[Mick]

I wonder if in 1942,

• If Stanford clutched its pearls as rigidly as it does today in 2025, about thinking their 'academic standards' were better than Notre Dame or Duke, or unchangeable edicts/standards from God  ?

• If the Stanford Band ran around the football field, like chickens with their heads cut off, or mice scurrying around after the kitchen lights were turned on at night, or if they played & marched like a traditional sane college-band (Dont mean to offend any LSJUMB members, but I just wonder if maybe our current band could do 1/2 the games as a traditional marching band, & the other half as the irreverent band, just to make sure some Athletes and students who like great marching bands that march in unison aren't turned off from coming to Stanford)

• If the student body took pride in calling themselves 'Nerds' ?


Just wondering ....

In 1942, there would have been no Japanese students allowed.  Minority students (black, Jewish, Latino, etc.) were few and far between.  People were still dying of polio, influenza, diptheria, etc.  I'm guessing university enrollment everywhere was lower due to wartime enlistment, and that affected the competitive landscape.  Hank Luisetti, of Stanford basketball fame, suffered a bout of near-fatal spinal meningitis that prevented him from playing professionally for the Knicks (or any team ever again) in 1946.

In 1949 Wallace Sterling became president (1949–1968) and he oversaw the rise of Stanford from a regional university to one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Before the 1950s many regarded Stanford as being "a college for the children of wealthy parents".

https://www.proquest.com/docview/1435607944

Basically, Stanford in 1942 was SMU right about now (or some years prior to their ACC membership).

There should be no wistful longing to return to Stanford of 1942, nor should that time be held as a standard for Stanford of today.

My grandparents were class of '42, and I think they would share your sentiment. Granddad never expressed any longing for that period. He attended most of the home football games as he was in the area. His son, my father, was born at Stanford Hospital in 1942. But Granddad expressed no nostalgia for the time period, and the few times he discussed it weren't particularly wistful.

For example, his roommate at Stanford was Jewish, and Granddad (of Irish/French descent) considered him a close friend, and put him up for his fraternity only to have the fraternity turn him down. He was genuinely puzzled, until the frat president explained that he was Jewish and would join a Jewish fraternity.

Granddad was taking a Japanese Economic History class that met at 8 a.m. on Mondays, and that's how he found out about Pearl Harbor. My grandmother was already five months pregnant with my dad. The war took over their lives and Granddad spent it in the Navy working at the Pentagon as a computer operator after he graduated.

Granddad grew up in a small town in Idaho, and his best friend there, who was Japanese-American, spent the war in an internment camp. Granddad's only sister married a native Hawaiian of Japanese descent. Granddad attended every one of his high school reunions and always looked forward to catching up with his former buddy. But he never attended a single Stanford class reunion. He was proud of the school, he had many dear friends from Stanford, including Charlie Seaver (predated him by a decade, but they were in the same business) and admired and appreciated Stanford for how it grew and evolved from the SMU of the time (Granddad would probably have said USC) into what it is today. But I never heard either of my grandparents once express any admiration or affection for Stanford in the 1940s.

[Mick]

I wonder if in 1942,

• If Stanford clutched its pearls as rigidly as it does today in 2025, about thinking their 'academic standards' were better than Notre Dame or Duke, or unchangeable edicts/standards from God  ?

• If the Stanford Band ran around the football field, like chickens with their heads cut off, or mice scurrying around after the kitchen lights were turned on at night, or if they played & marched like a traditional sane college-band (Dont mean to offend any LSJUMB members, but I just wonder if maybe our current band could do 1/2 the games as a traditional marching band, & the other half as the irreverent band, just to make sure some Athletes and students who like great marching bands that march in unison aren't turned off from coming to Stanford)

• If the student body took pride in calling themselves 'Nerds' ?


Just wondering ....

In 1942, there would have been no Japanese students allowed.  Minority students (black, Jewish, Latino, etc.) were few and far between.  People were still dying of polio, influenza, diptheria, etc.  I'm guessing university enrollment everywhere was lower due to wartime enlistment, and that affected the competitive landscape.  Hank Luisetti, of Stanford basketball fame, suffered a bout of near-fatal spinal meningitis that prevented him from playing professionally for the Knicks (or any team ever again) in 1946.

In 1949 Wallace Sterling became president (1949–1968) and he oversaw the rise of Stanford from a regional university to one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Before the 1950s many regarded Stanford as being "a college for the children of wealthy parents".

https://www.proquest.com/docview/1435607944

Basically, Stanford in 1942 was SMU right about now (or some years prior to their ACC membership).

There should be no wistful longing to return to Stanford of 1942, nor should that time be held as a standard for Stanford of today.

My grandparents were class of '42, and I think they would share your sentiment. Granddad never expressed any longing for that period. He attended most of the home football games as he was in the area. His son, my father, was born at Stanford Hospital in 1942. But Granddad expressed no nostalgia for the time period, and the few times he discussed it weren't particularly wistful.

For example, his roommate at Stanford was Jewish, and Granddad (of Irish/French descent) considered him a close friend, and put him up for his fraternity only to have the fraternity turn him down. He was genuinely puzzled, until the frat president explained that he was Jewish and would join a Jewish fraternity.

Granddad was taking a Japanese Economic History class that met at 8 a.m. on Mondays, and that's how he found out about Pearl Harbor. My grandmother was already five months pregnant with my dad. The war took over their lives and Granddad spent it in the Navy working at the Pentagon as a computer operator after he graduated.

Granddad grew up in a small town in Idaho, and his best friend there, who was Japanese-American, spent the war in an internment camp. Granddad's only sister married a native Hawaiian of Japanese descent. Granddad attended every one of his high school reunions and always looked forward to catching up with his former buddy. But he never attended a single Stanford class reunion. He was proud of the school, he had many dear friends from Stanford, including Charlie Seaver (predated him by a decade, but they were in the same business) and admired and appreciated Stanford for how it grew and evolved from the SMU of the time (Granddad would probably have said USC) into what it is today. But I never heard either of my grandparents once express any admiration or affection for Stanford in the 1940s.