[msqueri]

The comparison to the law of gravity rings hollow. There is nothing immutable about the notion that became popular under Shaw that a Stanford career was four years. I have compiled data sets on hundreds of Stanford football players going back decades and as recently as under Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh 54 percent of OL stayed five years and 71 percent of DL stayed five years, compared to less than 30 percent at both positions under Shaw. Stanford cared about academics in the 2000s too and, in fact, almost certainly had higher standards for football players than it has today. But programs and administrations can make decisions about how to operate within their given landscape. The football team can recruit players who care more about team goals than individual goals. It can recruit players who care more about football than academics. It can have the conversations you talk about with regard to long-term academic plans and options to stay on campus for the years of maximum football impact. If the administration is going to insist that only people still completing degrees can stay on the team or that football players need to get into grad school on non-football merits, a coach who cares about what he's hired to do can and should push back at that and find a way to not be overseeing a football suicide cult.

It's glib of you to say that the statements I decried are "facts." No, they are normative. Me saying it's a problem to view it as acceptable that the norm would be for linemen to only stay four years and you saying it's just the way it is at Stanford are both opinions about the way football at Stanford should be. These things can change with changes in the landscape, changes in the program, and changes within the university. 

We come at this from different places, as exemplified by your statement "It is also counter-productive for the program to deprecate these choices, because the players will very quickly realize the coaching staff does not have the player's best interests at heart, only the needs of the program." It was a set of Shaw choices to populate a roster full of football-interested (rather than football-obsessed) Renaissance Men, operate with a closed door/aloof/imperialist mindset (rather than create a family-like atmosphere), and prize long-term individual career ambitions over the team experience. The players under Shaw realized he didn't have the team's best interests at heart, which made the experience for individuals less good too. They voted with their feet. In droves. For years. What I'm talking about isn't deprecating individual choices, it's attracting players who want to accomplish team goals and making them want to stay because the football-obsessed, competitive, team-focused, family-oriented, fun environment is one they want to be in. I don't think players will feel this has their best interests at heart less than Shaw did. 

You say that the way things have been is just the way Stanford is but that's bogus. Stanford was still Stanford when Bill Walsh, Denny Green, and Jim Harbaugh were there. We can have football coaches and still be Stanford. We can care about football and still be Stanford.

[msqueri]

The comparison to the law of gravity rings hollow. There is nothing immutable about the notion that became popular under Shaw that a Stanford career was four years. I have compiled data sets on hundreds of Stanford football players going back decades and as recently as under Teevens, Harris, and Harbaugh 54 percent of OL stayed five years and 71 percent of DL stayed five years, compared to less than 30 percent at both positions under Shaw. Stanford cared about academics in the 2000s too and, in fact, almost certainly had higher standards for football players than it has today. But programs and administrations can make decisions about how to operate within their given landscape. The football team can recruit players who care more about team goals than individual goals. It can recruit players who care more about football than academics. It can have the conversations you talk about with regard to long-term academic plans and options to stay on campus for the years of maximum football impact. If the administration is going to insist that only people still completing degrees can stay on the team or that football players need to get into grad school on non-football merits, a coach who cares about what he's hired to do can and should push back at that and find a way to not be overseeing a football suicide cult.

It's glib of you to say that the statements I decried are "facts." No, they are normative. Me saying it's a problem to view it as acceptable that the norm would be for linemen to only stay four years and you saying it's just the way it is at Stanford are both opinions about the way football at Stanford should be. These things can change with changes in the landscape, changes in the program, and changes within the university. 

We come at this from different places, as exemplified by your statement "It is also counter-productive for the program to deprecate these choices, because the players will very quickly realize the coaching staff does not have the player's best interests at heart, only the needs of the program." It was a set of Shaw choices to populate a roster full of football-interested (rather than football-obsessed) Renaissance Men, operate with a closed door/aloof/imperialist mindset (rather than create a family-like atmosphere), and prize long-term individual career ambitions over the team experience. The players under Shaw realized he didn't have the team's best interests at heart, which made the experience for individuals less good too. They voted with their feet. In droves. For years. What I'm talking about isn't deprecating individual choices, it's attracting players who want to accomplish team goals and making them want to stay because the football-obsessed, competitive, team-focused, family-oriented, fun environment is one they want to be in. I don't think players will feel this has their best interests at heart less than Shaw did. 

You say that the way things have been is just the way Stanford is but that's bogus. Stanford was still Stanford when Bill Walsh, Denny Green, and Jim Harbaugh were there. We can have football coaches and still be Stanford. We can care about football and still be Stanford.