Park: Cherish every moment of Stanford’s success; don’t ever take it for granted

During the first quarter of Thursday’s game against UCLA, I sent a joking Tweet with a picture of the deserted seats in the south end zone of Stanford Stadium and the caption, “Student section? What student section?”

Of course, I would later have to issue a correction because Stanford Stadium did, in fact, fill up to capacity on a Thursday night in October and did, in fact, create a raucous atmosphere at the very least worthy of a top-20 matchup (by Stanford standards, at least).

Quite honestly, it felt good to see Stanford’s fans once again able to experience the joy of having a good team on campus and to see the team once again have a sizable hometown crowd on hand for a solid energy boost. (Players used to call the stadium “The Library.” And it wasn’t because they would come study at the stadium during the week.)

It felt even better for me to be able to survey the scene at the end of the third quarter, with Stanford about to extend its lead over UCLA to 36 points, and still see a vast majority of that sellout crowd in its seats egging the team on deep into garbage time. Of course, most of that crowd would go on to depart during the fourth quarter, but nobody — not even the ESPN announcers — still wanted to be in the stadium at that point.

Stanford’s struggles with drawing and maintaining crowds have become well-documented and even a bit of a punchline for supporters of opposing fanbases over the last several years, as the Cardinal have enjoyed a prolonged streak of national relevance.

And even as recently as last year, you would see Stanford take a 10-point lead into halftime and see around half of the crowd disperse during the break, content that the lead would be safe and trying to beat the traffic or get some extra studying done.

That wasn’t the case on Thursday against UCLA, though, and I want to commend the student section — and the Stanford faithful — for that. It was a promising sign in a promising season, and something that I think means a lot for the team and for somebody like me who has covered the team through its highs and lows over the last four years.

As strange as it sounds, I think that a lot of people in the Stanford fan base got a little too complacent with winning over the Cardinal’s recent era of dominance. The importance of every snap, every down, every second on the clock — regardless of score or how late it got — reached a low once winning became the norm for Stanford, because fans knew that even if they missed any given moment of a win, they could experience something like it at another time — just not now, because I have an early meeting in the morning or a midterm in two days.

But last year’s 8-5 struggle dealt a gut shot to the pride of the program, and, indirectly, to its fans as well. I think last season was a reminder to even the most complacent of Stanford fans that winning can never be taken for granted.

And as Stanford fans that lasted through the Buddy Teevens and Walt Harris eras will know (and may God have mercy on your souls, by the way), any moment in which Stanford is nationally relevant, in which Stanford is a winning team, in which Stanford is better than USC, in which Stanford is better than Cal, is a moment to be cherished and treasured.

We at Stanford haven’t earned the right to be complacent. Not yet, not now, not ever.

I don’t think many casual Stanford fans understand how truly incredible it is that Stanford — Stanford! — of all schools is a national power year in and year out right now. They don’t understand how difficult it is to pry top recruits away from the blue-bloods of the sport and how difficult it is for those athletes that do want to come here in the first place to actually get into Stanford. They don’t understand how difficult it is to have to play recruiting powerhouses like USC, UCLA and Notre Dame every year.

The deck has always been stacked against Stanford, and it always will be.

That’s why it’s so important to be there for every single moment of this era, and to commit to memory every Remound Wright touchdown run, every Christian McCaffrey broken tackle, every clumsy-looking Austin Hooper catch, every Wildcat.

College football has a very short memory, and in a few short years, for all we know, Stanford could see a more significant fall from relevance. And we need to remember that, for as invincible as Stanford football seems now, Stanford’s relevance is more perilous than that of many other teams.

What if Keller Chryst and K.J. Costello don’t pan out? What if David Shaw and his staff leave and take their crazy recruiting abilities with them? What if USC actually hires a good coach?

Those are very well questions that we might have to answer, and for a program like Stanford, it’s much more difficult to project a long-term bounceback, both because of the difficulty of casually stocking up on ridiculous recruiting classes and due to a lack of Jim Harbaughs available on the coaching market.

So right now, I’m begging you, Stanford fans and students: Don’t miss out on any of these memories. Be at Stanford Stadium with the 2015 Cardinal and enjoy every last moment that you can, because you don’t know when it’ll all be taken away from you.

They say that you never truly appreciate something until it’s gone.

Don’t be the person in the future filled with regrets because you never saw a Rose Bowl live, or because you never got to see a winning Stanford team in person, or because you never got to see Kevin Hogan, future Super Bowl MVP, live while he was on campus with you.

Don’t be the person that says, “Oh, I’ll just leave early to study. I’m sure I won’t miss much by missing a half.”

Even though Stanford football is on an unprecedented run of success — both in the short term and in the long term — right now, it can all be taken away in a heartbeat. All it takes is one slip-up (2013 USC, anyone?) or one major injury to drastically change the outlook of a season — or a program — and make you wonder what could have been.

College football is a game of “coulda woulda shouldas,” but before you give yourself the inevitable luxury of endless speculation as to what could have been or what should have been if and when Stanford’s run of dominance ends, enjoy the unbridled naïveté and joy of being a fan in the stands, watching a dominant Stanford team steamrolling every opponent in its path.

That contextless naïve joy — of truly believing that your team is the best in the country and that you can’t be stopped by anyone — is unique to college football and college football alone, and precious few students can say that they had a team that was good enough and exciting enough to give them that joy.

Stanford football is one of the few teams in the country that can give you that joy right now, and in my mind, that joy is more important than getting five extra points on your midterm or getting an extra hour of sleep any day.

Come early, stay late, sing “Hail, Stanford, Hail” with the players at the end of the game (don’t worry, they don’t know the lyrics either), and live the 60 minutes in between like they could be your last.

Don’t risk missing these once-in-a-lifetime moments and later wishing you could have them back. Don’t ever take winning for granted.

Do-Hyoung Park knows better than anyone that sometimes it is more important to focus on school spirit and embracing the moment over schoolwork. Tell him that he should be doing his computer science homework instead of looking at sports archives from the ’90s at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.