I’ve never been so deliriously happy to see my favored teams lose two games in a row as I was this weekend while visiting the City of Brotherly Love.

I was in Philadelphia with my son, among other things seeing the Penn Quakers in action on the basketball court and lacrosse field. We watched Penn fall to Georgetown in lacrosse (two highly-rated teams there) and then lose to Brown in basketball (two not highly-rated teams, but still fun to watch).

The draw wasn’t the teams; it was the venues.

Certainly a discussion on an upcoming episode of Math and Musings, two legendary buildings on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania are synonymous with college athletics themselves: Franklin Field, serving Saturday as the home of Penn’s lacrosse team, and the Palestra, home to Quaker basketball.

The latter is, well, pretty much what Naismith had in mind.

Seeing a game at the Palestra was a pilgrimage, as close to a religious experience as a non-theist can get.

Double bonus was getting to see a game at Franklin Field. That one’s actually older than the Palestra and almost older than basketball itself. The stadium was built in 1895 and is famously the host of the Penn Relays, the oldest and largest track and field competition in the U.S. (That one goes back to 1895 as well.) It was a little chilly sitting in the stands for Saturday’s game and I’m not the world’s biggest lacrosse fan, but somehow I turned into one and thought nothing of the cold in that magical arena.

Must’ve been the Brotherly Love.

Oh, I ran up the Rocky steps too. But that one’s actually on the other side of town.