The Panhellenic Council came out to support the women's basketball team for their home opener last night -- but the cheering section was small at best.
At last night's women's basketball game against St. Joseph's, Panhel held a half-time event intended to bring the University's seven sororities together to support women's athletics.
Panhel provided each sorority with 100 tickets to the game and offered free tickets to freshmen women who signed up for recruitment, which formally begins in January.
But not nearly that many women showed up. Although attendance for the game was higher than last year's average crowd, only about 500 seats were filled in a stadium that holds over 8,000 people.
In fact, turnout from the sororities themselves was fairly low, and the crowd dwindled even further when a large portion of the sorority members left after the halftime festivities.
Members hope, however, that the low turnout will not detract from the ultimate goal of promoting women's sports.
"I wish more people had shown up, but I guess this is a busy time for students," said Ashley Alexander, Panhel's assistant vice president-elect of recruitment. "The event was still successful, though, and a lot of fun."
Since Penn women began competing in intercollegiate sports in the 1970s, it has been a widespread campus sentiment that women's sports events do not evoke the same student enthusiasm as their male counterparts.
The turnout for the women's basketball team is usually significantly smaller than that for the men's team, and other women's teams witness similar trends.
Last night's event was the third ever "Panhel at the Palestra," highlighted by a sorority tug-of-war at halftime.
However, this was the first event of its kind held at a women's basketball game, as the past two have taken place in the spring at men's basketball games.
Representatives from Panhel said that they had been in contact with the athletic department throughout the year. They held last night's event in an effort to take the initiative in supporting women's athletics.
"Supporting a women's team is something we've always wanted to do," said College senior Paige Donaldson, panhellenic council athletic chairwoman. "It was also just a good way for the sororities to get together and have some fun."
Alexander said that the Greek system needs to continue holding events to advocate women's athletics.
"It's important for us to come together and for women to support women," the College sophomore said. "Many people just don't realize how good our female athletes are. For example, the women's soccer team won the Ivy League championship, and barely anyone knew about it."
The basketball team was down by eighteen points at half-time, but that didn't put a damper on the sorority sisters' enthusiasm. While past tug-of-wars have been battles between houses, last night members from each sorority house joined together to form mixed teams for the event.
Donaldson said that national recruitment rules prevented the sisters from competing on behalf of their sororities. However, she said unifying the different sororities ended up being a positive experience.
"It was actually pretty cool for the girls from different houses to integrate and work together," she said.
