COLUMN: Switch to Ivies was not easy

Scott Miller, Commentary Penn is associated with two calibers of football: the nationally ranked, top crowd-drawing teams of the post-World War II decade and the Ivy League years, characterized by relatively sub-standard play to compliment the already-existing high academic standards. This change was not a gradual transformation; in fact, the two bumped heads, and the effects would be felt immediately. That effect was felt more at Penn and Cornell than any other schools which would sign the Ivy Group agreement in October 1954. Penn was not affiliated with any conference before the signing of the agreement, despite having a respectable history of playing the teams that now call themselves members of the Ivy League. In addition, the Quakers offered athletic scholarships galore, and, in return, became one of the top football schools in the nation, benefitting greatly from players returning from military service. Penn's greatest coach, George Munger, led his charges every Saturday, and Penn found itself playing top-ranked teams, including Penn State, Notre Dame, Army, Navy and Wisconsin. From 1953-55, the three seasons before Ivy League play officially began, the Quakers found it so easy to attract top-notch teams that it was unnecessary to schedule non-scholarship schools such as Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown. During those three years, only Cornell (the only other would-be Ivy school to offer scholarships) and Princeton represented the Ancient Eight on the Penn schedule. One year, Penn even paid Brown $25,000 to get the Bears off its schedule. Things seemed to be going great, but then-Athletic Director Jerry Ford -- the man in charge of the department when University President Gaylord Harnwell signed the Ivy Group agreement -- saw problems on the horizon. Penn couldn't keep up with the high costs of running such a program. Despite enormously high attendance levels, the scholarships and program fees added up, while a lack of a long-standing tradition kept incoming funds down. Penn also had a high level of academic integrity it felt it had to maintain. Ignoring the other now-Ivy schools on the schedule dissociated Penn from those schools. And, as the agreement was in the works, those schools expressed fears of including Penn, even though the idea was essentially spearheaded by Ford himself. Armed with the desire to continue to be associated with top academic schools and the financial monstrosity of the football program, Ford took his case to Harnwell, who was easily convinced. Penn took its case to the other seven schools, but found itself having to convince the others that it would uphold the Ivy standards. The other seven felt the Quakers would try to bend the rules. In retaliation, Penn shaped its image as "Ivier than Ivy" in an effort to prove its intentions. The agreement was signed in 1954. In 1956, Ivy League play formally began. Munger and his staff immediately stepped down, and, as a result, the Quakers lost a year of recruiting. "We graduated 90 percent of our players, yet we were forced to give up big-time football," Munger said at the time. New coach Steve Sebo came in, heralding Penn as "the Notre Dame of the East Coast." But that would be far from the truth. In 1954, Penn went 0-9. The next year, it went 0-9 again. In 1956, with a full Ivy League round-robin schedule, Penn finally chalked up some victories, going 4-5 on the season, which featured lesser competition from the Ivy schools. Except for Cornell, the other schools had a much easier time with the transition. They did not have to cope with the loss of scholarships or the loss of their coaching staffs. What made it even worse for Penn were the top-ranked teams that lingered on the Quakers' schedule, all arranged before Penn showed signs of accepting the dramatic change. In 1959, would-be Patriot League teams began showing up on the schedule. In 1968, the Quakers would post their first winning season since the birth of the Ivy League. In 1997, the winds of change may have died down, but the results are everlasting.