Farewells
The Coach
The “Silver Streak” is gone.
Payton Jordan, the longtime Stanford track and field coach who led the 1968 U.S. Olympic team, died February 5 of cancer at his home in Laguna Hills, Calif. He was 91.
Jordan was born in 1917 in Whittier, Calif. He became a running star in his teens and, as a student, helped USC win two national team titles.
Before coming to Stanford in 1957 as a coach, Jordan turned the track program at tiny Occidental College into a powerhouse. During his 23 years on the Farm, his athletes racked up achievements including five world records, six NCAA individual titles and 29 All-America honors. Under his watch, the team had an NCAA runner-up finish. Jordan also was the mastermind behind the 1962 United States vs. U.S.S.R. meet on campus. (Read a 2005 story about the meet.)
In 1968, Jordan coached an Olympic track and field team that was one of the strongest ever. (His own Olympic opportunities were lost when the Games were cancelled during World War II.) The team won 24 medals—the most in Olympic track and field history—including an unprecedented 12 gold medals.
Jordan retired from Stanford in 1979. “As far as coaching goes, I feel I’ve done everything any man could ask for,” he said at the time. But Jordan continued to run. Nicknamed the Silver Streak, he continued to set masters records into his 80s.
Jordan’s fans may argue that his greatest accomplishments came off the field, in his influence on those around him. Eighteen of Jordan’s former athletes, teammates and colleagues named children after him. Champions for Life, by John “Jack” Scott, ’67, and Jim Ward, ’68, was written about Jordan’s career. In the book’s foreword, Chuck Cobb, ’58, MBA ’62, said, “There were many hundreds of us that attribute our life successes to his motivation and discipline.” Cobb, an All-American hurdler at Stanford, went on to become undersecretary of commerce for President Ronald Reagan.
The USA Track & Field Meet at Stanford, held each May, has been called the Payton Jordan U.S. Open since 2004.
Jordan’s wife of 66 years, Marge, died in 2006. He is survived by two daughters.
Rixford Kinney Snyder held the keys to the kingdom for Stanford applicants. For more than two decades, he oversaw undergraduate admissions to the Farm. He also made his mark at the other end of the Stanford experience, leading trips that reconnected alumni with their alma mater.
Snyder, ’30, MA ’34, PhD ’40, died January 8 of heart failure. He was 100. Snyder was a history instructor at Stanford from 1937 until 1943, when he joined the Navy. Upon returning to the Farm in 1946, he and fellow history professor George Knoles penned a classic textbook, Readings in Western Civilization.
In 1948, University President Wallace Sterling, PhD ’38, asked Snyder to serve as director of admission. In 1964, the post was elevated to a deanship. He stayed in the office for another five years.
In 1969, Snyder began a new career, founding what is now the Stanford Alumni Association Travel/Study program. The so-called “Dean of the Danube,” Snyder led two dozen boat trips through Austria in the 1970s and 1980s. “He was just watching boats going up and down the Danube River and thought he could create an experience to share with alumni,” longtime friend and Alumni Association colleague Darien Dufour Walker, ’60, told Stanford Report.
Snyder formally retired in 1974 but remained a fixture in the Travel/Study office and attended alumni trips into his 70s. His wife, Elliott, died four years ago at 94. He is survived by two nieces.
Leonore Annenberg’s friends were presidents, movie stars and royalty. Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent New Year’s at her Rancho Mirage, Calif., home, Sunnylands—Frank and Barbara Sinatra married there.
Annenberg, ’40—philanthropist, dignitary and expert hostess—died March 12 at 91. She had two short marriages before wedding ambassador and publisher Walter H. Annenberg. She led a life of philanthropy until 1981, when she got her first paying job as Reagan’s U.S. chief of protocol. She coordinated visits of foreign leaders, arranged White House ceremonies and performed other diplomatic tasks. She left the post after just 11 months after drawing criticism for several actions, including an occasion when Annenberg curtsied to Prince Charles on American soil. Commentators called the deference unseemly.
In 1989 she and her husband started the Annenberg Foundation, providing funds to schools, hospitals, theaters, libraries, museums and public television stations. The couple are the donors behind Stanford’s Annenberg Auditorium. Mrs. Annenberg succeeded her husband in 2002 as chair and president of the foundation, which is estimated to have given away $4.2 billion.
She received numerous awards, including in 2004 when Queen Elizabeth II named her an honorary Commander of the British Empire for contributions to British-American relations.
She loved to entertain, particularly at the 32,000-square-foot Sunnylands. Richard Nixon retreated there after Watergate, and Bob Hope was a regular visitor. Annenberg said, “The key ingredients are first of all to have interesting people. Then you try to put together an ambience of good food and attractive table settings. But all of that would be unimportant if you didn’t have interesting people.”
Survivors: two daughters, Elizabeth Rosentiel Kabler and Diane Katleman Deshong; a stepdaughter, Wallis Annenberg; seven grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and one sister.
