My Night With The Stat Crew!!

Posted by The Mueller’s on December 29, 2007

The Stat Crew: Dave Beck, John Allen, Ron Beck, TJ Beck, Brady Cottam (standing)

The other night, at the Dallas game, I had the experience of a lifetime! I got to job-shadow the Jazz stat keepers. Don’t laugh, but in high school I took stats for our boys basketball teams. I absolutely loved it. My friends HATED it. However, I would drag them to every game because, back then, it was all done on paper. You needed one person to keep track of points/attempts and free throws, one person did steals/assists/turnovers, one person did rebounds, fouls and minutes played. So when the opportunity came, I was very excited to see how things have changed.

First of all, just the experience to be at the game and allowed to see some of the off limit areas was an experience in and of itself and will be the topic of a future blog . . . that was awesome! The only two rules I was given were: #1 No cheering and #2 No asking for autographs (dang).

I met my friends, the stat crew. The two, shall we say, “most seasoned” crew members have been doing this for 28 years and 40+ years. That is a total of 68 years of stat taking. And they have seen it all: the paper stats (that then had to be copied on the ‘mimeograph’ –what the heck is that??), the early years of computerized stats and today’s version.

First, I will tell you that the stat team no longer sits courtside at the scoring table. Nope. Those seats now belong to the “Lexus Club”. Those are some expensive seats. The stat team now sits twenty rows up. Can I tell you that it is very difficult to see referee fingers from clear up there! The stat team is much better at it than I was.

I learned many interesting things. First of all let me describe what each person does. John Allen has 40+ years of experience and he serves as ‘the caller’. His job is to call the game in a sort of play-by-play way into the microphone that plays into the headphones of the other team members. He calls who has the ball, who gets the assist, who gets the point etc. He also serves as a double checker of playing time by writing down the time when each player enters or leaves the game. If he ever has any questions about what he saw, he has an emergency telephone line down to the scoring table. It is very difficult to see referees hand signals up on the 20th row.

To his right, is the input hero, Ron Beck. Now, Ron has been doing stats for 28 years. He was one of the writers of the original stat computer program created in the 70’s. That program was used for 14 years before being updated. His job is to input what John says into the computer. He uses a stylus to touch the screen for much of it. He also does a double check of playing time on paper to compare with the computer version.

On the other side of John, is the double-checker, he is Dave Beck. His job is to check what John says and what Ron inputs and make sure that it is consistent with what he saw and heard. He has a computer screen in front of him that shows what Ron is inputing. A funny thing about these two, Dave and Ron is that they are brothers. Dave being the eldest. So, it is comforting to know that, if they are anything like my kids, Dave is just waiting to point out a mistake to Ron. So you KNOW that he keeps a close eye on things.

Next to Ron, is TJ who is another double checker. He is also quite a handy guy in the programming department. He created a program that allows up-to-the-minute stats to be printed at each time out and quarter break. At the touch of a button, multiple copies are sent to four different printers in four scattered media sections of the arena. He sets it up at the start of the game for however many copies he wants to go to each area. Then at a break, he hits a button and those reports are sent in about 15 seconds. AMAZING. It has been a huge timesaver and a valuable tool for the media.

And last but not least is Brady. He is the technician of the group. He sets up the equipment and takes it down. He is also in charge of the TiVo function that allows the stat people to quickly rewind to double check who made that basket or who got the block if there is ever any question. And, like all the team, he is also a double-checker verifying that things entered are correct.

There is always a double check and many times a triple check in place. John even carries spare paper stat sheets in case of a computer breakdown. They must have all been boy scouts . . . always be prepared . . . should’ve asked them that!

A few things I learned about NBA stat taking that I found interesting are:

#1 Every little thing is recorded. including the referee who made each call, the person who committed the foul and who the foul was against, the exact time a player goes in and goes out of a game. Each shooting attempt is tracked not just where the player was on the court but what type of shot it was (jump shot, fade away, lay up, dunk etc).

#2 I would not be able to do this job because you cannot put any emotion into the job. Seriously, you don’t have time. It’s amazing to me that I could say who made the last shot, who got the assist, where the person was on the court before they shot etc. BUT I had no clue about the overall score because I didn’t have time to think about looking. I always had to be watching the next play. I had to always be concentrating (not something I’m good at). I couldn’t get excited about a play and do a celebration dance. I discovered that I could concentrate for short bursts of time but to concentrate at that level for an entire game really wiped me out. This would not be a good job for someone with ADD!

#3 Following a game, the official stats are downloaded to the NBA’s website where all player stats are updated to current season averages etc. All with the click of a button. Technology is truly amazing.

I could write all day about this amazing experience but I will spare you for now. Check back soon for my next entry that talks about this experience. It was eye opening for me in so many ways! The best part about this game was that we actually ended up winning. Maybe it’s because I was there. . . yep, that’s what I’m going to believe

3 Comments

Linda McFarland on December 30, 2007 said:

Sounds like another group that doesn’t get their fair share of kudos. I think a lot of us thought the stats just apppeared out of thin air. I can count to 100, do you think I could get a job?? No autographs? What a bummer. I have a pair of Kirlenko’s shoes but it would be a lot easier to carry around an autograph to brag about.

Basketball John on January 02, 2008 said:

Stats are crazy. But no mention of whether the three Beck’s are related?

Brady Ryan Beck Cottam on January 09, 2008 said:

They are related and I am Rons Grandson!

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