[Mick]

Postie. My fave point is how you summed up your position as a fan: "I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved."  Exactly how I feel. 

(FWIW, you had me at "becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.")

Ivy League universities had sequestered 35 admissions spots for football players in the 19th century. The college presidents were trying to dial it back to 25-30 spots. In 1905, Harvard's first professional football coach Bill Reid made $7,000, 30% more than the highest paid faculty member. They worried about gambling by the athletes. Harvard's baseball players played in the Cape Cod summer league, everyone knew it. Shamateurism has always been with us, the amateur model had migrated from the UK.

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9. Mick, never apologize for your mechanical skills. Cars are nearly impossible to work on yourself these days, but in junior high before they split us into trade school or college prep tracks (never, ever both), I had and loved shop. We started with drafting and model building in seventh grade; moved to engine disassembly and reassembly, metal foundry work, and basic woodworking (gun rack!) in eighth grade; and finished with fine woodworking (true scale stagecoach model entered at State) in ninth grade. Our high school had a beautiful auto shop, but alas I trudged down the road toward bio, chem, physics, and calculus with music as my only elective. My dad, brother, and I were able to easily maintain our straight six, just a carburetor CJ, but once the German cars started to show up in our driveway, that was it. Now all I can do is open a hood, nod my head like I know what I'm looking at, change fluids, and properly use jumper cables. Four sports is a lot for sure, but at least you stuck with it. 

Great post! I had a Fiat 850 Spyder that flummoxed my uncle, who raced cars, owned a car shop, was around cars all his life. When I bought it, he went over, under and through it for 20 minutes, didn't say a word. Finally he stood back, scratched his head and said "that is one interesting piece of machinery." I was able to replace everything on it, except I couldn't rebuild the *&#$% carburetor.

[Mick]

Postie. My fave point is how you summed up your position as a fan: "I won't stop watching Stanford sports if the University starts directly paying players, but I will stop if Stanford is one of a handful of schools refusing to compete with everyone else out of some misguided purity test. College athletics has never been pure. There were ringers and rampant cheating at the turn of the last century. You could try de-emphasizing winning, but particularly now, there is simply too much money involved."  Exactly how I feel. 

(FWIW, you had me at "becoming the next BST, EW&F, Chicago, or Tower of Power.")

Ivy League universities had sequestered 35 admissions spots for football players in the 19th century. The college presidents were trying to dial it back to 25-30 spots. In 1905, Harvard's first professional football coach Bill Reid made $7,000, 30% more than the highest paid faculty member. They worried about gambling by the athletes. Harvard's baseball players played in the Cape Cod summer league, everyone knew it. Shamateurism has always been with us, the amateur model had migrated from the UK.

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9. Mick, never apologize for your mechanical skills. Cars are nearly impossible to work on yourself these days, but in junior high before they split us into trade school or college prep tracks (never, ever both), I had and loved shop. We started with drafting and model building in seventh grade; moved to engine disassembly and reassembly, metal foundry work, and basic woodworking (gun rack!) in eighth grade; and finished with fine woodworking (true scale stagecoach model entered at State) in ninth grade. Our high school had a beautiful auto shop, but alas I trudged down the road toward bio, chem, physics, and calculus with music as my only elective. My dad, brother, and I were able to easily maintain our straight six, just a carburetor CJ, but once the German cars started to show up in our driveway, that was it. Now all I can do is open a hood, nod my head like I know what I'm looking at, change fluids, and properly use jumper cables. Four sports is a lot for sure, but at least you stuck with it. 

Great post! I had a Fiat 850 Spyder that flummoxed my uncle, who raced cars, owned a car shop, was around cars all his life. When I bought it, he went over, under and through it for 20 minutes, didn't say a word. Finally he stood back, scratched his head and said "that is one interesting piece of machinery." I was able to replace everything on it, except I couldn't rebuild the *&#$% carburetor.