Keith Strudler

Penn athletics hasn’t been a significant part of the national discourse since around the mid 20th century, when they still had a dominant football program with big fan base. Beyond the occasional NCAA basketball tournament appearance and the Penn Relays, the Quakers don’t get a lot of air time.

For all but fans of two NBA teams, the basketball season has been over for some time. Yes, Oklahoma City and Indiana just finished a seven-game series to give the Thunder their first ever title, but everyone else’s hopes and dreams ended weeks if not months ago.

One of the most frustrating moments of any live sporting experience is walking around to find a concessions stand only to wait in line for what feels like forever for the opportunity to pay Upper East Side restaurant prices for a street cart sandwich and a drink that may or may not have lost its carbonation. And to return to your seat to realize you just missed the only goal of the entire game.

You may have heard the story of the dentist who’s playing in the US Open Golf Tournament this week. His name is Matt Vogt, and he’s 34 years old and runs his own dental practice in Indianapolis, not far from where he once played college golf at Butler University.

Everyone has moments in life when you feel the passage of time, when you realize you’re a long way from where you once were. I had one this week when my oldest son played his very last high school lacrosse game. I actually didn’t make this one in person, since it was about an hour away, but I did watch the live stream and saw his last home game in person just a few days prior.

Years in the future, there will be full bookshelves dedicated to Indiana Fever basketball star Caitlin Clark. Some of those, we assume, will be about her athletic prowess, assuming the former Iowa college star continues her rise into basketball royalty.

We are officially in the heart of college graduation season, with a whole bunch over the past several weeks and a full slate of big name colleges taking center stage this weekend.

Fans of the New York Knicks are about to engage with one of the seven deadly sins. And no, it’s not pride nor envy, although I’m sure they’ve been guilty over the years. Knicks fans are about to experience feelings of greed.

The law of unintended consequences is both one of my favorite expressions and also probably overused, or at least misused. Because in the end, pretty much everything we do has consequence beyond the intended, assuming there was intention. So it’s more likely you don’t really care much about what else might happen, at least not enough to change course.

There is little more uncomfortable in sports than watching a top athlete in the NFL draft slide from a high first round prospect to a spot much further down. Maybe someone who was expected to go in the first five picks fall all the way to the second round, and watching their expression every time a team passes.