[82lsju]

Wednesday will be the one year anniversary of the hiring of John Donahoe. How do you feel about his performance?

My own take: 

- Bradford Freeman gave $50 million to football shortly after Donahoe arrived, including support for institutional NIL and five additional scholarships.  Stanford added or expanded relationships with Carvana, Robinhood, Waymo, Ramp, Zillow, Zoom and others; Fortinet signed another multi-year deal just last week.  Donahoe brought in Tyler Jones as Deputy AD/COO to oversee revenue, marketing, branding, fan experience, digital strategy and operations, and Larissa Fontaine to oversee Olympic sports/student-athlete success. Stanford finished No. 2 nationally in the 2025–26 Directors' Cup, behind Texas, and extended its streak of winning an NCAA team championship to 50 consecutive years. Stanford won five national team championships in 2025–26, including NCAA titles in men's gymnastics and women's golf. That's impressive, although obviously Donahoe cannot reasonably take credit for programs built years before he arrived. Men's basketball went 20–13, giving Kyle Smith consecutive 20-win seasons. Women's basketball improved to 21–14 but missed the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. Stanford improved from three wins to 4–8 in 2025, reclaimed the Axe by beating Cal 31–10, and had its first winning home record since 2018. This year Stanford opened 1–1 — beating Hawaii 37–27, then getting hammered 45–6 by No. 7 Miami on September 4.

It's hard to see whether he has raised more than Muir.

You can select more than one option. I would put Donahoe's performance after a year between an A and a B...though closer to a B. Call it a B+.

hard to tell without knowing what was already in process.  I would think the Freeman $50m was already going to happen.  How many of the other deals were already in process is unknown (and how much money they actually brought in is also unknown).  His impact on any actual team performance is probably minimal.  Given the lack of transparency on AD financials compared to 2-3 years ago (at least what was in the AD annual reports) it is pretty much impossible to see if there has been any material progress to getting to the big issue we talk about of self funding the AD, of course some of that has been helped by the "Olympic Sports" that have stepped up, but in the big picture of the AD financials that is small change.....

[82lsju]

Wednesday will be the one year anniversary of the hiring of John Donahoe. How do you feel about his performance?

My own take: 

- Bradford Freeman gave $50 million to football shortly after Donahoe arrived, including support for institutional NIL and five additional scholarships.  Stanford added or expanded relationships with Carvana, Robinhood, Waymo, Ramp, Zillow, Zoom and others; Fortinet signed another multi-year deal just last week.  Donahoe brought in Tyler Jones as Deputy AD/COO to oversee revenue, marketing, branding, fan experience, digital strategy and operations, and Larissa Fontaine to oversee Olympic sports/student-athlete success. Stanford finished No. 2 nationally in the 2025–26 Directors' Cup, behind Texas, and extended its streak of winning an NCAA team championship to 50 consecutive years. Stanford won five national team championships in 2025–26, including NCAA titles in men's gymnastics and women's golf. That's impressive, although obviously Donahoe cannot reasonably take credit for programs built years before he arrived. Men's basketball went 20–13, giving Kyle Smith consecutive 20-win seasons. Women's basketball improved to 21–14 but missed the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. Stanford improved from three wins to 4–8 in 2025, reclaimed the Axe by beating Cal 31–10, and had its first winning home record since 2018. This year Stanford opened 1–1 — beating Hawaii 37–27, then getting hammered 45–6 by No. 7 Miami on September 4.

It's hard to see whether he has raised more than Muir.

You can select more than one option. I would put Donahoe's performance after a year between an A and a B...though closer to a B. Call it a B+.

hard to tell without knowing what was already in process.  I would think the Freeman $50m was already going to happen.  How many of the other deals were already in process is unknown (and how much money they actually brought in is also unknown).  His impact on any actual team performance is probably minimal.  Given the lack of transparency on AD financials compared to 2-3 years ago (at least what was in the AD annual reports) it is pretty much impossible to see if there has been any material progress to getting to the big issue we talk about of self funding the AD, of course some of that has been helped by the "Olympic Sports" that have stepped up, but in the big picture of the AD financials that is small change.....