MINNEAPOLIS - A national championship in intercollegiate athletics is an honor to be savored by both the champion's school and the team itself. But it is rare for a school to capture titles in different sports.
Not so for Stanford.
With the Cardinal's title in women's swimming this weekend - their sixth in seven years - Stanford has accumulated 45 separate national titles since 1985. Along with the women's swimming team's success, Stanford has won top honors in men's swimming, men's and women's cross-country, men's and women's volleyball, and men's and women's tennis - all in the past year.
Stanford is "just a monster," Michigan women's swimming coach Jim Richardson said. "They are just the standard."
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| LOUIS BROWN/Daily Jim Richardson has put together an impressive program during his years as women's swimming coach at Michigan, but Stanford still may take the cake in overall college athletics. |
"Stanford athletics is the way athletics in the United States ought to be done," Stanford women's swimming coach Richard Quick said. "These people are fabulous students, wonderful young people, and as far as I'm concerned, Stanford athletics is the model of the way athletics should be done."
Two Stanford swimmers who showed how swimming meets should be won were freshman Misty Hyman and sophomore Catherine Fox. Hyman, who took swimmer of the year honors with five titles, and Fox, an Olympic gold medalist who stood atop the award stand four times, represent the typical Stanford athlete.
But how does Stanford pull in athletes such as Hyman and Fox? Or even Olympians like Summer Sanders, Jenny Thompson and Janet Evans? It's a question nine other teams in the Pac-10, as well as many other schools across the nation, are trying to figure out.
"It's a combination of a lot of things," Hyman, who picked the Cardinal over teams such as Southern Cal and Auburn, said. "What I've found is that the resources at Stanford, the atmosphere of excellence in all areas that goes way beyond swimming - the reason that I chose Stanford and why I'm there now is because of the people, the academics and all the opportunities."
Stanford's success is even more amazing considering its academic reputation. Academically, it consistently ranks among the top 10 schools in the United States. While schools like Duke and Northwestern compete with Stanford in academics and have also been able to achieve success in a few sports, none of them can hold a candle to the Cardinal in terms of overall athletic quality.
Stanford grabs the top coaches as well as the top athletes. Quick is a prime example, as he won six consecutive national championships at Texas from 1984-89 before moving on to the Cardinal.
"You've got Richard Quick, who has won more NCAA championships than anybody. He's got a wonderful staff." Richardson said. Stanford "is a private school, which helps a lot. They've got location and geography as well."
Stationed in Palo Alto, Calif., a suburb of San Francisco, Stanford holds even more advantages than many of its adversaries. The combination of athletics, academics and location brings all sorts of people to "The Farm," as Stanford students lovingly call their school.
"When you poll college professors and ask them if they could pick a school where they could teach, 74 percent pick Stanford," Richardson said. "It's the most prestigious university in the United States at this point in time."
03-24-98
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