34 players in football’s class of 2017

Posted on May 17, 2013 by John Phillips

Coming off of their third Ivy League Championship in four seasons, Penn football adds 34 players in its class of 2017.

As is standard in coach Al Bagnoli's system, running backs get a lot of use, and this class reflects that, with six running backs added to the mix.

In attempt both to add depth to a defensive line that had trouble getting to the quarterback at times last season, finishing tied for fifth in the Ivy League with 19 sacks, as well as replace the production that former captain Brandon Copeland brought on the D-line, Penn brings in seven defensive linemen, the most of any position in the class.

In addition to adding depth, Penn also added interesting pieces that Bagnoli will try to use in creative ways.

Danny Ferens comes in as a wide receiver after playing quarterback and strong safety in high school. Even from under center, he showed explosive ability with his legs reminiscent of Billy Ragone.

Meanwhile, Alek Torgersen enters as one of two quarterbacks added to the roster. In addition to taking the ball under center, he also is listed as a punter. With no other punter being brought in to replace Scott Lopano, if the team decides to go with a freshman, the job may go to Torgersen or to Aron Morgan, the other specialist in the class of 2017.

Preston Troutt signs on to play for Penn basketball

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Steven Tydings

For those of you who thought Jerome Allen was done bringing in players for the class of 2017, think again.

Somewhat the forgotten member of Penn's incoming freshman class, Trinity Christian Academy senior guard Preston Troutt has signed on to play for the Quakers this fall.

Troutt committed to the Red and Blue last fall and played well early in the season but missed the second half of Trinity Christian's season with an injury.

Troutt's signing brings Allen's class to a total of five players, with Troutt joining Tony Bagtas, Dave Winfield Jr., Matthew Howard and Dylan Jones.

Where Troutt fits in with the Quakers next season remains to be seen, as the team has a plethora of guards for the 2013-14 season, including Bagtas, Howard, Miles Cartwright and Tony Hicks.

But regardless of where he fits in, Troutt will be a freshman this fall, becoming the next member of Penn basketball.

A letter: 115 years of ice hockey at Penn

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Allison Bart

Before finals began, about two weeks ago, The Daily Pennsylvanian published two stories about the history of varsity hockey at Penn and if there is any potential for a program in the future. But there is much more history to hockey at Penn than can be published in an article or two. Bob Kitrinos sent in the detailed letter below sharing a more in-depth look at the 115-year history of the hockey program at Penn and where alumni and current students now stand. Kitrinos was a kid during some of the varsity hockey team's best years in the early 1970s. He worked at the Class of 1923 Rink and volunteered for the team in 1972. He has kept in touch with many alumni and is "the de facto historian because [he] did the research into the team's history," he wrote in an email. He takes part in a large alumni Facebook group that has gained many members from Penn's hockey community. Check out the letter he sent below:

Surprise! Ice hockey is alive and well at the University of Pennsylvania. Although a financially strapped athletic department cut the varsity program in 1978, club teams have continued the University’s hockey tradition for the past 35 years. The University has had a love-hate relationship with the hockey program for the last hundred years. Penn’s leadership has historically promoted football and basketball. Yet in the mid-1970s, the ice hockey team often outdrew the basketball team. In 1978, the cash-strapped university cut hockey, gymnastics, golf and badminton, prompting students to stage a four-hour sit-in at College Hall. The University responded by agreeing to keep gymnastics, golf and badminton, but wouldn’t vacate its decision to drop varsity hockey. This wasn’t the first time the university cut the hockey program. For lack of love or money, the University shut the program down five times over the last century. Each time it came back or persisted.

It didn’t have to be that way. Penn was one of the pioneers of ice hockey in the United States and among the first college hockey teams. Although the official university history dates the program to 1898, Penn actually fielded a competitive hockey team two years earlier in 1896-1897. Four Canadian students, led by George Washington Orton, formed the nucleus of the team. At Penn today, Orton is just remembered as a track star; in Canada, he is best known for winning Canada’s first Olympic Gold Medal in track. But Orton was a diehard hockey player first and developed a commitment to institutionalizing ice hockey at Penn and in Philadelphia.

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Q & A with WKCR Sports Director Sam Tydings

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Steven Tydings

At the center of the Columbia football situation has been the racist and homophobic tweets that WKCR, Columbia’s student radio station, uncovered and posted shortly after the arrest of Chad Washington. Here is my interview with WKCR’s Sports Director (and also my brother) Sam Tydings, who worked with both his coworkers at WKCR and with others to both find and display to the public the objectionable tweets from the football players. (I also interviewed him in January in Behind Enemy Lines to talk about Columbia taking on Penn in men’s basketball.)

Daily Pennsylvanian: What was your initial reaction when you found out about the arrest?

Sam Tydings: My initial reaction was to find out more about who was involved. That we knew that the initial report was that Chad Washington was involved but the original NBC4 report said that there were at least four other people involved and I wanted to find out who they were. We at WKCR Sports soon found out that there were at least three or four other people involved and they were all members of the Columbia football team and they were all white. And yet Chad Washington, who is a black man, was the only one charged with anything so I found that interesting for a variety of reasons that made me want to look into what these players were saying and what might have caused this.

DP: So was that what drove you to look the players up on social media?

ST: Well, the first thing that really drove me to find out what was going on on social media is that on the Columbia Spectator, there were comments on one of the posts about the hate crime and someone copied a tweet from Tom Callahan, an offensive lineman on the team, and it was anti-Semitic. So I wanted to look and see what else was this guy saying on social media and as I was clicking over to see one of his other tweets, his account got deleted. I thought, “well, that was pretty strange,” but let’s look into some other people who were on the same floor as Chad Washington and they started deleted their accounts.

So I thought there was something weird going on and that’s what made me want to look into everyone on the football team and what are these players saying and why do they want to hide their accounts.

DP: What are the major takeaways from the tweets from your perspective?

ST: That there is a real homophobia problem between the players that we found. We ended up finding 18 public accounts and 12 of them had something pretty objectionable on there. Most of it had to do with homophobia rather than racist remarks against Asians or anti-Semitic remarks.

And the other takeaway I have is that athletics really dropped the ball on this. That we were able to find so many of these accounts from following the Columbia Lions football account or [head coach] Pete Mangurian’s account. That Columbia athletics knew what these players were saying. They should have known this was going on and either willfully ignored it and they were accepting it or were too dumb to properly use the internet. There really is not much other explanation.

DP: So would you say that this is an indictment of the football culture, the athletic department as a whole, or just this small group of football players?

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The DP’s Graduation Issue Out Now

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Mike Tony

Grab The DP's Grad Issue, out now, with senior goodbye columns from six now officially former DPOSTMers, Dau Jok traveling to Nigeria for the We Play To Win foundation and Mike Tomlin reflecting on his coaching career while visiting Penn.

And check out The Red & Blue in Review, where we offer snippets of insight into our athletes, coaches and teams of the year, which are also listed after the jump.

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Columbia Football Suddenly Looks A Lot More Offensive

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Mike Tony

Courtesy of bwog.com

Columbia football has been in a world of hurt for a long time now, with a shameful .323 winning percentage (71-147-2) since 1991.

But what's really shameful for Columbia football has been the last 48 hours. Late Tuesday night, NBC New York reported that sophomore defensive lineman Chad Washington was charged with aggravated harassment after he allegedly assaulted and threatened another student with racial slurs.

According to the criminal complaint, the incident occurred at 1:45 a.m. on Sunday. Detective Michael Diaz of the NYPD's bias incident investigations unit says the victim "observed defendant with five other individuals in front of the above mentioned location and hears someone in the group state in substance: 'Yellow fever. Chinky eyes. Asian mother fucker.'"

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Ryan Deitrich Jumps to Duke

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Mike Tony

Former Penn senior outfielder Ryan Deitrich is now a Duke Blue Devil.

In 2013, Deitrich led the Ivy League in batting average and on base percentage, and tied for first in the conference in hits with teammate freshman infielder Mike Vilardo and Dartmouth sophomore pitcher Matt Parisi. Deitrich missed his entire freshman year at Penn to injury and now joins a Duke team that finished last in the ACC Coastal Division in 2013.

Deitrich's move comes less than a week after John Cole was let go as Penn baseball manager. Thanks in part to Deitrich, Penn had a solid offensive season in 2013, finishing second in slugging percentage and third in on base percentage, runs scored, RBIs and hits. Still, Deitrich leaves behind an offense that should prove quite capable with Vilardo, Austin Bossart, Ryan Mincher and Mitch Montaldo all coming back in 2014.

John Cole out as manager for Penn baseball

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Steven Tydings

After a disappointing finish to the season for Penn baseball, the program has decided to make a change at the top.

Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky announced Friday that coach John Cole will not have his contract renewed.

This comes on the heels of a 7-13 Ivy League season for the Red and Blue, who lost ten of their 12 games in division.

Heading into division play, the Quakers were 5-3, just one game out of first place in the Gehrig division but the team slipped three games to both Cornell and Princeton before being swept by Columbia.

Cole went 143-178-1 in his eight seasons as the manager for Penn. During his tenure, Cole led the team to one Gehrig division crown, while finishing second on three occasions. However, back-to-back last place finishes ultimately help lead to Penn letting him go.

Copeland discusses NFL signing

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Megan Soisson

In between a final exam and a final paper, I sat down with former Penn defensive end Brandon Copeland, who signed with the Baltimore Ravens at the end of this weekend's NFL Draft. We talked about his signing, the long road ahead, his new position as a middle linebacker and much more.

All three Penn football players who had NFL hopes will go to rookie mini camps Thursday through Sunday. In addition to Copeland, OL Joe Bonadies was invited to the Minnesota Vikings camp and punter Scott Lopano was invited to kick at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers camp. Originally a Southlake, Tex., native, Lopano's family moved to Tampa a year and a half ago.

Below are some highlights from my conversation with Copeland:

Has it all set in yet?

Not yet.

When do you think it will?

Hopefully never … I don’t really want it to sink in, I’m not trying to get comfortable at all because one, coming from the Ivy League, you’re always going to be fighting. You’re always going to be expected to do everything perfect, you don’t really have a margin for error. And two, no contract is guaranteed in the NFL except for the first few rounds and things like that. So hopefully I’ll never be comfortable with it and knowing myself, obviously tomorrow I’ll be different than I am today, but knowing myself I’ll never be comfortable with it. I’ll continue to have a chip on my shoulder. Sometimes it hits me, like right now I’m technically an NFL player, but I have not proven or done anything to actually earn that title yet.

When did you hear from the Ravens that they wanted to sign you?

During the last round they were calling and they said, 'As soon as this thing finishes up we want to try to get on the phone with your agent and work out a deal.' So obviously I’m happy.

Did you hear from any other teams?

Yeah, I heard from a couple other teams and mainly the Packers, but this I guess for me is the dream.

Because then you kind of had a choice.

Yeah, you basically decide … Obviously the advantage of being drafted is a better signing bonus or a few more thousand dollars more, but you still could be cut. When we go to minicamp this weekend, everyone’s on the same playing field. Obviously the first rounders can feel a little bit more secure, a little more comfortable coming in, probably more relaxed. But after that it’s kind of, we’re all just fighting to make the team. We’re all going to be the same people, some people have a few more dollars I guess.

Do you know the receiver from Towson who was also signed by the Ravens?

He went to my rival high school, Gerrard Sheppard. He went to UConn then he transferred to Towson. Me and him played basketball, we grew up together. Our families are real close, so that’s real cool. We saw each other at the local pro day, we haven’t gotten a chance to talk yet, but we’ll see each other this weekend. But like I said, he’s a family friend, we’ve been friends since we were little. We used to play rec league basketball together at Owings Mills since probably 8 or 9, and me and him used to always battle against each other.

So the Ravens want you to play middle linebacker?

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American Athletic Conference eyeing the Palestra today

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Mike Tony

AAC representatives are visiting the Palestra today as a potential site of the conference's March 2014 men’s basketball tournament, according to Mark Blaudschun.

American Athletic Association commissioner Mike Aresco is reportedly drawn to the Palestra's historical significance as the "Cathedral of College Basketball" as well as the gym's smaller seating (8,700 seats), which would encourage greater demand for tickets for the fledgling conference.

Other sites up for consideration include Hartford, Tampa, Memphis, Cincinnati and Louisville. An announcement is expected in the next few weeks on which site will be the 2014 men's tourney host, although the women's and men's tournaments are both expected to move on a rotating basis.