[unclechuck]

Payton Jordan must be spinning in his grave over the disintegration of the Stanford Track program.  What happened?

A couple years ago, Kentucky tired of being an SEC doormat in T&F so hired away the Stanford head coach with 3+ assistants. With a big financial commitment for facilities and support, plus SEC admissions standards the KY program has flourished with the women now a national top 5 program and the men improving rapidly.

Track & field & XC get 18 full rides for women, and 12.5 for men that need to be spread out over XC, indoor T&F, and outdoor T&F seasons, so most schools have to cherry pick what events they choose to do well in. That argues for a high level of walk on and partial scholarship participation. Given Stanford's robust academic/need-based scholarship situation it's not clear to me if it's lack of ADept. support or coaching that is allowing our running-jumping-throwing teams to regress so significantly.

Our event-rich, scholarship restrained Olympic sports like T&F or swimming & diving, need to take a page from the Harbaugh-Shaw coaching book and be aggressive about casting a wide and early net to identify and recruit elite scholar athletes to the Farm and its sports programs. As an example, women's swimming has made an excellent recovery from a significant coaching turnover with this approach. They had a great NCAA meet performance and look great going forward.

The current career earning opportunities in T&F are far different from what Stymie recalls; one easy example is runner Mary Cain skipping college T&F to go straight to pro. Is it the same as football, hoops, or baseball? Of course not, but as the NCAA commercials tell us so often, 90-something percent of college athletes don't go pro.

Certainly T&F has its challenges in meet format and fan-friendlyness for the casual supporter, but we should still be able to do much better than what we are now.

[unclechuck]

Payton Jordan must be spinning in his grave over the disintegration of the Stanford Track program.  What happened?

A couple years ago, Kentucky tired of being an SEC doormat in T&F so hired away the Stanford head coach with 3+ assistants. With a big financial commitment for facilities and support, plus SEC admissions standards the KY program has flourished with the women now a national top 5 program and the men improving rapidly.

Track & field & XC get 18 full rides for women, and 12.5 for men that need to be spread out over XC, indoor T&F, and outdoor T&F seasons, so most schools have to cherry pick what events they choose to do well in. That argues for a high level of walk on and partial scholarship participation. Given Stanford's robust academic/need-based scholarship situation it's not clear to me if it's lack of ADept. support or coaching that is allowing our running-jumping-throwing teams to regress so significantly.

Our event-rich, scholarship restrained Olympic sports like T&F or swimming & diving, need to take a page from the Harbaugh-Shaw coaching book and be aggressive about casting a wide and early net to identify and recruit elite scholar athletes to the Farm and its sports programs. As an example, women's swimming has made an excellent recovery from a significant coaching turnover with this approach. They had a great NCAA meet performance and look great going forward.

The current career earning opportunities in T&F are far different from what Stymie recalls; one easy example is runner Mary Cain skipping college T&F to go straight to pro. Is it the same as football, hoops, or baseball? Of course not, but as the NCAA commercials tell us so often, 90-something percent of college athletes don't go pro.

Certainly T&F has its challenges in meet format and fan-friendlyness for the casual supporter, but we should still be able to do much better than what we are now.