COLUMN: A two-day walk in the dark

From Kent Malmros', "The Mark of a Golden Penn" But, more importantly, people would have known. People would have been there to see it, and they would have been there to experience it. Instead, the Penn sprint football team didn't even know they were Collegiate Sprint Football League champions when Navy had defeated Army 24-21 on Sunday -- they already thought it was over. When the sprint football team left Franklin Field on Friday, it knew only three things -- a 34-6 victory over Princeton, a 5-1 record and nearly 48 hours to wait and see if Navy could score enough on Army's stingy defense to bring the Quakers a share of the title. A loss to the Cadets (5-0 entering the game) the week before made them innocent bystanders for the weekend -- they had lost control of their own title hopes. So they went to the game Saturday and cheered for their fatter football brethren and waited. "When the game was over and we had beaten Princeton, I circled them up and told them, 'Hey look, it's not over anything can happen,'" Penn sprint football coach Bill Wagner said. "But, I think our kids just figured it was over." A title is a title, and no one can take that away from the thinner Quakers. But one thing became very clear on Saturday. When the football team dismantled Harvard, 41-10, they made sure people would care, and they took control of their own destiny. They don't have to wait on any one, and even if they lose next week, the 14,000 Penn fans will never forget last Saturday. A tie would be just a side note -- maybe a disappointing side note -- but just a side note because the goal posts are already in the river. The title was in their hands. · "I thought there was at least a 50/50 chance that Navy could beat them, and I just tried to tell our kids to keep faith and the hope, and remember that we had to take care of Princeton before we could do anything," Wagner said. They took care of Princeton without any problems. Sprint running back Tim Ortman went out and sealed his league MVP award. The junior rushed the ball 20 times for 160 yards, including a 76-yard touchdown dash. But when the lights at Franklin Field went off, the teams accomplishments lingered in the shadow of the previous week's loss. "It's a difficult situation. However, I probably had a little more faith in fact that Navy had a shot at beating Army than our team did," Wagner said. But, the fact is that they had no control, and maybe lost a little faith. When Joe Piela and Jim Finn left the field the next day, and walked down Spruce Street with goal posts following them, their waiting was over . "Our fatboy team is going up to Cornell and they are going to have a physical game up there. They should pound them and beat them," Wagner said. But they won't have to wait by the phones. The task at hand will be to defeat the Big Red, to ensure the title will be for one team only. · The Penn football team still has work to do. But no matter the outcome of the game in Ithaca, they won the championship at home in front of 14,000 people -- no doubts and no asterisks. And while no one can take away the Sprint football team's title, ask them what they would have preferred. They walked the goal posts down to the river with the fatboys, and found out about their title on the phone the next night.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.