It's difficult to know where to begin, so we'll start at the beginning. Not the beginning of this game, but the beginning of this blog. I started writing in this space almost exactly twelve years ago. Here's the first paragraph of my first post from September 26, 2012, a recap of a game between Stanford and Notre Dame.
If you're reading this, you know a few things about Stanford Football. First, the Cardinal went to South Bend on Saturday afternoon and came away with a victory that was surprising only in the level of dominance. They beat the Irish soundly on both sides of the ball, and the game really wasn't as close as the score would indicate.
I couldn't have known what was waiting for Stanford football in the years to come. The trip to the Orange Bowl later that season seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the dominant win over Virginia Tech seemed like a fairy tale. I watched that game from a hotel room in Orlando; I had briefly entertained the idea of renting a car and leaving a family vacation for 24 hours to go to the game because I couldn't imagine that I've ever again get the chance to see the Cardinal in a BCS bowl game.
After sitting in the stands for three Rose Bowls in four years, the fantasy threatened to wear off. I was still very aware of how far the program had come, but I never lost sight of the tenuous nature of Stanford's success. We are all just guests at the table, and even though I didn't think the dinner party would ever end, I always knew there was a chance that it might.
I knew that any number of variables could collapse and push the program back down among the masses, and I wondered how I would feel if that happened. Mostly, I wondered about this blog. Would people still be interested in reading about a program that was struggling? Would I still have the motivation to write about them? I wondered.
