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FWIW - Stanford Drops 11 Sports Programs

RedCap

Nebraska Legend
Sep 29, 2001
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Stanford had one of the largest arrays of sports programs in P5 and it is the first P5 program to drop sports and blames it on the Coronavirus costs. The sports being dropped aren't the most popular, it's things like fencing, rowing, men's volleyball etc.

I have no problem with Stanford pruning its array of sports programs BUT the reason given is a phony fig leaf. Stanford sits on one of the largest endowment funds in the country including $27 billion as of 2019. It's one of the richest schools out there so it can easily weather itself through the pandemic.

IMO Stanford just needs to be honest and explain that it is spread too thin over too many sports so sports like fencing need to get axed.
 
I think you only need 16 sports to qualify for D1 - suspect the power 5 conferences have a limit that is higher - but I think Stanford carried something like 36 D1 programs
 
Stanford had one of the largest arrays of sports programs in P5 and it is the first P5 program to drop sports and blames it on the Coronavirus costs. The sports being dropped aren't the most popular, it's things like fencing, rowing, men's volleyball etc.

I have no problem with Stanford pruning its array of sports programs BUT the reason given is a phony fig leaf. Stanford sits on one of the largest endowment funds in the country including $27 billion as of 2019. It's one of the richest schools out there so it can easily weather itself through the pandemic.

IMO Stanford just needs to be honest and explain that it is spread too thin over too many sports so sports like fencing need to get axed.
That's not going to be good for the Olympics. Stanford is a powerhouse in Olympic events.
 
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That's not going to be good for the Olympics. Stanford is a powerhouse in Olympic events.
What? Because Stanford is dropping certain sports Americans who excelled at said sports won’t excel any longer?

I don’t understand your premise. The athletes that went to Stanford and are good at Olympic sports can go elsewhere and still excel... is the training at Stanford all world or something?
 
ABCs of endowments.

I assume that most schools with an endowment have used them in ways not intended but floating your whole AD off them for a year seems likely to get noticed.

a friend worked for the foundation of a university and typically donations have been earmarked. he worked with one fellow who donated a large property when he died to the vet school, because they saved his dog once.
 
a friend worked for the foundation of a university and typically donations have been earmarked. he worked with one fellow who donated a large property when he died to the vet school, because they saved his dog once.

Shoot, you see this at the HS level even.

And, I think a lot of schools will use this as a chance to ditch...

Sports that literally have zero chance of doing anything but being a huge burden.
 
a friend worked for the foundation of a university and typically donations have been earmarked. he worked with one fellow who donated a large property when he died to the vet school, because they saved his dog once.
IMO schools can/do get around that condition easily enough. They just allocate the donation with strings to the specified cause but then they reallocate general income with no strings attached away from that specified cause. The end result is neutering the overall effect of the donation while satisfying its technical conditions. The specified cause usually doesn't wind up with a net increase although there's a lot of publicity to make people feel good about their donations.
 
What? Because Stanford is dropping certain sports Americans who excelled at said sports won’t excel any longer?

I don’t understand your premise. The athletes that went to Stanford and are good at Olympic sports can go elsewhere and still excel... is the training at Stanford all world or something?
It's certainly a possibility. The kids that would get a scholarship to go to Stanford and be supported financially for 4 years will have fewer options. There's not many schools that offer the kind of sports Stanford has, so most of the elite talent went there.
 
Stanford had one of the largest arrays of sports programs in P5 and it is the first P5 program to drop sports and blames it on the Coronavirus costs. The sports being dropped aren't the most popular, it's things like fencing, rowing, men's volleyball etc.

I have no problem with Stanford pruning its array of sports programs BUT the reason given is a phony fig leaf. Stanford sits on one of the largest endowment funds in the country including $27 billion as of 2019. It's one of the richest schools out there so it can easily weather itself through the pandemic.

IMO Stanford just needs to be honest and explain that it is spread too thin over too many sports so sports like fencing need to get axed.
I'll take them serious when/if they drop volleyball and their marching band
 
It's certainly a possibility. The kids that would get a scholarship to go to Stanford and be supported financially for 4 years will have fewer options. There's not many schools that offer the kind of sports Stanford has, so most of the elite talent went there.
I get that, but my point is the elite talent is still elite and will just go somewhere else...

edit: sorry, I see why your saying now. There isn’t a lot of places for the elite talent to go. My bad.
 
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What? Because Stanford is dropping certain sports Americans who excelled at said sports won’t excel any longer?

I don’t understand your premise. The athletes that went to Stanford and are good at Olympic sports can go elsewhere and still excel... is the training at Stanford all world or something?


I don’t think you understand. What if they are underclassmen? Holding a Stanford degree means a helluva lot in the outside world. If some of their scholarships are taken away, they are screwed...
 
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I don’t think you understand. What if they are underclassmen? Holding a Stanford degree means a helluva lot in the outside world. If some of there scholarships are taken away, they are screwed...

it will certainly hurt some - not every sport is able to roster their team with full ride scholarships

Average D1 baseball team is about 35 players
D1 gets a max of 11.7 scholarships for baseball. A lot of very partial scholarships - 25 50% + walkons
 
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I don’t think you understand. What if they are underclassmen? Holding a Stanford degree means a helluva lot in the outside world. If some of there scholarships are taken away, they are screwed...
I get that, my question was how that affected olympians. But I understand now what Oldjar07 was saying. Just took me longer to figure it out. Must have been tired or something.
 
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I don’t think you understand. What if they are underclassmen? Holding a Stanford degree means a helluva lot in the outside world. If some of there scholarships are taken away, they are screwed...

Are they honoring the scholarships still?
 
Are they honoring the scholarships still?
Even if they don't honor the scholarships, Stanford provides significant financial aid to those that can't afford $60k+ a year for college. The ones that will be impacted most are upper middle class student athletes that don't qualify for financial aid grants
 
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