Local hero Fortunately for his neighbors — and his city — Pedro Ramos hasn’t forgotten where he came from. And as president of the Board of Public Education, he’s in the thick of the fight over the future of Philadelphia’s public schools. HIV prevention goes to the barrio Student spotlight: Thouron Scholar builds a strong foundation Staff Q&A: Willie Glymph looks back at 35 years on the road for Penn Research: How the brain divides its labors Famous former inmate blasts prison system Asians emerge High anxiety? New center can help Six to receive honorary degrees Sing-along time Current gets gold medals Hip-hop meets Ivy League For What It's Worth: And now, managed learning! Academic All-Ivies Event Listings Editor's Pick What's on WXPN A primer for tomorrow's working women Learn the moves from the champs Readers' Best News Briefs Bookquick Quoted Recently Awards & Honors Appointments Conference Call Campus Buzz

April 20, 2000 READERS' BEST Varsity faves How ’bout that, sports fans? Nothing succeeds like success, we guess. We asked a random sample of undergraduate Pennsylvanians what their favorite varsity sports teams were, and — big surprise! — the Quaker men’s basketball and football squads topped the list of fan faves. But with 29 varsity teams — 15 men’s squads and 14 women’s teams — our students need not be one-sport devotees. So we asked our respondents to name another favorite varsity squad. To our surprise, one respondent – Brian Belkin (W’03) – followed two of the less-hyped but most popular amateur team sports around today, lacrosse and soccer. While six of our respondents named both of the big two sports as their favorites, everyone else had a favorite sport outside that elite group. Coming in third behind football and basketball was the Quaker women’s basketball squad — no doubt a reflection of the sport’s growing popularity overall, of the Penn team’s improving fortunes and of the enthusiasm generated by the recently completed Women’s Final Four in Philadelphia. And while most of the teams our respondents followed were men’s teams, the women’s sports taken as a whole had a respectable following, not all of it female. And there were a few teams we couldn’t categorize by gender, as our respondents didn’t specify whether they followed the men’s or women’s teams in soccer and lacrosse. Maybe it’s because they followed both. The final tally for each team was: Men’s basketball: 11 Football: 8 Women’s basketball: 3 Lacrosse: 2 Men’s crew: 1 Men’s fencing: 1 Soccer: 1 Women’s squash: 1 Women’s swimming: 1 Women’s tennis: 1 Our thanks to all our respondents: Brian Belkin, Wharton ’03 Julie Bookbinder, Engineering ’02 Litt Chen, Engineering ’03 Ryan Cheney, College ’03 Lynn Corney, College ’00 Arthur daSilva, Wharton ’01 Matt DeNardo, Engineering ’03 Jonas Fang, Engineering ’03 Jason Gavenonis, College ’03 Bob Kennedy, College ’02 Ellen King, College ’01 Alexandra Mastro, College ’03 Chris Rubino, College ’03 Lisa Toppin, Engineering ’03 Teresa Wong, Wharton ’02 —Katie Alex