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Top 100 Stanford Alums - BillBradley - 04-25-2025

WRT the importance of athletics at Stanford and all the surrounding questions about athlete compensation, the transfer portal, academic mission, etc.  I asked the internet to give me the "top 100 Stanford alums". I didn't qualify with words like "successful" as I was more interested in general notoriety. I think these people are an important part of the public perception of the university and very much contribute to its overall brand. Here is the top link in my search results, and I think it's a solid representation of what I was after: https://edurank.org/uni/stanford-university/alumni/. 

I'm sure the source and list can be debated, but it has most everyone on there who you would think should be on there. 

About 10% of the list is comprised of athletes: Tiger, Johnny Mac, Lidecky, 4 footballers (Luck, Elway, CMac, Sherm) and 3 hoopers (Walton and the Lopez brothers). 

Questions: 
- How important are these athletes to the brand of Stanford?  
- Is 10% about the right amount that athletics contribute to the public perception of Stanford?
- 50 years from now, will there (should there?) be 10 more of these amazing people and is it therefore worth saving athletics at Stanford?

In contrast, here's the Harvard list, from the same source: https://edurank.org/uni/harvard-university/alumni/. 2 athletes: Jeremy Lin, Caroline Wozniacki. 
University of Michigan: https://edurank.org/uni/university-of-michigan-ann-arbor/alumni/. 27 athletes.
LSU: https://edurank.org/uni/louisiana-state-university-and-agricultural-mechanical-college/alumni/. 60 athletes. 

BTW, all of the listed athletes competed at Stanford before NIL, transfer portal, etc. How many of them could be called legit "student athletes" and did they really participate in the academic mission of Stanford? Probably very few IMO. Yet they are still Stanford alums. Will it really matter 50 years from now if the next 10 great Stanford athletes made ~$5M each while at Stanford or would we rather the list look like Harvard's?

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Papa John - 04-25-2025

According to the Stanford Alumni Association, "An alum is defined as a person who has attended Stanford University as a student for at least three quarters in a degree-earning program." #1 on the list never attended Stanford, although he was admitted but did not enroll. I'm pretty sure #2 on the list does not meet those criteria. I have my doubts about #9 but am too lazy to look it up or go any further down the list.

Re: your questions, I would say that all of the listed athletes have an impact--although I'm not sure how great--on Stanford's brand, except for John McEnroe (one and done) and Bill Walton (did not play varsity sports at Stanford). Not sure why Jim Plunkett is not mentioned, so maybe the list has some recency bias, which is not necessarily a bad thing. And yes, it's worth saving athletics at Stanford IMO.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - jacket3ree - 04-25-2025

Hold the fort.  Without being political and following what Papa John said, how is Elon Musk the #1 Stanford alum on any list? He was at Stanford for two days.  I was going to say I stopped right there (not your fault Mr. Bradley), but couldn't help seeing JFK right above the Old Spice ad. I guess he was here briefly before the war. I was today years old when I learned that. Dang, Emmy Rossum. Who knew? Online? I'll allow it. For her.  Our only President is #15 on the list below such luminaries as  Jennifer Connelly and Ted Danson. I guess neither of those individuals was blamed for a depression that wasn't really their fault.

The list said "notable". Athletes, actors, and despots tend to be notable. Stanford should definitely encourage those. I mean the first two.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - BobK - 04-25-2025

JFK audited a class my mom was in probably -1940-41.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - cardfan77 - 04-25-2025

I stopped at 1. This list is a joke

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - fullmetal - 04-25-2025

Feels like some ChatGPT-generated clickbait content farm stuff, unfortunately.  Someone should put up a real list.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - BobK - 04-25-2025

A list without Richard Boone and Hank Worden is suspect.
Thank ya thank ya kindly

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Papa John - 04-25-2025

Here is the Stanford Alumni Association's list of notable alumni: https://facts.stanford.edu/alumni/

Of all the categories, Athletes has the most entries. And it's not even close.

NB: This isn't quite what the OP was going for, I admit, as he was trying to find a measure of how the outside world views athletics as a part of the Stanford brand.

I had forgotten that Eunice Kennedy Shriver was a Stanford grad. I wonder if JFK influenced her decision to attend.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Spiny_Norman - 04-25-2025

Definitely clickbait. A list that does not include Ernie Nevers, Bob Mathias and Hank Luisetti is missing probably the 3 greatest athletes in Stanford history. These types of lists rarely recognize that Stanford had 80 years of athletic history before John McEnroe and John Elway arrived on campus.

And a list that does not include Bill Hewlett and David Packard is missing 2 of the most influential business alumni.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Papa John - 04-25-2025

(04-25-2025, 01:40 PM)Spiny_Norman Wrote:  Definitely clickbait. A list that does not include Ernie Nevers, Bob Mathias and Hank Luisetti is missing probably the 3 greatest athletes in Stanford history. These types of lists rarely recognize that Stanford had 80 years of athletic history before John McEnroe and John Elway arrived on campus.

And a list that does not include Bill Hewlett and David Packard is missing 2 of the most influential business alumni.

The Stanford Alumni Association's list does not include Nevers, Luisetti or Packard either. Curious.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - BillBradley - 04-25-2025

"I'm sure the source and list can be debated....".  My disclaimer failed miserably! Rough crowd to get a discussion started.

Of course any list is going to be debatable. In fact, yours truly is #93 on the Princeton list, so WTF? What's a guy got to do?

Spiny, I certainly agree that Ernie Nevers, Bob Mathias and Hank Luisetti are worthy of being on any list of Stanford greats. However, I think if you asked the general public to name the top Stanford athletes of all time, none of them would be on there. 

List be damned, I think it's good enough and the questions are still valid. What say the rest of you?

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Spiny_Norman - 04-25-2025

As a Stanford alum and a trivia-minded Stanford sports fan, I think that I am entitled to be pedantic. But hey I can get my own list! 

I do recognize that these types of lists are primarily for audiences that are not as familiar with the University. Hence the inclusion of so many Hollywood folks. But they really stretched to include Emmy Rossum who never attended Stanford, but apparently completed her high school coursework from on-line extension courses offered by Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - fullmetal - 04-25-2025

Haha, sorry, I'm pretty reactionary when I see AI-enabled content online.  

Hank Luisetti needs to be at least as well-known to the basketball world as Jerry "The Logo" West (and father-in-law of noted Stanford alumna Michelle Wie).  

Jerry Yang, Simone Manuel, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and the Ogwumikes aren't on the ChatGPT list.  Thankfully, neither is Elizabeth Holmes.  One day, maybe Feng Zhang will make it (one of the many CRISPR pioneers and my organic chem TA).  There are definitely some names on the list that could have been superseded by others.  Maybe the point of the list is to add some names who weren't alumni but are trying to build an online representation that they were.

Didn't know Andre Braugher was an alum!  Nice.

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - BostonCard - 04-25-2025

Well, the list is of "notable" people associated with the university (the list just says "former students" even if that former student was just a student long enough to nab a coffee at the co ho and not much else), and of course notable will disproportionately get you famous people (athletes and performers) and other people who were notable, even if it was just being famous for being famous.  Would Chelsea Clinton be a notable alum (#20) but for the fact that her father used to be President?  At least Elizabeth Holmes isn't on there, even though she is notable (for the wrong reasons).

BC

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - 82lsju - 04-25-2025

well Carleton Fiorina (#65) is on the list but as already mentioned neither Bill Hewlett nor David Packard are....and Packard was a football player. as well as an engineer...

the list does contain two alumni astronauts and four alumni Supreme Court justices

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - SkiBum80 - 05-03-2025

Tommy Edman, baseball, would be on my recent list

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - PVTree - 05-03-2025

(05-03-2025, 02:27 PM)SkiBum80 Wrote:  Tommy Edman, baseball, would be on my recent list

Tommy did make a list today...the injured list. :(

RE: Top 100 Stanford Alums - Mick - 05-03-2025

(04-25-2025, 04:19 PM)82lsju Wrote:  well Carleton Fiorina (#65) is on the list but as already mentioned neither Bill Hewlett nor David Packard are....and Packard was a football player. as well as an engineer...

All Hewlett and Packard did was build a company. When Carly arrived HP's revenue was $42 billion with $3.1 billion in earnings. When she left in 2005, sales were $87 billion and earnings had fallen to $2.4 billion (thanks Compaq merger!).

A friend of mine worked as her assistant at HP. Some very interesting stories...