It's tournament time at Franklin Field — the Quakers take on Princeton in the first round of the Ivy Championship, and they are out for revenge. Two weeks ago, the Tigers came into Philadelphia and stole an upset from Penn on senior night, ending the Quakers' 34-game Ivy winning streak. After closing out the regular season with a win (and then an upset over No. 4 Duke) Penn clinched the No. 1 seed in the Ivy tournament and home field advantage. If the Quakers can figure out Princeton this time around, they'll advance to the final game Sunday afternoon. Follow along below:
Our editorial page editor, Prameet Kumar, brought this interesting article from Bloomberg to my attention today: It's about big-time donors at schools around the country who expect some level of involvement in the allocation of their funding. For example the chairman of BB&T has been funding programs at schools that teach Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as an avenue to understanding capitalism.
Of course, my mind turned quickly to athletics, as did the article:
Many donors today insist on more than a marquee. Robert Burton, who runs his own investment firm in Greenwich, Connecticut, said he gave more than $7 million to the University of Connecticut with the understanding that he would have a say in the football program. In January, he asked for his gift back, saying the school hired a football coach without consulting him first. A month later, the university announced that it and Burton had reconciled their differences.
“Donors want something back, and in many cases they want a say-so in what’s happening,” Siegel says. “When their money isn’t used the way they want it to, they are unhappy.”
I'm not commenting as to how much this happens at Penn, but the question is, should it be this way? On one hand, we can look at donors, whether athletic or not, as investors in the school. For any company, the shareholders have certain rights, such as the ability to vote on its directors — a say in how things are run. A coach is in many ways the CEO of the program.
On the other hand, these donors are philanthropists making charitable contributions — how much say can they expect to have over a donation? Further, shouldn't the athletic department administration have the final say when it comes to important decisions such as coaching hires?
It must be incredibly tough for athletic departments to balance their own concerns with the promise of millions in valuable fundraising.
A month ago, I had the pleasure of profiling tennis freshman Connie Hsu, a native of Taiwan who has excelled in tennis since she was five years old. Even back in Feburary, both Hsu and coach Sanela Kunovac pointed to the NCAA singles tournament as a pivotal moment for Hsu's career, considering that she didn't face many challenges this year (her singles record of 43-2 speaks for itself). "I’d be curious to see how she’d do in the NCAAs against competition that’s just relentless from the first round," Kunovac said.
Well, that time has arrived. Yesterday, it was announced that Hsu earned one of 15 automatic bids to compete in the Division I Singles Championship beginning May 25. The Ivy League's fourth woman ever to capture both the Rookie and Player of the Year awards enters the tourney ranked 29th, down from her peak this spring of No. 12. Her descent in the rankings likely reflects the players above her facing better competition, as Hsu certainly took care of her own business, winning all 20 of her spring matches without dropping a set.
The tournament will provide the ultimate collegiate test for Hsu, who plans on competing professionally this summer. It will also provide a chance to prove that her only two losses this season were a bit of a fluke. At the ITA All-American Championships, the rookie battled through pre-qualifiers and qualifiers in order to reach the Round of 32. Then, after playing seven matches in six days, she dropped a first-set tiebreaker to Marshall's Michaela Kissell (currently ranked No. 52) and lost in three sets. At the William & Mary Invitational a month earlier, Hsu defeated Kissell, 6-3, 6-2, when both had equal rest. November 5 at the National Indoor Championships, Hsu had match point against Michigan's Denise Muresan, currently ranked No. 8 in the country, but couldn't capitalize and fell in a third-set tiebreaker. In other words, Hsu is a couple breaks away from being 45-0 heading into her first-ever NCAAs.
"She's that type of player," Kunovac told me in February. "She loves meeting and exceeding expectations"
We buzzed this in mid-April, but on May 4th, UConn made it official by announcing former Penn head man Glen Miller as the team's newest assistant coach. Miller served this year as the director of basketball operations for the Huskies, and could be seen on the sidelines during UConn's run to the NCAA title. He was the head coach for the Quakers from 2006 until Dec. of 2010, when he was fired after Penn fell to an 0-7 start.
"I am so happy to be able to move Glen into the position of assistant coach," said [UConn] head coach Jim Calhoun. "Glen is an exceptional teacher of the game of basketball and I am excited that he will be able to get back on the court for us this year."
"I am thrilled to be back on the court coaching and teaching and also back on the road recruiting," said Miller. " I enjoyed the past year being back here at UConn and hope that I can continue to have a positive impact in an assistant coach spot"
We're just a day out from the second annual Ivy League lacrosse tournaments, and things are getting exciting for Penn.
The women, for the second year, are the No. 1 seed and host the tourney at Franklin Field. They will play in the nightcap Friday; gametime is at 7 p.m. against Princeton. The winner plays in the final on Sunday afternoon. Since this is the Ivy League tournament, unfortunately ticket will not be free for students. Friday's game will be $6, Sunday will be $4, or for you frugal Quakers out there, if you buy tickets to both games, it's only $8.
The ladies are up to No. 7 in the IWLCA poll after defeating Duke last weekend (and pushing Duke down a spot to No. 5). Penn was ranked No. 4 for most of March, and this is the Quakers' best ranking since.
Lastly, the Ivy League coaches voted on All-Ivy teams this weekend and the results are in. Six Quakers were named to the squads:
Junior Erin Brennan was Penn's lone first-team selection, though a unanimous one, as she led Penn in scoring this season, and is also a Tewaaraton Award nominee. This is her second-straight first-team honor. Senior Giulia Giordano, junior Goalie Emily Leitner and freshman Lydia Miller were second-team picks, and Maddie Polawski and Bridget Waclawik were both honorable mentions.
On the men's side, the Quakers are heading into their first Ivy League tournament after tourning around a 1-6 record last season to finish 4-2, and lock up the second seed.
After an 11-2 drubbing from Virginia to close out the season, the Quakers will head to Cornell for the Ivy tournament to face Harvard, who they beat, 7-6, in triple OT this year. If the Quakers were to win the championship, they would get the Ivy's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Currently ranked No. 14, Penn also has a good look at an at-large bid, especially if it can advance to the finals this weekend. The Washington Times (which once again has a Sports section!) put out a mock bracket today that has Penn up against No. 6 Maryland in the quarterfinal. The Times also says Penn could go to Duke. It would be their first NCAA appearance since 2006.
The men's All-Ivy teams were also announced and five made the rosters for Penn: Holding down Penn's solid defense this season was Senior Brett Hughes who was a first-team selection. On second team were Seniors Al Kohart and Corey Winkoff, Junior Will Koshansky and freshman Maxx Meyer.
The Ivy League released its All-Ivy teams for the 2010-11 season, and an elite few from Penn were honored.
Just a freshman, Connie Hsu absolutely crushed her competition this season. She posted an absurd 43-2 singles record en route to attaining the rare triple play of Ivy honors — she was unanimously named Ivy Player of the Year, Ivy Rookie of the Year, and First-Team All-Ivy. For some historical perspective, Hsu is just the fourth woman in Ivy tennis history to claim ROY and POY status in the same year. Penn coach Sanela Kunovac is one of the others, having accomplished the feat in 2001
Along with teammate Alexa Ely, she also earned First-Team All-Ivy in doubles — the duo went 7-0 in the Ancient Eight.
Meanwhile, senior captain for the men's side, Hicham Laalej, was a unanimous First-Team selection — he was the only unanimous first-teamer other than Princeton's Matija Pecotic, who won Ivy Player of the Year. Laalej went 15-2 at No.1 singles this spring, including a 5-2 record in the Ivy League. His only two losses came to Pecotic and another first-teamer, Harvard's Jonathan Pearlman.
Freshman Zach Katz was also recognized, named Second-Team All-Ivy in doubles.
Click here to see the full list for the men and women.
Davis was the second senior to join Penn's 2011 recruiting class back in mid-November. The Sacramento native played a prep year at New Hampton school in New Hampshire. In early January he pulled out of his commitment to Penn.
Lots of action at Penn Relays today — including Penn's first championship in 7 years — but the marquee events were the men's and women's 4x100 USA vs. the World relays, which did not disappoint.
The ladies went first, and it was USA's top team in Red that came away with the win. Lauryn Williams, Allyson Felix, Marshevet Myers and Carmelita Jeter finished in 42.28, a Penn Relays record, ahead of USA Blue and the Jamaican team featuring Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
And though the men's 4x100 didn't feature the World Fastest Man, Usain Bolt, this year, the Jamaicans did not relinquish their title, as Asafa Powell — who took the opening leg instead of his usual anchor — led the fan favorite team to a 38.33 first-place finish. They were 0.43 seconds off of last year's Relays record.
Powell joked in the post game press conference that when he heard BMW was sponsoring the race, he was excited thinking he might win a car. "It was only a watch, but I felt very good, and I did my best," he said.
The US Men's teams finished second and third. The Red team, comprised of Walter Dix, Wallace Spearmon, Trell Krimmons and Mike Rodgers \ was 0.1 seconds behind team Jamaica. The Americans said they were hampered by poor handoffs, due to a lack of practice time, which kept them out of reach of the Jamaican sprinters.
Making his return to Penn Relays this year was Justin Gatlin, the 2004 olympic gold medal winner in Athens in the 100. Gatlin served a four-year ban from track after testing positive for a banned substance in 2006. Gatlin has repeatedly denied knowingly taking any banned substances, and did so again Saturday when pressed on the matter at the Relays.
"He's back, he's done his time," Powell said. "I look at him as a competitor."
Videos:
Here's some footage from the US Press conferences. First is Mike Rodgers, Shawn Crawford and Ivory Williams for the USA Men, followed by Justin Gatlin.
The weather is considerably nicer than yesterday (at least for now), and the crowd is bigger as we move into the weekend. Michael Gold will be bringing you a soon-to-be-graduated student perspective (read: better than Tannenwald's) on some of the action here at Franklin Field. On board for today: the elementary races, the Special Olympics 4x100 and the college men's 4x400, among others.
It begins, like many great sports moments, with a slow clap.
The runners approach Franklin Field's northeastern turn — and the remaining thousand or so in the stands have all packed into that corner — as the claps quicken.
This is the steeplechase, the highlight of Distance Night at the Penn Relays. It's one part track event and two parts America's Funniest home Videos fodder. The 3000m race features four hurdles and a fifth water jump — you guessed it, in the northeast corner — where things get interesting. While the harriers go for clean leaps over the other four barriers, they try to use the water hurdle as a jumping off point to clear the deeper parts of the water hazard. Nobody stays dry. The fans, tired from a long day of race after race, start to heckle.
As the laps go on, the wooden hurdle gets wetter and wetter and slippery, adding to the chaos as runners tumble into and out of the pond. It's not uncommon for a runner or two to lose a shoe. The real champions — maybe not the winners, but champions nonetheless — finish the race with one foot unshod.
Once the final runner has made his pass of the water jump, Franklin Field's finest, the maintenance guys, come out with squeegees to send the splashed water back into the pit. One of these hard working fellows dons a blonde mullet wig and aviators for the event every year. The fans eat it up, chanting "SQUEEGEE! SQUEEGEE! SQUEEGEE!" each time they spring into action.
"I can't hear you!" the platinum-wigged maintenance man shouts. "Get into it, you guys are weak." It's all a little WWE.
The first and only rule of steeplechase, as I quickly learned sitting trackside, is to keep your mouth shut. The pond-water is by scummy to say the least.
Cal Silcox here at Franklin Field with the soon-to-graduate Michael Gold. We'll be bringing you some intermittent updates from distance night — including the ever-popular steeplechase events. Due to rain, things are running about 90 minutes behind today, so dig in for some late night track.
Each year for our Finals issue of the DP, we put out a section called the Red and Blue in Review, in which we name our All-Penn teams, look back at some of the events of the last year, and pick the coaches and teams of the year.
That issue is on stands today, and thanks to great work from our design editor Leslie Krivo-Kaufman, it looks awesome. Here's the section cover:
If it's too small, here are our All-Penn teams:
Women’s team of the year: Women’s soccerMen’s Team of the Year: Football
Men’s coach of the year: Mike Murphy (M. Lax)Women’s coach of the year: Mike McLaughlin (W. Hoops)
First team Men:
Joe D’Orazio (Male Player of the Year)
Zack Kemmerer
Jack Eggleston
Maalik Reynolds (Male Rookie of the Year)
Paul Cusick
Ben Berg
First team Women:
Connie Hsu (Female Player of the Year)
Dana Bonincontri
Erin Brennan
Shelby Fortin
Megan Tryon
Alyssa Baron (Female Rookie of the Year)
Second team Men
Zack Rosen
Brandon Copeland
Mike Bagnoli
Brendan McHugh
Corey Winkoff
Brian Feeney
Second Team Women
Giulia Giordano
Sarah Friedman
Madison Wojicieowski
Michelle Lee
Leslie Kovach
Alisha Prystowsky
And, for the second year, we put together our own DPOSTM approval matrix, but you'll have to get your hands on a copy of the DP to see it!
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Some interesting news on the Ivy League hoops scene today: Yale forward Greg Mangano has declared for the NBA Draft, according to CBSSports.com's Matthew Norlander. This seems to be a pretty ambitious jump for the junior big man, who shot just 40 percent in 18.4 minutes per game as a sophomore. There have been no reports as to whether he has hired an agent (which would require him to stay in the draft), but my guess is that he's just testing the waters, especially since this may be the weakest draft in a decade. Mangano has the option of undeclaring until May 8.
The West Haven, Conn., product appears to fall into the "late bloomer" category (though he was recruited by Notre Dame and Northwestern), as he started just seven games combined during his first two years. This season, however, he blossomed into a force on both ends of the court, posting a monster line of 16.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks to earn first-team all-Ivy honors. That compares favorably with the last NBA player from Yale, Chris Dudley, who put up 16.0/9.8/1.4 during his junior season (granted, it was against much stronger mid-'80s Ivy competition) on his way to a solid 16-year career in The League. The 6-foot-10 Mangano has the added advantage of being able to stretch the floor, as he shot 37 percent from beyond the arc in 2010-11. It's not difficult to envision him developing into a Matt Bonner/Jason Smith-type player, but not after another year of seasoning in college.
The addition of Mangano would put two Ancient Eighters in the NBA, with Harvard's Jeremy Lin being the other. After impressing in the Summer League, Lin played in 29 games for the Golden State Warriors and became a Bay Area folk hero. He dropped 12/5/5 in a season-high 24 minutes during the Warriors' final game, and may carve a niche in the league as a point guard with size.
I was perusing the New York Times’ Twitter feed late last night (as a means of procrastination, of course) and I happened to come across this article. NYT’s Katie Thomas describes how some collegiate athletic programs in the country are finding loopholes around the 1972 gender equity-law, Title IX. This deception, of course, is designed to offer more spots to male athletes, which in turn, jeopardizes the integrity of women’s programs.
Interestingly enough, the Ivy League is also guilty of scheming. According to the article, Cornell’s women’s fencing team reports 34 participants, but 19 athletes on the roster are male. Men are also listed on Cornell’s women’s volleyball and basketball teams as well. Apparently the Big Red are able to justify listing male athletes on female squads if they receive instruction and practice with women. But, somehow, the five female coxswains on Cornell’s men’s rowing team count as females...
Clearly, this problem isn’t unique to the nation’s football powerhouses — it hits pretty close to home in the Ancient Eight as well.
It may not be Usain Bolt, but this year's competitors at Penn Relays are just as impressive. According to USA Track and Field, Olympic gold-medalists Sanya Richards and Allyson Felix will headline the list of potential athletes at Penn this weekend. Felix and Richards were both members of the 4x400-meter squad that took home gold in Beijing.
On the men's side the Darvis 'Doc' Patton and Mike Rodgers are set to make an appearance. Patton, the elder statesman, will be joined by Rodgers who holds the fastest 100 meter time so far this year. Angelo Taylor , who also competed at last year's Relays, will once again run in the 4x400-meter relay.
This year’s list of professional events include a men’s distance medley relay, women’s sprint medley relay, women’s 4x100m, 4x100m, women’s 4x400m and men’s 4x400m.
Temple assistant men's basketball coach Matt Langel — a 2000 Wharton graduate — was hired as the new head coach of the Colgate Raiders today.
Langel played for the Quakers from 1996-2000 and led them to two Ivy League titles and NCAA tournament appearances. He was a first-team all-Ivy selection as a senior and received Ivy League and Big Five Player of the Week honors numerous times. He is a member of the 1000-point club and remains in fourth in the Penn recordbooks for career three-pointers made with 201.
Langel was an assistant at Penn for two years under Fran Dunphy and helped guide his alma mater to two consecutive Ivy championships. He followed Dunphy to Temple in 2006 and has been there ever since.
Langel will try to revive a Colgate program that went 7-23 this season, with a 4-10 conference record in the Patriot League.
If you want to do some light reading on Matt Langel, here is an interview with the Penn Gazette from January 2010. One highlight from the Gazette article:
"In all honesty, I wouldn’t have chosen this profession when I was done playing overseas if it wasn’t for my experience playing for Coach [Dunphy] and knowing the impact he had on my life. The idea that maybe I could have that same impact on other young guys’ lives, as well as their basketball careers, influenced me to pursue this as a profession."
Langel will be formally introduced at a press conference Thursday at 11:30 a.m. that will be streamed live on Colgate's website.
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After earning a share of the Ivy Title today with a win over Brown, Penn women's lacrosse also secured their bid to host the Ivy tournament for the second-straight year.
And with the seeding mostly determined, Penn will play Princeton on Franklin Field, Friday May 6. Not only will the Quakers be playing for a shot at the Ivy championship, but they'll get a revenge match against the Princeton team that ended their 34-game Ivy win streak last weekend.
Harvard and Dartmouth will duke it out next weekend for the other share of the Ivy title — the winner gets the 2-seed for the tourney, the loser gets the 3-seed. Then the two will lather, rinse and repeat the week after here in Philly at the tournament.
Penn men's tennis coach Nik DeVore announced his resignation Friday, less than a week after the Quakers' fourth-straight losing Ivy season came to an end.
"I appreciate the opportunity Penn gave me to be the head men's tennis coach," DeVore said in a statement from Penn Athletics. "However, I have decided the time has come for me and my family to move on and pursue other opportunities. I wish the current Penn players and the program well going forward."
DeVore took over the program in 2007, after Mark Riley left to return to coach at his alma mater, Kalamazoo. Riley departed after winning back-to-back Ivy championships in 2006 and 2007. But since Riley's departure, Penn has struggled in the Ivy League. The Quakers fell to 3-4 in 2008 and have since recorded three consecutive 1-6 seasons. DeVore's amassed a 45-40 overall record at Penn, but the Quakers were just 6-22 in conference play during that time.
"Nik has worked hard for Penn over the last four years, and we wish him the best going forward," Director of Athletics Steve Bilsky said in a statement. According to a release from Penn Athletics, the search for a new coach begins immediately.
According to Bloomberg, a committee at Brown has recommended the school eliminate four of its 38 athletic programs: men's and women's fencing, wrestling and women's skiing. The money freed up from the cuts would be redistributed to the school's other programs, increasing their budget by 10 percent.
Two interesting takeaways from the report: First, Brown is the Ivy League university that brought in the least athletics revenue in 2009-10 at $15.2 million. Penn, with $30.4 million, ranked second to Yale (this information is publicly available online through the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act). More notable, however, is the appeal to the University's academic program that was used to justify the cuts.
According to the committee's final report — which can be viewed online — Brown prez Ruth Simmons formed the school's Athletic Review Committee following a trustee's meeting in February. One of the group's main directives was "the charge to align the program as closely as possible with the University’s overall academic and educational program, including the limitations on resource commitments that are suggested by that principle."
What that goal, in conjunction with the overall decision made by the committee, seems to indicate is that the committee felt that Brown no longer had the resources to sustain its 38 programs. Rather than continuing to harbor the third-largest program in the Ivy League, the committee suggests that cutting these four teams would strengthen " the student-athlete experience and the excellence of the overall program" as well as ensure that Brown's athletics program would be aligned "more closely with the academic and educational goals and priorities of the University."
Does that appeal to academics have ramifications for Penn? Perhaps, but recall that Penn's athletics revenue is double Brown's while the Quakers harbor fewer varsity sports (31 to Brown's 38). Instead, these words seems more threatening to the programs at Harvard and Dartmouth — the schools who pull in the next smallest amounts and, coincidentally, the only two Ivies that field varsity ski teams.
Most interesting, at least for me, are the rationales used to choose these four teams . Brown's committee suggested that fencing "would require a large investment in facilities, infrastructure, and coaching" in order to bring the program up to competitive speed. While skiing was chosen because of the Bears' lack of facilities. It's worth nothing that while the committee states there are only a small number of fencing programs nationally — 34 men's programs (20 in Division I) and 41 women's programs (23 in D-I — -the same can't be said for the Ivy league. Dartmouth is the only Ivy school without a varsity fencing team, while Cornell only sponsors a women's program. Compare briefly to the Ancient Eight's three total skiing teams.
The big shock reading the report was the recommendation that wrestling be slashed. Wrestling is hardly football or basketball, granted, but it's still a major collegiate sport. But the committee says the program is simply too expensive, requires way too many admissions slots, and makes the school's commitment to gender equity difficult.
Six Ivy schools currently sport wrestling programs (Dartmouth and Yale--coincidentally the league's biggest revenue-earner--don't), and the only two with an overall winning record this year were Cornell and Penn. I wonder to what extent the decision to nix this program came from the major deficit that Brown faces in trying to keep its wrestling program up to the top level in the League. Given Cornell's commitment to its wrestling team, as documented by the New York Times, the Bears would face a huge uphill battle in both recruiting and facilities if they wanted to be competitive within the League.
I should re-iterate that I don't find this report to be any immediate insight into what Penn's athletics department might do, especially given the school's reported 2009-10 revenues relative to its peers. In 2009, Penn reported a surplus of about $1.8-million from its team-related revenues and expenses, while Brown broke even on the associated line items.
But the report provides an interesting insight into how one Ivy League school is mitigating its current finances and provides possible clues to how the others might follow. And that trend could have ramifications on the Ancient Eight's competitive landscape.
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