The Spring Fling

The Spring Fling, one of the most lighthearted and enduring business school traditions, brought together students, faculty, and staff who shared their sometimes dubious entertainment and athletic abilities during a day-long event.

For a quarter century, lasting until the mid 1980s, the annual event included Professor David Faville’s bawdy rendition of “Aunt Clara,” Professor John Troxell’s takeoff of the HMS Pinafore, Dean Arjay Miller and the student group The Arjays with their do wop melodies, and Ed Zschau’s spirited tribute to linear programming “Do the L.P.” The event also included beer, baseball and a picnic. The agenda for 1983 shows the beer being tapped at 10 a.m. and the faculty v. second-year baseball game scheduled at 11. A 1979 skit on the Admissions Committee was introduced with the following description:

“In the years since its founding, the Stanford Graduate School of Business has developed a curriculum and faculty that was rated in a recent poll of MBA Magazine as the No. 1 business school in Santa Clara County and among the top five west of Reno. The school has not always lived up to all of the claims in its catalog, and we know who is to blame — the Admissions Committee.”