Hutz| Town hall - sans townies

If you're a Penn hoops fan, your ears probably perked up last week when you heard that the Athletic Department was hosting a town hall-style meeting for an "open discussion of Penn basketball."

You cleared your calendar for April 26 and may have started drafting that burning question you wanted to ask coach Glen Miller.

Not so fast.

If you didn't receive that original e-mail announcing the event, then save yourself a trip to the Inn at Penn. The public is not invited to this one, the Athletic Department clarified yesterday.

Instead, only a select group of boosters, alumni and student season-ticket holders will be allowed to attend.

Aside from some initial confusion about the policy that I'll address later, this is inherently a bad move for the Athletic Department, as well as for Miller.

I thought the event being "open to the public" was too good to be true.

Miller strikes me as a private person, wary of the media and public opinion.

But maybe the Athletic Department was ready to be more open and honest about the state of the program. This was Miller's chance to try and convince fans that next season would turn out better.

According to the Athletic Department, this gathering is part of the normal cycle of exclusive events for boosters of the program.

Maybe Miller needs to patch things up with the big-money donors, but he also has obligations to the larger fan base.

Those fans will decide if seats will be filled at the Palestra next year. Not giving them the option to attend is only going to alienate average fans further. They don't get to hear Miller speak in press conferences or at practice and need to hear reassurances for themselves from the coach.

In fact, I don't even know if The Daily Pennsylvanian will officially be allowed to cover this event, further reducing the possibility that the public will gain insight into the basketball program.

Also, only "selected students" will be allowed to attend, according to the e-mail.

Senior associate director of athletics Alanna Shanahan told me last month that the number of students who participated in the Line and bought season tickets was down. Students who didn't participate, barred from the section underneath the basket due to the new student-ticket policy, are the ones Athletics needs to win back.

In the interest of full disclosure, I went ahead and RSVP'ed to Joe Neary over the weekend, just like the widely-circulated e-mail from senior athletic director Mary DiStanislao instructed, even though I didn't receive an invitation.

I received an e-mail thanking me for my reply.

Some who called Neary were even told that the meeting would be open to the public.

But by yesterday, Neary had become more picky about who he allowed on the list. One student told me he attempted to RSVP but was questioned about his ticket-holding status (he is not a season-ticket holder who participated in the Line).

If Miller gives carefully scripted responses and isn't willing to open up and answer questions honestly, then I don't know if this town hall meeting will help anyway.

In short, with the meeting closed, any public-relations credit Miller and the Athletic Department could have garnered in the eyes of the public is now gone.

Krista Hutz is a senior History major from Philadelphia and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Her e-mail address is hutz@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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