Andrew Luck completely doesn’t want the job — some would even name it a burden — that he has taken at his alma mater. The four-time Professional Bowler is each a Stanford and School Soccer Corridor of Famer. The previous No. 1 general draft decide threw for nearly 30,000 yards within the NFL. He is acquired a household, safety, even movie star.
Who wants the aggravation of negotiating the NIL jungle with mother and father, gamers and brokers? Definitely not Luck. It wasn’t so way back that his life was easier because the offensive coordinator for the freshman staff at Palo Alto Excessive Faculty.
Now he’s about to take over the operational playbook for an mental big fallen on onerous soccer occasions.
“Soccer?” Luck stated just lately. “I am again in soccer, child.”
No, Luck doesn’t want his new place given this level in his life, however he can definitely get the job performed. Maybe he’ll even kill it in reshaping Stanford soccer as this system’s new normal supervisor.
The GM title has emerged in these transitioning occasions as second-most vital on a school soccer workers. If the GM job is executed accurately, solely the pinnacle coach is extra substantial and highly effective.
Effectively, at the very least theoretically. On Stanford’s organizational chart, Luck’s identify is above head coach Troy Taylor, in response to ESPN. Luck, who was named to the place on Nov. 30, may even work with the teaching workers on personnel selections.
GMs have change into a mix of monetary adviser, recruiter, director of participant personnel, roster analyst, wage capologist and, effectively, add another descriptions you see match. Luck is amongst those that proceed to construct the job description on the fly.
“I do assume our place of normal supervisor is considerably completely different than most GMs within the nation due to the wants of Stanford now,” Luck instructed CBS Sports activities.
“We do consider in scholar-athletes, nonetheless.”
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Stanford’s ongoing mission needs to be apparent. However the very nature of GMs is managing a tranche of cash that was by no means there earlier than. The fundamental GM job may contain allocating $20.5 million ought to the Home settlement go. Niceties apart, the cash would go on to athletes within the first sanctioned pay-for-play association in faculty historical past.
How finest to weave that money into Stanford’s tutorial mission is the primary problem for Luck. Former coach David Shaw as soon as stated that when he acquired highschool grades for junior prospects in June, there have been 75 gamers within the nation Stanford may recruit.
So what’s modified? Luck is at the very least saying the appropriate issues — emphasizing fundraising and having a direct affect on the soccer operation.
“A part of it’s trial by fireplace,” he stated. “Hopping in in the midst of the switch portal has been nearly as good as an training as something. I am fired up for Troy. A part of what I am doing is taking lots off his plate. It is an excessive amount of for a head coach to do X quantity of distinctive negotiations with gamers contracts or brokers or representatives.”
It may be performed. Taking part in inside these acquainted tutorial strictures, Shaw and Jim Harbaugh led the Cardinal to longest run of success in class historical past from 2010 to 2018. However this system hasn’t been ranked since early within the 2019 season. Stanford hasn’t been to a bowl since 2018.
Currently, the Cardinal misplaced their convention (Pac-12) and a variety of video games. There have been 4 consecutive 3-9 seasons. The 12 complete wins are the fewest in a four-year span since 1960. This system simply occurred to transition on the similar time into the NIL period and away from Shaw, its winningest coach.
A worldwide chief in analysis, innovation and coverage, Stanford should additionally get Saturdays proper, too.
That begins with a number of the new world of pay-for-play.
“Soccer simply issues extra on this nation,” Luck stated. “We all know maybe we have not been enjoying sufficient of the sport. And we’re beginning to play the sport and we will be there.”
Whereas the job description continues to evolve, there may be one fundamental query for Stanford that is being requested at each program within the nation: Will it totally fund that $20.5 million income share? If not, that is doubtlessly an issue in branding, status and recruiting.
“That is an enormous a part of my job proper now,” Luck stated throughout a telephone interview in December. “I am seeing a transparent path ahead and it is making me optimistic. It has definitely been a degree of debate in 100% negotiations with any switch participant coming in.”
This week, CBS Sports activities adopted up with Luck asking the identical query about that $20.5 million.
“We’re working diligently to organize for the post-Home period, and we completely intend to be aggressive whereas sustaining the educational rigor and requirements which are vital to the college,” he stated.
Negotiations for a former NFL quarterback? Effectively, he was a member of a gamers union (an alternate consultant with the Colts), has an undergrad diploma in architectural design and is getting grasp’s in training.
Nevertheless it’s these negotiations with mother and father, gamers and brokers which have turned off coaches within the trendy period. Some have retired. Others put up with it. Nonetheless, others rent sport changers like Luck.
“I am unsure it is [negotiations] a part of the job that lent itself most naturally to my persona, to say the least,” Luck stated. “At coronary heart, part of me remains to be a participant, proper? … On precept, I consider within the renumeration of school soccer gamers.”
Luck could be the best-known determine on this place that’s nonetheless largely unknown and undefined. Alabama GM Courtney Morgan set the market final yr when he acquired a increase to greater than $800,000. Notre Dame simply went onerous after Texas Tech GM James Blanchard, one of many prime 5 within the career. Michigan’s Sean Magee oversaw the recruiting of No. 1 general prospect Bryce Underwood, a five-star QB within the 2025 class the Wolverines flipped from LSU with the lure of a reported $10 million deal.
Given these developments, it isn’t a stretch to counsel Luck is being introduced in to assist migrate Stanford athletics into this new NIL age.
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The varsity has been gradual to embrace its fundamental NIL collective, Lifetime Cardinal. That is the place that minimize 11 sports activities in 2020 citing the COVID-19 affect. The sports activities had been reinstated in 2021 after an outcry.
It is secure to say any FBS athletic division slicing sports activities lately would face a authorized problem. A part of that $20.5 million can be used to maintain minor sports activities. Most athletic departments are distributing that complete this manner: 75% to soccer, 15% to males’s basketball, 5% to girls’s basketball and 5% to minor sports activities.
School athletics is watching. Stanford has one of the broad-based athletic departments within the nation. The athletic expertise is genuinely thought-about a part of the academic expertise.
Stanford alone had 59 Olympians in final yr’s Paris Summer time Video games. One in every of Luck’s former teammates, Eric Shoji, gained a bronze medal in males’s volleyball.
“I believe alumni, followers, form of the group writ giant felt like we would misplaced slightly of that [momentum in football],” Luck stated.
“A part of what makes me optimistic is that I do know that this place’s ethos — not simply Stanford however Silicon Valley, the West Coast — [is] let’s make the issue larger and let’s go assault it,” he added. “I actually, deep in my bones, know that we will carve out related area.”
The portal has opened up [from Stanford’s standpoint] to welcome 12 new gamers. That is probably the most on the college since earlier than NIL debuted in 2021. Shaw had identified that, within the portal period, he had issue bringing transfers in due to Stanford’s excessive tutorial requirements.
Here’s a have a look at a few of these admission necessities.
“We’ve an extremely rigorous admissions course of,” Luck stated. “We anticipate our guys to use to high school. That can by no means change. I am unsure anyone else is doing that. Not solely that they should have the chops to get in and succeed and add worth to this mental group … I would not take this job if I believed we had been handing free spots out.”
Stanford is more and more an outlier in looking for that significant mixture of athletics and teachers. The NCAA has all however abdicated oversight of the educational aspect.
It isn’t the primary time Luck has needed to clarify himself after a profession transfer. When he retired in 2019 after seven NFL seasons, Luck cited the bodily put on and tear. That call is to be admired. He’s solely 35 now, nonetheless in a position to volunteer coach highschool soccer, be a household man and try to avoid wasting a soccer program.
“I did have an epiphany … there was a degree after retirement,” Luck stated. “I believed, ‘My God, I’ve two-thirds of my life left hopefully. Possibly three-quarters. I am not going to let myself get caught previously.”
