Sunday, Jul. 17, 2011

Record book needs change to earn trust

The Point After Column:

Stat reporting in high school sports is still, to put it nicely, a crapshoot.

A perfect example was featured on the front page of The News & Observer on June 19.

Broughton quarterback Will Cooper has been recognized for 600 yards passing in a single game - a number that was accepted by the N.C. High School Athletic Association as fact even though it did not review the full 30-minute tape to verify the figure.

The N&O, the day after the disputed game, had Cooper with 566 yards.

Wakefield High, Broughton's opponent that night, had Cooper with 508.

The video, which I helped review, shows Cooper really threw for 585 yards.

So four sources, four different figures and only one is correct. And that one will not be the one that shows up in the record books.

The NCHSAA is not interested in reviewing the tape to get the correct record, which would have Cooper tied with Chris Leak for the most passing yards in a game.

I'm an admitted statistics geek, but can I trust a book that won't verify a state record as prestigious as the most passing yards in a single game?

We can do better than this.

We have to.

Those involved in high school sports, are part-historians charged with providing that context.

It may seem like nothing to some. I'm sure coaches care more about wins and losses.

But there's a difference in saying "Green Hope girls basketball player Kristen Gaffney scores a lot" and "Kristen Gaffney is on the verge of 2,000 points in her career - something only two other Wake County players have ever accomplished."

And that's why records are important.

Obviously, you'd like there to a shift in how the NCHSAA handles its record book. It sounds like a simple solution, but having one guy devoted to the book alone would go a long way.

It also would be a full-time job. And while they catch a lot of heat from some of the uninformed masses, NCHSAA employees juggle a ton of responsibilities.

The record book should be someone's sole responsibility. Then that person can go about instituting new ways of verifying information.

Some records are a piece of cake - such as timed sports in track and field, cross country and swimming. Others have little room for interpretation, such as lacrosse and soccer.

Then there are at least two other fields where there are never any dispute as to what the stats are: points in basketball and anything involving wrestling.

That's because with basketball and wrestling you have scorekeepers from each team side-by-side conferring on each made basket or takedown. They must match one another before the referee signs the book at the end of the contest.

If there was that level of cooperation in football, all stats could be verified by both sides within minutes after the final whistle. The same goes for sports with gray area, like baseball and softball.

Another solution may be a byproduct of this story: creating awareness. I'm not so sure some coaches or schools are even aware there is a record book, or that they need to provide the stats in order to have them recorded.

I hope there isn't another situation like the passing record again. And I hope fewer records fall through the cracks as these have:

Former Green Hope softball player Sarah Forgacs batted .660 in 2007 according to her Campbell University biography. That would be among the top 10 highest in NCHSAA history. In baseball and softball, stats are reported to future colleges more so than the NCHSAA.

Pretty much anything dealing with Cary High's wrestling history. Cary keeps very detailed records, but they don't often show up in the NCHSAA record books because they haven't been reported.

Western Harnett girls basketball player Ariel Bursey scored more than 1,700 points in her final three years. But with three coaches in her four years, finding her freshman year totals is problematic. If she's broken 2,000 points, she's the first player in that county's history to do so.

For years, Josh Adams was credited with two of the best single-season rushing marks in state history, but he was nowhere to be found among the career rushing yards list. Cary had never submitted his record because they were trying to find his freshman year totals, most of which was lost after a coaching change. Cary eventually just submitted what they had, and Adams is now in the top 10.

Harnett Central's Jarrod Spears ran for four kickoff returns in the span of a few weeks during the 2010 football season. It tied him for the most in state history at the time, but it was well-documented that Jordan's T.J. Thorpe had five the year before.

A few weeks after Spears' touchdowns, Thorpe's record was submitted, and he got his due.