A pair of former Penn basketball superstars are about to put a new twist on the long lineage of dynamic duos that have worn the Red and Blue. This time, though, the chemistry has nothing to do with events on the basketball court.
This coming August, 2001 graduates Diana Caramanico and Geoff Owens are getting married.
And of course, the wedding will take place at Penn.
"We are getting married in the church on 38th Street -- Saint Agatha Saint James," Caramanico said. "The reception is going to be in Houston Hall."
But between the day they left campus for the last time as students and the day they return for the first time as husband and wife, there is quite a story to tell.
After Caramanico graduated, she went to play basketball in Strasbourg, France, while Owens played for ITK Notec Inowroclaw in Poland from 2001 to 2002.
In May of 2002, Owens came back to Philadelphia to work out with the Sixers, but ended up going to the National Basketball Development League's Roanoke Dazzle. He stayed there until last year, with the exception of a three-game stint in 2003 for Galatasaray in Istanbul, Turkey. Last season, he moved to French team FC Mulhouse Basket, where he is now.
Meanwhile, Caramanico came home in May of 2003, and although she expected at the time to go back overseas, she ended up staying in the U.S.
In July, she realized that she "didn't want to go back" to Europe, so she joined the international sales department of the basketball apparel company And 1 -- which was founded by two Penn graduates and makes the apparel for the Quakers men's team.
"They let me work from six in the morning until three [in the afternoon], so that I would have to time to work out," she said. "They were great."
The workouts led to a tryout for the WNBA in April of 2004, but Penn's all-time leading scorer and rebounder did not make a team.
Caramanico has since moved on to Henkels and McCoy, a construction engineering firm in Blue Bell, Pa.
With all that travel, she and Owens have had very little time to actually be with each other.
"We really haven't been in the same state or country for the last four years," Caramanico said of her and Owens.
"It is not a lot of fun," Owens said in an e-mail. "My job is easy, I like to play ball and it is a good living, but being apart is difficult and the fact that we have survived is a testament to our relationship."
That relationship goes back to before Caramanico even got to Penn.
"The first time that I met him was on my recruiting trip, and for one reason or another I spent a lot of time with the men's basketball team that weekend," she said. "Then I came back the next year and he was a sophomore, and because the basketball teams lifted together and played pickup together we're always around each other."
She and Owens -- who redshirted the 1997-98 season due to an injury -- started dating the following year. Because Owens redshirted, he and Caramanico were able to graduate at the same time.
Given their status, the relationship was big news on campus.
"We were a somewhat high-profile couple just because we were ballplayers," Owens said.
"We tried to keep it low key, but most people knew," Caramanico said.
Owens finally popped the question in April 2003 -- and in high style.
He visited Caramanico in France for a few days that month, and on their last night together, they went out to dinner after one of Caramanico's games.
"He asked if I wanted to go for a walk," Caramanico said. "So we walked up, and we got in front of the really big cathedral in town, and he got down on one knee and proposed."
More than two years later, the wedding is finally within sight. But the one place on campus to which they are most emotionally attached won't play a role in the ceremonies.
"The whole world wants to have it in the Palestra," Caramanico said. "I love it in the Palestra but with that many people in it, too many things could go wrong."
While the Palestra's acoustics might be great for basketball, speeches often get lost bouncing off the arched roof. The lack of an in-house kitchen also makes it quite complicated to serve much of anything other than hot dogs to large numbers of people.
"It would be cool, but it's kind of a hassle, and neither Geoff or I were really that excited about it," Caramanico said. "We know we both played there, so does everybody else -- we don't need to have a wedding there."
There's also the not-so-small matter of the guest list.
"It's pretty big because I have a huge family," Caramanico said. "There's no way to have a small wedding in my family."
Add to that a whole lot of people in the Penn basketball community, and you have the makings of quite a party in West Philadelphia later this summer.
