Champions for Life, by John B. Scott and James S. Ward (2004, ISBN 0-9760447-3-0), is the story of the life of coach Jordan, and recounts highlights of his career, such as how his teams at Occidental College won ten consecutive league championships, an NAIA national title, and two top-five finishes in the NCAA championships. Scott has said that the book is “more than a biography of Payton Jordan, a true champion as a competitor and coach. The real story is of Jordan the teacher of character development and of the positive influence he exerted, recognized now by the many athletes he coached.”
There are others who do not agree with Scott and Ward's perspective. Jordan, a far-right political conservative, had many battles with his athletes in the late 1960s and 1970s over issues such as personal appearance. Athletes with hair over their ears were not allowed to suit up for his teams, for instance. (In January 1969, Jordan allowed his team to vote as to whether or not to allow hair-length to be a personal matter. When the team overwhelmingly voted to let appearance be a matter of individual discretion, he simply ignored the outcome.) Jordan's training methods, which emphasized quality work over quantity, were also out of sync with evolving ideas. Partially as a result, Stanford fielded one of the worst track-and-field teams in the Pacific Conference for most of Jordan's 23-year tenure. Stanford not only never beat southern powerhouses USC and UCLA; his teams defeated arch rival Cal in the "Big Meet" just seven times. A man with a reputation as a track "immortal", Jordan coached only 29 All-American athletes during his 23 years on The Farm. (To be an "All-American", all that is required is to be among the top 8 or 12 athletes in your event in the country.) Aside from a second-place NCAA finish in 1963, Stanford track & field under Payton Jordan was never a force to be reckoned with. In his defense however, it should be pointed out that Stanford was always a more difficult school to gain admittance. Many blue chip athletes simply didn't have the grades. Even so, innumerable outstanding recruits during the Jordan years never came close to reaching the potential they had demonstrated in high school.
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