Do your homework before you write. Clearly I need a refresher course. My last post hinged on the ridiculous assumption that Penn schedules its Ivy League games, which it surely does not — a fact that most sports fans take for granted. While I’ve known this all along, it completely slipped my mind when writing the previous post. I certainly feel like an idiot for my unwarranted and sarcastic bashing of the athletic department when I was obviously in the wrong.

Penn’s athletic department is not at all at fault for holding senior day over Spring Break; it’s just an unfortunate consequence of the way that the Ivy League schedule works. When schools have different vacation dates and all games have to be played on weekends, you wind up with the unavoidable situation of having senior night over Spring Break. It wouldn’t make sense to have it any time earlier in the season.

The Ivy League scheduling also alternates home and away dates every season, so you would think that we’d get stuck having a home rivalry game against Princeton over the vacation as well. However, the athletic department realized this situation a few years ago, and the two schools were able to work out a solution in the 2004-05 season where the first game is always played at Penn.

Contrary to what I suggested earlier, the athletic department has worked tirelessly to protect against these attendance issues and should be commended for their efforts. While I’m not sure about the merits of holding “fan appreciation day” over the break, the onus is on me to talk to the marketing arm of the athletic department before bashing the idea. I plan to do so in order to provide a more accurate assessment of the situation.

So to anyone in the athletic department that I offended with my last post, I’m truly sorry. I was the one that made an unconscionable error, and I’ll do my homework next time so that it doesn’t happen again.

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