It takes a lot to be a Penn athlete. It takes even more to be a successful Penn athlete. And it’s damn near impossible to excel in the world of professional sports.

We're heading down the home stretch of the spring season as most of Penn's teams are halfway through their Ivy League campaigns.

On the heels of one of the best all-around seasons in Penn squash history, the Quakers are doing everything they can to maintain their success from 2015-16.

The vote by the eight Ivy League football coaches to end tackling at in-season practices is Penn Athletics' philosophy in action.

This year was supposed to be a step backwards for Penn baseball. After a program-record 14 Ivy League wins a season ago, the Red and Blue graduated a cavalcade of veteran standouts; a total of ten seniors played their final games in 2015, two of whom — Austin Bossart and Ronnie Glenn — were talented enough to take their skills to the professional level. And accordingly, the team has not been as dominant as it was a year ago.

To completely change the culture of any group, the first step is to start from within. And for a Penn Athletics brand looking to re-ignite its formerly passionate fan base, the road to recovery is underway.

For Penn football, and the other seven Ivy League programs, two questions remained unanswered: Will the coaches’ proposal to eliminate tackling from regular season practices be passed? And if it does, what effect will it have on the players?

The Quakers fell on the road, 6-1, to No. 50 Harvard and 4-0 to No. 38 Dartmouth.

It involved a lot of late-inning action, but Penn baseball walked away with the weekend split against Dartmouth and Harvard, losing the first game in back-to-back doubleheaders before taking the second.

On Saturday, despite unseasonably cold temperatures and the steady fall of snow on Franklin Field, the Bears refused to hibernate.

For a few, sunny hours on Franklin Field, Penn football was back on Sunday. Capping off spring practices for the Quakers, the two-hour Spring Game gave alumni and students a glimpse of what the Red and Blue would look like once their quest to defend the Ivy title begins in September. “We don’t get to play many games so coming out here, even if it’s our own players, going aggressive and being able to tackle, it’s awesome for us,” junior quarterback Alek Torgersen said.

Coming off its first Ivy League win of the season last weekend, Penn women’s tennis hoped to build on that confidence as two ranked opponents, Harvard and Dartmouth, arrived in Philadelphia. With a 4-3 win over Harvard and a 5-2 victory against Dartmouth, the Quakers (10-7, 3-2 Ivy) did just that.

Penn gymnastics finished its season not with a bang, but with a fizzle.

In a sport where times are of the utmost importance, it makes teams easy to rank, and as a result, rankings tend to hold. For the heavyweights, that characteristic of the sport worked two ways.

Once again, Penn track and field was split between two meets this weekend.

Both Penn golf teams traveled out of state to different tournaments this weekend, but only one team traveled far enough to avoid the wrath of Mother Nature.

An extra-inning defeat followed by a run-rule loss. Friday and Saturday took on unfortunately similar appearances for Penn softball this weekend.