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Dougherty

Fran Dougherty wore a black shirt and a blue sling. Steve Rennard wore a gray shirt and a black boot.

Sitting near them on the Penn bench were two other players in street clothes, freshman Julian Harrell and sophomore Simeon Esprit, as well as at least one hobbled player in uniform, freshman Darius Nelson-Henry.

Such is the way it’s gone for the Penn basketball team over the past few years: lots of injuries, lots of bad luck, and now, it appears, a sixth straight season without an

Rennard

Ivy League championship.

Days after Penn head coach Jerome Allen revealed to Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia that key junior starters Dougherty (dislocated elbow) and Rennard  (plantar fascia tear) were likely done for the year, Penn fell to Yale on Friday at the Palestra  for its third Ivy League loss.

Despite responding with an impressive 23-pount rout of Brown the next night, the loss to Yale effectively eliminated Penn (5-17 overall, 2-3 Ivy League) from Ivy

Nelson-Henry

title contention. Only four times before (in 2001-02, 1986-87, 1984-85 and 1979-80) has Penn still captured an Ivy title with three or more league losses, and the league is a lot more top-heavy now than it was in those years.

There’s an interesting post on the Penn message boards that lays out all of the injuries, as well as players transferring, quitting or being ruled ineligible, since the title drought began in 2007-08. Of course there have been other problems – but it’s hard not to look at that long list and wonder if the state of the program might be better if not for some bad luck.

Few players have had as much bad luck as Dougherty, who was enjoying a breakout junior campaign this year before getting sick with mononucleosis and missing eight straight games. And then after smiling from ear-to-ear after returning for last Friday’s game vs. Columbia, he dislocated his elbow the next night vs. Cornell.

Just brutal.

And then there’s Darien Nelson-Henry, one of the most exciting freshman prospects in years. The burly center didn’t play during crunch time in Friday’s game vs. Yale – certainly a contributing factor to the loss – and then sat out the whole game vs. Brown with his left knee heavily bandaged.

Nelson-Henry’s status for the rest of the season is uncertain at this point. But if recent history is any indication, luck won’t be on the Quakers’ side.

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Anna Aagenes C’10 (above) had a very clear message last night while speaking to more than 100 people at Houston’s Hall’s Bodek Lounge.

“Now is the time to go,” the former Penn women’s track captain said. “We’re ready.  We’re not going to wait for the pro athletes to come out. Now is the time.”

Such was the theme of Thursday’s official rebranding of a national organization called GO! Athletes, standing for Generation Out. The group, which is designed to connect LGBT student-athletes around the country, was founded in 2008 under the name Our Group, but was relaunched with Aagenes, a proud bisexual woman, serving as executive director.

Joanna Lohman looks on as Anna Aagenes addresses the crowd

This is nothing new for Aagenes, who was the former chair of PATH (Penn’s Athletes & Allies Tackling Homophobia) and a leader in Penn’s LGBT community when she was a student. PATH is believed to be the first college group serving as an outlet for gay athletes, while GO! Athletes is the first national organization of its kind – all of which makes Aagenes something of a pioneer for gay rights.

And as a leader of the cause, she hopes GO! will foster a friendly environment in which gay athletes no longer feel like they need to remain closeted from their teammates and opponents – by networking with other members of the group.

Penn swimmer Daniel Gutnayer

One example is Daniel Gutnayer, a senior on Penn’s swim team. He spoke at Thursday’s event and told the audience that he came out to all of his teammates in dramatic fashion and that there are now five gay members of the swim team.

“I had no idea my one voice could make such a difference,” he said.

Then there’s Brian Sims, who was the first openly gay college football captain when he played at Division II Bloomsburg (I once wrote a long feature on him, which you can read here) and soon to be the first openly gay state legislator in the history of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. Sims introduced the keynote speaker, openly gay professional soccer player Joanna Lohman.

“When the history of LGBT athletics is written, it will be chapter 10 before they ever mention a man,” Sims said. “Before they ever do, they will mention Joanna Lohman.”

Lohman – who starred at Penn State (“Everyone always mistook Penn State for Penn and I never took that as an insult,” she told the Penn audience) and on the Philadelphia Independence before the Women’s Professional Soccer league folded – is now engaged to former teammate Lianne Sanderson.

And she spoke of some of the difficulties she and Sanderson have faced when they travel the world to help boost the social status of young girls in developing countries by using soccer as a vehicle (through an organization they started called JoLi Academy). Lohman said children from Jamaica often didn’t believe that she was a girl because she has short hair and muscles.

Lohman shows a slideshow of her journey abroad

“What is it like every day as a gay woman around the world?” she said. “It’s hard. It’s complex. It’s draining. It’s uncomfortable.”

But she believes it will get easier, thanks in large part to organizations like GO!, which will aim to break down the barriers that still exist in sports (it’s well-documented that there has never been an openly gay man to come out while actively playing in any of the major pro leagues).

“When I started my journey,” Lohman said, “there weren’t groups like GO! Athletes to help. Now there are. Start your own journey and let us be your cheerleaders.”

How strong is Penn’s Olympic tradition?

We got a good glimpse of it Thursday in England when one Penn rowing Olympic medal-winner (Anita DeFrantz L’77) put a gold medal around the neck of another Penn rowing Olympic medal-winner (Susan Francia C’04, G’04).

Moments before the emotional ceremony, Francia had captured gold in her second straight Olympics when her women’s eight team outlasted second-place Canada and third-place Netherlands in a dominating wire-to-wire victory in the 2,000-meter finals, repeating their championship performance at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

On the medal stand, the announcer said Francia seemed “happiest of them all,” and he was probably right. It’s been a tough journey for her, after all, as she had to fight back from a severe herniated disk and broken ribs to earn her spot in the women’s eight boat for a second consecutive Olympics.

But there she was in England, smiling ear to ear and collecting a second gold medal from DeFrantz, who captained the women’s eight to bronze at the 1976 Olympics and later became the first female vice president of the International Olympic Committee.

With her back-to-back Olympic victories, Francia becomes the first Penn athlete to win two gold medals since William Arthur Carr C’33 did it in track 80 years ago.

Before Francia, the last Penn alum to win gold was wrestler Brandon Slay in 2000. Slay is back in the 2012 Olympics as a Team USA wrestling coach.

Penn, which has had a representative in every Summer Olympics since 1900, now owns at least 26 gold medals and at least 82 total medals.

Brandt at Union training shortly before he was released in early February (Philadelphia Union/Greg Carraccio)

In the eighth minute of Tuesday night’s U.S. Open Cup game, Tom Brandt was called onto the field at PPL Park.

It marked the first time Brandt would play a game inside the home stadium of the Philadelphia Union … but it was certainly not the way he originally imagined.

Drafted by the Union in the first round of the 2012 Major League Soccer Supplemental Draft, the ex-Penn soccer standout only spent about two weeks with the MLS club before being released in the preseason.

But Brandt quickly found a good home with the Union’s minor league affiliate, the Harrisburg City Islanders of the United Soccer Leagues Pro Division. And that’s who he played with during Tuesday’s U.S. Open Cup contest when the Union beat visiting Harrisburg, 5-2, in an exciting tournament game.

“I mean, it was tough being released like that,” Brandt admitted from the visiting locker room at PPL Park shortly after the game ended. “But talking to the [Union] coaching staff, the biggest thing right now is developing yourself. And if you’re not going to play on a team and get minutes, it’s important to find a team to be on and get reps and keep playing the game. In the long run, I think it worked out for me.”

Brandt started the U.S. Open Cup game against his former team on the bench but was called upon very early when starting defender Stephen Basso dislocated his shoulder on a play he was also called for a handball in the box.

Upon entering the game, Brandt immediately had a lot of work to do against a Union team that had Harrisburg on their heels for most of the first half. But despite the 5-2 loss, the Penn alum fared well and even had a strong attempt on net with a header that went jut over the bar in the 42^nd minute.

“That’s what [Harrisburg head coach Bill Becher] tells us – to be ready at any time,” Brandt said. “Sometimes it’s in the 89^th minute. Sometimes it’s a freak accident like that in the first couple of minutes. So you always have to be ready.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of the match for Ivy League soccer fans was that Brandt was opposite Philadelphia Union striker and Princeton alum Antoine Hoppenot for part of the second half.

Brandt and Hoppenot were both selected in the same supplemental draft by the Union and used to have some killer matchups in college, with Brandt playing center back and Hoppenot playing center forward.

“I was trying to get the ball and isolate him and beat him,” laughed Hoppenot, who has emerged as one of the Union’s top offensive players over the past couple of weeks.

But Brandt – who was first-team All-Ivy and a third-team NSCAA All-Region selection during his senior season at Penn – didn’t get burned during the game. And if he’s still feeling burned about his quick exit from Union camp, he didn’t show it.

“It didn’t work out initially, but I’m happy where I’m at,” said Brandt, who hails from the Harrisburg area. “I just have to keep working hard every day.”

Joshua Harris (second from left), David Blitzer (fourth from left) and Art Wrubel (far right) are three of the new Sixers owners that went to Penn.

On the campus where he once went to college, Wall Street investor Joshua Harris W’86 was introduced to the Philadelphia media this week as a new owner of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Harris is part of a large ownership group that includes David Blitzer W’91 and, according to one report, four other Penn graduates. Art Wrubel W’87 and Marc Leder W’83 are two of them. Philadelphia native Will Smith is also an investor in the NBA franchise (although sadly, the Hollywood mega-star is not a former Quaker).

The sale had been in the works for a while but was not made official until Harris and others spoke on the floor of the Palestra, with 76ers championship banners hanging in the background.

And now that Harris, Blitzer and others have control of the team – which had been owned by Comcast-Spectacor since 1996 – they unveiled a series of moves they hope will restore confidence in the relatively dormant franchise. Among them:

• Ticket prices were seriously reduced, some being cut in half
• Ed Stefanski W’76, a former Penn basketball player, was relieved of his duties as general manager
• Travel executive Adam Aron (not a Penn grad!) will take over as the franchise’s new CEO
• A new website – NewSixersOwners.com – has been launched to solicit fan feedback

Harris could not talk specifically about players or other on-court issues because of the NBA lockout but he did throw his support behind current head coach Doug Collins. The Wharton alum also boasted about the quality of fans in Philly, which he first began to see when he got to Penn in 1982 (the same season, he notes, that the Sixers last won an NBA championship).

The optimism abounding from the Sixers’ new ownership group has already been met with some cynicism from those who see the NBA as a gloomy league, especially in the midst of a lockout that has frustrated fans. But, for now, the Penn grads seem hopeful they will be able to put people back into the seats and eventually turn the Sixers back into a championship team.

Go Quakers! I mean, go Sixers!

On a cool and windy Thursday afternoon, the University unveiled one of the boldest projects in the school’s illustrious history: Penn Park. The 24 acres of athletic fields, open recreational space, and pedestrian connections south of Walnut Street on the eastern edge of Penn’s campus were greeted by swarms of excited students, alumni and administrators – and met with rave reviews. I went out there for Thursday’s grand opening – a celebration that included tree planting, ribbon cutting, a picnic and fireworks – and snapped a video and some photographs. In the video below, Penn president Amy Gutmann (center) is joined by athletic director Steve Bilsky (left), the chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees David Cohen (right) and the Penn band and cheerleaders after cutting the ribbon to open Penn Park. Below that are a few photos, mostly highlighting Penn Park’s athletic facilities. Enjoy:

Ribbon Cutting

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Penn students gather in the park's picnic area (and wait for free food).

Penn students play utlimate frisbee on one of the new turf fields. These fields will really be a boon for the school's club and intramural teams.

The Penn band marches in on one of Penn Park's pedestrian walkways.

The seats from Penn Park's new softball field offer a stunning view of the city.

As with the softball fields, these new tennis courts could do wonders for Penn's athletic programs.

While movie directors and fiction writers seem keen on creating robots aimed to destroy the world, the University of Pennsylvania is attempting something far more benign:

It seems they’re trying to create super robot athletes.

Only a few months after a Penn engineering creation named “PhillieBot” threw out the first pitch at a Phillies game (a story that garnered national attention, despite the robot bouncing the ball to the plate and getting booed), Penn and Virginia Tech collaborated to win a worldwide competition for robots playing soccer!

The tournament was called RoboCup 2011 and it was held in Istanbul, Turkey. Penn and Virginia Tech’s Team DARwin won the Humanoid Kid Size competition, using “faster, shorter kicks” to beat 22 other teams from all over the world on their way to the title.

Here’s an interesting video explaining more about the competition and their speicific robot design:

And below is another video highlighting DARwin’s 8-1 rout over Japan’s CIT Brains (whose main strategy seemed to be having their goalie fall over) in the RoboCup championship. It’s long but strangely exciting, especially between the 7:00 and 7:45 mark when a DARwin robot is knocked over five times right in front of the goal (hey ref, where’s the call?!?) before finally scoring.

A year ago at this time, Maalik Reynolds and Connie Hsu didn’t even go to Penn.

This week, both freshmen will begin play in the NCAA Championships, hoping to bring home national championships for their new school.

Reynolds, a high jumper on the men’s track and field squad, will compete in the NCAA East Preliminary Round from Thursday to Saturday at Indiana University, while Hsu, a star singles player on the women’s tennis team, takes on the country’s best starting today at Stanford.

Penn Athletics has more information on the freshmen’s NCAA exposure here and here. And you can read Daily Pennsylvanian profiles on the two phenoms from earlier in the season here and here.

No matter what happens on the national stage, it’s fair to say both will go down as two of the best Quaker freshmen in recent memory, if not ever.

Reynolds beat out some of the nation’s premier jumpers to win a Penn Relays Championship of America crown with a jump of 2.22 meters, and followed that up with a school and personal record jump of 2.28 meters to claim the Heptagonal Championships title earlier this month.

And Hsu, who captured both Ivy League Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year plaudits after winning all 20 of her singles matches this spring (without even dropping a set), is the first Quaker to qualify for the NCAA Championships in singles since Alice Pirsu did it in 2003.

Can a national championship be an encore for either of these star athletes? Stay tuned.

One of Penn’s most recognized alums, a diehard Quakers hoops fan, and your favorite former governor is now something else: a sportswriter.

On Monday, new Philadelphia Daily News Larry Platt delivered a memo to his staff, informing them of Ed Rendell’s new gig of newspaper columnist. Here’s what he wrote:

Speaking of loud voices, I also want to welcome our new sports columnist, none other than Ed Rendell. Some fifteen years ago, I sat with Rendell in the mayor’s box at Veterans Stadium while the Eagles waged a furious on-field comeback. He stood up, hoagie innards spewing from his mouth, while he pounded the plexiglass separating his box from that of new owner Jeffrey Lurie, trying to get Lurie and his nonplussed guests to join him in full-throated cheer. Lurie placidly kept his eyes glued to the field. Finally, waving in disgust, Rendell returned to his seat, saying, “This is the football box; that’s the quiche-eaters’ box.” As we know, none of that passion has waned in the intervening years. I look forward to our Fan-In-Chief surprising and amusing us in print every week, starting this Wednesday.

Here’s hoping, Rendell, a Penn basketball season-ticket holder, devotes at least one column a month to the Quakers.

Replace Hillary Clinton with Zack Rosen

Speaking of Penn sports, on the same day as the Rendell announcement, Penn football coach Al Bagnoli was honored at the annual Philadelphia Sports Writers Association Awards Dinner. He won the Special Achievement Award for becoming the all-time winngest coach in the school’s illustrious football history.

Former Penn basketball coach Fran Dunphy, who now with Temple won his 400^th career game this season, was also recognized.

So were Penn seniors Elizabeth and Rebecca Donald, who are in the midst of remarkable rowing careers and who were featured this summer on the blog.

Congrats to everyone for these well-deserved honors, especially Rendell for finally discovering his true calling.