STANFORD IS ALSO NOW KNOWN FOR SPORTS EXCELLENCE

During my four years at Stanford from 1958-62, we were the league doormats for football and basketball. When Cactus Jack Curtice, our football coach, addressed our freshman class on Day One, his story was that he scoured the country, successfully recruited every player that qualified to attend Stanford...and both of them should be sitting with you in the audience. Our baseball team was okay, and I actually earned an athletic jacket for my experience with the team.

One requirement for graduation was to perform a quarter of school service, and I picked helping out our baseball team. This was all menial, like putting up the bases during their practices and the like. One day their scorer was sick, so I volunteered to do that. We won. So I did it again, We won again.

You need to appreciate how baseball works. The coaches and players are notoriously superstitious, and their success just by my keeping score meant that they took me to away games. We did well, and they voted to give me a letterman jacket at the end of the season. Well, this was 60 years ago, and I can't seem to find it today, but it could be because I threw it away, for it was uncomfortable to wear: material was scratchy and the arms were made of leather.

So on to today and sports at Stanford. Somebody after I left campus must have planned very well. I haven't been able to identify who or why. A quote from 2017:

After winning the women’s soccer national championship, Stanford now boasts 114 NCAA titles, yet the football team has never contributed to that tally. Instead, the Cardinal dominate the “Olympic” sports, and the Farm has become the hot destination for the nation’s top athletes. With a combination of academics and athletics, Stanford is truly unlike any other school in the country, resulting in the best overall athletic program annually.

The NACDA Director's Cup trophy was created in 1993 to select the college campuses with the best overall sports program.

The first year was won by North Carolina. Stanford came in #2
Then for the next 25 years Stanford was #1.
Alas, in the 2019-20 academic year Texas won. Stanford came in at #2.

But this "embarrassment" was at least partially caused by the school last year dropping 11 of its 36 varsity sports. These are the ones that well-represented the school in past Olympics: fencing, field hockey, rowing, sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men's volleyball and wrestling. These 11 sports brought to Stanford all those national championships and Olympic medals. This adjustment affected 240 student athletes and 22 coaches, plus the incoming class. The reason was the pandemic and financial strain faced by the university.

Then in May, Stanford reversed itself and restored those 11 sport programs. The 4000 athletic alumni apparently had clout...plus money. While it's too late to recruit top talent for this incoming freshman class, you can expect Stanford to regain the #1 spot for the Director's Cup, maybe as soon as next year, and certainly by the following one.

In the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, Stanford athletes collected 27 medals. At Tokyo are 61 of them, and some will be representing Israel, Nigeria Australia, Egypt, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Singapore, Canada, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, St. Vincent/Grenadines, Russia, Venezuela and Greece. I don't know how famous they are in most of the obscure sports, but the biggest name is Katie Ledecky, plus I earlier reported on Veronica Toro Arana. The entire USA contingent in Tokyo numbers 613, representing 169 schools.

I tend to have my best meal of the week for Friday dinner. Yesterday was no exception, featuring two Stanford alumni wines. Here are photos of my lamb chops and hamachi sashimi feast, with red wine, white wine, beer, sake and green tea. The meal was fabulous, with the perfect essence of umami. I started with an indigo martini for my bath after an exercise session in our wellness center. Jalapeno and truffles olives, plus capers. Some of the sake and a good amount of butter went into perfecting the teriyaki sauce.

The color naturally comes from the Empress 1908 Gin.

I should add that the Niigata rice was just cooked, with a dollop of butter on to which I placed some ikura (salmon eggs).

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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