During my time at the university it was rare that a blue chip recruit chose Stanford over the traditional football factories, and Glyn Milburn (1990-92) was one of the few.
The best thing about his commitment was that it came with a great story. Apparently Milburn was enamored with Stanford as a high school senior, but his parents forced him to go to Oklahoma, a much more likely destination for one of the best high school running backs in the nation. Milburn dutifully signed with the Sooners, but as soon as he turned 21 and became his own man, he left Oklahoma for Stanford and lived happily ever after. Looking back twenty years later I can't imagine that that's completely true, but at the time I took it as gospel.
After a little research, I came up with this, which is pretty close to that original tale:
Glyn Milburn would have liked to get an education from Stanford and play football for Oklahoma. But in an effort to initially please his family the star running back from Santa Monica High School chose Oklahoma. While Glyn Milburn was at Oklahoma, he worried about the attention given to football players. He said that's one reason he transferred to Stanford, where football is not king.
"I like blending into the student body, not sticking out as a football player," Milburn told Bay Area reporters. "People here aren't concerned with what you do. They're more interested in you as a person." Milburn said football players were, "put on a pedestal and made to believe you're something that you're really not" at Oklahoma. Milburn transferred to Stanford as the academic lure of the school was too good to pass up.
The story is nice either way, but the main thing is that he arrived, and he made an immediate impact. (Are you paying attention, Barry Sander, Jr.?) Watching him from the stands, one thing was clear: he was the quickest Stanford football player I had ever seen. That quickness manifested itself all over the field, as Milburn was a threat to score each time he touched the ball.
Never was this more apparent than Milburn's Big Game performance against Cal in 1990. That game, of course, is remembered mostly for John Hopkins's last-second game-winning field goal, but for the first fifty-nine minutes it was a duel between Milburn and Cal running back Russell White. Milburn was unstoppable that afternoon and evening as he racked up a Pac-10 record 379 total yards (196 rushing, 66 receiving, 117 returning kicks). Those yards contributed to what is still a Stanford single-season record total of 2,222 (729 rushing, 632 receiving, 267 punt return, 594 kick return). Following that season he was named first-team All-Pac-10 as a running back, but he clearly did much more than run the ball.
Milburn's numbers dropped in 1991 when Denny Green fell in love with Tommy Vardell -- and who could blame him -- but he returned with a vengeance in 1992, falling just 101 yards short of his 1990 total. Those are the top two yardage seasons in Stanford history, and Milburn's 5,867 career totals are second only to Darrin Nelson on the school's all-time list. Milburn's versatility, though, sets him apart. He gained 2,178 yards rushing, 1,491 receiving, 1,026 returning punts, and 1,162 returning kicks.
Milburn was again named first-team All-Pac-10 following his senior season, but he also added All-America honors and finished ninth in balloting for the Heisman Trophy. He left Stanford as one of the greatest running backs in school history, and undoubtedly the greatest to have spurned Oklahoma for the Cardinal.
Previously ranked:
#8 Ed McCaffrey
#9 Owen Marecic
#10 Tommy Vardell
#11 Tank Williams
#12 Steve Stenstrom
#13 Riall Johnson
#14 Kailee Wong
#15 Eric Heitmann
#15 Chris Marinelli
#16 John Lynch
#17 Kwame Harris
#18 Chase Beeler
#19 Willie Howard
#20 Shayne Skov
#21 DeRonnie Pitts
#22 Anthony Bookman
#23 Sione Fua
#24 Richard Sherman
#25 John Hopkins
*My first thought was to try to come up with a list of the best Stanford football players of all-time, but I quickly realized that I'm not qualified. I've only been watching Stanford football since the fall of 1987, so I can't really comment intelligently on players who suited up before then. Sure, I know that Jim Plunkett belongs, but I know nothing about Randy Vataha. Sports Illustrated once named Ernie Nevers the greatest college football player of all-time, and that's certainly good enough for me, but how can I possibly rank him against players of a more modern era? So I decided to create a list of the best Stanford players that I've actually seen in my time as a fan, and since that's roughly twenty-five years, I'm calling it the Silver Squad. (Catchy, isn't it?) Anyway, I'd love to hear your own memories of these players, and I won't be offended if you argue about who should or should not have been included on this list. Enjoy.
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