My daughter’s significant other of 9 years was awarded his PhD in material sciences engineering. I just went to the diploma ceremony, not the stadium ceremony. The campus was beautiful, the weather was perfect, it was so … Stanford. Everything smelled good and looked good. Brought back so many good feelings. Both the grad students and undergrads were thrilled with making it through. The descriptions of the research projects were stunning. The families were so proud - in a good way. It was a reminder that athletics is a very small part of everything that is going on at Stanford, and the reason we all loved our time there was not based on whether or not the football team was winning. As alums the sports teams become a major face of the school that we interact with, but it was irrelevant on Sunday.
