will always get kicked off Franklin Field for field hockey practice and given last choice in times to schedule games. That is probably the way it should be. Lightweight football, in the age of Title IX, should feel fortunate to just get varsity status at Penn, while ice hockey -- which would be one of the most popular sports on campus if played at the varsity level -- remains a club sport. And after all, there is no basketball team for short players. But Wagner, who is also the pitching coach for the Penn baseball team, repeatedly stresses the following point. His players work just as hard as those on the baseball team or the "big guys" on "heavy football," even if they do not receive the same glory.