All-area teams emphasize media's fascination with numbers

The numbers game does have a good side.

Maybe it's called a policy racket and illegal lottery in some areas, but it's a positive game on these sports pages.

If you have been following the Daily Herald's all-area teams, you must feel a little overwhelmed by all the numbers used in the brief sketches on each athlete.

I know I am. It happens every year, every sports season.

For this fall season, we have …

Goals.

Assists.

Goals-against average.

Kills.

Attack percentage.

Digs.

Serve receive.

Blocks.

Aces.

Touchdowns.

Yards rushing.

Yards receiving.

Yards passing.

Tackles.

Sacks.

Fumble recoveries.

And on and on.

Name a sport and there's a collection of statistics.

Whenever I hear the maxim, "The only statistic that matters is win or lose," I think about the emphasis put on all these numbers every year by the media, coaches, players, parents and fans.

The athletes may pretend they don't care, but I guarantee they sneak looks at the individual statistics when they run in the paper.

I know some parents and coaches care because they e-mail us with corrections.

I was told early in this job by my mentor, Bob Paddock, Sr., that the basic things I had to remember about sports statistics we publish in this newspaper are (1) they're not accurate … almost, but not quite; and (2) they are not as meaningful as they could be.

Stats are not accurate because there is a human element involved.

Plays may be overlooked in the excitement of a game. Or two running backs and two receivers may be mixed up as far as statistics because they might have similar-looking numbers -- 35 and 36, 87 and 89.

And imagine the confusion when the field is in bad shape and the uniform numbers are difficult to read.

In many cases, those errors are never caught, and I guarantee they happen in almost every game.

A writer keeping football statistics might see the ball sitting on a different yard line than another reporter. Or maybe one writer is going according to the public-address announcer, who also could be off by a yard or 2 or 3 or even more.

Those yards then add up during a game.

We had a case early this season when Josh Hampton of Buffalo Grove exploded for more than 300 yards against Conant.

Just how many yards over 300 is still the question. The high number was 366 as reported in the Daily Herald, but two other statisticians had different rushing totals -- more than 300 but fewer than the 366 for Hampton's 21 carries.

I guess the best way to find the proper yards when it involves a record would be to go over the game film frame by frame, carry by carry.

Reporters covering football games on the sidelines often compare statistics at halftime and even at the end of the game.

I stand there and listen to those conversations, and I rarely hear a match the first time. They're excited if they're even close.

At the college and professional levels and during IHSA state final games, the statistics are handed to you. Otherwise you're often on your own.

Meaningful statistics give you some insight on a player's true contribution to a game, or his or her worth at their position.

In football, for example, you might read that John Smith carried 21 times for 81 yards, a 3.8 average. Other backs that night might have done the same thing or better, so who was the most valuable?

If you are told that Smith carried the ball eight times on third-down, short-yardage situations and picked up the first down on seven tries, you know he had a great game.

Tackles and assists often are padded by statisticians always more liberal about rewarding their own players.

The exciting pursuit of stats can be infectious, particularly now that fantasy leagues are such a big deal.

Once you're hooked, you can't help yourself, and your obsession with numbers keeps growing.

Most sports statisticians are in love with their work.

For them, a statistic isn't just a cold number. It's a little story.