[BostonCard]

opened NCAA website and painful to see NiJaree Canady pictured in TT uniform. so sad.

Watched throw a 2 hit shutout against FSU .  Oh, yes, she hit a home run as well.  Very painful to watch her in a TT uniform and listen to announcers  talk about her path from Palo Alto to Lubbock. Not all about the money but that was where we lost.

in my humble opinion , losing her is the largest failure of.stanford Athletics and NIL in our history. We let two national championships walk out the door .  A talent beyond compare and we let it walk away.  I recall ,talking to  NIL folks at the time. They were proud that they had offered “well over the market” to keep her.  Of course that turned out to be less than half of what the market really was.

Just as bad as losing a fine person and a great talent, we sent the word out that Stanford will stick to its own rigid and in my judgement myopic viewpoint even it it means giving away national championships.  It told the world .stanford was a good place to poach talent because it won’t meet the market.  

We should have sent the message that we will pay whatever it takes to keep our best .  We failed.

And no, I couldn’t have made up the difference by myself. But I could  have and would have made up a significant chunk of it. (In all candor, that would have been in lieu of other contributions to the University.) I’m happy, though, for Canady . She is a class act in a program that builds her and coaches her well at a School that is willing to pay her what she is worth.

I hope TT wins the natty.

Would you have paid the million dollars to keep her out of your own pocket?  To all the people who are whining about how we are falling behind the times and letting our best athletes be poached by other teams and how the royal "we" ought to pony up to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen (again), BobK has posted the link to Lifetime Cardinal several times.  A donation of about a million would keep the next Cannady or Iriafen from leaving.  A donation of about $40 million would make Stanford competitive with the top NIL teams (at least for a year). A  donation of about $1B would endow the NIL fund in perpetuity.

That being said, NSF funding so far this year is about 50% of what it has been (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025...-cuts.html), so I think going forward, Stanford will have bigger fish to fry than a softball player. 

BC

[BostonCard]

opened NCAA website and painful to see NiJaree Canady pictured in TT uniform. so sad.

Watched throw a 2 hit shutout against FSU .  Oh, yes, she hit a home run as well.  Very painful to watch her in a TT uniform and listen to announcers  talk about her path from Palo Alto to Lubbock. Not all about the money but that was where we lost.

in my humble opinion , losing her is the largest failure of.stanford Athletics and NIL in our history. We let two national championships walk out the door .  A talent beyond compare and we let it walk away.  I recall ,talking to  NIL folks at the time. They were proud that they had offered “well over the market” to keep her.  Of course that turned out to be less than half of what the market really was.

Just as bad as losing a fine person and a great talent, we sent the word out that Stanford will stick to its own rigid and in my judgement myopic viewpoint even it it means giving away national championships.  It told the world .stanford was a good place to poach talent because it won’t meet the market.  

We should have sent the message that we will pay whatever it takes to keep our best .  We failed.

And no, I couldn’t have made up the difference by myself. But I could  have and would have made up a significant chunk of it. (In all candor, that would have been in lieu of other contributions to the University.) I’m happy, though, for Canady . She is a class act in a program that builds her and coaches her well at a School that is willing to pay her what she is worth.

I hope TT wins the natty.

Would you have paid the million dollars to keep her out of your own pocket?  To all the people who are whining about how we are falling behind the times and letting our best athletes be poached by other teams and how the royal "we" ought to pony up to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen (again), BobK has posted the link to Lifetime Cardinal several times.  A donation of about a million would keep the next Cannady or Iriafen from leaving.  A donation of about $40 million would make Stanford competitive with the top NIL teams (at least for a year). A  donation of about $1B would endow the NIL fund in perpetuity.

That being said, NSF funding so far this year is about 50% of what it has been (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025...-cuts.html), so I think going forward, Stanford will have bigger fish to fry than a softball player. 

BC