[Papa John]

Why complain that Stanford didn't get points in those sports (of course, we wish Stanford had) rather than complain that arbitrary rules take away so many points that Stanford did earn.

All the rules for the so-called "Director's Cup" are arbitrary. It is a synthetic contest that measures nothing and means nothing. I can't get too excited about "winning" such a contest, let alone not winning it.

I don't think the rules are arbitrary at all. I think the folks in charge are looking to create competition. If every sport counted equally, Stanford would win every year because we host the most sports and are good to excellent at most of them. So 19 sports count--the 5 mandatories and 14 additional--because almost all D1 programs host that many NCAA-sanctioned sports. Again, that's not arbitrary, and I don't consider that approach to be Anybody but Stanford. Having said that, I can understand why others would disagree with me given the history of the Directors' Cup, esp. Stanford's dominant run and the changes in scoring structure over the years.

I do agree that the DC is a synthetic contest, but I happen to find it engaging and actually follow it throughout the year. But it's possible that I am alone in that regard given that there was no thread on this topic (that I could find) until recently.

[Papa John]

Why complain that Stanford didn't get points in those sports (of course, we wish Stanford had) rather than complain that arbitrary rules take away so many points that Stanford did earn.

All the rules for the so-called "Director's Cup" are arbitrary. It is a synthetic contest that measures nothing and means nothing. I can't get too excited about "winning" such a contest, let alone not winning it.

I don't think the rules are arbitrary at all. I think the folks in charge are looking to create competition. If every sport counted equally, Stanford would win every year because we host the most sports and are good to excellent at most of them. So 19 sports count--the 5 mandatories and 14 additional--because almost all D1 programs host that many NCAA-sanctioned sports. Again, that's not arbitrary, and I don't consider that approach to be Anybody but Stanford. Having said that, I can understand why others would disagree with me given the history of the Directors' Cup, esp. Stanford's dominant run and the changes in scoring structure over the years.

I do agree that the DC is a synthetic contest, but I happen to find it engaging and actually follow it throughout the year. But it's possible that I am alone in that regard given that there was no thread on this topic (that I could find) until recently.