[Spiny_Norman]

"Cardinals" (often shortened to "Cards") was the standard way everybody referred to the team when I was in school from 1971 to 1975, and I know from leafing through old bound volumes of the Daily that this usage went back many years. (Even before we got rid of the Indian mascot in late 1971, Cardinals was used as an alternative.) My impression is that one of the presidents, perhaps Don Kennedy, issued some kind of executive order making it Cardinal without the S, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but I'm not certain about that.

Anyway, that Sun Bowl announcing team was not committing a gaffe -- that was the nickname Stanford people used at the time.

Stanford organized a campus wide vote when I was a student, I think it was 1981.  The three choices on the ballot were Cardinals, Sequoias and Gryphons (Encina Gym had two griffin statues in front of it so this was recognized as the athletes' choice).  However write in candidates Robber Barons and Thunder Chickens did very well. 

After the election, President Kennedy informed us that it was only an advisory vote and that the school nickname would be Cardinal singular, in the great tradition of the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Dartmouth Big Green.  I always expected there to be something after Cardinal, like the Stanford Cardinal Numbers or the Stanford Cardinal Sins.  Yet here we are 30 years later, still the Cardinal. 

The CardBoard FAQs on the nickname history - http://thecardboard.org/faq.html#cardinal

[Spiny_Norman]

"Cardinals" (often shortened to "Cards") was the standard way everybody referred to the team when I was in school from 1971 to 1975, and I know from leafing through old bound volumes of the Daily that this usage went back many years. (Even before we got rid of the Indian mascot in late 1971, Cardinals was used as an alternative.) My impression is that one of the presidents, perhaps Don Kennedy, issued some kind of executive order making it Cardinal without the S, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but I'm not certain about that.

Anyway, that Sun Bowl announcing team was not committing a gaffe -- that was the nickname Stanford people used at the time.

Stanford organized a campus wide vote when I was a student, I think it was 1981.  The three choices on the ballot were Cardinals, Sequoias and Gryphons (Encina Gym had two griffin statues in front of it so this was recognized as the athletes' choice).  However write in candidates Robber Barons and Thunder Chickens did very well. 

After the election, President Kennedy informed us that it was only an advisory vote and that the school nickname would be Cardinal singular, in the great tradition of the Harvard Crimson, Cornell Big Red and Dartmouth Big Green.  I always expected there to be something after Cardinal, like the Stanford Cardinal Numbers or the Stanford Cardinal Sins.  Yet here we are 30 years later, still the Cardinal. 

The CardBoard FAQs on the nickname history - http://thecardboard.org/faq.html#cardinal