[Goose]

You are conflating two different trends in college athletics.  Whether athletes should be paid or not is separate from the idea of whether the University as an academic institution has a responsibility to educate its students, including the ones who also happen to play football. The two are mostly orthogonal and only converges in the extreme situation where professional athletes playing for a University are not students at that University (or students, period).  I think that’s a pretty radical concept even as we are careening in that direction.  And maybe that’s what a substantial number of people want; I don’t claim to know, but it’s not what I want.

I made no claim on whether athletes should be entitled to collect payments for their NIL (I think they do, but disagree with using collectives to funnel money that is really pay-to-play not for their NIL as it is defined) or whether athletes should be able to draw a salary (I don’t object in principle, though I think there are a host of issues that will pop up that haven’t been thought through, but I do think that is better than using collectives to skirt the issue).

Perhaps I would quibble on the details of NIL and paying the players, but fundamentally I totally agree that the academic concerns and the "football" concerns are inherently orthogonal.  You can have both because one does not interfere with the other. IMO it is important to note the difference between orthogonal and opposite.

Where I do have strong opinions on is that student athletes, whether they are paid or not, should be students, that we should have standards for admissions and transfers of athletes that we stick to, and that going 3-9 is not a valid reason to ditch the standards.  And while I recognize that athletes have special needs, those needs shouldn’t subsume the school’s responsibility to adequately educate them.

Amen and agree absolutely. IMO this is the crux of the matter.

I think the proof is in the pudding.  We used to have a 97%+ graduation rate amongst our athletes and football players.  I think the last federal graduation rate was down to 94%, and the football GSR (notably more lax than the federally calculated rate) is down to 93%.  The fact that our players graduated used to be a point of pride and differentiation compared to the football factories.  Now, it is viewed as a failure to adequately manage the roster.

While a 4% drop in graduation rate might not be catastrophic, it is certainly very concerning. Unfortunately a large part of that drop isn't directly under Stanford's control. Some of the football players believe the degree is less important than typically used to be the case. They chose to walk away from it, and many of them don't graduate from their "next stop" either. There is no rational way one can deny the "40 year decision" hasn't lost a lot of its luster. The undergraduate portal entries clearly demonstrate this is the case. There are also a few players (like McCaffrey) that "leave early" for the NFL, but this is rare enough it probably doesn't drive the decline in graduation rate.

IMO an equally concerning trend is the very large number of football players majoring in Science, Tech. and Society. President Casper wanted to get rid of the major as not academically rigorous enough. It was originally a "design your own" major for students that had very specific interests that were interdisciplinary in nature and arguably not met by any "standard" major. The student and their faculty advisor would work closely together to design a program that was focused on what the student wanted to accomplish while retaining academic rigor. It was a very "niche" major. Obviously in today's world it has become a path used by athletes to avoid lots of the requirements of a "standard" major. I seriously question whether the University is adequately discharging the above referenced  "school’s responsibility to adequately educate them". They don't pull down the graduation rate, but it is not "apples and apples" IMO.

Most of our players will not be drafted and will never play in the NFL.  Even during the 2010’s (2010-2019), when we were mostly a good to excellent team, we had 42 players drafted by the NFL (an average of 4.2/yr), which is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the average number of players we recruited each year.  I think we do them a dramatic disservice if, because the move in collegiate athletics at large, we look at them as a roster to be managed rather than students to be educated.  Sorry, we are a University with a football team, not a football team with a University (though, financially, we are a medical center with a University side hustle).  And yeah, that means that some of the guys we recruit each year decide to major in something other than football and are proverbial steak eaters.

It fortunately also includes players like Andrew Luck who majored in something other than football but played pretty well as I understand it :-). While he may never reach AL heights, Tristan Sinclair arguably is in the same category. You can do both. That is (or was) the glory of Stanford Athletics. It also must be stated that being a "reserve" is an honorable state. You are the "next man up". Kevin Hogan was that for awhile.

Maybe they are a recruiting “bust”, but I don’t want to see them run off to the portal just because they’ve been overrecruited.  And if that makes us less competitive on the field, so be it.

In most cases they are IMO running themselves off to the portal. I could be wrong, but I suspect many (most?) of the non-grad transfers we have in the portal had a place on the team, just not under the conditions they desired. They voted with their feet. Again, the "40 year decision" wasn't enough to keep them around.

Let’s face it, there is a race to the bottom, and while I recognize that many people here are on board with joining the race, I think that a) we shouldn’t and b) even if we did, we are unlikely to win the race because, let’s face it, contra the SEC, it doesn’t actually mean more here (and yeah, it’s a bit of a circular argument, though the first is a statement of principle and the second a statement of fact).

BC

Agree. The "Stanford Culture" is unquestionably an impediment to making it "mean more". That will not radically change. The portal makes it harder for everybody but especially for Stanford. We can't win the "race to the bottom" even if we wanted to. Stanford will never wholeheartedly participate in it. We have to find a "third way" if we are to succeed. It may be impossible (and will certainly be difficult), but that is IMO the only workable alternative.

[Goose]

You are conflating two different trends in college athletics.  Whether athletes should be paid or not is separate from the idea of whether the University as an academic institution has a responsibility to educate its students, including the ones who also happen to play football. The two are mostly orthogonal and only converges in the extreme situation where professional athletes playing for a University are not students at that University (or students, period).  I think that’s a pretty radical concept even as we are careening in that direction.  And maybe that’s what a substantial number of people want; I don’t claim to know, but it’s not what I want.

I made no claim on whether athletes should be entitled to collect payments for their NIL (I think they do, but disagree with using collectives to funnel money that is really pay-to-play not for their NIL as it is defined) or whether athletes should be able to draw a salary (I don’t object in principle, though I think there are a host of issues that will pop up that haven’t been thought through, but I do think that is better than using collectives to skirt the issue).

Perhaps I would quibble on the details of NIL and paying the players, but fundamentally I totally agree that the academic concerns and the "football" concerns are inherently orthogonal.  You can have both because one does not interfere with the other. IMO it is important to note the difference between orthogonal and opposite.

Where I do have strong opinions on is that student athletes, whether they are paid or not, should be students, that we should have standards for admissions and transfers of athletes that we stick to, and that going 3-9 is not a valid reason to ditch the standards.  And while I recognize that athletes have special needs, those needs shouldn’t subsume the school’s responsibility to adequately educate them.

Amen and agree absolutely. IMO this is the crux of the matter.

I think the proof is in the pudding.  We used to have a 97%+ graduation rate amongst our athletes and football players.  I think the last federal graduation rate was down to 94%, and the football GSR (notably more lax than the federally calculated rate) is down to 93%.  The fact that our players graduated used to be a point of pride and differentiation compared to the football factories.  Now, it is viewed as a failure to adequately manage the roster.

While a 4% drop in graduation rate might not be catastrophic, it is certainly very concerning. Unfortunately a large part of that drop isn't directly under Stanford's control. Some of the football players believe the degree is less important than typically used to be the case. They chose to walk away from it, and many of them don't graduate from their "next stop" either. There is no rational way one can deny the "40 year decision" hasn't lost a lot of its luster. The undergraduate portal entries clearly demonstrate this is the case. There are also a few players (like McCaffrey) that "leave early" for the NFL, but this is rare enough it probably doesn't drive the decline in graduation rate.

IMO an equally concerning trend is the very large number of football players majoring in Science, Tech. and Society. President Casper wanted to get rid of the major as not academically rigorous enough. It was originally a "design your own" major for students that had very specific interests that were interdisciplinary in nature and arguably not met by any "standard" major. The student and their faculty advisor would work closely together to design a program that was focused on what the student wanted to accomplish while retaining academic rigor. It was a very "niche" major. Obviously in today's world it has become a path used by athletes to avoid lots of the requirements of a "standard" major. I seriously question whether the University is adequately discharging the above referenced  "school’s responsibility to adequately educate them". They don't pull down the graduation rate, but it is not "apples and apples" IMO.

Most of our players will not be drafted and will never play in the NFL.  Even during the 2010’s (2010-2019), when we were mostly a good to excellent team, we had 42 players drafted by the NFL (an average of 4.2/yr), which is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the average number of players we recruited each year.  I think we do them a dramatic disservice if, because the move in collegiate athletics at large, we look at them as a roster to be managed rather than students to be educated.  Sorry, we are a University with a football team, not a football team with a University (though, financially, we are a medical center with a University side hustle).  And yeah, that means that some of the guys we recruit each year decide to major in something other than football and are proverbial steak eaters.

It fortunately also includes players like Andrew Luck who majored in something other than football but played pretty well as I understand it :-). While he may never reach AL heights, Tristan Sinclair arguably is in the same category. You can do both. That is (or was) the glory of Stanford Athletics. It also must be stated that being a "reserve" is an honorable state. You are the "next man up". Kevin Hogan was that for awhile.

Maybe they are a recruiting “bust”, but I don’t want to see them run off to the portal just because they’ve been overrecruited.  And if that makes us less competitive on the field, so be it.

In most cases they are IMO running themselves off to the portal. I could be wrong, but I suspect many (most?) of the non-grad transfers we have in the portal had a place on the team, just not under the conditions they desired. They voted with their feet. Again, the "40 year decision" wasn't enough to keep them around.

Let’s face it, there is a race to the bottom, and while I recognize that many people here are on board with joining the race, I think that a) we shouldn’t and b) even if we did, we are unlikely to win the race because, let’s face it, contra the SEC, it doesn’t actually mean more here (and yeah, it’s a bit of a circular argument, though the first is a statement of principle and the second a statement of fact).

BC

Agree. The "Stanford Culture" is unquestionably an impediment to making it "mean more". That will not radically change. The portal makes it harder for everybody but especially for Stanford. We can't win the "race to the bottom" even if we wanted to. Stanford will never wholeheartedly participate in it. We have to find a "third way" if we are to succeed. It may be impossible (and will certainly be difficult), but that is IMO the only workable alternative.