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Cardinal rules
Andrew Luck reflects on what student-athletes get, and what they give.
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Andrew Luck ’12, MA ’23. Photo: Jess Alvarenga
It’s a bright morning and Andrew Luck, ’12, MA ’23, is clarifying his current role on campus: no longer a student, very much a grown-up.
Which is to say he’s discussing bicycle safety.
As an undergrad, he spurned helmets. Now he proudly scolds those who do.
“I actually yell, like an old man,” he laughs.
So goes the cycle of Cardinal life, as a new generation sweeps through and the old turns to helmet hectoring. But Luck’s pivot from student-athlete might never be final final. For reasons obscure to anyone except any alum ever, you can take the kid out of Stanford Stadium but you can’t take Stanford Stadium out of the kid.
If anything, in fact, Luck’s appreciation for the Athletic Department has only deepened lately.
Having returned to Stanford to attend the Graduate School of Education, Luck would periodically find himself in class with student-athletes—you just recognize them, he says.
“And I’d be sort of amazed by them, honestly,” he continues. “I’d just think, my gosh, how are you doing it?”
At the heart of Luck’s amazement lies a truism: Athletics are simply different here. Partly that’s structural. One in 10 undergraduates is an elite athlete. They compete at the highest levels without compromising on academics. Corners are never cut in admissions, or in standards for achievement. As many have noted, no other university has, collectively, as many Nobel Prize winners and Olympic or NCAA champions.
But for all the big numbers they put up, Stanford’s student-athletes also bring something less quantifiable to the culture. The values and mindsets they hone with competitive athletics invariably seep outward. Risk-taking. Backing up that risk-taking with hard work. Doing all of this in community with others. These habits transfer seamlessly from field to classroom at Stanford, according to Luck.
And while this frequently led to reaching “higher heights than I ever could alone,” he adds, it wasn’t always so.
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“You’re just going to fail sometimes.You’re going to lose games, you’re going to make bad plays, I’m going to throw interceptions. Learning how to take the next step and have a growth mindset, as Carol Dweck put it—I got to live that and embody that as a Stanford student. And I think that’s probably a universal experience among all student-athletes here.”Andrew Luck
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Photo: Jess Alvarenga
Where celebrating both success and failure might present an uncomfortable tension elsewhere, that kind of duality is embraced by Stanford student-athletes, who regularly expose physical and intellectual excellence to be a false dichotomy. Indeed, that ability to excel on multiple fronts echoes throughout the university: engineers with an art practice, opera singers conducting brain research, mathematicians who sculpt.
“Athletics and academics are sometimes seen as two poles, but what I really appreciated about my experience at Stanford—and still do—is that it’s okay to want to be the best at what you’re doing [in both],” Luck says. “It’s okay to want to do the best that you can do, whether that’s on the field or in the classroom.”
While that fact remains as steady as ever, the broader world of college athletics has shifted dramatically in recent years. From conference composition to new financial opportunities for student-athletes, from changes in funding sources to changes in transfer rules, Stanford will be adapting for the foreseeable future.
But the foundation will not change. Stanford student-athletes come to the Farm to pursue the same education as their classmates. They will continue to add to the university’s academic culture as well as benefit from it. And whatever successes the scoreboards proclaim, the more personal achievements will always be the most profound.
“I was a timid student when I came into school. Sports helped me find my voice,” Luck says. “When you’re in a locker room with a bunch of different people from a bunch of different backgrounds, all working together and getting challenged—it strengthens your values, and [helps] you build new ones. By my junior year, I felt empowered to go into class and to think out loud, and to engage in the communion of learning with other students.”
“when you’re in a locker room with a bunch of different peoplefrom a bunch of different backgrounds, all working together and getting challenged—it strengthens your values, and [helps] you build new ones. By my junior year, I felt empowered to go into class and to think out loud, and to engage in the communion of learning with other students.”Andrew Luck
When Luck left the NFL, he did so with a commitment to pass that spirit on. He zeroed in on the Graduate School of Education, and set a course for empowering the next generation of athletes. The importance of compassionate coaching, the harmful impact of negative coaching, the value of a caring mentorship: These were some of his most important takeaways at Stanford. The result was a magical formula, in the stadium and in the classroom.
“To be curious, to learn from each other, to learn from the experts in the room—and all in a democratic way—man, that was special,” he says.
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