When posting the track & field leaderboards, I thought that it would be a fun post that would get to represent the best in the sport. Instead, it kind of turned into a really weird situation, where a few athletes times were not appearing when they were obviously desevering.
In fact, we got a few not-so-happy messages, so I think it’s time to be 100% clear on the situation.
First, all of our numbers came from Athletic.net. We got a few comments that said to use this site, and it was awkward because we DID use this site for all of our numbers. We were told that meet hosts are suppose to put in the stats of their meet into this site, and from the last few days, it is obvious that some did not.
There is simply too many athletes and too many meets to verify every single time, especially when the numbers at this site are suppose to be accurate. I think Athletic.net has done a great job throughout the years, and I personally have been checking their site for over 10 years now. They do a great job and I have a lot of respect, so this is no fault of them.
However, when those in charge do not report the numbers, it dilluates the accuracy of the site. We want to be up-to-date with all the stats and athletic.net let’s you do that. But since it is apparent that those numbers aren’t accurate, we are moving to use the performance lists provided by the state. These lists come out on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, and these are the numbers we will use.
I think this issue though, presses on to a bigger problem: it’s time the state had a required database for all stats, and that database needs to be Bound.
Bound does a great job at covering stats in Iowa and I really do think they are the future in South Dakota. Their site is incredibly easy to use, and if you take a look at Iowa’s Bound sight (ia.varsitybound.com), you can see that’s it’s absolutely sweet.
Tracking down stats without an accurate database is hard. I have sent over 400 emails to get stats from coaches for basketball. With Bound, I simply would need to check the site. Iowa requires teams to put in stats to Bound, with the punishment after numerous violations being a disqualification from competing in post season tournaments. Don’t worry, you only have to put in stats once every two weeks, and I believe there is a grace period.
So the stats don’t have to be immediate, but they do have to put them in a couple of times in the year. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a team not qualifying for the postseason because of this punishment, but the idea behind it is that teams have to put their stats into Bound in a reasonable timeframe.
This requirement needs to happen in South Dakota.
It’s beneficial to coaches and those covering their sports. I know some coaches say they don’t like to have their stats available because they are afraid of scouting, but c’mon, you literally use Hudl which has VIDEO of your athletes playing. It’s a bad excuse and one that coaches around the country don’t use. Many states require you to put your stats into a site, Nebraska (Maxpreps), Iowa (Bound) and it is fantastic.
Now, this isn’t me bashing the state. I think South Dakota’s athletic association is ran really well, especially compared to other state associations. In my experience, they are very quick to respond back when message, and are open to hearing new ideas.
I know, they are on board with Bound being used, seeing as their website is designed by Bound, and they do all their team scheduling posted through the site. I think it’s great and I think that the state is going about this in the correct way.
Now that we have a year out of the way of learning the new site, I think it is time that the fans, coaches, state association and sports coverage members get together and push to have all the stats for each team required to go into a database.
These numbers can even help an athlete get recruited, as the database makes it easy to check verifiable leaderboards and find diamonds-in-the-rough that may not have appeared as apparently before with no database. I’m excited for the day that Bound has all the South Dakota stats, and until then, I will keep advocating for a database in this great state.
One final note, we finally got our GameChanger account back. We had been double-charged, and then our account got closed three times while the issue was trying to be fixed. It was a headache and a half, but we have gotten a hold of customer service and our account is back to fully operational. (BTW, GameChanger is another company I have been using for a decade, and they are really, really good at what they do.)
I’m happy that the issue has been resolved, and you better believe we are going to be back on that baseball beat!
Until then, peace.
-TK