[BillBradley]

I am a pearl-clutcher, I think, but here's one viewpoint I've been considering.  As much as Stanford equips the best and brightest to go out and influence the world for progress, and as much as sports has become a significant cultural touchstone of American life, shouldn't Stanford offer a brand of excellence in athletics to give Stanford alumni pride and distinction in a sports-fanatic world?  From the C-suite to the street, everyone can talk about their team and how their season is going -- I've found it immensely useful to be able to either talk about others' favorite teams or talk about Stanford's successes in sports as small talk with a purpose.  No one cares about the weather, but if you meet someone who loves sports and you can speak their language, there's a bit of trust and familiarity that can be established.

Is this a good thing that culture has evolved this way?  Different topic.  But it is what it is.

It's a great topic, and I too have found it highly valuable for "business talk".

I'll even go a step further... These discussions are about U.S. college football and basketball. Ever been to a professional soccer game in England or Brazil? Cricket match in India? You think the U.S. is sports crazy...holy crap. Our U.S. culture has become fanatical around sports (college and pro), and if we follow the world there's seemingly no end in site. So why aren't athletes (or sports in general) viewed as positive, contributing members of society?  Reading posts on this board, there's absolutely an air of disrespect (jealousy?) that exists when discussing athletes. "Mercenary". The "student" vs. the "athlete". "Bought". It's like my father in the 80's when the Lakers paid Magic a million dollars: "To play basketball? Are you kidding me?". Or today's most popular whine: "The football coach is the highest paid employee of the state? What are we doing?". If you really respect sports as vital in today's society, seems like all those sentiments are off-base.

Yes, I understand it's "college" vs. "the pros", but I still find that people have trouble accepting the level of excellence of the college athlete and the associated reward that comes with it, simply because a ball is involved and there's no academic program behind it. And if there were an academic program behind it (i.e. a major called "The Science of Football"), it still wouldn't matter. Funny, I just realized there is a lot of studying in college sports (film review, playbooks, scouting reports), they are sort of like weekly problem sets. Tests are the games.  Another way to look at the college athlete - double major without the degree?

Question: Would there be so much pushback around NIL if there were NIL payments for undergraduate engineers? What if UCLA found out that a Stanford engineer was close to a major breakthrough in the lab, and paid the engineer $800K to finish the work at UCLA? Would that ruffle feathers in the same way? Would that person be a sellout? My guess would be no. Engineering is an academic discipline that leads to a respected professional career, so there's nothing wrong with being wooed by money earlier in the lifecycle. 

<disclaimer - I realize this post is "out there". Feel free to ignore and please give me a pass for being a little nutty today>

[BillBradley]

I am a pearl-clutcher, I think, but here's one viewpoint I've been considering.  As much as Stanford equips the best and brightest to go out and influence the world for progress, and as much as sports has become a significant cultural touchstone of American life, shouldn't Stanford offer a brand of excellence in athletics to give Stanford alumni pride and distinction in a sports-fanatic world?  From the C-suite to the street, everyone can talk about their team and how their season is going -- I've found it immensely useful to be able to either talk about others' favorite teams or talk about Stanford's successes in sports as small talk with a purpose.  No one cares about the weather, but if you meet someone who loves sports and you can speak their language, there's a bit of trust and familiarity that can be established.

Is this a good thing that culture has evolved this way?  Different topic.  But it is what it is.

It's a great topic, and I too have found it highly valuable for "business talk".

I'll even go a step further... These discussions are about U.S. college football and basketball. Ever been to a professional soccer game in England or Brazil? Cricket match in India? You think the U.S. is sports crazy...holy crap. Our U.S. culture has become fanatical around sports (college and pro), and if we follow the world there's seemingly no end in site. So why aren't athletes (or sports in general) viewed as positive, contributing members of society?  Reading posts on this board, there's absolutely an air of disrespect (jealousy?) that exists when discussing athletes. "Mercenary". The "student" vs. the "athlete". "Bought". It's like my father in the 80's when the Lakers paid Magic a million dollars: "To play basketball? Are you kidding me?". Or today's most popular whine: "The football coach is the highest paid employee of the state? What are we doing?". If you really respect sports as vital in today's society, seems like all those sentiments are off-base.

Yes, I understand it's "college" vs. "the pros", but I still find that people have trouble accepting the level of excellence of the college athlete and the associated reward that comes with it, simply because a ball is involved and there's no academic program behind it. And if there were an academic program behind it (i.e. a major called "The Science of Football"), it still wouldn't matter. Funny, I just realized there is a lot of studying in college sports (film review, playbooks, scouting reports), they are sort of like weekly problem sets. Tests are the games.  Another way to look at the college athlete - double major without the degree?

Question: Would there be so much pushback around NIL if there were NIL payments for undergraduate engineers? What if UCLA found out that a Stanford engineer was close to a major breakthrough in the lab, and paid the engineer $800K to finish the work at UCLA? Would that ruffle feathers in the same way? Would that person be a sellout? My guess would be no. Engineering is an academic discipline that leads to a respected professional career, so there's nothing wrong with being wooed by money earlier in the lifecycle. 

<disclaimer - I realize this post is "out there". Feel free to ignore and please give me a pass for being a little nutty today>