For those of you who were watching, and/or mesmerized by, the Copa America Centanario, you’ll have noticed a few things.

For most of Penn’s undergraduate population, the end of the final exam period signals the time for kicking back, relaxing and fondly looking back at the previous year. But for a very lucky, very small fraction of the student body, the onset of summer simply means business as usual. Playing on a varsity spring sport inherently carries the risk of playing past the school year’s conclusion, and 2016 was no exception.

The Red and Blue’s field hockey team had a bittersweet 2015. After barreling through nationally ranked opponents weekly, the Quakers seemed poised to take back the Ivy League championship that had eluded them since 2004. However, the season finale against Princeton did not feature the end result that the team wanted.

As spring semester ended and students prepared to embark on their various summer journeys, one women’s soccer player had reason to be especially excited. Erica Higa, a sophomore midfielder for the Red and Blue, traveled to Rwanda alongside fellow Penn Athletics representative coach Kerry Major Carr of women’s volleyball and around ten other Penn students and faculty as part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Rwanda Gashora Program. The program was created to explore the possibilities of using solar energy and information communication technology in low-resource communities in developing countries.

A lot of athletes might say they were born to play their respective sport. But a kid related to both the NCAA’s Division I-A single-season touchdown passing record holder and the winningest quarterback in Stanford history might have a slightly better argument. Such is life for California native and safety Conor O’Brien, who is one of 29 recruits joining Penn football’s Class of 2020 looking to help the Quakers begin their title defense. Needless to say, O’Brien needed no help being introduced to the sport.

The University of Pennsylvania football team will be welcoming 29 members of the Class of 2020 onto their team this coming fall. The new student-athletes — sixteen defensive players, 12 offensive players and one kicker — hail from 13 different states. 

After 20 years at the helm of Penn Athletics, Steve Bilsky stepped down as the athletic director at his alma mater in 2013.

Last Saturday, Penn football tight end Ryan O'Malley signed as an undrafted free agent with the Oakland Raiders.

Ryan O’Malley, a tight end who completed his senior season with Penn football last fall, was signed by the Oakland Raiders as an undrafted free agent Saturday. After going unselected in the seven rounds of the NFL draft, the New Jersey native agreed to an undisclosed contract with the AFC West team.

The runners have taken their places. It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday in April, and the competitors are lined up in front of a crowd of over 40,000 at Franklin Field.

Like any aging lady, Franklin Field got a facelift this year — and it is a big one. The new surface of Penn’s track is immaculate — the colors pop out enough to make any graphic designer jump with joy.

Three Ivy League championships. Two All-American selections. Three qualifications at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.

There’s succeeding, and then there’s success. When the Villanova Women’s Distance Medley Relay team collected its first Penn Relays title in 1984, not even the school itself could have predicted the decades of success that were to follow. The Distance Medley Relay, or DMR, is a race that is comprised of four legs, each of varying length.

He came to Penn with dreams of seeing the Quaker track team become a powerhouse, and leaves University City with dreams of racing in the Olympics.

Don't let the name fool you, some members of Penn softball have become known for how hard they ball.

Mostly unnoticed during the comeback and in the post match celebration, however, were the chants his teammates were belting out. They weren’t in English. Led by senior Ismael Lahlou, the chants for Pompan, the hero of the match, were in Arabic.

As Penn baseball coach John Yurkow was faced with the prospect of life without former co-Ivy League Player of the Year Austin Bossart following the 2015 season, he didn’t have to look all that far from home.