It’s been a good year for the Armstrong family. Chuck Armstrong, JD ’67, president of the Seattle Mariners, watched his club complete one of the best regular seasons in baseball history, winning 116 games. His son, Chuck, a Stanford sophomore, is enjoying his own growing success—as this year’s Tree.
Like many Trees before him, Stanford’s newest arboreal personification approaches the job with a sense of humor, joking that his dad’s experience as a public figure prepared him for life as a pine. “You’d be surprised at the similarities between being the president of a Major League baseball team and being the satirical mascot of a major university,” Chuck quips. “Often, my dad would tell me things like: ‘The key to winning is a consistent and successful pitching staff.’ I always try to keep this in mind when I’m running around in front of the Stanford Band in my Tree costume, dancing like a possessed schizophrenic.”
The younger Chuck reveals, however facetiously, that the Armstrongs have plenty to discuss at family gatherings. “Whenever I come home, we have relentless competitions to see who can tell the best story,” he says, then adds: “The loser doesn’t get to eat that night.”
And what does Dad think about the sapling’s exploits? In March, when he was selected, Chuck told the Seattle Times: “Dad knows I’m a little bit crazier than he is, but deep down, I think he appreciates the craziness and the fun of the Tree. It’s hard to understand the Tree unless you go to Stanford. Sure it’s silly. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be.”
