Athletics: Toast limit is long-standing rule

To Penn Athletics, it is the best thing since sliced bread. But to Quaker football fans, a limit on the amount of toast spectators can bring into home football games is all crumbs. A University athletic official said yesterday that the confiscation of large quantities of toast -- used in the "Drink a Highball" song at football games -- was merely the enforcement of a "two or three year" old policy limiting the amount of toast to four slices per person. Elton Cochran-Fikes, associate director of athletics, said yesterday that the policy was instituted in order to prevent spectators from throwing bags full of toast or any other baked product onto the field. "Our concern was that a few of our spectators were throwing bags of toast and bags of bagels and, in some cases, bags of pretzels," he said. "A bag of those items could cause some damage or be extremly annoying." Cochran-Fikes added that it is a "very small number" of people who throw bags of toast and he said that a "bag of four [slices of toast] will do no significant damage to anyone." "It's actually hard [to say] why four," he said. "I can only say we had a certain comfort level with the number four." Penn Band President Paul Luongo said that University athletics officials told the band at a planned policy meeting yesterday that they would be able to bring in their large bags of toast. "The band has special circumstances since we can't carry four slices on our person and carry instruments at the same time," the College senior said. Luongo also said that the band was told that their bags of toast were confiscated at last Saturday's game because of an "over-zealous Spectraguard." Spectraguard officials were unavailable for comment. Luongo added that he "doesn't believe [the University] should be picking on people who bring toast, but should be picking on people who are bringing frozen bagels." "[But] if the only way to stop the importation of frozen bagels is [to] stop loaves of bread then they have to do what they have to do," he added. Wharton junior Marty Nelson, who said he has been to "90 percent" of home football games since he came to the University, said he never has seen anyone throw a bag of toast. Engineering senior Michael Firstenberg -- who was grabbed by guards while trying to bring a loaf of toast into Franklin Field -- also said he has never seen anyone throw a bag of toast, and he understands that there is a toast policy. "[But] why enforce it first this week and enforce it against a couple of people, and why was I given so many contradictions in policy by so many security guards?" he said last night. Cochran-Fikes said that "it is hard for me to address why there is spot enforcerment of a policy." "It's my understanding that the policy is and will continue to be enforced," he added. Assistant to the President Nicholas Constan said yesterday that he did not recall a slice policy. "It seems to me that four slices is kind of strange," he said.

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