Franklin Field

IN FEBRUARY 2011, former Lower Merion High lacrosse star Jordan Wolf returned home as a Duke freshman. In only his third game, Wolf had minimal impact as the Blue Devils were upset by Penn, 7-3, at Franklin Field. Wolf will get another chance to shine at home on Sunday, when Duke takes on Colgate in the NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinals at PPL Park in Chester. "The most important thing is to worry about the game and advancing, but it's definitely special to play in my hometown," Wolf says.

Forty-four years after he and Tommie Smith shocked the world with their black-gloved salute on the awards podium at the Mexico City Olympics, John Carlos thought it was time to explain why, and The John Carlos Story was born. "I wrote the book to give my kids and my grandkids an overview of what it was all about from my mind and heart in terms of what I perceived was happening, not what was being written," Carlos, 66, said Thursday, sitting at a table at a gate of Franklin Field signing copies with the inscription, "We live to make history.

Shadows always are dancing on the old brick walls of Franklin Field during the Penn Relays. If you look closely enough, you can see the reflection of Jesse Owens' 220-yard leg for Ohio State in the sprint medley in 1936, and Larry James' anchor leg in the mile relay for Villanova in 1968, and Usain Bolt's half-human/half-hovercraft performance for Jamaica's 4x100 relay on that sunny Saturday afternoon in 2010. But there isn't a wall wide enough to contain the legacy of Dr. LeRoy Walker.

Among the 400-meter hurdles contestants who took to the track at Franklin Field for the opening race of the Friday program at the 1976 Penn Relays was a tall and slender man wearing glasses, whom few people recognized by his face or his name. But Edwin Moses, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was familiar with Franklin Field, having trained there in each of the two previous summers in the hours away from his work as an industrial engineering intern with Lukens Steel Co. of Coatesville.

THE PENN RELAYS counter culture has a new vantage point to take in IFOs. Throwers and throwing groupies who annually set up camp outside Franklin Field can revel in the revived hammer and discus circles that now sit on the old softball field. Identified flying objects have been whizzing above the terrain below the stadium for years but hammer and discus enthusiasts used to crowd into a standing-room-only semicircle to watch. It was cozy but somewhat uncomfortable. Not anymore.

Junior goalie Ryan Kelly made a career-best 20 saves and junior midfielder Jake Martin notched two goals and an assist, but the Penn men's lacrosse team fell to No. 4 Syracuse, 12-7, at Franklin Field yesterday. The loss snapped a three-game win streak for the No. 15 Quakers (8-4), who are on their way to their first winning season in 13 years. Penn ends its season Monday night at Franklin Field against Villanova. Penn tied the score at 6-6 early in the second half, but the Orangemen responded with six straight goals in the third and fourth quarters to pull away from the Quakers.

All right, mind that next step now. Easy. We're going over to the northeast corner, the lower deck. It's the primo vantage spot. Woooooo!   There it is again. Hear it? Wooooooo!   Like some lonesome lovesick coyote trolling in the prairie night for a partner. Woooooooo! But no, these are human voices, a wailing chorus coming from those crooners in the home stretch here at Franklin Field, the ones who worship speed, the faithful who make the pilgrimage to Philadelphia in the shank of every April, drawn by that revered rite of spring, the Penn Relays.

Timothy Baker, who has been director of the Penn Relays since 1989, is expected to resign his post today because of long-standing differences with the school's athletic department, over salary and support for the nation's best-known track meet. Baker has complained for more than a year to Steve Bilsky, Penn's athletic director, that his salary of $39,500 is inadequate remuneration for the hours he devotes to the annual Franklin Field relay carnival that has been held at Penn for 101 years and pumps an estimated $9 million into the Philadelphia economy.

Before Marty Stern could even dream about becoming a nationally known coach of women's track at Villanova, he collected Penn Relays memories. "I grew up right by Franklin Field," he recalled. "I can remember as a little kid we used to run in packs as fast as we could down Market Street, down Chestnut Street, past the drug store and past the chicken store, past the live chickens. "The stores were blurs, we used to run so fast. We would get to Franklin Field and we would hear the public-address announcers announce the relays while we were outside.

The Penn Relays will be conducted for the 118th time starting Thursday, and if you add the qualifying heats to a good chunk of the 264 running events, you easily get more than three races for every year the carnival has been in operation. But add 62 field events to the program, including 43 inside Franklin Field, and you have a menu that will whet the appetite of any level of track-and-field fan. The nearly 38-hour marathon over the next three days will involve more than 20,000 athletes from about 300 colleges and 1,000 high schools.

IN FEBRUARY 2011, former Lower Merion High lacrosse star Jordan Wolf returned home as a Duke freshman. In only his third game, Wolf had minimal impact as the Blue Devils were upset by Penn, 7-3, at Franklin Field. Wolf will get another chance to shine at home on Sunday, when Duke takes on Colgate in the NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinals at PPL Park in Chester. "The most important thing is to worry about the game and advancing, but it's definitely special to play in my hometown," Wolf says.

Forty-four years after he and Tommie Smith shocked the world with their black-gloved salute on the awards podium at the Mexico City Olympics, John Carlos thought it was time to explain why, and The John Carlos Story was born. "I wrote the book to give my kids and my grandkids an overview of what it was all about from my mind and heart in terms of what I perceived was happening, not what was being written," Carlos, 66, said Thursday, sitting at a table at a gate of Franklin Field signing copies with the inscription, "We live to make history.

Shadows always are dancing on the old brick walls of Franklin Field during the Penn Relays. If you look closely enough, you can see the reflection of Jesse Owens' 220-yard leg for Ohio State in the sprint medley in 1936, and Larry James' anchor leg in the mile relay for Villanova in 1968, and Usain Bolt's half-human/half-hovercraft performance for Jamaica's 4x100 relay on that sunny Saturday afternoon in 2010. But there isn't a wall wide enough to contain the legacy of Dr. LeRoy Walker.

The Penn Relays will be conducted for the 118th time starting Thursday, and if you add the qualifying heats to a good chunk of the 264 running events, you easily get more than three races for every year the carnival has been in operation. But add 62 field events to the program, including 43 inside Franklin Field, and you have a menu that will whet the appetite of any level of track-and-field fan. The nearly 38-hour marathon over the next three days will involve more than 20,000 athletes from about 300 colleges and 1,000 high schools.

THE PENN RELAYS counter culture has a new vantage point to take in IFOs. Throwers and throwing groupies who annually set up camp outside Franklin Field can revel in the revived hammer and discus circles that now sit on the old softball field. Identified flying objects have been whizzing above the terrain below the stadium for years but hammer and discus enthusiasts used to crowd into a standing-room-only semicircle to watch. It was cozy but somewhat uncomfortable. Not anymore.

All right, mind that next step now. Easy. We're going over to the northeast corner, the lower deck. It's the primo vantage spot. Woooooo!   There it is again. Hear it? Wooooooo!   Like some lonesome lovesick coyote trolling in the prairie night for a partner. Woooooooo! But no, these are human voices, a wailing chorus coming from those crooners in the home stretch here at Franklin Field, the ones who worship speed, the faithful who make the pilgrimage to Philadelphia in the shank of every April, drawn by that revered rite of spring, the Penn Relays.

Among the 400-meter hurdles contestants who took to the track at Franklin Field for the opening race of the Friday program at the 1976 Penn Relays was a tall and slender man wearing glasses, whom few people recognized by his face or his name. But Edwin Moses, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was familiar with Franklin Field, having trained there in each of the two previous summers in the hours away from his work as an industrial engineering intern with Lukens Steel Co. of Coatesville.

In Chuck Bednarik's opinion - which he is not afraid to offer - being honored with a statue is similar to taking a step toward sainthood. No wonder Bednarik was in such high spirits on Saturday afternoon. As a Franklin Field crowd that included many former teammates looked on, a 9-foot bronze statue of Bednarik was unveiled at halftime of the Penn-Cornell football game. "Statues are saints; they go to heaven. You're putting me in heaven while I'm still alive," Bednarik said.

CHUCK BEDNARIK arrived on the University of Pennsylvania campus midway through the 1945 football season, not long after being discharged from the Army Air Corps. He had not played football for 3 years. Within 2 weeks, he was starting. The next 3 years, he started at center and linebacker in the days when Penn used to draw 70,000 to Franklin Field. With the first pick of 1949 NFL draft (actually held on Dec. 21, 1948, not long after Bednarik's final game at Penn), the Eagles chose Bednarik.

The back-page story in Friday's Daily News was about the organized effort to raise enough money to construct a statue of Penn and Eagles great Chuck Bednarik, which would be placed at Franklin Field, where he starred in college and in the NFL. That made us wonder which other Philadelphia sports legend might be deserving of a statue beyond those already immortalized. The results of a reader poll conducted on philly.com show that 27.8 percent of respondents thought Bob Clarke should be honored with a statue, followed by 20.6 percent for Smokin' Joe Frazier and 13.6 percent for Reggie White.