[msqueri]

Anybody's guess how much of Shaw's departure was his decision or Stanford's. I did always think that if Shaw were fired, it would be presented to the public as though it was his decision.

I did find interesting his comment about how two weeks ago it wasn't even something he was contemplating. Did he suddenly have an epiphany or was it a notice from the University?

I view that statement as a partial truth. I'm sure his thoughts became a lot more crystallized this week, but there's no way he hasn't been thinking about this for months or even years. I don't post my weekly breakdowns of his press conferences on this board, but those on the other boards will recall that I've been commenting for months just how much more wistful and zen (unstressed and unbothered was the phrase I used) Shaw has been compared to past years. I've had many examples showing the shift. I think the reality is he's been acclimating for some time to the idea that his time as head coach would eventually come to an end and a lot of the behavior we saw this year was part of his internal journey.

What I suspect happened this week is the pressure dramatically increased and he reached a decision stage that was indeed qualitatively much different than the kind of contemplation he's had before.

Put another way: in his heart he probably knew a while ago that his time was closer to the end than the beginning, but it was the cumulative effect of all the losing that forced his brain to come up with a specific exit ramp with Muir.

[msqueri]

Anybody's guess how much of Shaw's departure was his decision or Stanford's. I did always think that if Shaw were fired, it would be presented to the public as though it was his decision.

I did find interesting his comment about how two weeks ago it wasn't even something he was contemplating. Did he suddenly have an epiphany or was it a notice from the University?

I view that statement as a partial truth. I'm sure his thoughts became a lot more crystallized this week, but there's no way he hasn't been thinking about this for months or even years. I don't post my weekly breakdowns of his press conferences on this board, but those on the other boards will recall that I've been commenting for months just how much more wistful and zen (unstressed and unbothered was the phrase I used) Shaw has been compared to past years. I've had many examples showing the shift. I think the reality is he's been acclimating for some time to the idea that his time as head coach would eventually come to an end and a lot of the behavior we saw this year was part of his internal journey.

What I suspect happened this week is the pressure dramatically increased and he reached a decision stage that was indeed qualitatively much different than the kind of contemplation he's had before.

Put another way: in his heart he probably knew a while ago that his time was closer to the end than the beginning, but it was the cumulative effect of all the losing that forced his brain to come up with a specific exit ramp with Muir.