Stanford to honor Toby Gerhart, others as part of Festival of Champions

A legend at The Farm, Gerhart will be honored this weekend, along with Stanford Olympians, as part of a new event and is expected to make the game day experience on Saturday even more engaging for the fans.

November 28, 2009; Stanford, CA, USA; Stanford Cardinal running back Toby Gerhart (7) carries the ball during the first quarter against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Stanford Stadium. The Fighting Irish defeated the Cardinal 45-38. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

Saturday will mark a very important day in Stanford history. In addition to it being the first ever ACC home game for the Cardinal, who will take on Virginia Tech, but it will also be the day of the inaugural Festival of Champions.

The event, which will occur all throughout the day, is meant to celebrate all the great athletes that have come out of Stanford, with one of the most notable events of the day being the celebration of former running back Toby Gerhart, who will be honored during the football game with his induction into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame coming soon. The gametime festivities won’t stop there, as the 2009 Sun Bowl and 2010 Gator Bowl teams will be honored as well.

This will mark the first of two events this season that will honor Gerhart, as in December, Stanford football will once again celebrate the legend as he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame earlier this year. In four seasons with the Cardinal, Gerhart rushed for 3,522 yards and 44 touchdowns, with his most memorable campaign happening in his senior year in 2009 when he carried the ball 343 times for 1,871 yards and 28 touchdowns, finishing as the Heisman Trophy runner-up to Mark Ingram and being named both a unanimous All-American and the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year.

Also happening during the Festival of Champions will be a Fan Fest that will begin approximately three hours before kickoff, and a Cardinal Olympian Meet and Greet, which will happen from 11-11:30 a.m. during the Fan Fest and will welcome back some of the Stanford athletes that represented their nation and the university in Paris this summer.

It is sure to be a fun and exciting day for fans this weekend at The Farm, but that will not distract from Stanford’s ultimate goal of getting a win against Virginia Tech and getting that much closer to qualifying for its first bowl game since 2018.