printable versionThinking about sports
Stanford was represented by more athletes at the Beijing Olympics than any other American university. A total of 48 enrolled and former students competed for eight countries. They took home 25 medals; three hang around the necks of current students, all women.
Here at home, the university has won the NCAA Division I NACDA Directors' Cup so many times—every year for the last 14 years—it's like watching Bill Russell's Celtics.
All that brawn along with all those brains. According to the Stanford model, both are essential, and if you don't get in on your academic achievement, you don't get in.
On the academic side, Cardinal sports is more of an individual exercise than a team one. No huddles here. A few legal scholars, a couple of economists and management folks, a psychologist, some scientists, a priest and a few literary scholars all spend some of their time pondering such questions as why it is so thrilling to watch a ball sail between the goal posts, what good can come of children being sent to sports camps, why people felt personally betrayed by Barry Bonds and why monstrosities such as Monster Park or Enron Field come into existence in the first place.
