No one would ever accuse the Ivy League of being a powerhouse conference in football or basketball. In this day and age, Penn and its counterparts are simply never contenders for a bowl game, let alone a national championship.
To many, it is comical that the sports in which the Ivy League tends to excel are ones like squash, fencing, lacrosse and crew.
Last year, Harvard took home the fencing national title, Yale won its third consecutive women's squash national title, the Dartmouth women went to the national championship in lacrosse and Cornell won the lightweight-rowing championship.
Yet there is one Ivy sport that has tremendous success despite simultaneously flying under the radar: women's soccer. In seven of the last nine years, an Ivy team has been ranked in the top 25 at the end of the season.
What is more astounding is that in those seven years, four different Ivy teams have made appearances in that final top 25: Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth and Harvard. Penn was ranked 22nd at one point during the 2002 season.
And unlike their basketball counterparts, Ivy women's soccer teams don't disappear in the NCAA Tournament after the first or second round. Last year, Yale defeated Central Connecticut in the first round and took out No. 3 Duke in the second round before falling to Notre Dame.
Princeton's 2004 run is even more astounding. The Tigers beat Central Connecticut, Villanova, Boston College and Washington before losing to UCLA in the semifinals of the 64-team Tournament.
The last time an Ivy League basketball team made the semifinals of an NCAA Tournament was Penn, back in 1979 when they beat St. John's to advance to the Final Four.
Of course, other sports have a national presence. Last year, six lacrosse teams ended the year ranked in the top 25. Then again, there are only 59 Division I men's lacrosse teams.
Similarly, three Ivy men's hockey teams were in the top 20, but there are only 62 squads in the country. Penn and Cornell finished in the top 15 in wrestling, but only 88 teams exist in that sport.
Compare those numbers to 315 Division I women's soccer programs.
That is nearly identical to the number of men's basketball teams (334) and women's basketball teams (332).
When was the last time an Ivy team was ranked in the top 25 in either sport? Princeton's men's team in 1998.
Darren Ambrose, Penn's women's soccer coach, believes that what has helped the Ivy League is that there is a spate of talented players available for recruitment.
"There are so many good players across the country," Ambrose said.
In the last half decade, the depth of talent around the country has provided for greater parity among the top soccer teams. This is evidenced by the fact that five different teams have won the national championship as many years. This stands in stark contrast to North Carolina taking home the NCAA title 14 times between 1982 and 1997.
The reason for the success of women's soccer in the Ivy League may be because the nature of the athlete is a near perfect match for the mission of the league. The Ivy League focuses on creating successful sports programs without neglecting the importance of academics.
Women's soccer players are forced early on to accept the fact that there is almost no professional athletic future for them. Therefore, the selling point of Ivy recruitment - an unparalleled education - is particularly attractive to these players.
This is much different than their male counterparts. Many men's soccer players aspire to play professionally, whether it be in Major League Soccer or in many other international leagues. Therefore, the incentive of Ivy League academics is not as necessary to a prodigy.
"They don't want soccer to completely take over their college career," Ambrose said about female collegiate soccer players. "A kid can come in and have the best of both worlds. We don't demand that they are soccer players all the time."
We should pay attention to Ivy women's soccer teams for their continued success on the field and their endorsement of the Ivy ideal off the field.
Matt Meltzer is a senior political science major from Glen Rock, N.J. His e-mail address is meltzerm@sas.upenn.edu.
