A brighter Cardinal red was chosen as Stanford's official color by an assembly of the university's first students in 1891.

[1] Following Stanford's win over California in the first-ever Big Game on March 19, 1892, the team was metonymically referred to as the "Cardinal" by sportswriters in the next day's San Francisco Chronicle.

[6] On November 25, 1930, following a unanimous vote by the Executive Committee for the Associated Students, the athletic department adopted the mascot "Indian".

[1][10] During the 1970s, a number of suggestions were put forth as possible nicknames: Robber Barons (a sly reference to Leland Stanford's history),[10] Sequoias, Trees, Railroaders, Spikes, Huns and Griffins.

[1][11] On November 17, 1981, school president Donald Kennedy declared that the athletic teams be represented by the color cardinal in its singular form.

Stanford University sponsors 36 varsity sports teams — 15 men's, 19 women's, and two coed sports — competing primarily in the NCAA Division I and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), with the primary affiliation recently changed from the Pac-12 Conference.

They have crowned three individual national champions: Sandy Tatum (1942), Tiger Woods (1996), and Cameron Wilson (2014).

[18] Other notable players include Tom Watson, Bob Rosburg, NFL quarterback John Brodie, and Notah Begay III.

Stanford is the only team to reach the match play portion of the championship every year it has been offered.

[27] In March 2019, John Vandemoer, Stanford University's head sailing coach for 11 years, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering for accepting bribes in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, to hold open admission spots at the university for three applicants falsely portrayed as competitive sailors, in exchange for $770,000 in payments to the sailing program.

[31] The Cardinal have appeared in the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament 20 times, including in 8 consecutive years from 2013 through 2020.

They are currently led by head coach John Kosty, who took the job in 2007,[37] and play their home games at Maples Pavilion.

The Cardinal wrestlers practice in the Weintz Family Wrestling Room, and compete on campus at Burnham Pavilion, with a capacity of about 1,400.

Wrestling fans also led a movement to keep the program afloat, before the school ultimately reversed its decision.

Stanford achieved one of the most surprising victories of American rugby's early history by beating a touring Australian club team in 1912.

[51] Despite the loss of varsity status, the Stanford Rugby Foundation covers many of the team's expenses from an endowment fund.

Stanford won the Pacific Western conference in 2014, earning a berth in the D1-AA national playoffs, where they defeated Oregon 24–12 at home in front of a strong crowd,[55] before losing to Arizona 27–24 in the quarterfinals.

Stanford won three of the seven NCAA team championships awarded in the 2019–20 academic year, when, due to COVID, only the fall sports were contested.

[65] The Cardinal's rivals consist of California, Notre Dame, San Jose State, and USC, which all primarily evolved from American football.

196 Stanford-affiliated athletes have won a total of 335 Summer Olympic medals: 162 gold, 93 silver, 80 bronze.

The table below lists the number of medals won by Stanford-affiliated athletes in recent Olympic Games.

Stanford students and alums who have won Winter Olympic medals include John Coyle, Eileen Gu, Eric Heiden, Sami Jo Small, and Debi Thomas.