I put this in the Ivy League category because this reflected on the league not merely Penn. It was not remotely funny and put the league (and Penn, in particular) in a poor light. Way to go Quaker fans and cheerleaders.
It was the band, and this has been discussed on the Ivy Basketball site by Penn fans. Just about all of us are disgusted by this behavior. At least one fan on that board who attended was telling them to stop, but it was too late.
It’s partially a result of bad basketball for a very long period of time. This band, with no knowledge of winning, forgot how to lose a key game gracefully. But I’m sure it wasn’t the fans or cheerleaders. Some of the old band members, who have excoriated that chant on the other thread here (“Gross”) had strong statements about this.
A good statement. Kids make mistakes.
Hoe they (and the rest of us) learn from this one.
2 Likes
Glad to see that statement and the Band taking responsibility. I’d still think the University would take some action or at least issue a statement since the band was there officially representing the school.
Still waiting for Yale to apologize for Skull and Bones existing in the first place.
Proof that dumb comments are not limited to the young.
I don’t condone the band’s behavior. But as a side note, at least the band traveled to the NCAA tournament game (and to Ithaca for Ivy Madness) and tries to manifest spirit. Meanwhile, Yale can’t even get its band to show up for half of the regular season home games (in New Haven hosting Brown, the Brown band attended but not Yale) let alone the postseason (University of Idaho band famously stepped in for Yale’s 2024 run in Spokane; Hillhouse High School band played for Yale’s 2026 NIT home game). Maybe this speaks to the much older tradition of basketball excellence at Penn than some of the teams with more recent titles (Harvard, Yale).
I thought it was funny
So long as you’re in middle school, I guess we can forgive your sense of humor and bad judgment. But hey, it’s not like we should care what the rest of the country thinks about us. What are they going to do, start taxing our endowments?
Ironically, Illinois outranks Penn in many fields—including in computer science—and their average ACT scores differ by 1 point.
edit: agreed + most recent 50th percentiles are 33 / 35 & sat suggests difference of around 1.5pts
1 Like
That is the difference between the top range of median for Illinois (32-33) and the bottom range for Penn (34-35). That’s not exactly 1 point off. But the point of this thread is not whether Penn is a more intense and competitive school than Illinois, it’s that Illinois is a fine school and you can do just as well coming from that institution so looking down on them is ridiculous and looks bad.
2 Likes
“The nature of the chant was not intended to be offensive.”
As others have said, young people make mistakes, but if they really think insulting a large group is not intended to be offensive, then I have trouble believing the responsible parties truly get the underlying point of the criticism or have adjusted their attitude. Or maybe they are aiming to run for president one day.
2 Likes
They are learning how to issue a non-denial denial. Perfect for today’s political climate.
Illinois is a good school.
It’s not an Ivy or even a public Ivy (Michigan would qualify here) but it’s very well respected. My parents both went there and everyone in my family knows plenty of people who went Downstate.
Interestingly, while not in Richard Moll’s original 1985 list of public ivies, which does include Michigan, Illinois is now commonly listed as one, such as on Wikipedia, and on Forbes’ most recent list of ten public ivies.
1 Like
Better jabs:
”Champaign-Urbana, armpit of Americana!”
”You’re not a rival, just a Tito revival”