[Mick]

Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.

Interesting stuff indeed!  I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field.  They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969 and have been very successful.  I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there.   Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!

However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessy had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.

Could be. At that point, Shaughnessy's career record was just 113-81-9.

But 17-34-4 at Chicago, which was the point--the reason the Bay Area sports crowd ridiculed his hire at the time.

Yeah, I get it. My point was that Coach Stagg himself, as amazing a coach as he was, couldn't succeed at Chicago given the restrictions, and he personally recommended Shaughnessy. Nobody could. Neither Stagg nor Shaughnessy immediately turned into idiots. I would have thought smart Stanford people would understand that.

[Mick]

Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.

Interesting stuff indeed!  I heard some football stories when I was at U Chicago and live across the street from Stagg field.  They did eventually bring back football as Div III in 1969 and have been very successful.  I could watch the games out the window of my apartment in the 1980s when I was there.   Well, the view wasn't very good, but I could tell they were playing a game!

However, I maintain that had we tried to hire someone in 2022 with the record Shaughnessy had in 1939, the Cardboard would have exploded with anger and frustration.

Could be. At that point, Shaughnessy's career record was just 113-81-9.

But 17-34-4 at Chicago, which was the point--the reason the Bay Area sports crowd ridiculed his hire at the time.

Yeah, I get it. My point was that Coach Stagg himself, as amazing a coach as he was, couldn't succeed at Chicago given the restrictions, and he personally recommended Shaughnessy. Nobody could. Neither Stagg nor Shaughnessy immediately turned into idiots. I would have thought smart Stanford people would understand that.