[81alum]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

[81alum]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

[Baez87]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

Bill, your assertion that “The players were being exploited for far too long” ignores the fact that a non-athletic scholarship student must pay roughly $300,000 for a Stanford University education. The players benefit hugely!
I think the system was corrupted a long time ago when coaches, initially football coaches, were able to profit off of their sport. In my ideal world, a coach at a university would receive the same salary as all other professors in the institution. i think the more correct characterization of the system would be to label coach’s compensation as “opportunism,” certainly not to characterize the players as exploited!

[Baez87]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

Bill, your assertion that “The players were being exploited for far too long” ignores the fact that a non-athletic scholarship student must pay roughly $300,000 for a Stanford University education. The players benefit hugely!
I think the system was corrupted a long time ago when coaches, initially football coaches, were able to profit off of their sport. In my ideal world, a coach at a university would receive the same salary as all other professors in the institution. i think the more correct characterization of the system would be to label coach’s compensation as “opportunism,” certainly not to characterize the players as exploited!

[crackpot]

Thanks, 81 (as always). It has become increasingly bothersome over the last couple decades, and especially moreso when they did not move heaven and earth to get Tempie to stay. I've long suspected that Kate's promotion was due to her turning down the USC job a few years back and that part of that deal was that she'd be in line for the HC position when it becomes open. That seems inline with Muir's MO--just do whatever is easiest, i.e., has he ever made a difficult decision? Has any coach other than the one caught up in the Varsity Blues scandel been fired by Muir (when it should have been Muir himself?).

[crackpot]

Thanks, 81 (as always). It has become increasingly bothersome over the last couple decades, and especially moreso when they did not move heaven and earth to get Tempie to stay. I've long suspected that Kate's promotion was due to her turning down the USC job a few years back and that part of that deal was that she'd be in line for the HC position when it becomes open. That seems inline with Muir's MO--just do whatever is easiest, i.e., has he ever made a difficult decision? Has any coach other than the one caught up in the Varsity Blues scandel been fired by Muir (when it should have been Muir himself?).

[BobK]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

[BobK]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

[chimera]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

[chimera]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

[Jskass]

Guess I moved back to the East Coast at the right time. This is all very painful on many levels, and we are only fans.

[Jskass]

Guess I moved back to the East Coast at the right time. This is all very painful on many levels, and we are only fans.

[WBB fan]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

Thanks for this. It needed to be said.

[WBB fan]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

Thanks for this. It needed to be said.

[BosCard]

Yes three players are transferring from this years team but what about the players who are choosing to remain?  I don’t begrudge an individual players decision to seek their basketball fortunes elsewhere.  I will just root extra hard for players like Hannah Jump who is choosing to come back for her fifth year.

[BosCard]

Yes three players are transferring from this years team but what about the players who are choosing to remain?  I don’t begrudge an individual players decision to seek their basketball fortunes elsewhere.  I will just root extra hard for players like Hannah Jump who is choosing to come back for her fifth year.

[BigJohn043]

In my view, all of the recent changes have been bad for the players.

The fact is that even at a power 5 football level, very few of these players actually have an athletic skill that will earn them life changing money.  Most won't make the NFL and most of those that do will have short careers.  What these kids really need to do is focus on getting an education which will pay off for the rest of their life.  Paying them NIL money just convinces them they have a real athletic future.  Almost none of them do.

Similarly, transferring is sometimes needed.  But it was frankly better when it was harder.  Learning how to stick with something when it is hard is a really important life skill.  Now these kids bail as soon as they don't get everything they want.  What does that teach them?  Transferring has also made it harder to get a high D1 offer.  Now kids have to go to a lower level and play their way up.  Wouldn't they be better just going to one school and maybe focusing on academics?

Just my view....

[BigJohn043]

In my view, all of the recent changes have been bad for the players.

The fact is that even at a power 5 football level, very few of these players actually have an athletic skill that will earn them life changing money.  Most won't make the NFL and most of those that do will have short careers.  What these kids really need to do is focus on getting an education which will pay off for the rest of their life.  Paying them NIL money just convinces them they have a real athletic future.  Almost none of them do.

Similarly, transferring is sometimes needed.  But it was frankly better when it was harder.  Learning how to stick with something when it is hard is a really important life skill.  Now these kids bail as soon as they don't get everything they want.  What does that teach them?  Transferring has also made it harder to get a high D1 offer.  Now kids have to go to a lower level and play their way up.  Wouldn't they be better just going to one school and maybe focusing on academics?

Just my view....

[Baez87]

In my view, all of the recent changes have been bad for the players.

The fact is that even at a power 5 football level, very few of these players actually have an athletic skill that will earn them life changing money.  Most won't make the NFL and most of those that do will have short careers.  What these kids really need to do is focus on getting an education which will pay off for the rest of their life.  Paying them NIL money just convinces them they have a real athletic future.  Almost none of them do.

Similarly, transferring is sometimes needed.  But it was frankly better when it was harder.  Learning how to stick with something when it is hard is a really important life skill.  Now these kids bail as soon as they don't get everything they want.  What does that teach them?  Transferring has also made it harder to get a high D1 offer.  Now kids have to go to a lower level and play their way up.  Wouldn't they be better just going to one school and maybe focusing on academics?

Just my view....

Applause for BigJohn!

And, in the “So you think you have troubles department” consider this:
Jeff Walz at Louisville is losing six seniors to graduation, has no incoming freshmen (three freshmen already lost to the portal), and a total of five in the portal including All-American Haley Van Lith.
You’d think that he is out shopping for players — well, he is! He recently signed Jayda Curry and is actively on the recruiting trail. In the article cited below, he is quoted as saying that he might only keep 10-12 players on the roster moving forward. 
I know we all inject our favorite issue as the reason for Stanford’s problems, but the real driving issues are probably external.
Louisville’s Roster for 2023

[Baez87]

In my view, all of the recent changes have been bad for the players.

The fact is that even at a power 5 football level, very few of these players actually have an athletic skill that will earn them life changing money.  Most won't make the NFL and most of those that do will have short careers.  What these kids really need to do is focus on getting an education which will pay off for the rest of their life.  Paying them NIL money just convinces them they have a real athletic future.  Almost none of them do.

Similarly, transferring is sometimes needed.  But it was frankly better when it was harder.  Learning how to stick with something when it is hard is a really important life skill.  Now these kids bail as soon as they don't get everything they want.  What does that teach them?  Transferring has also made it harder to get a high D1 offer.  Now kids have to go to a lower level and play their way up.  Wouldn't they be better just going to one school and maybe focusing on academics?

Just my view....

Applause for BigJohn!

And, in the “So you think you have troubles department” consider this:
Jeff Walz at Louisville is losing six seniors to graduation, has no incoming freshmen (three freshmen already lost to the portal), and a total of five in the portal including All-American Haley Van Lith.
You’d think that he is out shopping for players — well, he is! He recently signed Jayda Curry and is actively on the recruiting trail. In the article cited below, he is quoted as saying that he might only keep 10-12 players on the roster moving forward. 
I know we all inject our favorite issue as the reason for Stanford’s problems, but the real driving issues are probably external.
Louisville’s Roster for 2023

[crackpot]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

Thanks! (as always)

[crackpot]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

Thanks! (as always)

[Mudhead]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

Bill, your assertion that “The players were being exploited for far too long” ignores the fact that a non-athletic scholarship student must pay roughly $300,000 for a Stanford University education. The players benefit hugely!
I think the system was corrupted a long time ago when coaches, initially football coaches, were able to profit off of their sport. In my ideal world, a coach at a university would receive the same salary as all other professors in the institution. i think the more correct characterization of the system would be to label coach’s compensation as “opportunism,” certainly not to characterize the players as exploited!

I think, but don’t know, that grants in aid , ie the whole $300,000 4 year package is not considered income but a “grant” and therefore not taxable. I hate to think how much you have to make inCalifornia to get $75 k per year after tax income.  Probably $125,000 or so.   that’s not big money when compared to the $400,000 that .angel Reese get but it’s not chump change either especially  if you’re not one of the 50 best players in the country. I assume these SAs realize that NIL is taxable. 

I really don’t know how many NIL deals are north of $125,000 a year in Women s basketball.  All Stanford has to do is to get just a little bit real for women’s basketball and be ready to put $2M a year, focused on your stars but not ignoring your role players and it can be quite competitive. I have no doubt that kind of money is available.

Or we can cling to the “old way” and move rapidly into irrelevancy .  Tara has shown a remarkable ability to adjust to the style of ball played over the years. Can she, at age 70 adjust to this new reality of what it takes to have a winning program? Does she even want to engage  in the fight with the administration to get the players admitted through the portal that it will take to be successful ?  

The answers to those questions will tell us whether we will remain a national power.

Few 70 year olds do but then she has never run with the crowd.

[Mudhead]

I really think you, and many others, are sentimental, high-integrity, and overall nice people (all of which I glean from a message board!), which is why your students probably dig you. I hope I'm the same. But I really don't think things are as bad as you are perceiving. The kids that are transferring, the coaches that are making moves, the universities and their NIL collectives...they aren't bad people. They are doing what's necessary to compete within the governing rules. We can question the decisions made that got collegiate sports into this position, but there is a very strong rationale why we ended up here. The players were being exploited for far too long. Choose to look at all the positives that come with that being fixed.

Thanks for you thoughtful encouragement, BB.  I also do not believe that the people making these decisions are bad people, other than perhaps those at the very top who started the mess.  Failure of leadership in the NCAA and the Supreme Court set us on this path, and everyone is scrambling to find their way in the new reality.  And some have lost their way.

Bill, your assertion that “The players were being exploited for far too long” ignores the fact that a non-athletic scholarship student must pay roughly $300,000 for a Stanford University education. The players benefit hugely!
I think the system was corrupted a long time ago when coaches, initially football coaches, were able to profit off of their sport. In my ideal world, a coach at a university would receive the same salary as all other professors in the institution. i think the more correct characterization of the system would be to label coach’s compensation as “opportunism,” certainly not to characterize the players as exploited!

I think, but don’t know, that grants in aid , ie the whole $300,000 4 year package is not considered income but a “grant” and therefore not taxable. I hate to think how much you have to make inCalifornia to get $75 k per year after tax income.  Probably $125,000 or so.   that’s not big money when compared to the $400,000 that .angel Reese get but it’s not chump change either especially  if you’re not one of the 50 best players in the country. I assume these SAs realize that NIL is taxable. 

I really don’t know how many NIL deals are north of $125,000 a year in Women s basketball.  All Stanford has to do is to get just a little bit real for women’s basketball and be ready to put $2M a year, focused on your stars but not ignoring your role players and it can be quite competitive. I have no doubt that kind of money is available.

Or we can cling to the “old way” and move rapidly into irrelevancy .  Tara has shown a remarkable ability to adjust to the style of ball played over the years. Can she, at age 70 adjust to this new reality of what it takes to have a winning program? Does she even want to engage  in the fight with the administration to get the players admitted through the portal that it will take to be successful ?  

The answers to those questions will tell us whether we will remain a national power.

Few 70 year olds do but then she has never run with the crowd.

[BillBradley]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

Coupla rebuttals...
1) "Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby." I disagree. Just look at Stanford football and basketball. You can connect all you want to the players, but no one goes if the team doesn't win. I have a connection to Harrison Ingram. I love the kid. But they stink and I got tired of watching them. Chimera, you were one of the biggest fans on this board during our Natty year or last year when we were killing it, but you got pretty frustrated this year when things weren't so rosy. Did you lose your connection to the players? We can bring in some transfers, it will be exciting to see who we get, and we'll all get behind them if they are good. 

2) To your point that the players get a lot of value in their scholarship and that's their compensation, well, that was the argument in the 1990's and 2000's.  Then the 2010's set in and the TV deals went through the roof. It started to get publicized how many tens of millions the universities were getting from the TV deals alone. What is Stanford's share this coming year for the Pac 12 TV deal? $30 Million?  How about we mention the correlation between the athletically successful schools and their enrollment numbers. Does anyone want to argue that Clemson football is a big part of their culture? How about UConn women's basketball? So for the players who built those programs (say Diana Turasi and Sue Bird for example), you are dead wrong if you think that their scholarship money, tax free or not, was anywhere close to the amount that they actually deserved. Your argument works better if you're only talking about Stanford and the value that a bench player on the Stanford womens team brings to the university. But how about Cameron Brink? Or say...Christian Mccaffery? The performance and visibility of those players representing the university on TV, and on national TV because their level of play has got the team there on that broadcast, is worth many times more than the $75K/year scholarship they receive. 

3) Here's a good one...do you despise the baseball farm system? In baseball, players get drafted into a farm system right out of high school. At that point, if they accept, they are 19 years old, are being paid as a professional (some make a healthy signing bonus of many hundreds of thousands of dollars) and they are receiving no education other than what they can find online. They also get traded all over the place or they get cut. OR, they can instead choose to play at a university, receive a scholarship, get paid for their sport via NIL if they are really good, AND get an education AND choose to transfer instead of getting traded. Sound better? Basketball and football don't have professional options for 19 year olds (although basketball is getting there), so this is what they have.

4) The funny thing is, I'm actually on your side. I do want things to be different. I like seeing players matriculate. I don't think NIL in it's current implementation is the best answer. I don't want players to be transferring all over the place. But something needed to be done, it was, and this is where we are. There are good reasons for why things are the way they are. You clearly know hoops and you enjoy Stanford womens basketball, so don't be bitter and don't give it up. If our coaches and administration take care of business, we could have some really great teams to root on in the future. And then at some point it will be normal again.

[BillBradley]

I think in recent years all the talk about student athletes being exploited has been overblown.  A student athlete gets a lot - free education, free coaching that should be very good and help them improve and be ready to play professionally if they wish to do that, benefits while at school that NARPs (Non-athletic regular people if you watched Jones interview with Belibi a week or two ago) do not get, cheering crowds who root for them, and I'm sure many personal connections that could help them later in life, not to mention a ready-made friend group of fellow players.  

Obviously if a player ends up in a bad situation, she should be able to transfer to a better one.  That is not what is going on these days for most transfers.  When teams expect to lose a third to a half of their roster every year, something is wrong.  Either many, many players are unhappy, which is terrible, or players bail when things are the slightest bit not to their liking, including chasing more NIL money.  I don't at all blame the players for their families given the amount of money out there.  The current system just sucks.  Most players are not going to get life changing money from NIL deals.  All the roster instability does not help players.  How do the remaining players feel at Stanford?  Will any transfer because now the team probably won't be what they expected?  Are they struggling with their teammates/friends leaving?  Transferring impacts others, not just the player who transfers.  

The comparison of college athletes to college coaches that is made all the time seems wrong to me.  Coaches are adults who are pursuing careers that most intend to stay in for many years.  They are where they are to do a job.  College athletes are there to go to school and play a sport that they love. Their "pay" is the free education, free coaching, free training stuff, training table, etc., etc.  College sports is a temporary thing, not supposed to be a job.  If playing a DI sport is so onerous that players feel they are being exploited, the solution is lessen the burdens on them or to divorce sports from school with minor leagues for 18-22 year-old athletes who want to immerse themselves in a sport while those who want to go to college and play a sport can do that without all this NIL/transfer craziness.   

I keep coming back to thinking that if college sports is now pro sports and it 100% is now, then the entire model is out of whack.  If players think being professionals is the way to go and colleges want to hire them for the four or five years of eligibility they have, cool, but that means they should be able to be fired too or demoted or have their compensation package adjusted or whatever.  

Right now the smartest way to run a program is to run off your underperforming players and reel in new ones off the portal.  How is that good for the vast majority of players?  It certainly sucks for programs, who can never be sure what sort of roster they will have, for players who never know who will be on their team year to year or their place on the team, or for fans, who see a revolving door of players.  If you only care about winning and have no interest in watching a player develop or a team develop, that maybe doesn't matter.  Most fans do care who is on a team and feel it when "their" players end up playing elsewhere en masse.  Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby.  How do we not feel adrift and like the whole enterprise is a sham.  

Bottom line is it is not fun for many fans to follow a team with the turnover in rosters is as it is now.  Fans can transfer too.  I transfer to the inactive list.  I am giving up my season tickets after 25 or so years.  I will stay on here and chat, watch some on TV, but never again will I allow myself to invest one iota of emotion in the team, it's fortunes, or any players on the team.  I don't know the players.  I have no idea if I would like them if I did know them.  They are strangers that I chose in the past to care about.  I don't care anymore.  Entertain me or I change the channel.  That is the end result of all this - entertain me in the moment because that's all that's left.

Coupla rebuttals...
1) "Fans for the most part need some connection besides just the jersey is from a school they went to or is nearby." I disagree. Just look at Stanford football and basketball. You can connect all you want to the players, but no one goes if the team doesn't win. I have a connection to Harrison Ingram. I love the kid. But they stink and I got tired of watching them. Chimera, you were one of the biggest fans on this board during our Natty year or last year when we were killing it, but you got pretty frustrated this year when things weren't so rosy. Did you lose your connection to the players? We can bring in some transfers, it will be exciting to see who we get, and we'll all get behind them if they are good. 

2) To your point that the players get a lot of value in their scholarship and that's their compensation, well, that was the argument in the 1990's and 2000's.  Then the 2010's set in and the TV deals went through the roof. It started to get publicized how many tens of millions the universities were getting from the TV deals alone. What is Stanford's share this coming year for the Pac 12 TV deal? $30 Million?  How about we mention the correlation between the athletically successful schools and their enrollment numbers. Does anyone want to argue that Clemson football is a big part of their culture? How about UConn women's basketball? So for the players who built those programs (say Diana Turasi and Sue Bird for example), you are dead wrong if you think that their scholarship money, tax free or not, was anywhere close to the amount that they actually deserved. Your argument works better if you're only talking about Stanford and the value that a bench player on the Stanford womens team brings to the university. But how about Cameron Brink? Or say...Christian Mccaffery? The performance and visibility of those players representing the university on TV, and on national TV because their level of play has got the team there on that broadcast, is worth many times more than the $75K/year scholarship they receive. 

3) Here's a good one...do you despise the baseball farm system? In baseball, players get drafted into a farm system right out of high school. At that point, if they accept, they are 19 years old, are being paid as a professional (some make a healthy signing bonus of many hundreds of thousands of dollars) and they are receiving no education other than what they can find online. They also get traded all over the place or they get cut. OR, they can instead choose to play at a university, receive a scholarship, get paid for their sport via NIL if they are really good, AND get an education AND choose to transfer instead of getting traded. Sound better? Basketball and football don't have professional options for 19 year olds (although basketball is getting there), so this is what they have.

4) The funny thing is, I'm actually on your side. I do want things to be different. I like seeing players matriculate. I don't think NIL in it's current implementation is the best answer. I don't want players to be transferring all over the place. But something needed to be done, it was, and this is where we are. There are good reasons for why things are the way they are. You clearly know hoops and you enjoy Stanford womens basketball, so don't be bitter and don't give it up. If our coaches and administration take care of business, we could have some really great teams to root on in the future. And then at some point it will be normal again.

[old spanish trail]

Same here, Bill. Don't give up, Chimera. Btw, Bill, where do you think Harrison Ingram will end up?

[old spanish trail]

Same here, Bill. Don't give up, Chimera. Btw, Bill, where do you think Harrison Ingram will end up?

[winflop]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

But in the sports that are supposed to pay the way for the rest of the program, he hasn't. Instead, he's bloated the payrolls despite declining revenues and kept coaches who weren't getting the job done - both at the HC and AC level. Twice now he's kept the MBB HC at least two years more than he should have. He didn't force any change in FB coaching, leading to arguably an even worse season. Not to mention his role in Varsity Blues and Varsity Sports scandals. For all his good hires, and there have been several, these are glaring inexcusable major errors that would get an AD fired at nearly every other school.

He said the players loved playing for Haase was part of the reason he didn't fire him. How many of those players have entered the portal - a clear sign that they DIDN'T love playing for Haase - three?

[winflop]

Crackpot as I have have posted yes Muir has fired or retired coaches.

But in the sports that are supposed to pay the way for the rest of the program, he hasn't. Instead, he's bloated the payrolls despite declining revenues and kept coaches who weren't getting the job done - both at the HC and AC level. Twice now he's kept the MBB HC at least two years more than he should have. He didn't force any change in FB coaching, leading to arguably an even worse season. Not to mention his role in Varsity Blues and Varsity Sports scandals. For all his good hires, and there have been several, these are glaring inexcusable major errors that would get an AD fired at nearly every other school.

He said the players loved playing for Haase was part of the reason he didn't fire him. How many of those players have entered the portal - a clear sign that they DIDN'T love playing for Haase - three?

[BobK]

The third mbb player in the portal was a walk in for three years seldom played and is a grad transfer. To be accurate
However the two leaving is another strike for letting Haase go. Agree there

[BobK]

The third mbb player in the portal was a walk in for three years seldom played and is a grad transfer. To be accurate
However the two leaving is another strike for letting Haase go. Agree there

[chimera]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

[chimera]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

[WBB fan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

[WBB fan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

[standfan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

+1.
I don’t think there’s any going back to the way it was. I do wonder whether it will be possible to bifurcate some college sport sports (football, basketball, ?)  into a “division“ with schools that are fine with running effectively unrestricted professional sports programs and a second division where substantial restrictions on the monetary aspects (and perhaps time commitments)  are imposed.

[standfan]

Coupla rebuttals...

1.  Everyone is different.  Given the posts on here from long time fans contemplating pulling back their emotional investment in WCBB, plenty of people can't abide this musical chairs sport we now have.  The winning thing is a separate issue.  The two are not related.  Stanford could win a national championship next year by bringing in a bunch of transfers and I would feel the same - that wasn't "my" team in any real sense and while it is nice to win, it doesn't bring the joy.  I definitely wouldn't care 1/10th as much as I did when Stanford won in 2021.  There is a very big difference between showing up for a game wanting to be entertained by a winning team vs showing up for a game because you really want to see how specific players are used, how the coaches put the puzzle together, how specific players have improved, all that stuff.  If you just want winning, it is easy to disengage when you don't get it.  I've been a fan for 25 or so years, was a rabid fan several down years in the early 2000's.  It was not the winning that kept me happy and arranging my life so I could get to every home game.  I got frustrated this year because I did care, not because I cared less.  If it is all about winning, I can just watch pro sports.

2.  To some extent it is a chicken and the egg thing.  A player who is good helps get her team noticed but conversely playing well on a good team gets a player noticed.  Players make a program more popular but programs also make a player more popular.  It is a mix.  Lawrence was a big deal because he played for a winning team.  Would he have been such a big deal if he played for a mediocre team?  So was it him or his team or a mix of him/his team?  I'd say the last.  Are kids really picking Stanford (or UConn or Iowa or South Carolina) to attend school because they have good women's basketball teams?  I would venture very few.  Brink adds value only to those who already care about the sport.  Stanford's acceptance rate keeps dropping even though football and MBB haven't been very good for the past few years.  Sports are not driving kids to the school or away from it.  Players are getting way more credit than they deserve for creating value for a school.  Even when winning Stanford FB had trouble getting students to care or people to fill the stadium.  We wondered why the WBB team could not fill up Maples more when they were so good for so long.  Maybe players create value for an athletic department.  That isn't the same thing at all.  Lastly, even if a very few star players move the needle in some way to benefit the school, the vast majority don't.  What value does a backup QB add to Stanford, really, I mean that specific person?  He could be anyone.  He has value because he plays for the team you support, not the other way around.  If he was not at Stanford, do you care about him, or even know who he is?

3.  Not a good one because I stopped watching baseball years ago and do not care one bit about the minor leagues.  Actually I have never given an ish about minor league baseball or paid any attention to those who play in it.  Well I did watch the movie Bull Durham.  Does that count?  I would prefer a minor league WBB system than colleges being used as such as it is now.  College sports are simply pro sports but with no rules or roster stability right now, the worst possible combination.  I don't know exactly what would be better.  That is not my job.  I would say that minor league baseball with all the down sides you mention probably more accurately reflect the value the players are adding to their sport than college NIL deals, which are based a lot on social media presence and other advertising stuff.  If college sports are all about sports and not much about college, what's the point?

4.  Why did something need to be done?  I would have gone at it from the other way, cutting out all the money craziness that drives college sports.  Don't ask me how.  Way above my pay grade.  The best college players end up making bank whenever they leave school.  The ones that don't got the opportunity for a free education that if they did it right should help them get into a field they want and also provide connections to help them.  Women's pro sports have been undervalued.  As that changes (knock wood it keep getting better) WCBB players will have a more lucrative pro environment to move to after school. Bottom line to me is that you cannot mix the portal with NIL like it is now.  NIL without the portal or with the one year sit out rule like there used to be might work better.  Haven't thought it all through, and probably won't.  And before anyone says the one year sit out rule was not fair and terrible, I would say, oh dear, the poor "student," forced to attend school an extra year and maybe end up with a Master's degree, oh the horror.

You've well expressed so much of the way I feel about it. I'm a bit of a Luddite here, I guess, but for me, the sports I want to follow in college are played by student-athletes, who are students first. Yes, some are athletes who play because that is the way they can afford to go to college, and that's ok. They are there for the education, not to make money out of being an athlete. I wish that were still the case. I have no problem with people making money from being an athlete, if they are genuinely a professional. I do have a problem with NIL on many levels, but two in particular -- for those making the bucks, they have demands on their time that, a distraction that gives them less time to be getting a non-sports education; it can lead to jealousy and tensions among teammates. As for the transfer portal, I would prefer to see going back to sitting out a year, but that's not going to happen. But at least there should be some limitation on # of transfers . . . e.g., after one transfer, the player has to sit out a year.  (I was under the impression that there is some discussion of this going on).  And perhaps a limit on how many transfers IN a team can have.

+1.
I don’t think there’s any going back to the way it was. I do wonder whether it will be possible to bifurcate some college sport sports (football, basketball, ?)  into a “division“ with schools that are fine with running effectively unrestricted professional sports programs and a second division where substantial restrictions on the monetary aspects (and perhaps time commitments)  are imposed.

[dabigv13]

Courts may say it's illegal to have that sort of split, for some inane reason. The lawsuit against the Ivy League for not having athletic scholarships will be instructive.

[dabigv13]

Courts may say it's illegal to have that sort of split, for some inane reason. The lawsuit against the Ivy League for not having athletic scholarships will be instructive.