[Goose]

They made a deliberate effort to turn Stanford's academic reputation from a liability into a strength--from the standpoint of the less academically inclined recruits.  Frankly, I think it was a brilliant move and was largely responsible for our success, "intellectual brutality," "NerdNation," etc.  Funny, poking fun at our academics while celebrating them, and making recruits realize that the student-athletes here are unique and different and have a sense of pride in BOTH sides of what they do.  But this pitch is only sustainable if the program can show that our athletes really do have the best of both worlds.  Too steep and long lasting a decline in athletic success cannot be overcome by the academic pitch alone.

I largely agree with your analysis. There are a couple of areas where I think other forces were/are at work. When JH started out he didn't have a record of athletic success at Stanford. IMHO he was "lucky" in having Toby to build around, but he and his staff were infused with EUTM that can, for a while, create a reality distortion field. They truly believed they were going to succeed so they could convince some recruits that they actually would. Subsequently, during the "early Shaw" days there actually was athletic success to validate the idea and recruits could buy into that. NerdNation existed, but it wasn't "real". Everything had to go just perfect to make it sustainable. As coaches left for better jobs, the "new guys" weren't as much true believers. Shaw also had some good fortune. What if CMac wasn't as all world as he turned out to be? He was a double legacy, so recruiting him wasn't a "typical" operation. The situation by then was unstable.

You may be in a better position to speak to the validity of my second point than I am. Feel free to do so :-). IMHO the "status" of the "renaissance man", particularly merging athletic ability and academic ability, has dropped precipitously in the last 10 years. Specialization both in sports and academics has been made "mandatory". Even two sport athletes are discouraged and thus rare. On the academic side, students are now driven at an early age to concentrate on getting good grades, pad their resume with as many academic achievements as possible, and waste no time "just being". From what I have seen this often produces very accomplished students that actually hate what they end up doing. It is no longer "cool" to be a good student and a good athlete, and trying to do both is discouraged to the point it is almost impossible. Social media doesn't help, as it tends to call attention to extremes. Being good at lots of things is hard to tweet about. As a result, Stanford's already small pool of potential recruits has become even smaller.

[Goose]

They made a deliberate effort to turn Stanford's academic reputation from a liability into a strength--from the standpoint of the less academically inclined recruits.  Frankly, I think it was a brilliant move and was largely responsible for our success, "intellectual brutality," "NerdNation," etc.  Funny, poking fun at our academics while celebrating them, and making recruits realize that the student-athletes here are unique and different and have a sense of pride in BOTH sides of what they do.  But this pitch is only sustainable if the program can show that our athletes really do have the best of both worlds.  Too steep and long lasting a decline in athletic success cannot be overcome by the academic pitch alone.

I largely agree with your analysis. There are a couple of areas where I think other forces were/are at work. When JH started out he didn't have a record of athletic success at Stanford. IMHO he was "lucky" in having Toby to build around, but he and his staff were infused with EUTM that can, for a while, create a reality distortion field. They truly believed they were going to succeed so they could convince some recruits that they actually would. Subsequently, during the "early Shaw" days there actually was athletic success to validate the idea and recruits could buy into that. NerdNation existed, but it wasn't "real". Everything had to go just perfect to make it sustainable. As coaches left for better jobs, the "new guys" weren't as much true believers. Shaw also had some good fortune. What if CMac wasn't as all world as he turned out to be? He was a double legacy, so recruiting him wasn't a "typical" operation. The situation by then was unstable.

You may be in a better position to speak to the validity of my second point than I am. Feel free to do so :-). IMHO the "status" of the "renaissance man", particularly merging athletic ability and academic ability, has dropped precipitously in the last 10 years. Specialization both in sports and academics has been made "mandatory". Even two sport athletes are discouraged and thus rare. On the academic side, students are now driven at an early age to concentrate on getting good grades, pad their resume with as many academic achievements as possible, and waste no time "just being". From what I have seen this often produces very accomplished students that actually hate what they end up doing. It is no longer "cool" to be a good student and a good athlete, and trying to do both is discouraged to the point it is almost impossible. Social media doesn't help, as it tends to call attention to extremes. Being good at lots of things is hard to tweet about. As a result, Stanford's already small pool of potential recruits has become even smaller.