I'm old - Printable Version

I'm old - Printable Version

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I'm old - yvonne - 07-06-2022

I'm old. Some on the forum are even older.

Before I came to Stanford, I was aware of its success in Olympic and so-called minor sports. I knew Kathy Jordan and John McEnroe. Debi Thomas's being on the forefront of women's figure skating intrigued me. After being accepted, I watch Stanford men's gymnastics' performance in the NCAA finals. I was puzzled when a Princeton graduate student who had done her undergraduate work at Cal refused to talk to me after I'd been accepted to Stanford.

Then, I arrived on campus.

We were on the way to a bowl game. I attended the bonfire and (a very boring) Gaieties. Cal had only one other win all season. The other coach, who had played for Cal cut a reporter's tie because it had red in it. He unzipped his zipper when asked about the team's performance. Everything looked like an easy win.

We lost.

The opposing coach as carried off the field. I fell in love. I even considered writing a book about college football rivalries.

A few years later, I was invited to a joint Big Game party with alumni from both schools. For more than 30 years, the man who invited me has become my partner.

When NACDA introduced the then, Sears Cup, I was proud of Stanford's overall performance, first coming in second and then winning it so often that NACDA had to change the scoring.

That world is long gone. More than a decade ago, TV made it impossible to host Big Game parties. Olympic sports were cut two years ago. Football players began to see USC, not Cal, as their rival.

Does anyone think it's possible to return to a world in which tradition mattered in college football? If Stanford dropped football or went to a lesser league or division, would it be possible to support Stanford's broad array of successful non-profit sports?

RE: I'm old - fullmetal - 07-06-2022

The conference football/basketball TV rights bring in millions of dollars to each member institution each year, and that money subsidizes all other sports. While individual sports might be fully endowed, the athletic department general operations is probably not, and they have not been shy about adding headcount and raising salaries over the last several years...we would need regular income to replace those D1 Power Five football dollars.

I don't think Stanford can survive as 35 strong or without D1 football revenue.

Tradition matters as long as the core mission of the university matters. These days, the university is a convenient tax shield attached to a football program.

Entertainment/consumption and the associated money are all that matter now :(

RE: I'm old - cardcrimson - 07-06-2022

Had a great conversation with my grad school roommate yesterday; he played nickel back for the Bruins in two Rose Bowls. While he thought this move was inevitable, he is heartsick about it. The rivalries that he and his grandfather enjoyed are no more, sent to the dust bin of history all over money. . . .

RE: I'm old - chrisk - 07-06-2022

(07-06-2022, 07:37 PM)fullmetal Wrote: The conference football/basketball TV rights bring in millions of dollars to each member institution each year, and that money subsidizes all other sports. While individual sports might be fully endowed, the athletic department general operations is probably not, and they have not been shy about adding headcount and raising salaries over the last several years...we would need regular income to replace those D1 Power Five football dollars.

I don't think Stanford can survive as 35 strong or without D1 football revenue.

Tradition matters as long as the core mission of the university matters. These days, the university is a convenient tax shield attached to a football program.

Entertainment/consumption and the associated money are all that matter now :(

Regarding 35 varsity sports and D1 football revenue, Harvard fields 42 varsity teams. They are technically a D1 school with a football team, but I think you mean a top 60 football revenue producer.

If Stanford deemphasized football, it could still field all or most of the current teams but coaching and administrative salaries and staffing levles would take a big hit, particularly in football and basketball.
You would like see Tara retire, and Shaw and Haase leave when their current contracts are up, if not sooner.

Stanford in the newly downsized Pac-10 would still bring in much more revenue than Harvard, but it would have to shrink its budget

RE: I'm old - jacket3ree - 07-06-2022

Yvonne,

I'm not sure it is OK to describe the year you came to campus (obviously 1986 based on "Zippergate") and call yourself old, when I arrived a year earlier than that as a graduate student. Not OK at all. But I go by "Grandy" now, so there's that.

You ask the salient questions, though, particularly about keeping sports sans football. Gonzaga, Villanova, and a host of others manage. Villanova plays football and it is probably a revenue sink.

If I'm Stanford, I first figure out what I want from athletics; then I figure out the best way to do it. Be proactive, not reactive. Things are shifting so quickly, there is no point in catching the first train outta here. I'm always doing flow charts. Figuring out the diamonds (decisions) will be the hardest part.

1. Big time prestige. (Accept NIL, pay for play, portal transfers, and all that goes with that.)
a. Join Big Integer (Stanford is not coming anywhere near the SEC)
b. PACC - national bi-coastal conference and help conference mates make it prestigious.
c. [better thought here. English Premier League?]

2. A well-rounded athletic program that includes football. Yesteryear. Competitive and fun. And maybe off the national radar, at least in football.
a. Join a western-based mid-major conference with decent to good basketball. WAC/Mtn. West. Replace USC with Fresno St. and UCLA with SDSU.
b. Even those are getting crazier, so join the Big Sky. FCS football and at least there is March Madness every couple of years/decades.
c. Go independent in football, and would universal religion/spirituality/agnosticism/atheism count in the WCC? We have a nice church on campus.

3. Dump football, keep everything else.
a. Will NIL/portal, etc. affect hoops too much too?
b. How much revenue would monster truck pulls at Stanford Stadium generate?

4. Intramurals are what is really important.

RE: I'm old - cardcrimson - 07-06-2022

(07-06-2022, 08:18 PM)chrisk Wrote: Shaw and Haase leave when their current contracts are up, if not sooner.

Every cloud has a silver lining. . . .

RE: I'm old - CardinalSagehen - 07-06-2022

[twitter]https://twitter.com/DaStanfordTree/status/1544475178230435840?s=20&t=GT7YcL9MxIYY_BrNOtDZUg[/twitter]

RE: I'm old - fullmetal - 07-06-2022

(07-06-2022, 08:18 PM)chrisk Wrote: Regarding 35 varsity sports and D1 football revenue, Harvard fields 42 varsity teams. They are technically a D1 school with a football team, but I think you mean a top 60 football revenue producer.

If Stanford deemphasized football, it could still field all or most of the current teams but coaching and administrative salaries and staffing levles would take a big hit, particularly in football and basketball.

Harvard's had a lot more money to pump into its athletic endowments though, no?

Also, I should have specified that Stanford would be unable to sustain current levels of national competitiveness in its non-revenue positive sports without P5 football revenue. Is that a reasonable prediction? I can't see Stanford WBB dominant without the coaching talent and recruiting effort Tara and staff put into each season, and those coaches are surely paid well.

RE: I'm old - Mick - 07-06-2022

(07-06-2022, 05:06 PM)yvonne Wrote: I'm old. Some on the forum are even older.

Before I came to Stanford, I was aware of its success in Olympic and so-called minor sports. I knew Kathy Jordan and John McEnroe. Debi Thomas's being on the forefront of women's figure skating intrigued me. After being accepted, I watch Stanford men's gymnastics' performance in the NCAA finals. I was puzzled when a Princeton graduate student who had done her undergraduate work at Cal refused to talk to me after I'd been accepted to Stanford.

Then, I arrived on campus.

We were on the way to a bowl game. I attended the bonfire and (a very boring) Gaieties. Cal had only one other win all season. The other coach, who had played for Cal cut a reporter's tie because it had red in it. He unzipped his zipper when asked about the team's performance. Everything looked like an easy win.

We lost.

The opposing coach as carried off the field. I fell in love. I even considered writing a book about college football rivalries.

A few years later, I was invited to a joint Big Game party with alumni from both schools. For more than 30 years, the man who invited me has become my partner.

When NACDA introduced the then, Sears Cup, I was proud of Stanford's overall performance, first coming in second and then winning it so often that NACDA had to change the scoring.

That world is long gone. More than a decade ago, TV made it impossible to host Big Game parties. Olympic sports were cut two years ago. Football players began to see USC, not Cal, as their rival.

Does anyone think it's possible to return to a world in which tradition mattered in college football? If Stanford dropped football or went to a lesser league or division, would it be possible to support Stanford's broad array of successful non-profit sports?

In the mid-1980s, I went to work for a St. Mary's grad and we pranked each other all the time. It was great fun. In 1987 St. Mary's beat SCU at SCU in the last two minutes, 21-16, and there were fistfights for 45 minutes afterwards...just like in 1933:
SANTA CLARA TIES ST. MARY'S, 6 TO 6; Both Teams Tally in First, Nichelini Scoring for the Gaels on 76-Yard Run. 55,000 WITNESS CONTEST Police Break Up Fight Among Rival Fans at the End of Struggle on Coast. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Four years later, SCU dropped football. At least they beat rival St. Mary's in the last game played at Buck Shaw stadium, 44-14.

I think the yesteryear rivalries are still there, just muted. If Stanford dropped football or went to a lesser league, they'd still be there, just in a smaller, quieter, less obnoxious fashion. I don't think the fan bases would change much at all. Not an exact point of comparison, but when my alma mater dropped football, basketball attendance didn't change, nor did it for the other sports. They still viewed St. Mary's and USF as key rivals, just...in a much calmer way.

RE: I'm old - Nan3cy - 07-06-2022

Well, if we’re talking old, I would like to point out that the year Yvonne arrived at Stanford was the year of my tenth GSB reunion. So there.

And I have no idea what to make about all this turmoil in the college sports world. I know I will always be a Stanford fan no matter what.

RE: I'm old - Phogge - 07-07-2022

Well I think I may be a couple of years older than Nan3cy.

But Bobbbbb is two years older than me but that didn’t stop me from beating him up in the Seals Stadium bleachers. I was Big for my age.

RE: I'm old - BobK - 07-07-2022

Phogge is getting old. I took the Teddy Beard HR from him. Lol

RE: I'm old - Phogge - 07-07-2022

I felt sorry for Bobbbbbbb so I gave him the ball. He was sitting alone. I still have my Steve Bilko HR ball.

RE: I'm old - 81alum - 07-07-2022

All the discussion about football generating the revenue that is used to operate the non-revenue sports may not actually be true at Stanford--or it may be true to a lesser extent than we think. And losing USC and UCLA is about to make the "football subsidy" theory work less well. The danger is that football will now require its own subsidy, going forward, similar to what happens at many universities.

Yes, football brings in the big TV contract and more gate receipts than any other sport, by far. But football is also more expensive than any other sport, by far. I'd really like to know the break-even point. Considering coaches salaries, player scholarships, travel, facilities upkeep, etc. I'd guess football at Stanford consumes $10-15 million a year. If we were in the SEC and getting $35 million in TV distributions then it would be easy to say that football subsidizes the other sports. But even in good times in the Pac-12 when we were getting $15-20 million a year, football did only a little better than break even. It was hardly generating the bulk of the funds to run the other sports.

I think Stanford--and John Arillaga--just decided to support the other sports. Private donations and operating funds must have been used to run this massive athletics program, and must have done for years--with some modest help from the football "surplus," however much it was. But the Pac 12's lack of success over the last decade means that the budget hit we will take is less than we might expect--since we have already been forced to fund our extensive athletics program without SEC-sized TV revenues.

Getting to Yvonne's original point, I find myself entirely sympathetic with those sentiments. I am older, arriving on campus the same year Bill Walsh did. To me the traditions of college sports are essential to my enjoyment, and the destructive effects of big money on those traditions has been killing my interest.

I'd really prefer that Stanford figures out a way to compete at the highest level while staying true to its values. However, if it comes to it, the Ivy League is filled with tradition, games that start at reasonable times, and intense (if less talented) competition.

RE: I'm old - gailtate - 07-07-2022

(07-07-2022, 11:50 AM)81alum Wrote: All the discussion about football generating the revenue that is used to operate the non-revenue sports may not actually be true at Stanford--or it may be true to a lesser extent than we think. And losing USC and UCLA is about to make the "football subsidy" theory work less well. The danger is that football will now require its own subsidy, going forward, similar to what happens at many universities.

Yes, football brings in the big TV contract and more gate receipts than any other sport, by far. But football is also more expensive than any other sport, by far. I'd really like to know the break-even point. Considering coaches salaries, player scholarships, travel, facilities upkeep, etc. I'd guess football at Stanford consumes $10-15 million a year. If we were in the SEC and getting $35 million in TV distributions then it would be easy to say that football subsidizes the other sports. But even in good times in the Pac-12 when we were getting $15-20 million a year, football did only a little better than break even. It was hardly generating the bulk of the funds to run the other sports.

I think Stanford--and John Arillaga--just decided to support the other sports. Private donations and operating funds must have been used to run this massive athletics program, and must have done for years--with some modest help from the football "surplus," however much it was. But the Pac 12's lack of success over the last decade means that the budget hit we will take is less than we might expect--since we have already been forced to fund our extensive athletics program without SEC-sized TV revenues.

Getting to Yvonne's original point, I find myself entirely sympathetic with those sentiments. I am older, arriving on campus the same year Bill Walsh did. To me the traditions of college sports are essential to my enjoyment, and the destructive effects of big money on those traditions has been killing my interest.

I'd really prefer that Stanford figures out a way to compete at the highest level while staying true to its values. However, if it comes to it, the Ivy League is filled with tradition, games that start at reasonable times, and intense (if less talented) competition.

The thing is, the world already HAS an an Ivy League. And does not need another "Ivy". I used to believe, however, that the world truly needed a Stanford. I was wrong. That world no longer exists. And I, too, am old. This is the beginning of a sad demise and, given the nature of "Cardinal Nation", very few tears will be shed. Big-time football has/had always been a fragile enterprise on The Farm. R.I.P.

RE: I'm old - Goose - 07-07-2022

(07-07-2022, 01:50 PM)gailtate Wrote: Big-time football has/had always been a fragile enterprise on The Farm. R.I.P.

Agree with this statement. However, one has to note that this is not the first time such a statement has been made. The football program had to return from being fully dead once and the number of epitaphs written over the years is large. I think the truth is nobody knows what will be true three years from now, so I am not as pessimistic about football surviving. "Big-time" is another issue, but even that is malleable.

RE: I'm old - Phogge - 07-07-2022

"Big time football has/had always been a fragile enterprise on the Farm..."

Not so. After Andy Smith died and Cal faded SC and Stanford became the preeminent programs on the Coast from the early 20's until Frankie played his lasts snaps in 1941. Almost 20 years. So there was a time. I think Clark Shaughnessy once said, "Apres moi, deluge."

RE: I'm old - qwerty49 - 07-07-2022

(07-06-2022, 10:40 PM)Nan3cy Wrote: Well, if we’re talking old, I would like to point out that the year Yvonne arrived at Stanford was the year of my tenth GSB reunion. So there.

And I have no idea what to make about all this turmoil in the college sports world. I know I will always be a Stanford fan no matter what.

Me too. Although, as you and I have discussed, and have both experienced, Stanford GSB and undergrad were clearly two vastly different universes of people.

My dad took me to my first game in '59. It was Big Game and Dick Norman completed 34 of 39 passes, mostly to Chris Burford, for 401 yards, and Stanford still lost due to an 80 yd TD pass to Cal's Gael Barsotti. Of course, my dad being a Cal alum, I was brainwashed blue-and-gold at the time. That didn't last long, LOL.

RE: I'm old - oldalum - 07-07-2022

Hey, all you people claiming to be old are infringing on my copyright!

RE: I'm old - Maple Leaf - 07-07-2022

(07-07-2022, 03:19 PM)qwerty49 Wrote:
(07-06-2022, 10:40 PM)Nan3cy Wrote: Well, if we’re talking old, I would like to point out that the year Yvonne arrived at Stanford was the year of my tenth GSB reunion. So there.

And I have no idea what to make about all this turmoil in the college sports world. I know I will always be a Stanford fan no matter what.

Me too. Although, as you and I have discussed, and have both experienced, Stanford GSB and undergrad were clearly two vastly different universes of people.

My dad took me to my first game in '59. It was Big Game and Dick Norman completed 34 of 39 passes, mostly to Chris Burford, for 401 yards, and Stanford still lost due to an 80 yd TD pass to Cal's Gael Barsotti. Of course, my dad being a Cal alum, I was brainwashed blue-and-gold at the time. That didn't last long, LOL.

That was my first Stanford Game too.