Keeping football stats for preps

Back in the film days, I'd take those shots to make sure I had something in focus (I used manual-focus, late-1970s SLRs then). After that, if I got a decent action shot or two, it was a bonus.

And although I tried, it was impossible to snap photos, scribble down play-by-play shorthand and also keep running stats for individuals. I simply tried for an accurate p-b-p list, then tallied the stats furiously at halftime and while waiting for coaches/players after the game.

I'm getting a sore thumb just thinking about it ...

 

Just think, nowadays you'd add tweeting to that list.

 

And probably a bit of filming so you have a video to go with your story.

 

That's why I am on the copy desk these days ...

Actually, when I helped out by covering a prep playoff game last fall, one of the stat girls had a cool running-stats app for her tablet. I went with the old fashioned "tablet" myself (a notepad), although I did have a cell phone to send in scoring updates.

 

Yeah, I would stats via an app today if I kept them. One of the freelancers in the area for another paper keeps stats on his IPad on the sidelines (he doesn't have to shoot/video/tweet etc. like me). He follows the action right up-and-down the sidelines all games. He's shown me the app, and it is pretty neat.

I have a nice basketball scorekeeping app on my Windows device that I use occasionally for games I don't have to shoot. I also keep baseball/softball scoring with an app. It's a lot easier to shoot and keep score for that with the time between plays/pitches.

 

There's an app called GameChanger (gc.com) that has changed my life. A lot of our baseball and softball teams use it. I believe there's also a basketball version.
It's an iPad/iPhone app that allows you to do live scoring and upload everything to MaxPreps as soon as the game is finished. It has a play-by-play, full box score, everything. It's absolutely wonderful and has made call-ins a breeze. Just scan through and pick out what you need minutes after the game is over, or even as it's going on if you're in a hurry, instead of trying to track everything down. There's also a roster page if you need photo IDs. As a bonus, so many teams in our state have started using it that there's often overlap with our local teams that don't. So you just follow those teams and get the info that way.
The web site has a membership fee of about $40 per year, but if your teams are using this thing it's well worth the money.

 

Batman, you can request your account to be free for media usage

 

I've always been a spreadsheet printout and clipboard guy, while also shooting photos. I just switched to Digital Scout on my iPhone this year. I don't think I could keep up with it and photos if I didn't have a spotter helping me with remembering who made tackles and such.

 

There are a couple of teams that use this in our area. Definitely makes it easier on our end.

 

Is that through GameChanger, or for individual teams?
You can get free access with some teams with a basic account, but not all of them. The teams have to approve you, or pay a fee to let everyone view it, or something. There's different levels of membership that make it confusing, and when you're only following an out-of-town team once or twice a season to get your local team's info it can be a pain to sort through it all or get approval.
I had the free account for several years, then this past spring got the paper to pay for a membership. Now we can get to everything.

 

Here is something I never mastered - keeping basketball stats. Even if I didn't have to take pictures, tweet or film game action, I could never get a handle on it. I was able to keep track of who scored, but assists and rebounds were hit or miss, especially with teams that liked to run full court. Steals? Forget about it. And relying on the high school girls at the scorer's table was a joke.

It won't help me now that I'm out of the biz, but I'd be curious about how other people handled this. My standard procedure was to draw a line down the middle of a legal pad, one side for each team, and write the number of the player down who scored moving down the pad. That way, I could keep track of any significant runs a team went on and could add up a player's point total at the end.

Like I said, it was far from perfect.

 

It depends on whether you're writing on deadline or not.

Either way, I still write a play-by-play on an 8 1/2x11 pad.

When I wasn't on deadline, I had two vertical lines on the far right side, just before the running score. In those boxes, I would write 25R if #25 on one team grabbed a rebound, 10s if #10 had a steal, etc. Then I would add them up at halftime and final.

On deadline, I use a hand-created sheet similar to my football sheet. It has a place like a standard scorebook for 2s and 3s, and I have boxes where I chicken-scratch the rebounds, etc.

I can't do assists very well, because it goes so fast. So I'll write those on the pad and add them later.

Seems there's one stat in every sport I can't keep track of (football=tackles, basketball=assists, volleyball=digs, baseball & softball=pitch counts).