Flegenheimer | Time to give Lax some more love

So, you're a Penn sports fan.

Tough sledding, eh?

No football titles since 2003, the worst basketball season in nearly two decades, and if Glen Miller has to wish one more departing hoopster "well on his future endeavors," you might just burst out of your Red and Blue Crew T-shirt like some sort of Incredible Ivy League Hulk. (Oxymoron?)

The way I see it, you have two options: On the one hand, you could curse the successes of rivals Cornell and Villanova, marvel at how unspeakably cool 'Nova coach Jay Wright is and sharpen your pitchfork for the athletic department's April 26"town hall" meeting on the state of men's basketball.

Or, there's door number two: Hop on the bandwagon of the national powerhouse hiding among us, the best program of its kind on the East Coast, the Sovereigns of Stick, the Fiends of Franklin, the Caesars of Spruce Street, the Inspiration for Insufferable Idioms.

Behold women's lacrosse, the best - and, quite possibly, only - show in town.

Last season, coach Karin Brower's squad became the first program in school history to reach the finals of an NCAA Tournament in any team sport.

During the regular season, the Quakers were briefly ranked first in the country after downing eventual champion Northwestern at Franklin Field.

This year, Penn has defeated all eight of its opponents by an average of over seven goals per game to claim the nation's second ranking.

But there is still one unsettling statistical trend: attendance.

"I don't think that we've been getting as much press [as some other programs]," Brower said. "Unfortunately, newspapers tend to like negative stories better, and they highlight teams that aren't doing well." (Who, us?)

"[That] is not beneficial to getting fans to come to the teams that are doing well," she said.

In fairness to the existing Quakers faithful, the team's 294-fan average this season (including athletic department inflation) is good for second in the Ivy League thus far - and ain't half bad for a non-revenue sport.

But the number inexplicably falls short of last year's average by more than 50 spectators per contest, and it trails Princeton's per-game drawing power this season by nearly 200.

"I think on the campus, we got tons of support from people," senior Becca Edwards said. "They might not actually be able to show up at the games, but if they see you wearing Penn lacrosse sweats, they'll say congratulations."

Such an action isn't insignificant. Five years ago, do you think anyone on campus, save for the players and their roommates, could say a single intelligent thing about the status of women's lacrosse?

Still, we can do them one better. With only three home games to go, the time has come, to borrow Edwards' phrase, for the casual Penn sports fan to "actually be able to show up at the games."

I know lacrosse may be unfamiliar territory for some, but it's not so scary. There's a ball, there's a goal, even the occasional big hit.

So come on down to Franklin Field, I'll save you a seat.

I'll be the guy with the pitchfork.

Matt Flegenheimer is a sophomore Economics major from New York. His e-mail address is flegenheimer@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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