Yeah .... I think history will treat Ted Leland more kindly once the stink of Teevens and Harris fades.
Leland gets fairly lambasted due to his late (and lamentable) football hires but don't forget he also presided over the expansion of Stanford in almost every other sport including a final four in basketball and the College World Series, the total revamp of the East side of campus with first class sporting facilities, the building of Stanford's women programs to be the best in the NCAA (not even contestable) and he started our string of Director's cups. He kept ticket prices down, built the sports endowment and resisted the commercialization of college sports. (Yeah, that last one earned him some critics.)
I realize that saying Leland was great except for his Football hires is a bit like saying Napolean had an itty-bitty Waterloo problem but plenty of our previous AD's sucked at Football AND were mediocre in other sports not played in 1950s country clubs.
If I build the Stanford pantheon Leland is near the top - not Zeus perhaps but somewhere close.
Leland gets fairly lambasted due to his late (and lamentable) football hires but don't forget he also presided over the expansion of Stanford in almost every other sport including a final four in basketball and the College World Series, the total revamp of the East side of campus with first class sporting facilities, the building of Stanford's women programs to be the best in the NCAA (not even contestable) and he started our string of Director's cups. He kept ticket prices down, built the sports endowment and resisted the commercialization of college sports. (Yeah, that last one earned him some critics.)
I realize that saying Leland was great except for his Football hires is a bit like saying Napolean had an itty-bitty Waterloo problem but plenty of our previous AD's sucked at Football AND were mediocre in other sports not played in 1950s country clubs.
If I build the Stanford pantheon Leland is near the top - not Zeus perhaps but somewhere close.
In 1938 Neville Chamberlain declared "Peace in our time", Superman first appeared in Action Comics, Seabiscuit beat War Admiral ....... and C.a.l last won the Rose Bowl.