For the reason that arrival of a brand new college president in August.
For the reason that appointment of a soccer common supervisor in November.
For the reason that recognition by vital stakeholders throughout the college that relentless dropping begets full irrelevance — and that each are worse than the sacrifices required to win.
Within the speedy aftermath of Muir’s resolution, it’s straightforward to deal with what went flawed throughout his tenure. On the momentum misplaced. On the alternatives missed. On the deterioration of Stanford’s athletic model.
We’ll contact on simply two issues, the state of the lads’s basketball and soccer packages, as a result of they mirror an appropriately nuanced view of Muir’s tenure and the place the Cardinal heads from right here:
— The demise of the previous is fully his doing.
Muir owns it and can put on it for years to return. He waited too lengthy to fireplace Johnny Dawkins, whiffed with the Jerod Haase rent, then held on far too lengthy with Haase, as properly. Tally it up, and you’ve got three strikes and a decade within the wilderness.
(Kyle Smith, employed final spring, is a transparent improve. However there are challenges dealing with Smith that didn’t exist throughout Dawkins’ tenure and the early years of the Haase period.)
— Regardless of what many Stanford followers imagine, Muir’s culpability within the soccer program’s regression is much much less direct.
There have been clear indicators of slippage below David Shaw within the late 2010s, however Muir wasn’t in place to pressure modifications in opposition to the desire of a head coach who had gained three convention championships and brought this system to unprecedented heights. To assume in any other case is folly.
As soon as it turned clear to all concerned {that a} change was wanted, in 2021-22, it was too late for Muir to salvage the operation. NIL and the switch portal had change into the first technique of roster development. As an establishment, Stanford was wholly ill-equipped to cope with both.
The consequence: 4 consecutive three-win seasons — one of many worst stretches at school historical past.
That mentioned, there was a path ahead for the Cardinal. However as soon as the terrain shifted, Muir couldn’t clear the comb himself. Solely modifications directed by the president, the provost and the board of trustees might have offered the soccer program with the life raft it wanted.
And that, of us, is the place culpability finally lies: with former president Marc Tessier-Lavinge and, particularly, ex-provost Persis Drell, who didn’t perceive soccer, didn’t care about soccer and didn’t admire the advantages soccer might convey to athletics particularly and the campus writ giant.
The mix of Tessier-Lavigne and Drell was a whole and utter catastrophe for Stanford soccer.
Which brings us to the current — to Muir’s departure and the encompassing dynamics.
Whereas he remained in place over these fraught years for the Cardinal, all the things else modified. First, Drell introduced her departure. Then, Tessier-Lavigne resigned. And final summer time, Jonathan Levin took cost of the college.
Any questions on his appreciation for soccer had been answered just a few months later, when Andrew Luck got here aboard as this system’s common supervisor with a reporting line on to Levin, in response to sources — a sign of Muir’s diminished affect.
Levin attended Stanford throughout Invoice Walsh’s second tenure as head coach and have become a full professor within the late 2000s, simply in time for soccer’s ascent below Luck, Shaw and Jim Harbaugh. Quickly after taking workplace in August, he labored immediately with Luck to create the GM function.
All of which is to say this: Muir’s tenure was forgettable in lots of regards. However the decline of Stanford soccer is extra concerning the absence of curiosity atop the college and the altering panorama throughout the nation. His departure displays a shift in method that begins with Levin.
That’s solely the case in case your worldview is rooted within the bowels of Stanford’s Nationwide Accelerator Laboratory within the hills to the west of campus.
A better look reveals no such correlation.
Does anybody assume much less of Vanderbilt because it slayed Alabama with a quarterback (Diego Pavia) whose faculty profession started on the New Mexico Navy Institute?
Northwestern not solely skilled a hazing scandal and fired its coach in 2023 however then had the unmitigated gall to win eight video games. We hear it’s nonetheless a reasonably good faculty.
Certain, the necessities for fulfillment are totally different now than they had been through the Cardinal’s ascent 15 years in the past, and extra change is coming. By August, Stanford might be neck deep within the revenue-sharing period, together with Cal, the remainder of the ACC and each faculty in main faculty soccer.
However the price of a dropping, hopeless, irrelevant soccer program far exceeds the worth of the sacrifices wanted to win.
Muir’s departure, considered not as a singular occasion however as one other transfer on Levin’s chessboard, signifies crucial individual on campus not solely sees the brand new actuality however is snug with it.
