[Leftcoast]

Scoring changes aside, it was always great to see Stanford honored as having the best athletic department year-in-and-year-out.  The award fit our values - breadth, excellence across a wide range of sports, and not selling out other athletes for the "money sports" of men's football and basketball. 

So I'm sad we won't win this year and I'm surprised the inevitable loss happened in a year that DID see success and championships.  There were several years that felt "worse" to me at the time. I guess my spirits were buoyed by Tara's long longed for win.

Two other random thoughts:

1) Stanford finally losing may be a good thing and increase the relevance of the cup to other schools.  I'm sure Texas will be tracking this closely next year.  Now that the king is dethroned there's got to be 5-10 schools that believe they have a chance in 2021/2022 (Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, OSU, UCLA, etc).

2) If we were going to lose it's not surprising it would be Texas that took Stanford down.  Texas has a broad-based set of teams, competes with Stanford in many sports, and also pride themselves in being excellent in each varsity team fielded.  Hats off to you this year, 'horns.

[Leftcoast]

Scoring changes aside, it was always great to see Stanford honored as having the best athletic department year-in-and-year-out.  The award fit our values - breadth, excellence across a wide range of sports, and not selling out other athletes for the "money sports" of men's football and basketball. 

So I'm sad we won't win this year and I'm surprised the inevitable loss happened in a year that DID see success and championships.  There were several years that felt "worse" to me at the time. I guess my spirits were buoyed by Tara's long longed for win.

Two other random thoughts:

1) Stanford finally losing may be a good thing and increase the relevance of the cup to other schools.  I'm sure Texas will be tracking this closely next year.  Now that the king is dethroned there's got to be 5-10 schools that believe they have a chance in 2021/2022 (Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, OSU, UCLA, etc).

2) If we were going to lose it's not surprising it would be Texas that took Stanford down.  Texas has a broad-based set of teams, competes with Stanford in many sports, and also pride themselves in being excellent in each varsity team fielded.  Hats off to you this year, 'horns.