I've been to enough Penn sporting events, you see, to develop a little theory about the attendance figures provided in the average box score.
They're bogus, baseless, pulled from thin air. What seems to me a quarter-full turnout at the 8,700-seat Palestra appears as 5,000 in the official count. A few players' parents come out for a soccer game? That'll be a few hundred in the books.
This is, of course, a tricky hypothesis to prove. At a men's basketball game, for instance, the sizable pool of season-ticket holders counts towards the final tally, even if the fan doesn't show on the given night. And as for outdoor events, which are seldom ticketed, people can come and go so easily that it's practically impossible to pinpoint an accurate figure.
Which brings me to my big idea. I needed to find an indoor, ticketed event, with a turnout low enough to allow for a crude head count from yours truly, then compare my estimate to the official number. Men's hoops was out of the question because of the no-show season ticket issue. But what about the women?
Now, if this seems terribly unfair to the Penn women's basketball team, that's because it is. Truth be told, I covered the team last winter, and they usually draw pretty well. I'd have to further bias my study by selecting a game that was: a) non-conference, b) on a weeknight and c) in the dead of winter, when it was cold as hell.
I circled Jan. 26, for a Monday night contest with Seton Hall.
Expecting a crowd of a few dozen or so, I was met with a dose of karmic retribution when what looked like a couple hundred people were already in their seats before tip-off.
Regardless, I perched myself behind the Quakers' bench to perform my 360-degree survey.
Ninety-nine fans, 40 band members, 22 people on the Penn bench, 17 on Seton Hall's, 11 cheerleaders, 11 staffers behind the scorer's table, nine people involved in the UTV and radio call of the game, four Palestra guards, three referees, one jolly mascot, and a partridge in a pear tree.
With the help of my cell phone calculator, I had my initial figure: 217.
Suddenly, something dawned on me: Should most of these people even count?
I tracked down assistant ticket manager Brian Haggerty for the scoop.
"We use any sales before the game," he said, "plus anything at the window [including student walk-ins] on the night of the game, plus tickets reserved for friends and family."
That's it.
Any season tickets?
"Yes. We have two active accounts."
Revised figure: 217 - 118 (band, team, etc.) + 2 = 101.
Unfortunately, I overlooked an entirely predictable development while chatting in Haggerty's ticket booth. More people started to show after the game had started, and I wasn't there to mark them. By my frantic rough estimation, I had missed about 30 walk-ins. Twenty or so more ambled into the seats before the half was over, putting my final number at about 150, conservatively.
For the rest of the game, I scoured the arena for a little "Name that attendance!" audience participation.
"I'd say about 200, including the band," guessed Norman Scott, father of senior guard Kelly Scott.
"Two-hundred-plus," said men's team forward Jack Eggleston, seated front row center with six women at his side - the Palestra's version of Jack Nicholson.
"Maybe 20," proffered cheerleader Nicole Thomas, on line for food during halftime.
"There's 20 in this line!" replied an eavesdropper in front of her.
"Okay," Thomas amended. "How about 100?"
As the game neared its close, I hovered creepily around the scorer's table, waiting for the final box score to make its way off the presses.
Once Seton Hall finally dribbled out its win, the verdict was announced: 278.
What?!?! Now, I realize my method was far from scientific, but more than a hundred off? Was I really going to have to admit that Jack Eggleston not only had 12 inches on me, but could also school me in crowd-counting with a two-second guess, and then calmly return to his courtside contingent of lady friends?
Not so fast.
"Usually around 330, that's the cutoff," said a source close to Penn Athletics with knowledge of the attendance calculation.
Meaning?
"If it's under that, we just add a hundred."
So there you have it, folks. Score one for the five-foot-eight-and-below crowd!
Still, satisfied as I was with the success of my little experiment, I couldn't help but think that maybe my search had been misguided. Only the most neurotic of Penn sports junkies would get so worked up about something so trivial, and yet here was someone like Eggleston - a hard-nosed exemplar of the Philly basketball tradition on the court - using his spare time to support his female counterparts at a meaningless game in January.
What could drive a man to such heroic deeds?
"I live with [women's basketball players] Sarah Bucar and Erin Power," he told me, "so I get yelled at if I don't come."
Turns out the scoreboard at the Palestra was as flawed as the attendance numbers. Seton Hall wasn't the winner on this night.
Jack Eggleston was.
Matt Flegenheimer is a sophomore Economics major from New York. His e-mail address is flegenheimer@dailypennsylvanian.com.
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