Jason Bodnar: These Quakers said it best

I'm not the one you want to talk to. Not any more.

But for the past 12 months, I guess I have been. As senior sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian, part of my job has been dealing with you, the readers of the sports section -- listening to your story ideas, hearing your complaints, accepting your praise.

Now, that job has come to a close. My name will still be listed on the page six masthead until January, but come Monday, following the election of the 118th Board of Editors and Managers, the sports section of the DP will be run by someone else.

So I figured I should write some sort of goodbye column. And I am. But I'm not going to load you up with anything sappy or sentimental.

I'm not the one you want to talk to, and I'm also not the one you want to listen to.

But I'll leave you with a list of people you do want to listen to. I spent hours searching through back issues from the last year, and I came up with a list of 29 of the best quotes, one from each sport.

These quotes are funny, poignant, daring or just plain weird. So laugh, cry or marvel. And if you want, send me an e-mail (jabodnar@sas.upenn.edu) and cast a vote for your favorite.

But don't feel obligated -- I'm not the one you want to talk to.

Baseball: "We've got some boo-boos out there." That was coach Bob Seddon's assessment of his team's health before a game in April.

Men's Basketball: "I was in Southwest Philadelphia, at 1218 South Ruby Street, probably watching nothing, because we had no TV. I was probably listening to the Shadow or the Lone Ranger or something." The year was 1951, and this was what coach Fran Dunphy, then two years old, was doing the last time Penn beat Georgia Tech prior to last week.

Women's Basketball: "This is all we ever wanted for the program." Diana Caramanico was pretty emotional when Penn clinched the Ivy title.

Heavyweight Crew: "It's very difficult to lose no matter who the opponent is. But Princeton always makes it worse." Hobie Stuart wasn't happy with second place in the Childs Cup, because the Tigers were first.

Lightweight Crew: "We're dying for a win." Bruce Konopka said this in April, but he had to wait until October for that victory.

Women's Crew: "We can definitely turn some heads if we put our hearts into it." Laura Hamm assessed her boat's chances in NCAAs.

Men's Fencing: "We can't lie down in our bed of roses yet. We've still got Columbia." Yaron Roth's team just upset Princeton, but the Quakers were forced into a three-way tie for the Ivy crown after the Lions topped the Quakers.

Women's Fencing: "This is Penn. We win." Coach Dave Micahnik kept it simple.

Field Hockey: "We're all pretty pissed off after last year." Coach Val Cloud said it in the preseason, and the Quakers proved how mad they were, following up a winless Ivy season with a 4-3 one.

Football: "I ain't proud. Shit, I'll take a piece of the pie. I'll be co-champs." If Penn beat Cornell (did happen) and Yale beat Harvard (didn't happen), the Quakers and Crimson would have shared the Ivy title. Penn wasn't so lucky, but Steve Moroney wouldn't have minded if it were.

Sprint Football: "'He's probably the only football player whose sack dance consists of pom-poms and throwing people in the air.'" Doug Pines heard his teammates saying this about cheerleader/defensive lineman Hasani Sinclair.

Men's Golf: "The course... will have ungulated, cliffed-off greens." Chad Perman got the word 'ungulated' into the DP.

Women's Golf: "I almost hope for bad conditions, because then we have to go out there and play through it." Rachel Slosburg isn't afraid of a little rain.

Gymnastics: "She was a very individualistic person. Because she knew she was transferring, she didn't seem to care how the team did, just how she did individually." Kelly Haberer didn't exactly have kind words for Anna Wilson, a freshman who set all sorts of records at Penn but transferred to North Carolina.

Men's Lacrosse: "I call them fire and ice." Scott and Adam Solow's father said this.

Women's Lacrosse: "She's a really, really good dancer, too. How cool would it be if you were like, 'On and off the field, she's got the moves.'" Jayme Munnelly tried to give the DP some editorial suggestions in a feature on her roommate Kate Murray.

Men's Soccer: "He's a gentle giant." That's how Joe Klein described 6-foot-4 keeper Matt Haefner.

Women's Soccer: "I was like, 'Katy, can I marry you?'" That was Sabrina Fenton's reaction after Katy Cross scored three goals in a victory over Harvard.

Softball: "Tutachucheza wachezo wa softball wikiendi hii." Becky Ranta knows her Swahili, but she isn't such a good prognosticator. The translation of this phrase is, "we will win the softball games this weekend," and Penn went 2-2.

Men's Squash: "Ivy matches are the ones that guys are willing to spill blood for." Coach Craig Thorpe-Clark's observation.

Women's Squash: "I haven't started practicing yet. I did get some new temporary teeth." Dafna Wegner broke three of her front teeth in a Howe Cup match.

Men's Swimming: "Our bald guys came through for us." Coach Mike Schnur credited his team's first win over Navy in a decade to a half-dozen swimmers who shaved their heads.

Women's Swimming: "Once they stopped crying, they did very well." Schnur's three seniors from last season led Penn to a victory over Dartmouth in their final home meet, after a tearful pre-meet ceremony.

Men's Tennis: "You don't see a lot of collegiate teams rolling up in a van with eight dudes and no coach." Rob Pringle knew coachless Penn was in a weird situation in the fall of 2000.

Women's Tennis: "The beauty of this tournament is that... anyone can beat anyone else on any given day." Coach Michael Dowd was right, as the next day, Alice Pirsu upset the No. 5 player in the nation in NCAAs.

Men's Track/Cross Country: "Who brings a band to a track meet?" Cornell did, in April, and this was Sam Burley's reaction.

Women's Track/Cross Country: "It's always exciting to have foreigners around." Assistant coach Tony Tenisci was pumped when Penn hosted Oxford and Cambridge in April.

Volleyball: "It just makes it that much sweeter that we beat them, because that's the only thing that's going to shut them up." As Jodie Antypas noted, the Tigers crowd was rude back in October, when Penn beat Princeton for the first time since 1993.

Wrestling: "Paper doesn't wrestle. Athletes have to go out there and wrestle." Coach Roger Reina, dismissing any 'Penn should win, on paper' claims.

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