My thoughts on the New ERA

 

A New World 

            Stanford Women's Basketball will open its 2024-25 season on October 30 with an exhibition against Cal State LA.  There will be 14 players available -- nine back from last season -- all wearing traditional Stanford uniforms.  There will be one more coach on the bench (6 instead of last year's five) with four back from last year, and the team will still play its home games in Maples Pavilion.  Sounds almost normal. 

 

                  Yet, it is virtually impossible to overstate how different women's basketball and particularly Stanford Women's Basketball is from five years ago when Stanford won its most recent National Championship by defeating fellow PAC-12 team, Arizona State.  There have been total sea changes for college athletics, for west coast college athletics, and specifically for Stanford Women's basketball.  The changes are, in many ways, all connected and all connected to the effect that college football has had on the nature of college athletics. 

 

A New Era for College Sports

 

            Once upon a time college athletes were amateurs and college athletics existed for the pleasure the contests brought to fans - primarily students and alums - and the sense of accomplishment they provided to the student athletes. At least that is what the fantasy that may have existed in the distant past told us.  The transaction was college athletes received scholarships that provided them with a free college education while the school sold tickets that recouped the cost of those scholarships and made alums happy. Although there were professional leagues for football, basketball, and baseball, player salaries were quite moderate compared to what a professional in other fields -- physicians, lawyers, and business executives could expect to earn. 

 

                  Over time, especially for "revenue" sports, the deal changed with the change driven in large part by the revenue the sports provided to the schools-- particularly from their media deals.  Football was the main driver because NFL rules require players be "at least three years" past high school, while basketball players need only one year and baseball has always drafted players right out of high school. College football coaches started receiving huge salaries making them, at many schools, far and away the most highly compensated employee of the school.  In 2024, the nation's highest paid university president earned 2.4 million while the top 60 college football coaches all earned more.  Decisions about athletics issues became more about generating athletic success than about caring for the student athletes.  Not surprisingly, student athletes began challenging the NCAA's rules limiting /prohibiting their ability to be compensated for their school's (and the NCAA's) use of their images, their ability to change schools, and prohibiting their schools from compensating them for their efforts.

 

                  At the same time, the entire notion of amateur sports began to erode with professional athletes becoming eligible for the Olympics and "appearance" payments for elite athletes in all sports becoming commonplace. Furthermore, the compensation for professional athletes increased significantly.  For example, in 1970 the average salary for professional football players was between $20,000 and $60,000 a year while the current minimum salary in the NFL is $795,000. As college athletes increasingly viewed their sport as their profession, they became less comfortable with performing for free, especially athletes coming from low-income families.  Being unable to afford a pizza or a fancy coffee while watching coaches get paid millions for the results of the student athletes' performances seemed unfair. This was especially true in sports where the probability of becoming a successful professional is low while the probability of sustaining a significant injury is high.  Only 1.6% of college football players and 1.2% of male college basketball players end up playing for US professional teams.  For female athletes the numbers are even more dismal with only 33 women even being drafted by the WNBA last year.  Additionally, although earnings for female athletes in sports other than golf and tennis have not generally had the potential to run to seven figures, there are significant signs that in the not-too-distant future, female professional athletes will be much more highly compensated.  Already female athletes are signing endorsement deals that pay handsomely.

 

                    The NCAA, in its true monopolistic bully fashion, refused to change their rules. Courts and legislatures were more sympathetic about the obvious exploitation. As a result, student athletes can now transfer to new schools as many times as they chose and interested parties (but so far not schools) can pay student athletes for among other things the use of their photos, interviews, and appearances (NIL).  Furthermore, although coaches are still prohibited from directly recruiting students committed to another school, nothing prohibits other students, alums, or other interested parties from contacting any student athlete and offering them compensation should they chose to enroll at a different school. This relatively unregulated situation was almost certainly a factor in Kiki Iriafen's decision to leave for USC. Rumor has it that Kiki, a rising senior All-American who would have been this team's leader, was offered an NIL deal in the high six figures to transfer!

 

                  Essentially, college athletes have gone from being highly regulated legally defined amateurs to being unrestricted prospective professionals.  They can earn money for everything from appearing at a charity or booster club event to getting eyeballs to their social media accounts. The implications for all of this include the need for coaches to constantly re-recruit their existing players while recruiting new players from both the high school ranks AND the rosters of other teams.  It also means that student athletes need to consider new factors -- from what payment a school's "collective" will provide to what kind of media exposure will their play at a school generate as they select a school. At some point in the future there may be more regulation (as there is in professional sports), but for now the competition for college athletes is truly the "wild west." 

                   Stanford University has always been a place where student athletes were truly student athletes.  Now Stanford is trying to figure out how to handle a world where it's more "professional athlete currently enrolled at this school." It's too early to know how Stanford will adjust to this new reality -- so stay tuned.

 

Bye-Bye PAC-12 -- Hello ACC

 

            The next sea change was the dissolving of the PAC-12 Conference.  This year for the first time in 106 years, Stanford will not be playing in what has been the Pacific Athletic Conference. It has been sacrificed on the altar of football and big bucks.  The apparent insatiable appetite for football at all levels has resulted in huge media contracts for college sports conferences.  Unfortunately, PAC-12 leadership dropped the ball in that arena.  That made PAC-12 schools attractive targets for poaching, especially schools with strong football programs and large media markets.  The Big Ten moved in and peeled off USC and UCLA.  Once they were gone, the prospects for a strong media contract diminished and both Oregon and Washington were willing to jump ship -- also joining the Big Ten.  Stanford's less than stellar recent performance on the football field apparently did not attract the same interest.  When the dust settled ten of the PAC-12 schools had  departed with both Stanford and Cal joining the ACC -- the Atlantic Coast Conference.

 

                  The predecessor of the PAC-12 was founded in 1915, with Stanford joining in 1918.  The conference became the Pacific Athletic Conference, the PAC-8, the PAC-10, and finally the PAC-12. What all those iterations had in common was a geographic link to at least the western US and mostly the Pacific Coast.  That meant that some away games were within driving distance, and all could be reached by plane in under three hours -- with direct flights usually available.  Additionally, the teams were largely geographically paired -- requiring only one plane flight and a bus ride for a two game trip. It also meant that the Conference tournament -- once it was instituted -- was held in a similarly convenient location.  Other than CAL, the closest ACC team is fellow newcomer SMU located in Dallas, TX.  The ACC tournament will be held somewhere on the East Coast.... For student athletes it means a number of long plane flights, a burden only somewhat ameliorated by the use of charter flights.  For fans the geographic proximity meant that it was reasonable to consider attending some of the team's away games. That won't be true for ACC games as we won't have the benefit of charter flights. 

 

Head Coach

 

                  The final sea change is on the bench.  Since 1985 the one constant for Stanford WB was that Tara Van Derveer was Stanford's head coach. Even when she took a year off to transform the US landscape for women's basketball, we knew she was Stanford's coach and would be back. (The '96 US National team, which went 60 and 0, is widely created with creating the foundation for professional women's basketball in the US.) During Tara's tenure on the Stanford bench, the team won three national championships, and had 14 Final Four appearances, 21 Elite Eight appearances, 28 Sweet Sixteen appearances, made the NCAA tournament every year except Tara's first season, and won the Conference tournament (PAC-10/12) 14 times.  All of those numbers for Tara, except the National Championships, would be one number higher if Tara were to be credited with the 29-3 record of Stanford's 1995-96 team coached during her absence by interim head coaches Amy Tucker and Marianne Staley (and Geno would be 29 games further behind in career wins).  

 

                  Tara was the fan's security blanket.  After her first year as head coach, her teams never had a losing record and from her third year on, only two Tara coached teams failed to win at least 20 games!  No matter how overmatched Stanford teams might appear to be on paper, we always knew that a Tara coached team couldn't be counted out. Stanford was the last team to defeat UConn before their record setting win streak and was the team that ended that streak.  Tara's legendary coaching skills earned her a place in every possible Basketball Hall of Fame and made Stanford a reasonable choice for any young woman basketball star who could meet Stanford's admission requirements.

 

                  It seems likely that the other changes contributed to Tara's decision.  She has been the Dean of West Coast women's basketball and its head cheerleader.  The loss of a conference and the relationships with her fellow coaches she worked so hard to build had to be a blow. Additionally, I can personally attest to the fact that, as we get older, long plane flights are more draining.  Finally, and probably most importantly, Tara has always viewed coaching as a means to help young women develop into their best selves both as players and, even more importantly, as people.  The prospect of players constantly transferring in and out uproots her developmental approach to coaching.

 

                  Van Derveer is being replaced as head coach by her protege, Kate Paye.  Kate was a walk-on who worked her way up to being the point guard on Stanford's 1992 National Championship team.  She came to Stanford as an assistant coach in 2007 after working as an assistant at Pepperdine and San Diego State.  Since 2016 Paye has been Stanford's Associate Head Coach. She is widely considered to be a top coach, having won multiple national awards as the top assistant coach in women's basketball.  It may well be that Kate will carve out a legendary career as Stanford's head coach -- but that remains to be seen.  She will certainly need to adjust to the new world of college women's basketball, a world where NIL money and media exposure may be much more enticing than the value of a Stanford degree.  

 

My Personal Reactions

 

                  As a fan, I confess to being sad about Tara's decision to retire and Kiki's decision to transfer, but I can't fault either for their decision.  Tara was going to retire someday.  

Taking on the challenges and heartbreak of all these changes must have been a daunting prospect, especially when she wants to spend more time with an aging mother who won't be here forever. I selfishly wish Kiki had made a different decision as I have genuinely loved watching her play and watching her develop. But, I can't fault her for her decision. She had already earned her Stanford degree. At USC she gets to play at home where her family can show up regularly in front of what are likely to be sell-out crowds and has been paid way more than the highest WNBA salary for doing it. Furthermore, playing next to JuJu she has a very legitimate chance to win a national championship. Finally, perhaps she is temperamentally more comfortable playing "Robin" to JuJu's "Batman," as she did with Cam, than playing Superwoman with a supporting cast. 

                The best thing we can do as fans is SHOW UP!!!  When Maples is full and rocking, it's a lovely place to play -- but on nights when only a few thousand fans show up the empty seats can make other pastures look awfully green. See you at Maples.