Football: What Temple could learn from Penn

Prior to that de-emphasis, Penn’s nationally-ranked football teams often sold out all 78,205 seats at Franklin Field to watch stars like Frank Reagan, Reds Bagnell, and of course Chuck Bednarik, while the Eagles typically drew crowds of about 12,000 to Shibe Park. During one remarkable stretch from 1938 to 1942, Penn led the nation in home football attendance for five consecutive years, far ahead of any other college or pro team.

Joe Paterno, Penn State’s longtime football coach, once privately (and astutely) remarked that Penn State didn’t become a national football power until Penn de-emphasized its football program in order to join the Ivy League, because Penn State no longer had to compete with Penn for all those high school stars from the upstate coal country.

Penn’s 1953 decision to sacrifice football glory for the academic prestige of affiliation with the likes of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton was a painful blow to many Penn football fans but a master stroke academically: It vastly enhanced the value of a Penn diploma and consequently enabled Penn to attract a higher caliber of student. Today Penn is routinely ranked among the nation’s top half-dozen universities academically, which certainly wasn’t the case before 1953. There’s a lesson in here somewhere for Temple.