When I was about seven years old, my dad taught me how to figure my batting average. I was obsessed with baseball as a kid, and even in the backyard games I would figure my average. I kept at it until I was in seventh or eighth grade, but then didn’t pay much attention to it anymore. Our coach would give us a statistics sheet at the end of the season, so I knew at the end of the year how I had done. Suffice to say, I was not really “stats conscious” as a high school athlete, whether it was on the baseball field or the wrestling mat. After all, there was only one statistic that mattered, and that was whether or not we won.
When I started coaching, I kept statistics but I never shared them with my athletes until the season was over. The game is not about how many hits some gets, or how many yards they rush for. The game is about the effort given and whether one is victorious. Whether it is a team sport, or an individual one like wrestling, you can have great statistics, but if you aren’t winning, what does it matter? I have worked with a number of coaches that share that opinion. But now, times have changed a bit and I cannot figure out why. Oh sure, there were guys in my day that seemed more concerned about how many points they had in a game than whether they did what was in the best interest of the team. But now, there seems to be almost an obsession with the numbers.
For years I have thought it was ridiculous when I would go to basketball games and moms (yes, usually the moms) would have a pencil and piece of paper out, keeping track of how many points their son or daughter had. Then when I actually found that there were some that kept track of other players on the team, I began to really question what kinds of conversations were taking place at home. Did they center on “doing your part for the team?” Or, “the heck with the team, make sure you get yours?” And then I even ran across parents that got into arguments with a coach because their numbers were different than the ones that he released to the newspaper. Now, as I have followed my daughter playing softball at tournaments called showcases – events designed for college coaches – I see fancy sheets with all kinds of statistical information put together by some parents to give to these coaches.
What troubles me the most about this is that in most high school sports, teams compete, not individuals. And when individuals put themselves above the team, generally the outcome is not positive. But then along came something called QuikStats, an online database used for high school sports in Iowa. A couple of years ago, I swear I saw pigs flying because both our boy’s and girl’s state organizations mandated that coaches post statistics on QuikStats! I couldn’t believe it! From organizations that profess to be about the high school athlete, and one that for years publicly stated that, “we’re not about making college athletes,” it amazed me that now coaches face being suspended from coaching in the state tournament series if they didn’t keep statistics updated. I have spoken to officials from both the IHSAA and the IGHSAU and both tell me that the media loves it, colleges can check it, and parents check it out all the time. Do you see a problem with this?
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