Wrestling alumni to receive honors

Among the Penn alumni who will make a Homecoming trek back to campus this weekend will be two Quakers wrestlers with a little bit of extra hardware in their luggage. Brandon Slay, the 1998 Penn graduate who will soon be crowned as an Olympic gold medalist, and Brett Matter, a 2000 Penn graduate and reigning NCAA champion, will headline events sponsored by the Quakers wrestling team this weekend. "They're both excited to be coming back," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "We definitely have a lot to celebrate." Reina's grapplers, who finished ninth at the 1999 NCAA Championships and are ranked No. 15 in a preseason poll published by Amateur Wrestling News, kick off their official season on November 18 at the Palestra with the Keystone Classic, but will get in some early action at this Friday's Alumni Homecoming Meet. Then, during halftime of the Penn-Harvard football game, all of the Quakers will be honored for their 1999-2000 Ivy Championship season. In addition, both Slay and Matter will walk out onto the field to receive recognition for their achievements. Slay, who finished second in the 167.5-pound weight class at the Olympics in Sydney, will soon have his silver medal upgraded to gold. His finals opponent in Sydney, Alexander Leipold of Germany, has been stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for steroids, but Slay will not have yet received his new award when he visits campus this weekend. According to Reina, Slay may be crowned with his new medal during the middle of next week on NBC's Today Show, but no official announcement has been made. Friday's alumni meet, which will pit eight recent grads against current members of the Red and Blue, will get underway at 8 p.m. at Hutchinson Gymnasium and is open to the public. The alumni squad, which will be led by honorary captain and former Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity -- who wrestled as an undergraduate at MIT -- will square off against veteran grapplers, as well as members of what may be the most talented recruiting class in Penn history. The Quakers' freshman class is ranked as the fourth best in the nation according to AWN. The meet will be followed by a reception for the alumni, family and friends of the wrestling program. The wrestling team will not be the only Penn squad honored at the football game on Saturday. The women's squash team, the men's basketball team and the gymnastics team -- all of which won Ivy League titles last season -- will march onto Franklin Field's turf to hear the applause of the crowd and to shake hands with President Judith Rodin and Athletic Director Steve Bilsky.

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