SEASON PREVIEW: Penn ready to 'Sprint' to a repeat

The defending CSFL champion Penn sprint football team opens its 1999 season on Friday. On Friday, the Penn sprint football team travels to Ithaca, N.Y., to open its 1999 campaign against Cornell. Last fall, Penn won its second conference title in three years, posting the best record in school history (5-1, 3-1 CSFL). This year's team looks nearly as formidable as last year's squad. Penn returns 19 starters, including senior running back Tim Ortman, last year's Collegiate Sprint Football League Most Valuable Player, as well as 32 letterwinners in all. "We have a strong nucleus of players, both on offense and on defense," coach Bill Wagner said. "We have veterans returning at nearly every position and seven out of our 11 defensive starters from last year are back as well." In addition to Ortman, the team returns five CSFL first-team honorees, as well as four members of the second team and nine honorable mentions. "We have a good core of returners who know what it takes to win," junior wide receiver Robert Reeves said. "Everybody on this team expects to go undefeated -- anything short of that would be a major disappointment." These high expectations are shared by other team members, including senior linebacker Dave Klein. "We simply want to go out and win another championship," Klein said. In addition to garnering league MVP honors, Ortman also had a record-breaking year statistically. He set school records for rushing yards (1,108) and touchdowns (14) in a season, while becoming the Quakers' all-time leading rusher with 2,452 yards in just three seasons. Ortman also set the CSFL and Penn single-game rushing record with 262 yards at Navy and led the league with 172 rushing attempts. Ortman has been named one of four co-captains this year, sharing the honor with Klein, senior fullback Todd Hall and senior noseguard/fullback Steve Schickram. While the team feels confident about its prospects, the players also realize that they must improve upon last year's efforts if they want the CSFL trophy to remain in West Philadelphia. "We must realize that [the other conference] teams are shooting for Penn," Wagner said. In addition, Ortman said that "we will have to take bigger steps than we took last year" in order to retain the title. The incoming freshman class shows promise but also presents a unique challenge for Wagner. "There are a lot of new guys who need to get adjusted to life at Penn, not just life on the team," Wagner said. In order for the freshmen to adjust, Wagner will look to the veterans to help the younger players step up and perform. Wagner believes that the two biggest keys to success this season are overcoming the adjustment problems created by graduation and building depth at certain key positions. If the Quakers can overcome these depth and adjustment issues and can keep their core of players healthy for the duration of the season, the CSFL trophy should be staying where it belongs for at least one more year.