Sports Illustrated: Penn ranked 72nd

If a friend comes up and asks you about Pottruck Health and Fitness Center's new golf simulator, don't freak out -- nobody's stalking you.

The golf simulator was just one of the many anecdotes used to describe Penn's sporting scene in the Oct. 7 issue of Sports Illustrated.

This week's SI cover story ranks all 324 Division-I athletic programs, seeking to determine "America's Best Sports College."

The sports magazine ranked the Quakers 72nd overall, and third in the Ivy League -- Harvard was ranked 41st with Princeton coming in 56th.

The University of Texas was ranked No. 1 in the nation.

"We are honored to be considered one of the top 75 athletic programs in the nation," Athletic Department spokeswoman Carla Shultzberg said. "We are very proud that our student-athletes continue to excel on the field and in the classroom and are recognized on a national level in forums such as these."

In addition to ranking the teams, SI provided a three line blurb about every team in Division-I athletics, chronicling each school's top athletic achievements.

To Penn's credit, SI decided that the University's greatest athletics assets include the wrestling team No. 11 national ranking, the men's fencing team's ninth place finish in the NCAA, the men's basketball's trip to the Big Dance, toast throwing at football games, football's 8-1 record last year and the now infamous golf simulator at Pottruck.

But with any ranking, the criteria to choose "the best" sports college can always be questioned.

"It is very hard to gauge a University's athletic department as good or bad when there are so many factors involved," Shultzberg said.

Penn may have been hurt in this poll by the emphasis that was put on "the five major sports" -- what Sports Illustrated contends to be men's and women's basketball, football, baseball and hockey. Penn does not have a varsity hockey team at the current time.

Other categories that were sampled include "position in the '01-'02 Sears Cup NCAA all-sports standings, number of varsity, club and intramural sports, range of recreational facilities and whether or not spirit-boosting events like Midnight Madness were held."

While Sports Illustrated's rankings may not serve any practical purpose other than selling magazines, it does alert sports fans nationwide about just how students choose to "toast... dear old Penn."

And that never hurt anyone.

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