Lisa Zhu | Building school spirit one brewski at a time

Beer and sports games.

Ranking right up there with turkey at Thanksgiving, as one of America's most beloved (or most widely advertised) traditions, these two are as inseparable from each other as a Wharton kid from his BlackBerry.

And while most of us undergraduates can't legally partake in this national way of life until sometime during our penultimate year at Penn, we are still acutely aware of the prominent role beer and athletic events play in conventional perceptions of college life.

True, Penn is not the type of university where the outcome of a football game is the barometer for all social life on campus. Here, sports play second fiddle to academics and career searches, with spectator turnout for athletic events (other than men's basketball) being notoriously poor. Unfortunately, without football to serve as a rallying point for a highly fractured student body, Penn's school spirit can often be depressingly low.

As a solution, the University could consider selling beer at certain athletic events to draw in more spectators, a tradition practiced at many other colleges across the nation.

"Students (if over 21 of course) should absolutely have the right to drink beer if they choose at Penn football games," College junior Dan Maas told me. "Beer is part of American football culture."

In fact, as long as it's not a NCAA Championship game (and let's face it, how often does such a happy occasion happen at Penn anyway?), the University can serve alcohol.

"It's really is up to the school whether they permit alcohol at a non-championship game," NCAA spokeswoman Mary Wilfert said.

Admittedly, serving beer at athletic games probably will not turn Penn football fans into Penn State ones (school spirit being one of the latter's only comparative advantages).

However, allowing students over the age of 21 the opportunity to indulge in limited servings of alcohol at the concession stand, might actually induce older students to consider football games as a social option.

Consider the case of Columbia. Often ridiculed as having the worst football team in the Ivy League, Columbia has instituted a policy that allows students of the legal drinking age to purchase a maximum of three drinks at each game.

While this practice hasn't exactly drawn hordes of fans to the stadium, those that do attend games can certainly numb the pain of consecutive losses with rations of alcohol.

That said, using alcohol as bait may not effectively attract those spiritless seniors who are only looking to get completely "wasted."

At the same time, a good number of those who go out, drink only moderately at most. So it stands to reason that they would do the same at a football game, if given the opportunity. It's a win-win situation - you can still hang out with friends while enjoying a pleasant, mild buzz, and the University simultaneously gets to capitalize on the fabulous photo opportunities arising from the slightly more populous stadium.

Unfortunately, Penn disagrees.

"I would be very surprised if [alcohol] ever happened here, just because of the liability issue," with fake ids, said Mike Mahoney, director of Athletic Communications. "If you allow it, you're opening up a Pandora's box. Essentially you're sanctioning kids to drink."

But in a sense, Penn already sanctions drinking through policies acknowledging that the campus is not "dry." For instance, our highly lauded medical-amnesty rule essentially says that college students will partake in underage drinking regardless of University vigilance, so why not keep them safe?

Similarly, it's safe to assume that students are even more likely to imbibe alcohol when they're over 21. Why not have school spirit-boosting functions where they can do the same?

This seemed to be the operating philosophy when administrators put together the Celebration on the Green event earlier this year to kick off the Making History capital campaign. In addition to buffet tables crammed with Asian, Mexican and soul food, three cups of Yuengling lager rained like manna from the heavens onto students with valid forms of identification. The reaction to this perk was overwhelmingly positive.

"I enjoy having the option of alcoholic beverages and it certainly drew a large number of people that also enjoyed that," College senior Tony Rizzo said.

In other words, Celebration on the Green had the right idea. It's time we went back to our pre-Prohibition-era roots. Let's give ourselves the opportunity to figuratively and literally raise a toast to dear old Pennsylvania.

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