[BigJohn043]

Hate to sound like Johnny One Note here, but if we don’t have a methodical , data based way of determining when to add or cut a sport, it gets down to personal preferences ... mine vs yours vs hers vs his.  I’m not terribly impressed with my cut at it and I was sort of hoping better minds could come up with one.  Instead , I see a lot off blaming the decision makers and here is what I like. And with respect just sticking to what we have isn’t a strategy.

To be sure there wasn’t as crisp a description of how these sports were chosen as we might like, but Muir did put forward some markers. I hope the entire Stanford community makes cuts to deal wit the emergency at hand..or at least examines and explains why they are keeping X and not Y and why they are not t adding Z. I’m proud of Muir for taking the lead on this, assuming of course that all departments and functions will do like wise.

For this board, though, maybe we can help develop a basis o adding, cutting or keeping sports that isn’t dependent upon personal preference.

The press release set out the criteria pretty clearly:

• Sponsorship of the sport at the NCAA Division I level
  
  
• National youth and postgraduate participation in the sport
  
  
• Local and national fan interest in the sport
  
  
• Potential expense savings from the elimination of the sport
  
  
• Incremental investments required to keep or put the sport in a position to achieve competitive excellence on the national level
  
  
• History of the sport at Stanford
  
  
• Prospects for future success of the sport at Stanford
  
  
• Impact on gender equity and Title IX compliance
  
  
• Impact on the diversity of our student-athlete population
  
  
• Impact on the student-athlete experience across all sports, now and in the future
  

Six of the 11 sports that were cut were not NCAA sponsored.  We cut all of the non-sponsored sports.  So that was clearly the first cut.

You then have two sports with very few NCAA teams, very little HS participation, almost no teams on the west coast and Stanford has almost no real history of success.  They fail on almost every category.  Those are women's field hockey, men's fencing and women's fencing.

At this point title 9 comes in.  You need to cut two more sports and they have to be men's.

Here are the candidates:
Gymanstics - 15 Teams - very limited west coast - won national title in last season
Volleyball - 23 Teams - west coast centric - 6-11 in last season - 2010 last championship - 2014 last final four
Water Polo - 22 Teams - west coast centric - won national title in last season
Wrestling  -  79 Teams - limited west coast - best NCAA finish ever was 11th in 2011

My guess is that Wrestling was the easier of the two cuts and it was going to be hard to cut gymnastics or water polo given we are defending national champs.

So I think the criteria is pretty clear.  I think men's volleyball is a good fit for Stanford but we need to add another women's sport.  Before this cut there was only one NCAA sponsored women's sport we didn't have: Bowling.  Thats right, Bowling.

There are currently some "emerging" sports for women that the NCAA is sponsoring:
Acrobatics & Tumbling
Equestrian - that should really help diversity
Rugby
Triathlon
Wrestling

My bet for some time down the road is on Triathlon....

[BigJohn043]

Hate to sound like Johnny One Note here, but if we don’t have a methodical , data based way of determining when to add or cut a sport, it gets down to personal preferences ... mine vs yours vs hers vs his.  I’m not terribly impressed with my cut at it and I was sort of hoping better minds could come up with one.  Instead , I see a lot off blaming the decision makers and here is what I like. And with respect just sticking to what we have isn’t a strategy.

To be sure there wasn’t as crisp a description of how these sports were chosen as we might like, but Muir did put forward some markers. I hope the entire Stanford community makes cuts to deal wit the emergency at hand..or at least examines and explains why they are keeping X and not Y and why they are not t adding Z. I’m proud of Muir for taking the lead on this, assuming of course that all departments and functions will do like wise.

For this board, though, maybe we can help develop a basis o adding, cutting or keeping sports that isn’t dependent upon personal preference.

The press release set out the criteria pretty clearly:

• Sponsorship of the sport at the NCAA Division I level
  
  
• National youth and postgraduate participation in the sport
  
  
• Local and national fan interest in the sport
  
  
• Potential expense savings from the elimination of the sport
  
  
• Incremental investments required to keep or put the sport in a position to achieve competitive excellence on the national level
  
  
• History of the sport at Stanford
  
  
• Prospects for future success of the sport at Stanford
  
  
• Impact on gender equity and Title IX compliance
  
  
• Impact on the diversity of our student-athlete population
  
  
• Impact on the student-athlete experience across all sports, now and in the future
  

Six of the 11 sports that were cut were not NCAA sponsored.  We cut all of the non-sponsored sports.  So that was clearly the first cut.

You then have two sports with very few NCAA teams, very little HS participation, almost no teams on the west coast and Stanford has almost no real history of success.  They fail on almost every category.  Those are women's field hockey, men's fencing and women's fencing.

At this point title 9 comes in.  You need to cut two more sports and they have to be men's.

Here are the candidates:
Gymanstics - 15 Teams - very limited west coast - won national title in last season
Volleyball - 23 Teams - west coast centric - 6-11 in last season - 2010 last championship - 2014 last final four
Water Polo - 22 Teams - west coast centric - won national title in last season
Wrestling  -  79 Teams - limited west coast - best NCAA finish ever was 11th in 2011

My guess is that Wrestling was the easier of the two cuts and it was going to be hard to cut gymnastics or water polo given we are defending national champs.

So I think the criteria is pretty clear.  I think men's volleyball is a good fit for Stanford but we need to add another women's sport.  Before this cut there was only one NCAA sponsored women's sport we didn't have: Bowling.  Thats right, Bowling.

There are currently some "emerging" sports for women that the NCAA is sponsoring:
Acrobatics & Tumbling
Equestrian - that should really help diversity
Rugby
Triathlon
Wrestling

My bet for some time down the road is on Triathlon....