Matt Conrad: The time is now to bring in the fans

Looking back through The Daily Pennsylvanian's archives, it's pretty easy to spot a pattern in the paper's sports columns: Every few months, some writer pens a lengthy piece begging the student body to support Penn's teams beyond basketball and football.

Let's be honest - nobody really listens. From a fan's perspective, it's just not that fun to attend a contest in a sport you're not that familiar with and that the Quakers, more likely than not, won't do so hot in.

This year is different though - or at least it could be, if the athletics department does its job and gets the word out.

Right now, our women's squash team is ranked No. 1 in the nation. Men's squash is at No. 4. Fencing is ranked in the top 10. And the wrestling team is at No. 14 - the highest-ranked wrestling team in the Ivy League - and features quite a few top-ranked players, including a defending national champion.

For an athletic department that doesn't usually see an enormous amount of success outside of basketball and football, this is all pretty special.

So why hasn't anyone seemed to notice?

The answer isn't anything new. The athletics department hasn't taken the initiative towards getting the word out to students.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Even on Penn teams' best days (like a men's basketball trip to the NCAA Tournament, for example), not a single school-sponsored piece event took place. Would even a banner rooting on our team be too much to ask for?

Brian Head, Penn Athletics Marketing Coordinator, says that promotional material is in the works. "We're working with Penn student agencies to use Facebook, advertising in the DP, table tents in the dining halls [and] the [athletic department's] website."

While these efforts are admirable, they're missing a critical component.

"We look to promote events that students have a desire to come to - things like basketball and football are the biggest sporting events on campus," Head said. "We also sponsor student nights at wrestling, women's basketball and the soccer games."

But what about, say, our No. 1 women's squash team?

Certainly, students' desire to attend squash or fencing matches hasn't been great.

Yet, if the athletics department wants to change this dynamic, now may be the best chance they have had in quite a while.

With numerous Quakers teams playing important matches - and actually winning - it's up to Steve Bilsky, Director of Athletics, and Co. to get the word out.

It doesn't have to be elaborate.

Let me make a simple suggestion: All you need is a sign on Locust Walk with the upcoming athletics schedule, with a little '(1)' next to 'W. Squash.' I'm not saying that this will get thousands of students to Ringe Courts, but creating awareness that there's an upcoming match is a huge improvement, and may create extra attendance.

Our fencing teams are hosting one of only two Ivy round-robin tournaments of the season next week. If leaflets at Commons get one out of every 100 people that see them to go, it would still be worth the effort.

No matter how the Quakers' sports teams are doing, they deserve our support. But now that there's a chance of students actually wanting to go, it's up to the athletics department to make sure that people know about it.

Somehow, though, I get the feeling that when the women's squash team plays in its next home match, almost nobody outside Hutchinson Gymnasium will know it's happening. And if not now, when?

Matt Conrad is a senior physics major from Manalapan, N.J., and is former Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is mlconrad@sas.upenn.edu.

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