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Top 50 college athletes of all time - fullmetal - 05-17-2013

Not a single Stanford athlete; not a single rower.  Two kal athletes show up, as do a bunch of UCLA and U$C athletes.  Also, there are what I would consider to be a disproportionate number of lacrosse players.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/main/photos/1305/best-college-athletes-of-all-time/1/

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - pauloalto - 05-17-2013

How did they overlook Bob Mathias, class of '53?

I guess being the world's best athlete in the decathlon just wasn't collegiate enough.



Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - Farm93 - 05-18-2013

Ho Hum.  These lists are never that thoughtful, and usually are designed merely to drive traffic.

Janet Evans was pretty special when she was at Stanford.  Same could be said about Summer Sanders.  And even in college Tiger Woods was already getting identified as the best, and most athletic, golfer in a generation.  Hard to believe Stanford alums could win so many Olympic medals without a few people on this list.  Of all of the names that could have been added Kerri Walsh probably would have been the easiest to add since she has been winning gold medals in a popular Olympic sport AND was a key player on a power program in her days on The Farm.

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - slide - 05-18-2013

(05-17-2013, 02:31 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:Not a single Stanford athlete; not a single rower.  Two kal athletes show up, as do a bunch of UCLA and U$C athletes.  Also, there are what I would consider to be a disproportionate number of lacrosse players.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/main/photos/1305/best-college-athletes-of-all-time/1/

a little ironic that Ernie Nevers didn't make the list after SI named him the greatest college football player of all-time in 1962

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - pincemob - 05-19-2013

Charlie Ward and Tim Tebow?  What is this, an all-Florida list? 

I didn't think Janet Evans competed for Stanford, am I wrong about that?  Tiger is a glaring omission.  I would think someone like Tony Azevedo would make the list.  He won the water polo equivalent of the Voldemort trophy 4 years in a row.  There are surely others deserving mention, but that would require 10 minutes of research which is more than the author did. 

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - Leftcoast - 05-19-2013

Oh .... Janet Evans was certainly one of us for most of three years during which she earned "Swimmer of the Year" honors twice.  She quit Stanford to train for the Olympics due to NCAA rules capping practice time at 20 hours per week.  This was fairly common for Olympic hopefuls back then and I had several friends that stopped out as well for the same reason.  Not sure if the rules have changed since then.

According to Wikipedia Janet spent time later at UT Austin before finally graduating from USC.  I believe family and training/coaching concerns factored into her decisions.  She did not compete collegiately for either school.

I'm not sure what her relationship is with Stanford now but I DO know that her windmill strokes and outspoken nature (drugs in swimming, etc) brought smiles to a few swimmers I know who still claim her as one of us.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Evans

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - Farm93 - 05-19-2013

Janet was a distance swimmer, and therefore needed to log big time hours in the pool to maintain her Olympic form.  As I recall, the concern was that the NCAA rules would leave her at a unique competitive disadvantage.  She liked the UT coaches/program/method or whatever, so went there to train for the Olympics.  I would not be shocked if personality conflicts or coaching philosophies were problematic at Stanford too, but to those of us on campus the Olympic training explanation made sense.

Her desired pre-Olympic training definitely would leave her unable to maintain NCAA eligibility, so once she was on the Olympic training program there was no return.  And once free from the NCAA she could also get endorsement deals and appearance fees.  She definitely swam for Stanford swimming for two years right after Stanford swimming took home the NCAA team title.  So I guess she shares some things in common with Tiger since Tiger came to the golf team right after they won a title, and then left after two years to get away from the NCAA.

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - fullmetal - 05-20-2013

NCAA prohibits more than 20 hrs/wk spent practicing under the auspices of a coach.  If she wanted to practice more on her own, surely she could have?

Re: Top 50 college athletes of all time - FarmBoy - 05-20-2013

Azavedo and Matthias were the first two I thought of when I saw the list. I would also consider Kristin Folkl. From Wikipedia:

Quote:While at Stanford, she was a four-time volleyball All-American, a basketball all-American as a senior, and a two-sport academic all-American. She appeared in a total of six Final Fours (four in volleyball and two in basketball) and won three national championships in volleyball. In her senior year, she was a first team All-American in both sports and was named the GTE Academic Player of the Year.

Perhaps if the basketball team had one a championship in her time there...

A link to an article about her pre-Stanford: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1004843/

She was a phenom, by any definition.