The best piece of luck that Yale University ever had!

 I played squash with David Swensen once a month for 15 years. When we would drive from his home to the courts, he would be on the phone trading vast positions for interest rates, the S & P, currencies and commodities.. Finally after many years, I asked him what he was doing. He told me that the primary source of Yale's income was his personal trading genius of "buying low and selling high" When David died, this huge firehose of cash for Yale ended.

And that is the reason their current record is so poor.

The luckiest thing that ever happened to Yale was David Swensen.