ESPN, Deadspin defend The Line

 

On Tuesday I wrote a column about my thoughts on the tradition of The Line, Penn's annual basketball season ticket event. I suggested that Penn just end it altogether. By Tuesday evening, the sports blog Deadspin posted a short item about the story, and this morning I woke up to find the ESPN's Eamonn Brennan posted about it on the College Basketball Nation Blog.

It's rare the Penn basketball makes it into the national spotlight these days, so it's worth a mention. Both sites, as well as the new Ivy basketball blog Ivy Hoops Online, disagreed with me:

Deadspin:

"You can't call something a tradition if you shut it down when things are glum."
ESPN:
I'm with athletic director Steve Bilsky. Some traditions fall by the wayside. That's OK. But some are worth holding onto. Besides, it's not as if Penn hasn't been to a tournament in, like, 20 years. It was just 2007! Sure, things aren't great now, but they could be good again soon. And when they are, The Line will still be there -- the way traditions are supposed to be.
IHO:
Line-haters only hasten the Quakers’ demise by jumping off board a sinking tradition. Man up, fans. Suffer the embarrassment of a few lean years, then thump your chest when Penn climbs back to the top. Otherwise, when Quaker basketball does reclaim its former glory, that team will be part of a separate tradition, one entirely divorced from the days when Penn was truly in a league of its own.
The common thread is that they think my argument is short sighted. Perhaps it is; my first-hand Penn basketball knowledge goes back a few years. Administrators have the benefit of the long view, and that's not to be overlooked. But these three writers don't seem to grasp the current apathy for athletics among the student body, and I think, or at least hope, that the administrators at Penn do.

The continually poor student-attendance at football games (Hey guys, we haven't lost an Ivy League game in two and a half years), has to be a warning sign. Here's a team that is once again good, but students still don't care. Why should we think The Line will be any different?

The fact of the matter, which some of the comments on my column (and former DPer Neil Fanaroff) mentioned, is that not factoring attendance, The Line is a shell of its former self. A weekend long event turned into a day, to a 12-hour night, to an optional sleepover. Is it really even The Line any more? Maybe I didn't need to call for Penn administrators to end The Line. It looks like they already have.

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