We've got spirit, yes we do...

While some Quakers were playing basketball on the courts of the Palestra last Friday, another kind of game was going on in the stands.

Last Friday night marked the second annual Clash of the Classes, a University-wide event during which the four classes competed for fame and prizes during the Penn vs. Brown men's basketball game.

College senior and Undergraduate Assembly chairman Jason Karsh said the initiative grew out of a desire to find "new ways to promote school spirit around athletics events," particularly ones that focus on the entire school rather than just one class.

"It's a way for the fans to be playing," said College freshman and basketball player Danny Monckton. "It gave the game a bit more energy."

The event was sponsored for the second time by the Class Boards, the Penn Alumni Student Society and Penn Athletics.

For $10, participants received a ticket to the game, a limited-edition class T-shirt that differed in color according to year, coupons for food and drink and admission to a pre-game show in Hutch Gymnasium.

Karsh mentioned the free food and T-shirts as part of the draw to further entice students who may not typically attend games, and from those wearing their class T-shirts, he estimated the number of people who purchased Clash of the Classes tickets to be around 500.

Members of each class filled a different corner of the arena, and battles between the classes included a free-throw competition between members of the four class boards and a 30-second dance-off between members of each class.

As a Feb Club event, the game was best-attended by seniors, whose section was far more visible and vocal than the others and who, with 20 points, won the clash. The juniors followed with 15 points, the freshmen in third with 10 points and the sophomores came in fourth place with five points.

But some students had doubts about the effectiveness of the initiative, especially as large parts of the stands remained empty.

"It was a good idea in theory, but it wasn't really executed well," Wharton freshman Ayanna Ane said. Ane, a basketball season-ticket holder, said Friday's game was not significantly better-attended than other games.

"I think it was a success, but I would have liked more people to show up," said Karsh. "It's always a challenge for Penn to get students to come out to athletic games that aren't Penn-Princeton."

College freshman and basketball player Jack Eggleston agreed. "Any kind of promotion that they can run is helpful," to raise game attendance, he said. Eggleston also mentioned that the event could have been better promoted. "I don't know if too many people knew about it," he said.

In response, Karsh said he would suggest more focused advertising and marketing techniques to the UA for future years to reiterate the fact that Clash of the Classes "is an all-school event."

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