Campus Connection: WVU News and Notes
January 22, 2015 05:36 PM | General
Have you ever wondered how statistics became such an integral part of modern sports coverage?
Today, it’s almost impossible to read a baseball story without it being cluttered with references to obscure stats that have many of us scrambling to Google to figure out what the hell they mean.
The same deal with basketball and football (FYI, YAC in football is a specialized statistic representing yards after the catch, not something a player did late Saturday night).
When I first got started in this business 20-some years ago, there was a high degree of satisfaction when your baseball box score was balanced with 27 putouts on both sides and your earned run averages (Earned Runs/Innings Pitched x 9) added up right when you sent in your weekly reporting forms to the conference office.
For many football sports information directors, the most interesting day of the week always used to be Sundays when they received the defensive statistics from the football staff after the film was graded. Some of the tackle numbers that they used to get coming out of those film-grading sessions defied logic and would make Pinocchio’s nose grow 25-feet long.
In basketball, there were places notorious for padding specialty stats, and then there were some places you went to where you knew the stat crew handing out the assists that night was like ordering them to fork over their last couple of dollars.
So, how did stats become so vital?
I can’t say for sure in respect to other sports, but as far as college football and basketball goes, the man bearing the responsibility for this was Seattle sportswriter Homer F. Cooke. It was Cooke who began surveying schools throughout the country in the late 1930s to see which players were the best in various statistical categories.
Cooke got the idea to poll all of the schools when he used to listen to radio reports proclaiming Sammy Baugh the best passer in the country. How could they know for sure Baugh was the best passer in the country, Cooke wondered?
Perhaps there was a quarterback somewhere else with better statistics than Baugh?
So Cooke began writing to all of the major schools throughout the country looking for their leading rushers, passers, receivers and scorers. Only about 25 of them responded to his initial survey and most of them said they could only give him a portion of what he was looking for.
But soon Cooke got Notre Dame and Michigan on board (which is usually a good place to start whenever you want to get anything done in college sports), and eventually more than 75 schools were contributing to his annual statistical reports.
What came of this was the American Football Statistical Bureau, which was taken over by the NCAA in the early 1940s. Cooke’s first comprehensive statistical analysis of college football was featured in the 1943 NCAA football guide, published by A.S. Barnes of New York.
Cooke was later hired by the NCAA to run its statistical bureau and he compiled stats for the NCAA until his retirement in 1973. It was Cooke who came up with the stat terms “total offense” and “total defense” in football, among others.
So, if you find yourself pulling out your hair as you navigate your way through all of these confusing stats in today’s football and basketball game summaries (mine is all gone by the way), Homer Cooke is the person that you can blame – or thank, depending upon your point of view.
As Paul Harvey used to say, and now you know the rest of the story …
Briefly …
- Each morning in my email inbox I receive the D1 Ticker, a compilation of the prior day’s news involving intercollegiate athletics, and it seems like every time I read it now someone somewhere is building something new.
Of the 29 news entries in Thursday’s D1 Ticker, nine dealt directly with some sort of capital improvement project from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones donating $10.65 million to help Arkansas construct a new Student-Athlete Success Center to Florida announcing plans to build a new $15 million indoor football practice facility to Minnesota continuing with plans for a $150 million athletic facility overhaul to Tennessee unveiling renderings of its new Anderson Training Center that will include … get this … a barber shop for its student-athletes.
It’s almost as if the $125 million that West Virginia University announced last year for athletic facility upgrades has become just a small ripple in a very big pond.
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| Huggins |
- Here is a pretty good story on how West Virginia coach Bob Huggins made the decision to go back to the future with his full-court pressure defense this year that has the Mountaineers ranked 18th in the country this week with a 15-3 overall record … http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2338309-how-bob-huggins-has-made-west-virginia-college-basketballs-biggest-surprise
Although not mentioned in this story, I suspect one of the reasons Huggs chose to go back to the press is because of the great difficulty these days recruiting shot blockers.
During his eight seasons at WVU, Huggins has never had a player with 100 or more blocks in a season (John Flowers had the most with 74 in 2011), and he only had two during his long tenure at Cincinnati – Eric Hicks with 113 in 2006 and Kenyon Martin with 107 in 2000.
In fact, after more than 100 years of basketball, West Virginia has had just one player in its lengthy history with more than 100 blocks in a season, that being D’or Fischer with 124 blocks in 2004.
By the way, Jonathan Holton is the team’s top shot blocker this year with 20.
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| Montgomery |
- Speaking of rim protectors, West Virginia women’s coach Mike Carey has one of the better shot-blockers in the country right now in emerging sophomore center Lanay Montgomery.
The Pittsburgh resident now shows 72 blocks in 18 games following her nine-swat effort during Wednesday night’s 63-51 victory over Kansas State.
Montgomery also pulled down a team-best 12 rebounds in the 12-point win.
She is already tied with Asya Bussie for fifth on the school single-season block list and is on pace to become only the second women’s player in school history to record more than 100 blocks in a season (Dunk queen Georgeann Wells is the only one to do so three times).
Having Montgomery playing so well in the post right now has eased some of the concerns the coaching staff had following the graduation of Bussie, an all-Big 12 performer last season.
“Playing against Asya Bussie everyday in practice certainly taught Lanay some things,” pointed out WVU assistant coach Lester Rowe.
Montgomery did not play during her senior year of high school and only saw spot duty in 24 games last season, producing averages of just 1.7 points and 2.0 rebounds per game.
“Lanay had a lot of potential but she was just hurt,” said Rowe.
Montgomery’s improved play has helped the Mountaineers win back-to-back Big 12 games against Oklahoma State and Kansas State with another winnable game on the horizon at 10-9 Kansas on Saturday afternoon. In her last four games, Montgomery has scored 28 points, grabbed 55 rebounds and blocked 23 shots.
“Lanay has good hands, good timing and a very long wingspan,” said Rowe. “She plays a lot taller than 6-5.”
More importantly, Montgomery has displayed a willingness to improve her overall game, according to Rowe.
“She’s a great kid with a great work ethic,” he said.
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| White |
- West Virginia Illustrated’s Geoff Coyle writes that wide receiver Kevin White is a “guaranteed top 15 pick” in this year’s NFL draft, according to pro draft expert Mel Kiper Jr.: http://www.wvillustrated.com/story/27903804/espns-kiper-kevin-white-guaranteed-a-top-15-nfl-pick
If that happens, White will become just the fifth first-rounder for the Mountaineers since 2000, but the third since 2012.
White boosted his draft status with a strong 2014 campaign that included 109 catches for 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns.
White has taken a pass on this week’s Senior Bowl and will concentrate on the NFL Scouting Combine coming up next month in Indianapolis, as well as personal workouts leading into the draft later this spring.
- Seattle outside linebacker Bruce Irvin is not the only person with West Virginia University ties taking part in this year’s Super Bowl. New England Patriots athletic trainer Dave Granito is a product of Randy Meador’s well-respected athletic training program curriculum here at WVU.
- Plans are in the works for another signing day show from the Milan Puskar Center on Wednesday, February 4, with Tony Caridi, Jeff Culhane, Jed Drenning and Dale Wolfley on-site to unveil this year’s signing class on WVUsports.com.
The show will include highlights, analysis and special guests throughout the morning.
The five-hour live stream will begin at 8 a.m. and will lead into Coach Dana Holgorsen’s news conference announcing the class of 2015 later that afternoon.
- It looks like Major League Baseball is going to push back the professional baseball draft from early June to July 1, according to a tweet sent out by MLB reporter Peter Gammons on Wednesday. In addition, pro teams would have approximately two weeks until July 15 to sign drafted players.
The big benefit of moving the draft back three weeks is that it will enable top college players to complete their seasons without the distraction of worrying about the pro draft during postseason play. The downside, according to some coaches, is that it gives them less time to find replacements if their players/recruits are drafted and sign professional contracts.
Since its inception in 1965, the pro draft has always been a thorny issue with college and professional baseball.
Meanwhile, the first official practice for the Mountaineers is scheduled for Friday, January 23. West Virginia opens the 2015 campaign with a three-game series at Clemson, February 13-15.
West Virginia’s highly anticipated home opener in the new Mon County Ballpark is slated for Tuesday, March 17 against Waynesburg University.
The reason the Mountaineers are opening with Division III Waynesburg is because the Yellow Jackets were the first team West Virginia played back in 1892. A pretty neat little tie in, I must say.
By the way, The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s radio coverage of West Virginia baseball will begin with the Texas series on March 13-15, or possibly three days earlier with the non-conference game at Liberty on March 10 if scheduling conflicts can be ironed out, says IMG’s WVU Director of Broadcasting Jeff Culhane.
- Baylor’s Rico Gathers pulled down a Big 12 record 28 rebounds in the Bears’ 20-point victory over Huston-Tillotson Wednesday night.
Huston-Tillotson?
I’m usually not in favor of asterisks next to records, but in this case I think an exception is probably in order.
- And finally, one of my all-time favorite college football stories involves Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty.
Daugherty’s Spartans in 1972 upset No. 1-ranked Ohio State 19-14, Michigan State getting four field goals from Holland-born kicker Dirk Krijt, who was making his college debut that afternoon.
Afterward, while Daugherty was talking to reporters in the locker room, Krijt walked past his coach clasping a lit cigarette and asked him if he wanted to go out with some of the guys later that night to drink some beers and chase girls.
As Daugherty began to shake his head no, one of the Michigan State beat writers asked, “What the hell kind of training rules do you have, anyway, Duffy?”
Daugherty replied, “Well, whatever they were, they just changed for players who kick four field goals to beat the No. 1-ranked team in the country!”
Have a great weekend!
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SWIM: What it Means to Become a Mountaineer
Wednesday, April 29
Gold-Blue Spring Festival Fan Recap
Sunday, April 19
