There are reasons I didn't apply to Dartmouth.
Actually, four of the reasons are found on Pattison Avenue, as the Eagles, Phillies, Flyers and 76ers all call the same square mile home.
But Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are home to much more than those four teams, and it was with this thought that "Levine on the Scene" was born.
In the coming months, I will be taking you on a tour of Greater Philadelphia sports, from the mainstream Eagles to the lesser-known Camden Riversharks and everywhere in between.
Each week, I will report back from a different scene with two goals in mind.
The first, from a purely journalistic standpoint, is to inform the student population of developments in area sports. After all, whether you have lived in the Delaware Valley for your whole life, or you have arrived as a freshman last week, this is your hometown at least eight months of the year.
The second, and more meaningful to me, is to expose Penn students to new options in spectator and participatory sports.
It would be very easy to stay on campus and have a wonderful experience at Penn basketball and football games, but you could have done that at Dartmouth too.
In casual conversation with fellow students in the last year, I discovered that many of you came to Penn as much for city life as for the academic programs offered by the University.
But after the walking tours during orientation week subside, many Penn students rarely stray from the confines of the University.
Here in Philadelphia, you have a chance to be a part of a sports culture, where the fan is just as big a part of the sporting life as the players and coaches.
Sometimes misbehaving and always passionate, Philadelphia fans are like no others. They engage in love-hate relationships with their teams that can only be found in the City of Brotherly Love.
And believe me, you will see in the coming weeks that plenty of fun in off-campus sports can be had without ever spending a dime.
I came to Penn excited to attend a university with such a winning tradition, but also curious to discover the tradition, winning and otherwise, of sports outside the school.
And while Hanover, N.H. and Philadelphia may have the same number of major professional championships in the last 20 years, that is where the similarities end.
Even with all these options, Philadelphia is unquestionably a football town, so tomorrow, I will report back from my first scene, the Eagles Kickoff Party at Lincoln Financial Field.
