Cezary Podkul | Rivalry - what rivalry?

Everyone who comes to Penn becomes indoctrinated in a few well-known campus myths.

Don't step on the compass, or you'll fail your midterms. Van Pelt is a hot hook-up spot. The Button is a replica of one of Benjamin Franklin's shirt buttons.

My personal favorite, though, is the myth that there is a rivalry between Penn and Princeton.

It's not so much a rivalry as it is a friendly competition in basketball - at best.

The classic notion of an Ivy League rivalry is an intense competition between two schools in all things social, academic and athletic. And in between "safety school" chants and trash-talking, it translates to a high feeling of competitiveness among the students at both schools so that they will always mutually identify each other as rivals.

Stated this way, it becomes obvious that Ivy League rivalries in general aren't true rivalries. It takes two to tango.

While Penn considers Princeton to be its rival, Princeton considers Yale to be its rival. Yale, in turn, considers Harvard to be its rival. And Harvard, in turn, believes it has no rivals, which is why every other Ivy loves beating Harvard in any given sport (which is not hard to do). It's like a soap opera with a series of unrequited love triangles, more so than any sort of rivalry per se.

The only exception, perhaps, is the Yale-Harvard rivalry, which over the years has evolved beyond football into presidential match-ups - Gore vs. Bush - and internet domain pranks. Go to Safetyschool.org, for example, and you'll find yourself on Yale University's home page.

But putting aside the shaky notion of Ivy League rivalries in general, the Penn-Princeton rivalry is a more limited affair.

The origins of the rivalry are firmly rooted in basketball. Over the past four decades, Penn and Princeton have solidly dominated Ivy League basketball. No other Ivy teams have had as many NCAA appearances, close match-ups or overtime games. And with such storied names as coach Fran Dunphy - the most successful men's basketball coach in Penn's history - and Bill Bradley - former Princeton basketball all-star turned Senator - there is indeed something to be said for the Penn-Princeton match-up in basketball.

But not much else.

"Let's just say it is more of a friendly competition on the basketball court. We take a special pleasure when we win over Penn, but I'm not sure that it extends much beyond it," Princeton junior Tom Brown said.

Brown also added that whenever Princeton beats Harvard and Yale in football in the same season, Princeton sponsors a bonfire to celebrate the victories - although the last time this happened was 1993.

Conversely, opinions on the rivalry on this side of the Delaware differ significantly from our Princeton counterparts.

"There is definitely a Penn-Princeton rivalry and it extends to every other sport we play," College senior Marco Cerino said. Cerino added, though, that the crux of the rivalry is in basketball and fondly recalled the Quakers' comeback win over the Tigers in 2005, during which fans rushed the court when the game ended.

But given that most Penn students are apathetic about or simply don't follow many Ivy sports, it's hard to gauge just how much the Penn-Princeton rivalry extends beyond basketball.

Sure, we may say that we have a rivalry with Princeton and wear our "Puck Frinceton" T-shirts. But, at the end of the day, if basketball is the only sport in which we passionately care about the outcome of the Penn-Princeton match-up, then there really is not much to the rivalry at all.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't add that the limited scope of the "rivalry" could simply be because Penn has clearly won, and the rivalry has been settled. Once Penn stole Amy Gutmann from Princeton, it not only wounded but decapitated and finished off the specter of any sort of rivalry with Princeton. Hence, it may be that the final stroke in this rivalry has already been played out, and Penn has nothing to prove to Princeton. In which case, forget the Penn-Princeton "rivalry."

Either way, it's just a myth.

Cezary Podkul is a College and Wharton fifth-year senior from Franklin Park, Ill. His e-mail address is podkul@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Salad Strikes Back appears on Tuesdays.

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