Required first week reading (now with pdf)

UPDATE: Here's the link to the pdf of the football supplement.

Tomorrow begins the 133rd year of Penn football. Unlike Harvard and Princeton -- which both mention how long they've been playing football in the headlines of the athletic releases linked above --- Penn rarely flaunts the fact it's played football for over 130 years. (For example, in the equivalent press release it's mentioned in the seventh item.) I'm sure some of our readers might consider it good marketing, but personally I think it's snobbish to say "Finally, 141st Football Season Arrives ..."

That said, for the annual DP football supplement (which prints today), our centerpiece story by Neil Fanaroff covers the last six score and 13 years of Penn football history. It's a long, long piece, but a must read for any Penn football fan. Actually it's a must read for any college football fan, since you'll come across well-known names such as Bednarik, Munger and of course Heisman.

(I should add that this story is best seen in the actual paper and not online, since it's been beautifully put together by our design editor Michael Gold. So if you're on campus I strongly encourage you to pick up the paper for the double truck spread. If not, check out the pdf file linked to at the top of the post.)

But while Neil's story is definitely the longest, that doesn't mean the other stories aren't important. My favorite non-centerpiece story was one Noah wrote on Bradford Blackmon's dad who hasn't missed one of his son's games -- since he was in fifth grade! David also wrote a very interesting piece on the politicking and economics behind television packages for Ivy football. Perhaps the best part of the story is that we're breaking the news that Penn's game with Dartmouth was picked up by Versus just yesterday.

There's also a position-by-position breakdown of the freshman class; a feature on former defensive back Jordan Manning who is back as a football operations assistant director; and a Penn bettor's guide (I have to admit not one of my best pieces).

If you're focused more on tomorrow's opener versus No. 2 Villanova, here's our advance of the game as well as a look at the other contests with Ivy teams this weekend.

Enjoy the 2009 football season Quakers fans.