Even the biggest geeks in Stanford’s computer lab would call that school a sports power.
It has won 17 consecutive Directors Cups, awarded to the top overall athletic department in the country. It has won 421 individual NCAA championships and 101 team NCAA championships. Stanford students and graduates won 25 medals at the Beijing Olympics.
But football? Stanford has played the sport since 1891 and its national football achievements include, well . . . did we tell you about the 10 men’s water polo titles?
Stanford won a national football championship in 1926 and has won only two conference titles since 1971. However, what Colorado (1-4) faces when it visits No. 7 Stanford (4-0) on Saturday won’t be just a bunch of future professors and CEOs.
The Cardinal has become a bona fide powerful, physical, raw hamburger-eating football power. And, it has All-America quarterback Andrew Luck.
Wasn’t it just five years ago that Stanford went 1-11, lost to San Jose State and drew less than 42,000 in a brand-new, 50,000-seat stadium?
Yes, but that was also the year it hired athletic director Bob Bowlsby.
“We knew we had to reinvest,” Bowlsby said Thursday from Stanford.
That’s not easy. Any school that the Academic Ranking of World Universities ranks second on the planet and generates $1.15 billion in research funding may not see urgency in playing in the Rose Bowl. But Bowlsby came from Iowa, which does care about playing in the Rose Bowl, and so does Michigan, which gave Stanford Richard Shaw, the school’s new dean of admissions, in 2005. He replaced Robin Mamlet, who came from Swarthmore, a Division III school that dropped football in 2000 because, college spokesman Tom Krattenmaker told ABC News, “If you eliminate football, you suddenly have a lot more spaces for everything else.”
You can chart Stanford’s improvement with the arrival of Shaw in 2005, Bowlsby in 2006 and coach Jim Harbaugh in 2007. Under Harbaugh, Stanford went 4-8, 5-7, 8-5 and then 12-1 and No. 4 in the country last season.
“There are those who think you have athletics at one end of the continuum and academics at the other end of the continuum and there’s some kind of compromise in the middle,” Bowlsby said. “We don’t view it that way. We try to be as good athletically as we can possibly be and at the same time try to be as good academically as we possibly can be.”
Bowlsby was asked if anyone was admitted only because he’s a good football player.
“Not if he’s not a great student,” he said. “There are probably 3,500 young men who sign Division I-A letters of intent in football, and we can probably talk to 150 to 200 of them.”
What Shaw did was take the academic profiles of prospects Harbaugh identified early in their high school careers. Shaw would give the coach the parameters needed to get into Stanford, and Harbaugh would go to the players’ coaches and counselors and tell them what the player needed to accomplish for admittance.
The result is 35 current players are engineering majors. Luck, the son of a Rhodes Scholar finalist and former NFL quarterback, was valedictorian at Houston’s Stratford High School.
Also, Stanford needed the right coach. Bowlsby worked 10 years at Northern Iowa, an FCS school, and was aware of Harbaugh working at another FCS school, San Diego. Bowlsby scouted him at a game.
“They responded to him,” Bowlsby said. “His staff responded to him. Was he risky? Sure. But we were in a situation where we could afford to take some risks.”
The San Francisco 49ers hired Harbaugh last winter. His offensive coordinator, David Shaw, has picked up where Harbaugh left off.
With a win over ninth-ranked Oregon at home Nov. 12 and a little luck from teams above in the poll, Stanford could wiggle into the BCS championship game. Maybe then the men’s gymnastics team will make room for other greatness at Stanford.
Stanford visitor’s guide
If you’re fortunate enough to be able to get to a Stanford game . . .
Game-day traditions: Football team does a game walk from its locker room next to Maples Pavilion to Stanford Stadium two hours before game time.
Best sports bar: The Oasis Beer Garden, 241 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, Calif., 650-326-8896, . Near campus despite the Menlo Park address, it has been the gathering place before and after Stanford games since 1958. It’s a place to mingle with Stanford students, alumni and faculty.
Fine dining: Fleming’s, 180 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, Calif., 650-329-8457, . High-end steakhouse voted “Best Steak” by Palo Alto Weekly and Award of Excellence by Wine Spectator 2008-11. Features 100 wines by the glass.
John Henderson, The Denver Post
