On Tuesday, Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir officially decided to step down from his position after 13 years on the job. His plan is to step down at the end of the academic year, which means Stanford will need to find a replacement for him by the middle of June, which is when the spring quarter ends.
"It has been my honor to serve as the Director of Athletics at Stanford. I am forever proud of the history we made and protected, the long list of championships and champions, and the focus we applied to connecting those committed to this university to the greatest good for the Cardinal,” said Muir in a release put out by Stanford Athletics. “My experience at Stanford will forever hold its significant place on my treasured journey in collegiate sports. I now look forward to the next compelling challenge and to making the next important contribution.”
Muir’s time as Athletic Director was very mixed. On the positive side, he hired some quality coaches like Jessica Allister (softball), David Esquer (baseball), Kevin Hambly (women’s volleyball), and Kyle Smith (men’s basketball). Stanford also won a national title in women’s basketball (2021) and many other sports, so there was a good deal of success during that time. Stanford baseball reached the College World Series three years in a row (2021-23) and then peak David Shaw football happened under Muir’s stead as well. He also seemed to care for student-athlete well-being, such as providing Stanford softball with a great set up at Stanford football stadium for this season.
On the negative side, there was the fiasco of cutting 11 sports before later getting reinstated, the Varsity Blues scandal involving Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer, and also the decline of Stanford football following the peak David Shaw era in which the football program fell into a sharp decline that it is still trying to recover from.
And that’s not all: Stanford men’s basketball hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament since 2014. Which is particularly embarrassing for Muir given that he played basketball in college and came to Stanford as a guy known for his basketball acumen. And then of course, Muir was slow to embrace NIL and seemed to be slow to react in situations when more visionary leadership seemed necessary.
His handling of conference realignment could go in the positive and negative camp. Positive in that they landed in the ACC, which aside from the travel is a perfect league for Stanford to land in. Negative in that he seemed slow to react to what was happening. But since they did land in the ACC, I’ll give him positive marks overall for that.
When you look at it all, Muir truly leaves behind a complicated legacy at Stanford. There were things he did well and things that he simply could have done a lot better.
Given Stanford’s academic prestige and history of athletic excellence, they should be able to attract a really quality person to replace Muir. Given the emphasis on athletic success by university president Jonathan Levin, I have full confidence that a good hire will be made. He seems committed to winning at the highest levels of college athletics while also remaining committed to Stanford’s core mission of academic excellence. It’ll be interesting to see who he hires.
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