Farm Report

NEWS FROM INSIDE CAMPUS DRIVE AND BEYOND

Quote "Perhaps my only regret as provost is that I have yet to teach [Gerhard] Casper to throw the perfect spiral." -- Outgoing provost Condoleezza Rice, a football season ticket holder, in a Stanford Daily column

A Young Feminist Backs an Old Magazine INVESTOR: Friedman Glenn Matsumura This is not your mother's Ms. magazine. Just ask Alison Kiehl Friedman, a Stanford junior and one of the younger investors in the new Ms., which resumed publication in April with a snappier format and turn-of-the-millennium takes on everything from adultery to personal finance. Using family money, Friedman joined a group of women investors to fund Liberty Media for Women, which bought the venerable title from McDonald Communication Corp. in December. "I invested because it's so important to have a counterbalance to all the other women's magazines you see out there," says Friedman, 20. "I read Cosmo and Glamour, but they only give you a small percentage of what women are all about." Friedman comes by her feminism honestly. Her mother co-founded Voters for Choice with Gloria Steinem while pregnant with Alison. Her grandmother and 16-year-old sister also are investors in Ms. And she's on the board of Choice USA, an organization of younger women devoted to teaching the feminist agenda to a new generation. Founded in 1972, Ms. abruptly shut down last August. Friedman likes the spruced-up version, but she thinks it could benefit from more stories on women's sports and covers with more newsstand appeal. "I'm not saying we need an unrealistically thin woman with huge breasts," she says. "You can have an enticing cover that still has substance."

Under a Blazing May Sun . . . Bobsledding Tryouts? PUSH: Team USA Jed Jacobsohn, Allsport Bonny Warner, '83, has a theory: if you need Olympic athletes, head to the Farm. That's what brought the former Olympic luger to Stanford Stadium in May to host an all-comers bobsledding tryout. She wasn't disappointed. About 50 athletes -- half of them Stanford students or alums -- showed up on the 80-degree day for the chance to get on the winter Olympic fast track. Twelve scored high enough on the jumping and sprinting tests to win invitations to a training camp in Lake Placid, N.Y. The best athletes will go on to Salt Lake City in August to compete for a spot on the U.S. national teams in men's bobsledding, women's bobsledding and "skeleton," a head-first version of luge that, like women's bobsledding, is expected to be added to the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. Mark Ganek, who throws the hammer and discus for the Cardinal, emerged from the tryouts as a top prospect. He's training in Lake Placid and hopes to make the national team as one of the bobsled's "push" athletes. Warner expects great things from her latest discoveries. "I've recruited at least one athlete for every Olympics since 1984," says Warner, who competed in the luge in '84, '88 and '92. "I'm hoping for a bunch in 2002."

BOX JOCKS: Woods and Elway made the top 10. Glenn Matsumura

Cereal Thrillers In 1924, a scientist at a General Mills lab accidentally spilled gruel on a hot stove. The resulting crispy flakes were dubbed Washburn's Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes. A year later, the name was changed to Wheaties. That was the company's first smart move. The second was to create a promotional campaign around popular athletes. Over the years, the "Breakfast of Champions" has featured hundreds of sports celebs on its boxes. To celebrate the cereal's 75th anniversary, General Mills ran a campaign last winter asking consumers to choose their favorite pitchmen from 75 names conveniently listed on the back of its familiar orange boxes. The choices ranged from tennis star Ellsworth Vines (1934) to the 1998 U.S. Olympic Women's Hockey Team. More than 200,000 ballots were cast. The voting showed that among the 10 most popular Wheaties champions are two Stanford athletes -- quarterback John Elway and golfer Tiger Woods. Elway, '83, who appeared on the box five times (first in 1993), played 16 years and won back-to-back Super Bowls for the Denver Broncos before announcing his retirement in March. Woods, who left Stanford following his sophomore year in 1996, made the box in 1998 after becoming the youngest-ever Masters Tournament champion. They join the likes of Lou Gehrig, Walter Payton, Mary Lou Retton and Michael Jordan. Not a flake among them. Is This Where You Want to Go Today? JOLLY GOOD: Microsoft-in-Cliveden Courtesy Cliveden Library With its crystal chandeliers, 17th-century tapestries and marble bathtubs, Cliveden is anything but high-tech. But that didn't stop Microsoft chief Bill Gates and his partners from buying the estate -- the former home of Stanford-in-Britain. The nation's richest man has a 10 percent interest in Destination Europe, a consortium that paid $69 million in July 1998 for the right to run the 376-acre country home as a hotel. Cliveden housed Stanford's British campus from 1969 to 1983, when the program moved to Oxford. In 1986 the Italianate mansion was converted into a luxury hotel. Guests are pampered by discreet butlers, gourmet chefs and personal maids. Rooms start at $466 a night. "Some things are still the same. Lady Astor's picture still hangs in the living room, the suit of armor is still in the hallway," says Bob Ceremsak, '78, MBA '85, who attended Stanford-in-Britain in 1976 and returned for a vacation in 1996. "But there's a restaurant where the library used to be -- and the attendants are a lot more polished than Des, our porter."

When Escondido Village Was 'the Kibbutz' WINNER: Barak (with wife Nava on election day) learned strategic thinking at Stanford. Reuters/Havakuk Levison He was a Mossad operative, Israeli foreign minister and leader of the Labor party. What's less well-known is that Ehud Barak, recently elected prime minister of Israel, spent time at Stanford in the 1970s. Barak was a colonel in the Israeli Army when he enrolled, at age 31, in the department of engineering-economic systems in 1973. He left campus to fight in the Yom Kippur War and other conflicts, eventually taking a master's degree in 1979. He lived in Escondido Village, which he and his Israeli friends dubbed "the kibbutz." "He knew what he was doing, even though several things got in his way, including a war," says department chair James Sweeney. Barak's coursework may prove relevant. "He learned the kind of strategic thinking that helps when you have people who might not want to cooperate with you," says Sweeney, who recalls his student as open and engaging. "Even when we were having serious conversations there was a twinkle there." Bringing Color to the Coaching Ranks RECRUITING BLITZ: Williams is tackling racial issues with his database of minority candidates. Glenn Matsumura Tom Williams broke a barrier when he became Stanford's first African-American football player in 1954. These days, he's still trying to remove racial obstacles. A San Francisco executive search consultant, Williams, '58, has created The Level Playing Field, a database of names and profiles to help minority football coaches reach top levels in college and the pros. Of 115 football coaches at NCAA Division 1 schools, five are African-American. In the National Football League, three of 31 head coaches are black. Williams knows that one key to improving these numbers is to increase the visibility of minority candidates. He says coaches are hired via "an old boys' system, where people call three or four people they know." With The Level Playing Field, Williams hopes to expand the knowledge base of those who hire coaches. He's gathered profiles of some 50 coaches and plans 250 more. Subscribers pay $15,000 a year for full access to his website, www.tlpf.com. So far, Stanford, Ohio State and the Pac-10 conference have signed on. No NFL team has yet bought in, but Minnesota Vikings coach Denny Green, a former Stanford head coach, is on the advisory board -- as is current Stanford head coach Tyrone Willingham. (Both Green and Willingham are African-American.) Williams believes getting hired is the biggest roadblock facing minority coaches: "It doesn't matter what color your skin is. If you win, they're going to keep you."