My heart has not been in this thread, although I have strong feelings. In general, I endorse the sentiments expressed by Goose. There certainly are different fans who enjoy Stanford WBB for different reasons, and who have come to the game through different paths.
In the 1970s before I attended Stanford I detested all college sports because of their reputation for underhanded deals and corruption. It was Stanford doing things differently that made me into a sports fan in general. Stanford was "bribing" players too--with the promise of a first rate education. That was the kind of "compensation" I could support. The fact that Stanford imposed restrictions on itself--including admissions standards--that other universities did not, just made it sweeter to me that Stanford could be successful. Sure, I romanticized it all by imagining a world of good and evil with Stanford being the good guys, but it added to my enjoyment of athletics to feel as if my team was one of the few that was truly aligned with values like academic excellence, women's equity, etc. and we were doing battle with those who were not.
Well, it has gotten harder and harder for Stanford to use its promise of an elite education to give itself an advantage. It just does not work for many (not all) elite players when the amounts of NIL money and easy transfer drown it out. Tara has said as much herself on several occasions that I remember. She once bemoaned "the lack of loyalty" that some players feel. She once observed that she wished she could convince more recruits of the value of a Stanford education. She never begrudged students their NIL deals or "going where they want to go," but those other comments told the story of an increasingly difficult environment in which her reputation alone was holding things together.
Where does that leave me as a sports fan? It could be that Stanford just will become increasingly less competitive at any of the "money" sports: football, MBB, WBB. But the values probably still apply to those sports that do not have strong professional destinations, or to baseball in which there is a pro alternative to college. Maybe the future of my fanhood needs to be focused on all those sports which have not been infected by NIL and revolving door transfers. Stanford should continue to have the advantage in them, attracting true student-athletes who are here for the Stanford degree and who develop that sense of institutional loyalty that players like Hannah Jump showed--staying beyond their minimal requirements.
In the 1970s before I attended Stanford I detested all college sports because of their reputation for underhanded deals and corruption. It was Stanford doing things differently that made me into a sports fan in general. Stanford was "bribing" players too--with the promise of a first rate education. That was the kind of "compensation" I could support. The fact that Stanford imposed restrictions on itself--including admissions standards--that other universities did not, just made it sweeter to me that Stanford could be successful. Sure, I romanticized it all by imagining a world of good and evil with Stanford being the good guys, but it added to my enjoyment of athletics to feel as if my team was one of the few that was truly aligned with values like academic excellence, women's equity, etc. and we were doing battle with those who were not.
Well, it has gotten harder and harder for Stanford to use its promise of an elite education to give itself an advantage. It just does not work for many (not all) elite players when the amounts of NIL money and easy transfer drown it out. Tara has said as much herself on several occasions that I remember. She once bemoaned "the lack of loyalty" that some players feel. She once observed that she wished she could convince more recruits of the value of a Stanford education. She never begrudged students their NIL deals or "going where they want to go," but those other comments told the story of an increasingly difficult environment in which her reputation alone was holding things together.
Where does that leave me as a sports fan? It could be that Stanford just will become increasingly less competitive at any of the "money" sports: football, MBB, WBB. But the values probably still apply to those sports that do not have strong professional destinations, or to baseball in which there is a pro alternative to college. Maybe the future of my fanhood needs to be focused on all those sports which have not been infected by NIL and revolving door transfers. Stanford should continue to have the advantage in them, attracting true student-athletes who are here for the Stanford degree and who develop that sense of institutional loyalty that players like Hannah Jump showed--staying beyond their minimal requirements.