David Shaw on Satellite Camps

[Intl.Aperture]

He really believes that most HS football players are not smart enough to go to school where he went to school,.

Well...they aren't, or at least they don't have the test scores (not getting into intelligence vs standardized testing), that's a verifiable fact. Most of these kids aren't Rhodes scholars, no matter what state they come from (He never specified the South and though we like to make everything about ourselves, being on the far West Coast I'm sure he'd even like more of a crack at the midwest states like OK and TX). Most PEOPLE in the U.S. aren't smart enough to go Stanford.

I've yet to hear anyone argue that the root of what he was saying is empirically false. Maybe it rubs folks the wrong way, but he wasn't lying. It's just the casual remark of a coach who looks at hundreds of kids' high school grades every single year and knows they aren't cutting it. Seems like a petty thing for any of us to take offense of or get rubbed the wrong way by. The logic behind it is sound and is able to be backed up with mountains of data- folks just don't like the feel of "Our kids are smarter than your kids" which we retort back immaturely with "Yah well we won football games and stuff!" Didn't know it was so easy to get intellectually emasculated.

 

[uaintn]

Not to quibble, but wasn't his dad on the coaching staff when he was playing?

Slice it however you want to, I don't think there is a way to say it that isn't offensive to a lot of people, including (I hope) recruits. I don't have time to look it up, but I'll bet you Stanford made offers to more than one player in Alabama last year (or currently has offers outstanding), where no one would have a camp. Be even more interesting to see about Florida and Texas, where everyone would want to go if they could.

 

[crimsonaudio]

I've yet to hear anyone argue that the root of what he was saying is empirically false.

You really believe there's ANY state in the union that only has one FB player capable of meeting Stanford's admission standards?

Maybe it would have been more accurate from him to say "It doesn’t make sense for us to go hold a camp some place where there might be one person in the entire state that is willing to play for Stanford."

Heck, two of the five 2017 commitments to Stanford are from Georgia...

 

[Crimson1967]

In his book, Moneyball, Billy Beane said he was offered a baseball scholarship to Stanford out of high school. He turned it down to play minor league baseball. After his first season, he decided to go to Stanford on his own but was told he did not qualify academically.

So they do have different standards for jocks and non-jocks.

 

[TommyMac]

Dang, being a Stanford guy, you'd think he'd be aware of what's rolling out of his pie hole?

 

[RTR91]

 

[CrimsonHammer]

Imagine if a coach said that about other demographic groups and not just us dumb southerners. Garsh dang we stupid.

 

[RTR91]

David Shaw was on Finebaum's show to address his comments

 

[Mystical]

Said his Mom is from Alabama. He would never take a shot at the South.

 

[dvldog]

We already know where the smartest football players are from. They from down south Paul.

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

First of all, let’s acknowledge it was an ill-advised thing for David Shaw to say, given how it would inevitably be spun, irrespective of how he meant it; and subsequent appeals to heritage, though legitimate, ring as hollow as the answers at a Cam Newton press conference. That said, I think people attacking Shaw over this are being a little unfair, for two key reasons: context, and numbers.

First, the context. It seems pretty clear that the phrase "SEC Country" never existed in Shaw's original comment, but rather was an F-Bomb graphic so egregiously altering the meaning of the quote that it might almost make Maureen Dowd weep for journalistic integrity.

Now, the numbers. I think it's safe to assume that by "one person" Shaw meant "one recruit," because that's who his target customer is; football players, not other Stanford aspirants. Consider the following numbers:

1. 2.4 - percentage of high school college football players who eventually play football at any DI school (source:scholarshipstatistics.com)
2. 2.0 - approximate percent of all SAT scores that meet or exceed the average of a recent Stanford freshman class (sources: collegesimplify.com; prepscholar.com)
3. 0.048 - assuming a normal distribution, and assuming that there is no positive or negative correlation between football skill and SAT scores, the percentage of high school football players also smart enough to produce the average Stanford SAT score. That's one in 2,083

Using data on high school football participation by state in the 2014/2015 school year from the National Federation of State High School Associations' website (yeah, I know: get a life already), and assuming for the sake of argument the 2083 ratio, in any given year:

• Three states would have more than five Stanford prospects each - CA, IL, and TX
• Three states would have five each - FL, MI, and OH
• Four states would have four each - AL, GA, NC and NY
• 10 states would have three each, including MO, MS, and TN
• 11 states would have two each, including KY, LA and SC
• 10 would have one each, including AR
• Nine would have zero. None is an SEC state

As we all know, 11 states are home to an SEC university. Again granting the two underlying assumptions, exactly one – Arkansas – would have fewer than two likely Stanford prospects, and only four would have three or fewer.

Finally, (no kidding, you’re muttering to yourself at this point in your reading), all 50 states combined would produce just 130 or so Stanford prospects per recruiting class. Shaw has to get almost 20% of them to come to the Farm, and he can’t afford to insult any of them intentionally. Absent proof that he did, in light of the context and the numbers, the right thing to do is to take him at his word.

 

[B1GTide]

...Absent proof that he did, in light of the context and the numbers, the right thing to do is to take him at his word.

Agree with this post, though would point out that their bar for football players is clearly lower than for general admission as evidenced by players who were recruited by Stanford and chose other schools who were later unable to attend Stanford on their academic scores alone.

But my main concern is that he said it at all, even accepting his interpretation. It was an arrogant statement - no way around it. "Why would we waste time/money doing this when these kids would never get into our school anyway?" It may be factually correct, but it requires arrogance to actually say it.

A lot of people believe that they are the smartest man in the room, no matter who else may be in that room at the time. The man who actually says those words - "I believe that I am the smartest man in this room" - loses everyone in the room the instant that he says those words. Whether it is true or not doesn't matter. No one wants to work with someone who thinks like that.

CEOs can't make mistakes like this, and he is the CEO of that program. He has a lot to learn.

 

[Redwood Forrest]

I do not know how recruits will feel but I doubt if matters. If they are smart enough to get into Stanford then if should not matter to them and if not then it won't matter. Personally I never mind a Stanford, Northwestern or Duke HC bragging about their genius students. Heck, I would too.