Dateline question: Is Stanford a city?

Settle an argument. What is the proper dateline for a sporting event held on Stanford's campus: Palo Alto, or Stanford?

 

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University's campus is surrounded, but is not in, the city of Palo Alto, Calif. It is a census-designated place with a post office, so use Stanford, not Palo Alto.

 

FWIW, same goes for Notre Dame. Dateline is not South Bend. Out of curiosity (yes, slow day), any other colleges out there that don't use the city for datelines?

 

I know Penn State is a hot-button issue. I've always used STATE COLLEGE, but have heard it's supposed to be UNIVERSITY PARK.

 

how about the university of phoenix? is it in phoenix, ariz.? ;D

 

Games at Stanford have always been from Stanford, Calif. (They have a rather high opinion of themselves there).

My alma mater has its own postal zip code as well.

My parents wrote to,

Micropolitan Guy
PO box 1306,
University of XXXXXXXX,
XX xxxxx

But the dateline from campus events in always XXXXXXXX, Xx., not University of Xxxxxxxx

(Maybe those Xs are why I never got much mail)

 

Air Force Academy is another one. Don't use Colorado Springs.

 

Doesn't the AP us South Bend for ND? Not that they're always right...

 

Just to get the discussion going ...

Just because a place has its own post office, does that make it a city and worthy of a dateline? I thought unincorporated places didn't get datelines, which is why league meetings at the hotels in Las Colinas take an IRVING, Texas dateline.

In other words, I don't think it's necessarily clear-cut that Notre Dame doesn't get a SOUTH BEND, Ind., dateline.

 

I don't think there's a rule, but if the USPS decides it's a place worthy of distinction, that's good enough for me.

 

I don't think I've seen a Notre Dame story with anything but a South Bend dateline. Of course, most of what I see are AP stories, and their dateline of choice is South Bend as mentioned above.

More directly to your question, da man, the postal address for Mississippi State is Mississippi State, Miss., but no one says or writes that the school is anywhere else but Starkville. So a post office alone apparently isn't enough.

 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is actually in Speedway, Ind. Most places still use Indianapolis as the dateline though.