Andrew Todres

Just a few years before his tragic passing, sportswriter Dick Schaap wrote in his autobiography that his favorite sport was "collecting people." In four years of writing for the DP, my favorite Penn sport has been just that. I have enjoyed collecting Penn athletes the most because they are some of the more underappreciated and interesting students at this university.

When Glen Miller arrived in West Philadelphia three years ago to be introduced as the next coach of Penn, he was greeted with something he had not come to expect in his prior 15 years as an NCAA coach: a legitimate press conference. Roughly eight reporters from The Daily Pennsylvanian and many more members of the local media huddled around him to get a close look at Fran Dunphy's replacement.

It was just supposed to be a friendly game of football on Thanksgiving with family and friends. Not an event in which you would expect to seriously injure yourself. But to Wharton senior Daniel Doddo, tri-captain of the Penn Men's Lacrosse Club, there is no such thing as a friendly game.

Just hours before the Phillies took the field for Major League Baseball's Opening Night, the Penn football team took to the gridiron at Franklin Field for the first time in 2009. Unlike the Phillies loss to the Braves, this one didn't count: it was the team's annual intrasquad scrimmage.

Believe it or not, there's a basketball oasis in West Philadelphia, where Penn students and inner-city children come together each Friday to cap off the week. Enter at 58th and Walnut. Tread lightly down the creaky hallways lined with beat-up lockers, past the classrooms filled with wobbly desks and outdated books and swing open the double doors.

Glen Miller will be returning next season as head coach of the Penn basketball team, the team's co-chair John Rockwell confirmed last night. A member of the board of athletic overseers, Rockwell also endows the head coaching position. Other sources close to the program have indicated that the beleaguered coach met one-on-one with Athletic Director Steve Bilsky last week to evaluate this past season, Miller's status and the current state of the program.

Winless at home in the Ivy League, Penn needed a victory in the worst possible way. And finally, for the first time since Jan. 6, the Quakers sent their fans home happy, but likely still without much confidence in this struggling team. In front of a crowd of only 3,142 on Fan Appreciation Day at the Palestra, Penn outlasted Brown, 64-54, in a battle that was memorable for its pure ugliness more than anything else.

Another weekend sweep at the Palestra is likely to leave Penn fans in consternation about the state of the program. Such has been the case after every bad outing at home, regardless of the context. But if anything, the way in which the Quakers lost demonstrated exactly what is wrong with the program right now.

PRINCETON, N.J. Not all victories are created equal. There are moral victories in losing efforts and momentum-building victories in recent winning efforts. There are victories in games you should have won and victories in rivalry games that are always up for grabs.

Valentine's Day in New Haven. This Penn team just can't catch a break. But after a historically bad weekend in Philadelphia - in which the Quakers endured their first Ivy League weekend sweep at home since 1968 - Yale's cozy John J. Lee Amphitheater might not be as bad as it seems.