How I Tackled Tracking Luther High’s Epic Wins This Season
Okay so last month at PTA night, Coach Davis mentioned Luther’s football streak was wild this year. I figured why not actually track it properly instead of just hearing rumors? Grabbed my dusty laptop and got started.
First step was scrounging for raw data. Called up the school office Tuesday morning – lady sounded tired but gave me PDF schedules. Then I hunted online for local sports forums. Spent like three hours copying game dates into a spreadsheet while drinking terrible gas station coffee. Messed up the columns twice. Realized forums had typos when scores didn’t match school records. Fixed it manually.
The stats chaos drove me nuts at first. Needed win percentages but kept forgetting how to calculate. Looked it up using my kid’s math homework notes:
Wins ÷ Total Games × 100. Simple but kept typing game counts wrong.
Sample mess-up:
- Game 1: W 28-14 (accidentally entered as loss)
- Game 3: L 10-21 (forgot to enter at all)
Recalculated four times before numbers made sense.
Breakthrough came at Big River game. Sat freezing in bleachers with my notepad. Saw their running back #21 smash through defenders like bowling pins. Took phone pics of every scoreboard quarter change. Afterwards, cornered Coach near parking lot asking about defensive plays. Dude talked fast while shivering – scribbled notes so quick my handwriting looked like spaghetti.
Later painstakingly compared:
– My scribbles
– Official score sheets
– Local news recaps
Found discrepancies in Yard Gains stats in Game 7. Called athletic department next morning – secretary confirmed newspaper typo.
Final compilation took all Sunday. Pieced together:
- 9 total wins
- 2 away game shutouts
- QB throwing average: 189 yards
- That insane 4th-quarter comeback against Northwood
Printed charts got jammed twice. Stapled pages crooked.
Epic mistake? Forgot playoffs weren’t included in reg season stats. Had to redo everything Wednesday. Kids laughed seeing me reprint at library. Worth it though – numbers showed Luther’s defense improved 37% since last year. Left the printout anonymously in Coach’s mailbox yesterday. He’ll either high-five someone or think a ghost did his paperwork.