I am not a crier, except in one emotion category. Put me in the stadium as exuberant graduates toss their mortarboards, or in the War Memorial Opera House for the Coppélia curtain call—or heck, in a gym at the end of a fourth-grade musical production of Peter Pan (true story)—and I’m a goner. So when I saw video of the Stanford men’s gymnastics team jumping, cheering, and generally collapsing into a single, hugging heap upon winning the 2026 NCAA championship and securing the Card’s 50th consecutive year with at least one NCAA team title, I choked up.
There’s a term (sadly, not coined on the Farm) for such sentiment: collective effervescence. It describes an intense emotional reaction experienced with a group. The vibe needn’t always be joy and accomplishment, though those are what consistently open my personal floodgates. But it does typically arise from a sense that something special is happening, and it can foster a feeling of belonging to something bigger than oneself.
It’s also why we felt strongly about celebrating Stanford’s championship feat in our Summer issue, even if it meant our magazine team spent the spring sweating the postseason outcomes of at least eight Stanford teams—some of them past our printing deadline. More than a few people asked why we didn’t just wait until the Autumn issue to cover the big 50, if it came to pass. (Pshaw, doubters.) But here’s the thing about collective jubilation: It’s felt in the now. And when you make a quarterly magazine, even “now” is late. This issue leaves our hands about a month before you receive it. Once men’s gymnastics stuck their landing in mid-April, the streak was secure and we could proceed with our cover story. That left the deadline to update the timeline of all NCAA champions, which we pushed as far out as possible, to capture any late-May wins. Still, dear reader, if any team pulls off a June surprise, grab a marker and take matters into your own hands.
When I saw video of the Stanford men’s gymnastics team jumping, cheering, and generally collapsing into a single, hugging heap, I choked up.
Our production particulars are at the root of three other things you might notice about this issue. First, I’m not Kathy Zonana, ’93, JD ’96. She was on leave this spring, so the Summer issue was mine to lead, and one of the perks is writing this column. Second, sometimes Stanford giants die after we’ve made the difficult decision about whom to feature in Farewells, so the life and legacy of NBA player Jason Collins, ’01, for example, will be covered in our Autumn issue.
Third: If you’re an undergrad alum, yes, this issue is thinner than usual. Class Notes are exclusively online, an efficiency measure that allows us to send one version of the print magazine to all 248,082 alumni worldwide. Have no fear—they will be back in print this autumn, and the summer columns are here on our website. I read all 74 of them, comprising 694 alumni updates. And somewhere between the news of Evelyn Konrad, ’49, MA ’49, addressing the United Nations and Dede Trimble Griesbauer, ’92, retiring from her Ironman career, darned if that feeling of being a part of something bigger than myself didn’t bubble up.
Summer Moore Batte, ’99, is the deputy and digital editor of Stanford. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
