Quaking Quakers

A warning to visitors of Philadelphia's historic Franklin Field: don't drink the water.

The University of Pennsylvania's venerable stadium was the first in the country to have a scoreboard. It was the first to broadcast a football game. It was the first to televise a football game.

Now, it should be the first to install Perrier drinking fountains.

Just ask 130 spectators at the September 19 Penn-Cornell football showdown. Or 40 Penn football players. Or me.

We all drank the water at Franklin Field. We all got sick. We all wondered why.

The university has been investigating the problem since the night of the Penn-Cornell game, when 130 students who had attended the contest trickled into the university health clinic, complaining of stomach aches and vomitting.

Representatives from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., have been called in to test the water at the stadium. Penn officials are still baffled about the origin of the contamination.

"We're just not sure what it was," Penn spokesman Virgil Renzulli said. "At one point, the chief culprit was the water supply at Franklin Field. But it may not be the water."

"There were no serious illnesses," he added, "and an immediate investigation began."

Renzulli noted that ice served in sodas by local vendors at the Penn-Cornell game is also suspected and is being examined. "We're not ruling out anything," Renzulli said.

Renzulli said the results of tests on the water supply and ice will not be available until next week.

A few days after the Penn-Cornell game, 40 players on the Quaker football team came down with symptoms of nausea similar to those suffered by their fans. The incident put a strain on the team, which was preparing for a game at Bucknell. Twenty of the sick players made the trip, but complained of fatigue and dizziness the night before the game.

Bucknell pounded the weary Quakers, 32-24, but Penn Coach Ed Zubrow refused to use the bad water as an excuse for his team's defeat.

"I'm not for a minute suggesting the food poisoning caused the loss," Zubrow said. "The players got over the symptoms of vomitting quickly. The real problem was lack of sleep and lack of food. We just treated it like we would a series of injuries. It's just the breaks of the game, the bounce of the ball."

The water at Franklin Field has been turned off. Drinking water has been brought in from the outside. After practice, players have to return to their rooms--or go to the nearby Palestra basketball arena--to take showers.

"It's been a little smelly around here the last couple of days," Zubrow joked.

As for me, my bout with the Penn poison was brief and painful. Like the 130 football fans, I could not sleep the night after the Penn-Cornell game. And it wasn't because I was excitedly replaying the events of the 17-13 Big Red upset.

Like the football players, I was tired and could not eat the next day. Or the day after. Unlike them, I did not have to play a game under such conditions, as remarkable a feat--in its own brave, perverse way--as Penn's undefeated season last year.

Bad water and all, though, the Quakers should get well quickly against their next opponent: the 0-33 Columbia Lions.