COLUMN: Quakers sports back on the map

From Josh Callahan's, "A View from the Porch" Beginning last Saturday and ending on Monday night, Penn students have more to see and cheer for than at any time in recent memory. Last Saturday the Quakers downed Harvard in football to grab a share of the Ivy title and Rita Garber qualified for the NCAA cross-country championships. Tuesday night saw a near-upset of No. 8 Kansas by the men's basketball team. This weekend football travels to Cornell for sole possession of the title while Franklin Field hosts the NCAA Field Hockey Championships and a celebration of 25 years of Ivy League women's athletics. Wrestling, squash and swimming open their home seasons as well. Monday night everyone heads back to the Palestra for a classic Philly matchup of Temple vs. Penn. Except for Garber that is, who hits the trail in Kansas for the NCAA title. Quite a course load, even for an Ivy League school. This is not a renaissance of 1994 when Penn won so often that in the fall of 1995 Sports Illustrated questioned our recruiting practices in its football preview issue. It is, however, a reminder of how much athletics matter at a sprawling university such as Penn. On the first day of class this fall, a management professor of mine spelled out an equation to show why he detested the use of war and sports analogies to describe business. War > Business > Sports. Why? People die in war and failed business crushes economies and general welfare, but sports are ultimately only a reenactment of the other two. For this University, however, war does not exist, except in the form of sports. In a school that is demographically divided and politically inactive, there are no common enemies, save other schools and occasionally the administration. How fitting, therefore, that these 10 days of sports overload began with students rising together against their two favorite villains -- another Ivy League school and our own University leaders. It is impossible to say, but there is a chance that a majority of undergraduate students saw part of the Harvard game. Another twenty-five hundred or so came out for the Kansas basketball game. Alumni will return en masse for this weekend's celebration. All of these people who spend their days searching for scientific truths, new management systems and the historical roots of society are gathering around to watch men and women throw balls around various playing fields. Why? Because despite all of our titles, schools and diversions, we all are handed the title of "Quaker." The action of sports is not as intoxicating as theatre, despite the comparisons of the two. What makes sports engaging for fans is the joining in song and chorus in competition against another. Why is soccer the world's No. 1 sport? Because fans have better songs to sing than at a track meet or cricket match. Do not deny being a Quaker this week. Embrace the one communal experience that this campus offers. Patriotism in any form has the potential to be viewed as trite in our cynical society. Why cheer or be proud when surely there are more pressing uses of our time? Better to rip the Penn band than to sing along with it. But it didn't seem so silly on the South Street bridge on Saturday or in the Palestra on Tuesday.