Photo Of The Day

This is Alicia Folmar, running at the Penn Relays on Friday. During the distance medley relay, she fell and was spiked in the head. (Being spiked sort of feels like somebody hammered a nail into your body.) Then she got up — and finished third.

No pain, no gain [Finger Food]

Mascot Race At Penn Relays

Jonathan Tannenwald is blogging the Penn Relays ’til he drops, and above he got a nice photo of the mascot race (mascot race!) that took place on the field.

As you can see, all the mascots were there: The Geico Gecko, Swoop and, of course, the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup! Uhh, yeah, that guy. The coffee cup won the mascot race because, well, the dude in the costume didn’t have to run with giant furry costume legs.

Bill Cosby has a gun [Soft Pretzel Logic]

And They Said You Couldn’t Make Money In Journalism

My favorite sporting event in the world is the Penn Relays. It’s simply incredible. The three-day track and field carnival packs in runners from grade schools to the best athletes in the world, has Jamaicans dancing throughout the Franklin Field stands and thousands of vendors lining 33rd and Walnut streets. You don’t really need to be an ex-track runner (like me) to enjoy it. It’s more of a party than any sort of athletic event.

While I like the relays, I don’t know if I like them this much: Former Bulletin and Inquirer sportswriter Frank Dolson has donated $1.25 million dollars to endow the directorship of the Relays. One-point-two-five million bucks!

Dolson, who now works for the Yankees, first began covering the Relays while a student at Penn in 1950. (Okay, so you can make money as a journalist if you do it for years and years and years and years and then leave to go work for George Steinbrenner. And if you work for a union paper.) And Dolson didn’t even want his name to be put on the Directorship of the Relays, but was talked into it by Relays Director — er, Frank Dolson Relays Director — Dave Johnson and Penn AD Steve Bilsky.

But, hey, a guy giving back to an event he simply has covered for the past 50+ years? That’s too impressive. The collective hat of Relays fans (and other journalists who have covered it) goes off to you, Frank.

Ex-writer repays Penn Relays with $1.25 million endowment [Inky]