COLUMN: Fans can't watch top two tall sports

Josh Callahan, Commentary While Penn's football team was rolling over Brown on Franklin Field last Saturday, the women's soccer team was recording another record-setting win by beating the Bears 2-0 and the men's soccer team was flailing towards another heartbreaking loss. Quakers students and their parents were forced to choose between soccer and football, and, not surprisingly, most chose football despite the $20 ticket price for parents. Even with the women's soccer team in the Ivy League hunt, football is going to have a bigger fan base. Besides, the distant trek to Rhodes Field is enough to deter all but the heartiest of soccer fans. What is surprising, however, is that both soccer coaches prefer the way their schedules are laid out. According to Associate Athletic Director D. Elton Cochran-Fikes, about three years ago the task of scheduling was transferred from the Athletic Department administration to the coaches themselves, and the soccer coaches have been using it to their full advantage since then. Women's coach Patrick Baker specifically moved his starting times back an hour -- from 11 a.m. to noon-- because he felt his players would be more ready to play if they had an extra hour in the morning before they needed to be at the field. According to Baker, the start times might be part of the reason why the Quakers are undefeated at home -- having given up only a single tally while recording 22 of their own. Penn's men's coach, George O'Neill, also said he has no complaints with this year's scheduling, although his afternoon start times are not paying dividends the way Baker's are. If anything, O'Neill said, he'd like to play Tuesday and Friday nights, but realizes that without lights on Rhodes Field, that it's not a possibility at this time. The administration wishes it could create an opportunity for fans to see all the Penn teams without overlapping schedules, but Fikes said that it would be unfair to make teams start play early enough in the morning to make it possible. The administration's wishes for less conflicting start times are well known by Baker, but he said that he isn't really concerned and wants to do what's best for his team. One has to question where the fan ends up in this equation. Simply put, both soccer coaches and the administration have made it clear that their teams' needs supercede the ability of the student body to see them play. Few students are likely to make the journey down to Rhodes Field if they can stop halfway and get a more comfortable seat watching football at Franklin Field. Baker doesn't see a lot of crossover between his fan base and football's, but by playing opposite football, he deprives his team of potentially building more of a following, something his team richly deserves after their stunningly successful season. A solution may be on the horizon with the $225,000 project to build permanent stands and lights at Rhodes Field. This would give the teams' the chance to play early evening games on Friday or Saturday night, although many Friday nights are already filled by lightweight football or field hockey contests. The project currently has collected $125,000 through a donation from Jeff Rhodes -- whose name already adorns the field -- and there is a possibility that Rhodes will donate the other $100,000 when he visits campus during Homecoming weekend in two weeks. It is unfortunate that students have to choose between what are arguably the two best fall sports at Penn -- and it's even more unfortunate that most students always choose to attend football -- but until Rhodes Field picks itself up and moves itself closer to campus, Baker and O'Neill are justified in putting their teams' needs ahead of the fans. Because the fans aren't paying them enough attention to warrant consideration.