Back when Live Stats first came into being, TigerBlog was definitely in the anti camp.
Why? Because there weren't smartphones yet, and so really the only way to utilize them was to sit around the desktop computer constantly refreshing your dial-up internet service. TB felt almost guilty for his role in it.
He could just picture someone inside on a nice day, waiting for the next stat to be entered, hoping the internet connection wouldn't fail. How could he be responsible for that?
These days, Live Stats are great on so many levels - mostly because you can be anywhere and follow them. No longer are TigerBlog and the others in his profession responsible when people refuse to leave their homes for fear of missing out on how the game ended.
In case you never used them before, Live Stats are the running statistical totals for a game that are being produced by the official stats people and entered onto the official stats computer. They add flavor if you're a fan watching the game in the venue or on TV or your computer, and they're perfect if you're broadcasting a game.
Of course, all of this requires remembering to bring the official stats computer to the game, something TB realized he didn't have with him as he walked into the Princeton Stadium press box Saturday morning before the Harvard football ame.
Once he had that problem solved, there was another little problem that came up. Perhaps, if you were following along, you noticed it.
Princeton scored the first touchdown of the game, on a pass from Kevin Davidson to Dylan Classi. Then Tavish Rice kicked the extra point.
At that point, the Live Stats proudly proclaimed the score for anyone who was following along:
Princeton 1, Harvard 0.
That, clearly, was not right.
At this point, there had been 13 entries into the stat program. All of them were 100 percent correct.
So why did it say 1-0? TB looked at the scoreboard in the stadium to make sure the scoring rules hadn't changed from the previous week, and they clearly hadn't.
Then his phone rang. It was the person at ESPN whose job it is to keep track of all the scores of games, something that used to be done with student workers (mostly women's basketball players) who would call in after each score and the end of each quarter.
TigerBlog can't write that and not follow with this, from a blog of two years ago:
In addition to being great basketball players, Maggie Langlas and Kate
Thirolf were both student workers in the Office of Athletic
Communications. Back then, at football games, someone needed to be
assigned to sit by the phone and answer it when wire services called
looking for the score of the game, as well as call several outlets at
the end of each quarter or after a score.
Maggie, then a freshman, jumped right in, during the last season at Palmer Stadium. TigerBlog can still hear her as she said:
"It's 7-0 Princeton."
Pause.
"What kind of touchdown?"
Pause.
"It was a very nice touchdown."
That's Maggie in a nutshell. It's likely that you have never met anyone nicer than Maggie Langlas.
Anyway, this time around, it was ESPN on the phone, and a kid on the other end who said "hey, did you know your Live Stats are saying it's 1-0?"
It didn't make any sense at all. The players were entered correctly. The touchdown. The extra point. It should have said 7-0.
Since there were only 13 plays entered by that point, the smartest thing to do was to simply write them down by hand, delete that file and start a new game.
The person doing the stat crew entry was a sophomore named Sophia Goldberg, who along with Richard Qiu and Andrew Kim have been amazing additions to the Office of Athletic Communications family. They are stat crew entry naturals, and finding students who can do that 1) is not easy and 2) is incredibly valuable.
Sophia didn't panic at all. She just deleted and started reentering the plays while the two spotters - Doug Gildenburg and Norm Yacko - wrote down the ongoing plays on a separate piece of paper. It didn't take long to catch all the way up.
TB still isn't sure why the Live Stats ever said 1-0.
Maybe it's a 150th anniversary thing? Maybe the computer was set for 1869 rules, where a goal was one point?
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2 comments:
TB, I believe the scoring problem was caused because, the original time that you entered the first 13 plays, you inputted Princeton players on Harvard plays and vice versa. For example, the first play from scrimmage, which was a Harvard completed pass from Jake Smith (Harvard #10) to DeMarkes Stradford (Harvard #26) was inadvertently inputted as a Harvard pass from Kevin Davidson (Princeton #10) to Che Rogers (Princeton #26).
Similarly, inputting Harvard players when we had the ball must have messed up the scoring software when we scored on the eighth play of the game.
Good thing we scored so quickly so somebody could notice the problem before too many plays had been run. You might want to pass that information along to Bob Surace: In future games, score right away to test the statistics software.
TB, if it's any consolation, in tonight's (11/5/19) men's basketball season opener, Jaelin Llewellyn started the scoring with a made three-point shot, at which point the broadcast scoreboard read: Princeton 7, Duquesne 6.
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