Originally posted by Nit777:
First PSU NUT
What are obscure sports?
If your kid was playing one, would it be obscure?
I will admit that I consider sports such as skiing, rifle, men's and women's water polo, fencing, women's bowling and men's volleyball as being less interesting to most fans as compared to other sports because so few schools play them.
However, we only compete in two of them and do quite well. Almost all other schools have football, hoops x 2, soccer x 2, swimming x 2, golf x 2, tennis x 2, CC x 2, track and field x 2, softball, baseball, women's volleyball, etc. which are core sports for us. We also compete in lacrosse x 2 which is growing in participation.
PSU competes in 30 sports, equaled only by Stanford with 30 and exceeded by OSU with 31. We compete in hockey and wrestling which are both big boy sports despite the fact that most schools do not participate. Certainly you do not consider them as obscure.
I am glad that we give our students many opportunities to compete and grow.
Second Fairgambit
Granted, Stanford competes in a few more 'obscure' sports than we do, but to suggest that they make a living from obscure sports is simply inaccurate. They compete well in just about everything, often scoring in 24-25 sports and being able to 'throw out' their five lowest scores providing they score in ten men's and ten women's events.
To me, the big advantages for Stanford are weather and the fact that any kid who is playing a sport which does not have a pro career possibility is nuts to not take a scholarship to Stanford.
Both PSU and Stanford participate in 30 sports. I think the overlap is 26-27 sports, thus, there is little room for Stanford to make a living from obscure sports.
