Penn men’s basketball unveiled their 2016-17 schedule Monday, and, much like the team, it will look quite a bit different than in past years. The 27-game schedule features 13 games at the Palestra, including the standard seven versus Ivy opponents.

After a disappointing 13-13 finish to the season last season, head coach Kerry Carr has decided to make an offseason splash that she hopes will set Penn Volleyball up for future success. Newest assistant coach Scott Schweihofer joins Carr’s staff in the hopes of bringing the Ivy title back to Philadelphia for the first time since 2010. After spending the last two years at George Mason University as the team’s top assistant and recruiting coordinator, Schweihofer comes to Penn after helping the Patriots to their best single-season win total in six years.

As the opening credits appear to the tune of the music score, Ray Priore is readying for his first season as head coach of the Penn football team, his 29th year as part of the staff.

The preseason hype surrounding Penn football is unreal – 13 returning starters from a championship team will do that.

Penn basketball hasn’t sent a player to the NBA since 2000. That player was none other than Ira Bowman, who still frequents the Palestra as assistant coach to the Quakers.

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.