I recognize that a Northwestern blog calling out another institution for being elitist and arrogant is a classic pot-meet-kettle situation, but under the Takes One To Know One Corollary, I contend I am fully qualified to address Stanford football's media guide. Specifically, this page of it.
For those too lazy to click the link, this bit of Cardinalaganda details how the average Stanford alum earns more money per year 15 years after graduation (about $119,000) than any other top 25 football school from last year. Now that would be obnoxious enough, but they don't stop at saying "We're Number One!" In addition to claiming "Stanford Varsity Athlete alumni are the most sought-after employees across all sectors of the economy in every corner of the country" (side note: what's with capitalizing "Varsity Athlete?" Is it an official title? Get ready for "With the first pick in the 2012 NFL draft, the Carolina Panthers select former Stanford Varsity Athlete Andrew Luck"), the media guide spells out just how much money you're leaving on the table by attending a college other than Stanford, literally listing the exact difference in expected salary for all the other top 25 teams.
I can understand designing a graphic like that to show to potential recruits; it may be pretentious but recruiting is a dirty business and it's par for the course for coaches to hard-sell their school as much as possible. But using the media guide to disparage other schools? Weak, Stanford, weak. I find it embarrassing when Northwestern fans break out the "we're smarter than you" card in debates with opposing fan bases (ironically, such arguments invariably make the Northwestern fan in question look like an idiot), and I'd be about 100 times more embarrassed to read something like that coming from the NU athletic department. It's fine if Stanford wants to celebrate the accomplishments of their graduates, but there's no need to disparage the rest of the Division 1 in the process.
- In other news, Penn State hired a new basketball coach: Pat Chambers, formerly of Boston University, has agreed to come to Happy Valley and attempt to stock the cupboard left bare by Ed DeChellis. On paper, this is an excellent hire for Penn State; Chambers is young, passionate, and has recruiting connections in nearby Philadelphia from his time as an assistant in Villanova. But as Dana O'Neil noted, Chambers will need more support than DeChellis got from his athletic department to have any chance of long-term success.
- The football team signed their 5th 2012 commit today ($$$), defensive end Dean Lowery. His decision came down to Northwestern and Iowa, so nice to see our domination over Iowa is carrying over to recruiting.
- Jim Tressel and his former athletic director Gene Smith were apparently on a cell phone plan that put Kelvin Sampson to shame. Tressel exchanged 77 calls and text messages with Terrelle Pryor's sugar daddy mentor Ted Sarniak alone, and spent 4.5 hours on the phone with Sarniak over the last year. The hits just keep on coming for Ohio State, and the NCAA's hearing on tOSU's violations is still more than two months away. Ruh roh.