Stats are for Losers?

I was playing with my daughter yesterday with the TV on in the background. I wasn't really paying attention to the screen. Hungry for college football content, I had TiVoed a Texas Longhorns Season Preview on Fox Sports Southwest. They had interviews with coaches mixed with footage of the 2008 season, so I was kind of paying attention when I heard head coach Mack Brown say "stats are for losers."

Yeah, LOSERS with their stupid stats. Losers are always whining about numbers as Sean Connery says in the edited-for-television version of The Rock: "Winners go home and date the prom queen."

My first though was: "stats are for losers" in what context? So I skipped backward to hear more. During the Longhorns' national championship season in 2005, Brown and his coaching staff told Vince Young--a major running threat--to not pass the line of scrimmage at certain times. They wanted him to use his arm, much like they want Colt McCoy to do now. But your quarterback is probably worried about his rushing stats, right?

"We do not care about stats. Stats are for losers. We care about winning the game."

Ah, okay, so it's not that he doesn't care for stats, it's that winning comes first. That's fine. I can see where he is coming from.

I love looking at stats, and I have a good memory when it comes to numbers, so I spend a lot of time thinking quantitatively about life. For instance, I remember that I was a disappointing 12 for 23 in slow-pitch softball this spring, but had 8 hits in 10 at bats in a summer tournament. I played catch with my daughter yesterday and she used her left hand to throw about two-thirds of the time (she is stronger with the left but has more control with the right). I have spent 5 of 11 weekends this summer outside of Texas. Stats help give me a more objective view at what has happened in my life. I have made a baby with 100% of my spouses.

Stats comprise knowledge. They guide our reasoning, and we use them to make decisions, and I believe that to be true for anyone from the highest levels of professional sports to the most successful businesspeople to me trying to improve my free throw percentage in a church league. To take the phrase "stats are for losers" at its face means that only losers use that knowledge.

I don't think Coach Brown meant it like that. I don't make 3.8 million dollars a year (with an additional 1.2 million dollar incentive for still being coach on January 15, 2010), but I do respect Coach Brown greatly so I am going to assume he meant one of two things. Either stats are a way to comfort losers after a loss, or stats are for losers given certain conditions. I will expand on the latter explanation.

Stats are for losers if their statistical goals get in the way of winning. The classic example of the conflict this can cause comes from incentivized salaries in team sports. Suppose Derek Jeter gets a million dollar bonus for ending the season with a .300 batting average or better (3 hits for every 10 at bats). Going into the last game of the season, he has a .300 batting average, having 180 hits in 600 at bats. The opposing pitcher for the game is Scott Kazmir, who Jeter is 4 for 33 (.121) against lifetime. Should Jeter play? If his statistical goal (and the bonus) is most important to him, then most people would say he shouldn't play because he is likely to dip below .300. Of course, Jeter would never do this for a multitude of reasons: he would incur the fans' and media's wrath for one, and Jeter seems like the kind of guy who is confident enough to believe he can get 1 hit in 3 at bats on the last day of the season. But might he be more inclined to look for a walk or sacrifice bunt, two outcomes that do not affect batting average?

Stats are for losers if context and variables are not taken into account. Let's say you move to a new city for a job. Your first few days at work, it has taken you an average of 45 to 60 minutes to get to your desk. So how long will it take you today? Before I even finish asking that question, you have probably processed three or four variables: day of the week, time of day, route, and parking (and, if you work at UT, how willing you are to risk a parking ticket). So let's look at those variables. It's Saturday, it's early afternoon, you'll take the same route, and parking should be easier because less people work on the weekends. But your job is in San Francisco and the Giants are playing an afternoon game. Those variables matter, because now it will take you 75 to 90 minutes. If you just looked at previous stats without thinking about the variables of this event, you would be banging your head against your steering wheel around the time you hit King Street.

This is my biggest frustration with using the points-per-game statistic, both on the individual and team level. Let's say a team leads their league in scoring per game. That's great, but you have to ask two contextual questions. First, who have they played? The opposing team is obviously a huge variable. UC Davis football almost led the country in scoring in 2000 but they were playing Division II teams almost exclusively; did they have a better offense than every Division I team? Second, what is their defense like? The Golden State Warriors were 2nd in the NBA in scoring this past season but it's partially because of a subpar defense that doesn't slow the other team down, therefore giving their own offense more chances and time to score. Points-per-game is a stat without context, which is why I prefer points-per-possession to evaluate teams.

Stats are for losers if they eliminate experience from the decision-making process.* The interesting thing about people who claim to hate stats is that they use them all the time, except they call it "experience" or "gut instinct." When a football coach decides on a running play on 3rd and 5 instead of a pass play, he is doing it for one of a multitude of reasons, but the reason will be based on the X times out of Y that he has seen it work in the past. Coach Brown didn't want Vince Young to run for first downs during particular games because...well, I don't know the reason, but it was probably something like: "Most of the time when we tell Vince it's okay to run, he doesn't look downfield" or "When Vince runs for first downs, he usually tires out too early" or "We are trying to teach Vince to be a better passer" because Coach Brown and his staff know that championship teams almost always have good passers. "Most of the time", "usually", and "almost always" are statistics. They are not precise, but they are statistics in a general form.

And this is why experience matters: we just don't know the numbers. I don't know what Heather wants for dinner tonight, but if I were to have kept stats during the course of our marriage, I would find that she almost always wants to eat out on Saturdays, and she wants Mexican, Thai, or Vietnamese--stats that I technically could have kept but didn't. But who knows how she is feeling today? Maybe when she is tired she tends towards one cuisine or the other. There are an infinite number of variables, some of which we just don't have the tools to measure yet, so we use our own past to fill the gaps. Experience is a substitute for unknown--or unknowable--data.

***

I'm already interested to see how the Longhorns season plays out: I'm a big fan, this should be a great season, and I have students on the team. But now I have another reason: Erin Andrews' halftime interviews with Coach Brown. "Coach Brown, your #1-ranked offense had two turnovers in the first half. How does that stat affect you?" "Erin, you know that as a coach I hate turnovers but I also think stats are for losers. So I think what you mean is: 'Our real good guys had a couple'a whoopsies in the early part goin' on.'"

See? He's still using stats, and I still love Coach Brown.




*Let me say that I don't think experience is not more important than statistical data. The biggest problem with using our own past experiences to understand future events is that we tend to rely only on our own experience. I'll give a personal example. I hurt my ankle a few weeks ago in California and wasn't planning on going to the doctor. See, I hurt my ankle once before doing the exact same thing I was doing this time, and two days later it felt fine, so why go to the doctor now? The problem was that I was relying on my own experience, which is a tiny sample size (n=1), and my own orientation towards getting professional medical help, which I would describe as "reluctant until bleeding".

I neglected two things. First, if I looked at the larger sample size of everyone (and not just experience with my own body), I would have realized that most people who cannot walk on their ankle because of the pain need to seek medical attention. I put my own experience ahead of worldwide medical statistics. Second, I used an experience from when I was younger, neglecting this annoying trend of aging one year for every year that I live. I was 23 when I hurt myself the first time, but now I'm 26. Maybe that's not a big difference, but I'm at the age now where my friends are starting to wear knee braces when we play basketball. The trend of aging probably played into the damage to my ankle this time. This is a very simple example that anyone can follow without a spreadsheet, but it's hard to pull out more complex trends without stats.

At Least they Wanted to Vote

I'm sure CNN is very happy to keep this article on their front page all day. It makes Texans seem so educated, right?

More than 1,000 calls poured into the Bexar County Elections Department on
Monday from voters wanting to know where they could vote in Tuesday's primary.
Problem is -- Texas isn't holding a primary on Tuesday, like more than 20 states
are.

This is so like those Texans--always trying to be more like Maine and West Virginia. No state pride down there.

Super Tuesday Not For Bexar Voters [KSAT via CNN]

The 10 Best Names of Teams I've Been On

I turning in our form yesterday for the Sunnyvale City Basketball League, and I had to choose a team name. I threw around a few ideas: Flea Market Montgomery, Click CLACK, The House Protectors, and Sweet Trampoline Tibia Dunk (don't watch that last one if you have a weak stomach).

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Okay, you're back, I hope (that was enough YouTube linkage for like four posts). Anyway,...I decided on the name We Talkin' About PRACTICE because of it's basketball theme. My brother Eddie says the name is too long, but I like it.

Personally, when it comes to intramurals and amateur sports, I think your team name says a lot about your players before you even step on the court. It's like a team tattoo. Sometimes the name is familar and it already means something to you. When I played IMs at UC Davis, I would often check who we were playing a few days before the game and--I know this may seem way too intense, but--I would check how a similar-named team performed in last year's standings, since dynasty teams often keep the same name from year to year. For example, 93 to Infinity was the name of a flag football team headed by someone who worked in the intramural department, and they knew how to recruit VERY well. Needless to say, they were incredible every year. A few other dynasty teams I remember were Family, Dingos, and of course, some frat teams. Athletes in Action always had teams in the top ten, so seeing their name on your schedule was always a little worrisome.

But what if the name isn't familiar? That's when the name itself can create an impression. I'm gonna peruse the UCD IM Flag Football and Soccer listings and give you my superficial opinion on what each team is probably like:

Law School Legends B: Any law school team worth it's hourly rate is going to be very good at flag football, because there are bragging rights at stake within the law school itself AND with other law schools in the area, since they often have tournaments. Could "B" refer to being the junior varsity team? If so, they won't dominate, but they'll still be good.

Labrador Casserole: Oh my goodness...no way a team with this name is actually taking soccer that seriously. They obviously chose this name because they have a sense of humor, which can be great because the best teams to play against are fun, friendly, will pull you up after a collision...the kind of people who you think: "If I wasn't friends with my friends, I'd wanna be friends with these guys." It's why playing intramurals can make you feel good even after a loss.

Of course I could be completely wrong and they could be jerks with a sense of humor. That happens all the time, but usually those teams choose a name with some sort of innuendo, like We Kick Balls. I googled Labrador Casserole--it means nothing.

The Gilmore Pirates: Gilmore is a dorm at UCD...freshman teams are usually inexperienced but hungry. The good thing, if you think winning is good, is that you'll often face a team each year that is just out there because someone organized an IM team, not because they actually like football, and that team is usually composed of freshman. It's good to get your dominate on once in a while.

PIKE: Not a good sign. Pi Kappa Alpha at Davis is composed of not very friendly guys, for the most part. We played a few Pike teams and it was never a fun experience because they would trash talk about our players and just be kinda rude in general.

Free Agent Team CB5: CB5 referring to Coed B League, Division 5. They probably just met and won't talk to each other very much, so it will be eerily quiet at many points during the game. If you win, you go home thinking: "Good solid win." If you lose...well, you won't lose because this is a team of free agents and basically they aren't very good.

In light of my brother denying me the afterglow of choosing what I THOUGHT was a fun name, here's my list of my Ten Favorite Names of Teams I've Been On:

10. Bayside Screeches - UC Davis Co-ed IM Softball, 2002-04
I know, I know: Saved by the Bell being retro-cool is soooo 2003. Well we got in on the ground floor of the SBTB retro-cool public offering and rode it for three years. It's just stupid enough that you don't take it seriously, but it was also great for team morale; we would often do the "Goooooooo BAYSIDE!" cheer with our hands in the middle after every game and it made us feel pretty good. I really feel like we were the only team doing this 5 years ago and now it's probably done to death. This name was part of the larger SBTB naming dynasty; for co-ed football, our name was Beat Valley and I'm pretty sure I went with AGC Bayside Tigers at Texas that first softball season.

9. Firefighters - Davis Little League Fall Ball, 2001
The season started two weeks after 9/11 and given that we got yellow jerseys, I think this was the only name we could have chosen. That first game was pretty surreal to me actually. Blake and I had coached AA the spring before and there were no lights on that field, so that first game at night in AAA was actually my first little league experience under the lights. With everyone yelling "Let's go, Firefighters!", it made me feel like I was part of Disney movie.

8. AGC Flower Butterflies - Texas Co-Ed IM Football, 2005
I was athletic director of the Advertising Graduate Council, and Chris Varughese and I went to sign up for IMs in early September. He said we should go with a tough name to intimidate our opponents, and the rest is history.

7. Rainbow Runners - Sunnyvale AYSO, 1987
Another tough name--this was the name of the first soccer team I played on as a kid. Why did they name us the Rainbow Runners? No idea. We were maroon. There is no maroon in a rainbow. All I can remember is that I colored in everyone's neck on the team photo. Again, I have no idea why.

6. Monta Vista Matadors - High School Baseball and Football, 1996-2000
This is a cool team name to have in high school because it's pretty unique. How many high school teams are named the Eagles or Lions or Wildcats or Mustangs? Boring. Matador is literally translated as Killer, so we were the Mountain View Killers. That is ridiculous. The only problem was the amount of "Ole!" jokes during infield practice.

5. Terror Alert: Sexy! - UC Davis Men's IM Basketball - 2004
I always liked this name, especially since we would often post that day's terror alert on the whiteboard in the apartment. Two things I remembered from this season: 1) it was second time that five of the six of us in Fountain Circle 12 played on the same intramural team, and it was the ONLY time that the five of us who were actually living in the apartment at the time played together (all of us but Blake played men's softball together in 2002, but Criss and Dan lived elsewhere), and 2) in one of these basketball games, Criss literally shot a ball over the backboard. Needless to say, this was the only season we ever played in which we did not win a game.

4. Team Andrew Ishak - Davis Little League, 2025
Okay, I'll admit this hasn't happened yet, but when I slip Heather some fertility pills and we end up having three sets of triplets in three years' time and they all get to play on the same little league team together and I coach because they all came from me, who's going to be upset if I refer to them as Team Andrew Ishak? I mean, think about it: there will be 9 little Ishaks running around on the field and paying league dues, the least you can do is honor me with a free sno-cone after the game.

What's the line on this post somehow messing with a potential coaching appointment in the future? It's a JOKE. Whatever, just read this, I'm a good coach and I like kids and I would never father 9 children in 3 years just to have them play little league together. Or maybe I would--I love little league THAT MUCH.

3. San Jose Dragon Slayers - Pacific Coptic Athletic League, 2005-present
First, check out our sweet new logo. Then, understand that the iconic image of Saint George--the patron saint of our church--is of him slaying the serpent-dragon. Other teams in the league have cool names as well, such as the Monks and Wonder Workers. I like our name because it could only be attributed to one saint, and the cardinal accent color of our uniforms matches Saint George's cape. Dude was a soldier.

2. Congress - UC Davis Men's Res Hall IM Football, 2000
Scott Ball came up with this name, and it may not sound very awesome to you. It didn't sound so cool to us until we asked Scott about it before our first game: "Scott, why are we called Congress?"

Scott's reply? "Because we lay down the law."

Awesome. I really do hope to write about the best game I've ever been a part of from that season--the Fog Bowl--sometime soon. And at number one...

1. Ryerson.com/softball presented by Nokia - UC Davis Co-ed IM Softball, 2001
Right in the middle of the dot-com burst and wave of corporate stadium names, we came up with a team name that represented the direction in which many fans thought professional team names were going. We all lived in the Ryerson dorm and this WAS a softball team, so most of the name was relevant. The Nokia part was just because. Just because of what, you ask?

Just because LEAGUE CHAMPS.

That was a perfect segue and made perfect sense.