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 mens basketball and football squads topped the list of fan faves.

But with 29 varsity teams 15 mens squads and 14 womens 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 (W03) 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 womens basketball squad no doubt a reflection of the sports growing popularity overall, of the Penn teams improving fortunes and of the enthusiasm generated by the recently completed Womens Final Four in Philadelphia.

And while most of the teams our respondents followed were mens teams, the womens sports taken as a whole had a respectable following, not all of it female. And there were a few teams we couldnt categorize by gender, as our respondents didnt specify whether they followed the mens or womens teams in soccer and lacrosse. Maybe its because they followed both.

The final tally for each team was:

Mens basketball: 11

Football: 8

Womens basketball: 3

Lacrosse: 2

Mens crew: 1

Mens fencing: 1

Soccer: 1

Womens squash: 1

Womens swimming: 1

Womens 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