Krista Hutz

"You. I'm glad to see you here," Cindy Shmerler said as she pointed directly at me. I was confused. It took a moment for me to realize why Cindy had singled out me. It was The Daily Pennsylvanian's annual Marquez Conference in the fall of 2007 and Cindy, serving as a panelist, and I were the only two females sitting in the room for the sports writing session.

Royal Mitchell heard the gun go off. He drove out of the blocks to begin his 100-meter dash Friday at the Penn Relays. He just didn't know when to stop. A legally blind athlete competing in the Visually Impaired 100-meter dash, Mitchell had to rely on the crowd and the officials around the track to tell him to slow down after he crossed the finish line.

In addition to new runners on the track, this year the Penn Relays will have a different feel. The construction on the north side of Franklin Field, as well as the closure of the South Street Bridge, will bring a number of changes to this year's Penn Relays.

I had never been in a Penn sports team's locker room until last week. That's when I stepped inside the red, University-owned van that pulled up at 39th and Spruce streets. Welcome to the men's golf team's "locker room." Littered with a few plastic sports-drink bottles and lacking leg room for the lanky athletes whose inopportune arrival time forces them into the back corner seats, the van is a lifeline for first-year coach Scott Allen and his squad.

BALTIMORE - Her teammates praise her offensive repertoire. But for whatever reason, women's lacrosse midfield Samantha Bird never developed much of a scoring touch. In 27 games over her first three seasons, she managed just six points. Her numbers were slightly better to start this year, with seven points in the team's first eight contests, but coach Karin Brower said the senior is still more of a role player.

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.

Aside from the men's basketball team's performance, the new student-ticket policies have been some of the more popular gameday fodder this season. Breaking from its previous policy, the Athletic Department announced last September that the student section would be entirely general admission.

As the Quakers prepare to take on Brown tomorrow night, freshman point guard Zack Rosen finds himself in a familiar position. As a high school senior at St. Benedict's Prep (N.J.), Rosen's varsity team didn't participate in the New Jersey state tournament.

Senior leadership. Or the lack thereof. That's what all of the Penn men's basketball team's problems have boiled down to. At least that's the line coach Glen Miller continues to offer as an excuse after the Quakers dropped two games to Dartmouth and Harvard at the Palestra this weekend.

The Penn basketball team sure kept the statisticians busy this weekend. After confirming that Dartmouth swept Penn for the first time since 1959 Friday, they revealed that Harvard's 66-60 win over the Quakers Saturday was its first at the Palestra since 1991.