News and Notes: Around the Ivy League, Penn Looks to Build Student Support

This week the Fire Glen Miller blog announced its discontinuation after one season and its chief editor has taken on a new role in the Penn Athletics Department in building student support at Penn's home games.

The Fire Glen Miller site was launched during late 2008 and initially labeled itself a "hate blog" of Penn's coaching staff. It later softened its approach and converted into general coverage of Penn basketball.

Although discontinued, the site's creation symbolizes a growing unrest among Penn's basketball supporters following a disastrous 2008-2009 campaign for the Quakers. Penn not only struggled on the playing floor, where the Quakers finished with a losing season (10-18, 6-8 Ivy) and were manhandled by their Ivy competition in the Palestra (1-6 Ivy home record), but Penn also suffered from serious internal turmoil after four players quit the program prematurely and at least one of the players publicly blasted the Penn coaching staff in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

The Cornell Basketball Blog projected a 3rd place finish from the Quakers for 2009-2010, a marked improvement from a year ago. But if Penn does not improve this season-- and it will get a lot of competition from Cornell, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia to finish in the league's top half -- expect the grumbling to get louder in West Philadelphia. And regardless of the Athletics Department's gimmicky promotions, the students will stay far away from the Palestra.