Stanford Drops 11 Sports
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe now someone else could win the Directors Cup!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not great news, obvs., but considering they had 87 'varsity" sports to begin with, this isn't a huge deal
https://facts.stanford.edu/administration/finances/
It disbursed $1.3 billion to support vital academic programs and financial aid during the fiscal year.
I still don't understand the Endowment-haters. To me, this seems to be a good thing.
people always see a big pile of money and think it isn't being spent correctly. Our politicians do the same thing.
If maintaining offered academic and athletic programs during a global pandemic isn't reason enough to dip into the endowment, then what is? Is the purpose of the endowment to support the university? Or is the primary purpose the endowment's own survival? The fund is considered endowed if it is expected to last in perpetuity. Based on the disbursement rates, investment gains, and donations, the endowment doesn't just maintain its value, it grows each year. Yes, this means Stanford benefits more in 2020 than it did in 2000. However, would it be acceptable for 2025 to be the same as 2020 if that means that programs can be saved? I think that's the real question. Those in charge of the endowments make it sound like any further disbursements put the future of the fund in jeopardy. I frankly think that's a little ridiculous. The way these funds are treated doesn't justify all of the tax advantages they enjoy in my opinion.
Nearly all large donations to endowments have covenants that restrict what the money or proceeds can be spent on. So you might have a billion dollar endowment but only 200 million you're free to spend any way you please and a large university usually will have an extensive wishlist. Dipping into the endowment to pay for one season of athletics isn't on that list.
Endowments are not saving accounts, they are invested and the money returned from investments is used to fund operations of the school. Every school would like to increase its endowment so they can better pay their employees, expands schools within the University or improve capital projects among many other things. Spending hard endowment money is usually a recipe for future financial disaster as many small liberal arts colleges are finding out or will find out.
How are rich kids going to get into Stanford if there isn't a Rowing Coach for their parents to bribe?
Funny and true, but as a former rower that does suck. They'll probably continue without university funding in some way though.
I wonder if this is in any way related to the whole Varsity Blues (buying scholarships) thing. Stanford sailing got nailed there. Maybe an internal investigations thing? I know that squash especially is a sport where a substantial fraction of kids who play do so explicitly to get a scholarship (on the theory that the sport's unpopular but still gives schollies so, as far as D1 sports go, it's an "easy" get)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/06/12/ex-stanford-sailing…
I wish people understood how endowments work and that they aren't an open checkbook.
Fencing was easy to drop since Stanford is one of only two schools on the West Coast sponsoring the sport, the other UC-San Diego.
Field Hockey is not a Pac-12 sponsored sport and is an Eastern sport as well, only UC-Davis and Cal-Berkely sponsor the sport out there.
All those other sports are heavy East Coast travel with limited Pac12 sponsorship.
I don't think anyone thinks that endowments are all general use funds or whatever. To suggest, though, that they can never, ever, be tapped no matter how much the University wants to is silly.
A board that wants to do it and donors who are amenable can make that happen. It is a choice by both parties to not do so, and to cast it as "oh, sorry, we'd love to but we're stuck here" is extremely untrue. I have my opinions on why neither side has decided to do this (tl;dr: they see endowments as a dick-measuring contest, are rich finance people who are totally insulated from financial distress and can't / don't understand the crushing impacts on normal people, and are predisposed to see non-finance people as spendthrifts who need to be governed, not subject-matter experts who should be taken seriously), and they may or may not be right, but again: if they wanted to, it would happen.
So Heavyweight Rowing is safe though?
not to be disparaging of someone else's passion, but..."lightweight rowing" was a varsity sport?
Believe it or not, it's also an Olympic sport. Maximum weight of 130 lb for women, 160 lb for men. I guess if you enjoy rowing a boat but aren't very big, you can compete in this sport.
do they have Heavyweight rowing too? Like you have to be over 250lbs and shotgun a beer before the race starts?
No, but I think a heavyweight Cross Country meet could be worth the price of admission.
Weird, I'm a skinny early 20s guy who wouldn't come close to qualifying lol
Wow, Volleyball is huge here and wrestling.
Men's volleyball. The Pac12 has 3 schools sponsoring mens volleyball Stanford, UCLA, USC Wrestling is is also very minor Pac 12 sport with only Arizona State, Oregon State and Stanford having teams. Pac12 is 6 teams which including CS Bakersfield, Cal Poly and Ark-Little Rock.
Easy cuts.
There goes the Sears, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, Macy's Cup or whatever cup fills their trophy case in Palo Alto.
False, the Sears/ Director's Cup relates to a school's best performing sports, or best 10 women's and 10 best men's. So it's unlikely that a school like Stanford would remove something that they have a tradition of excellence in competing or that would not enable them to continue to win this trophy.
Does UM have any of these sports other than wrestling?
Imagine paying to go to a university like Stanford and the fat cats cut your sport.
Perfect time to rethink college athletics. We have too many teams and athletes in college sports. There are only a couple revenue generating sports and the rest are a drag on the athletic department and/or the general fund of a university. Just because you are really good at a very minor sport doesn't mean you should go to college for free. Join a club team if you love playing so much.
I would propose for each non-revenue sport that two conferences with the most geographic and historical advantages be the only two conference with varsity scholarships for that sport. The winner of each conference plays for the national title. For instance, women's volleyball would only be a varsity sport in the Big Ten and the Pac-12. Men's wrestling only the Big Ten and Big 12. Swimming the SEC and Pac-12, etc. Try to even it out a bit among the Power Five conference that have large enough football budgets to pay for the handful of non-revenue sports that conference is playing varsity in.
People are going to cry over this, but all these non revenue sports are is an excuse to let shitty student rich kids into Stanford when they don't have the grades, and they get great facilities paid for by revenue generated by Football/basketball TV money/alumni donations directed mostly to Football/Basketball that gets siphoned away from the people who earned it.
Given the political culture at Stanford, I doubt you'd find any other area where anyone would support taking money away from the people who make it to give to money losers who produce a product nobody gives a shit about watching. It's high time the Pac 12 schools in general stop taking money from football/basketball to throw away on idiotic rich kids sports nobody cares about just so lil Colten can get into UCLA and Stanford with his 950 SAT score.
I can't believe these were varsity sports, save for maybe field hockey and wrestling.
Squash!? Synchronized swimming!? Who do they even compete against?
And they have money and yet...we’re doomed
It's a bummer to see these programs restricted, but....to be honest, most of these sports are known as "rich kid" sports. The students getting scholarships would most likely be able to afford an education anywhere even without athletic financial aid.
So Hollywood and hedge fund kids can stop sending photoshop pics of rowing to Stanford? That’s a relief ....
Good.