I've been on vacation for the last couple of weeks, so I'm sorry there haven't been too many updates on The Buzz. So here's a post recapping some of the big football news of the last two weeks. I'm also going to post some basketball updates later.
The Ivy League announced its preseason media football poll, and Harvard is the clear favorite, receiving 10 out of 17 first-place votes. However, right behind them was Penn, receiving four, count 'em four, first-place votes. Brown came in third and received the remaining three first-place votes.
Though Penn does return a talented team, for them to match their preseason expectation, let alone win the league, they'll have to win on the road, as they travel to Providence and Boston (not to mention Hanover). In fact, the team will travel 1, 908 miles just for those three games alone (that's farther than Philadelphia to Denver). You can read some thoughts of Penn coach Al Bagnoli and Harvard coach Tim Murphy about the traveling over at Soft Pretzel Logic.
Some other highlights from Ivy media day include audio with the coaches, the list of games Sirius radio will cover (Penn gets three), and the master list of individual and team preseason honors.
Lastly, you might recall there was a fire at 40th and Spruce two weeks ago. Turns out that Penn football players, including preseason All-American CB Chris Wynn, lost their apartment in the blaze (no one was injured). However, they're already on the road to recovering.
Tags: Football, Ivy League, preseason predictions
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August 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
On vacation? From what? Your strenuous job? Puh-leeze. You are a student for goodness sakes.
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Yeah, what sort of college aged person goes on a vacation during the summer? That's obviously absurd.
Thanks to FOJL for another logical and measured response!
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Noah -
It is a given that we readers of the DP respect the efforts of student reporters to balance their demanding academic workloads with their DP reporting responsibilities. That said, readers will not give DP reporters a pass just for showing up. Review your own recent reporting experiences. When you've done some actual digging and reporting, you've received deserved praise from frequently double digit posts. When you've posted stuff that wasn't reporting but trivial or mere links to material elsewhere, it's either been ignored or you were slammed - fairly or unfairly!
FOJL is clearly a passionate Penn sports fan, and the fact that he takes the time to frequently post and point out Penn sport program shortcomings and DP reporting letdowns is a perspective many of us share. What you may have read in his "vacation" comment was a sense of general frustration, which you (the DP) can consider or ignore. Your decision will determine whether or not this will be another contentious year with your readers.
Consider that FOJL, me and other readers as your customers providing feedback on your merchandise. It is not always clear the DP in general cares what its customer base thinks. It may be equally true your customers' expectations are higher than than the DP is currently resourced or able to provide. In online exchanges as per above, more often than not both sides are merely talking passed each other. For my $.02 it would be more productive to engage FOJL and other readers' comments transparently and demonstrate tangibly that you value and consider them.
Even critical feedback should be viewed constructively, rather than criticism that DP reporters seem to get reflexively defensive about. If constructively engaged, the end result will always be that when you produce quality stuff, you'll receive the praise your efforts deserves. We readers have no other place to go,
EN
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
For clarification's sake, I am not editor Noah.
But thanks for the response!
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 pm
And for future clarification, any comment from Editor Noah (or any of us on staff) will have our full name, i.e. Noah Rosenstein or Zach Klitzman (such as this comment).
August 24th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
EN is the man. He is on top of the situation.