[stylist] Making it count

[Jackie Williams]

Shawn,
I really liked this story of your start toward being a statistician. I have
always thought of that as a very intimidating profession, even for one with
no vision problems. You put a very human face on it. From now on, I will
think of any number as a person or as persons that are individuals.
As I read, I was trying to remember any barn at Iowa State, but probably the
hockey team was not operational when I was there.
Ice hockey is such a rough game and so often fights erupt over
disagreements. I am glad you did not get hurt, or give up on it.
Unusual, in my mind, that a statistician is also a poet and writer. So
different in their essence.
By the way, I am behind on critiquing both your writings in S and S, and
your last poem. There is no way your efforts should sink into a "Black
Hole." Just be patient. My mother always said, "The hurrier I go, the
Behinder I get."

Jackie Lee

Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz	 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jacobson,
Shawn D via stylist
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 12:23 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List (stylist at nfbnet.org)
Cc: Jacobson, Shawn D
Subject: [stylist] Making it count

Writer's group

Below is an article I wrote that will be published in Future Reflections.
It is about my experiences in college as statistician for our hockey club.

I hope everyone enjoys it.

Shawn

MAKING IT COUNT
by Shawn Jacobson

When I tell people I'm a statistician, they either get a glassy-eyed look on
their faces or think that my job is something like rocket science. People
tend to believe we statisticians spend our lives looking at columns of
numbers and doing calculations in our heads. I suppose that is what my
vocational rehabilitation counselor thought when she told me that a blind
person couldn't do such a job. Most people don't think getting out on the
ice during shooting contests, dodging hockey pucks, or arguing with players
about who scored a goal are jobs for a blind person, either. Yet I had all
of those experiences when I got my first taste of practical statistics as
statistician of my university's hockey club.

It was halftime at an Iowa State University football game when I spoke with
Coach Murdoch about becoming a statistician. He had met me through student
government when he had sought student funding for the hockey club, and he
remembered that I aspired to be a statistician. We started talking about
hockey and statistics, and he asked me if I would like to be the
statistician for the team. I learned that one of his former statisticians
had gotten a job with the Chicago Cubs. Finding employment is something we
blind folks worry about a lot, and a job in major league baseball sounded
supremely cool. I decided to give the hockey club a try.

At the time, what I knew about hockey could most charitably be described as
basic. I knew it was played on ice with a puck. I knew that players tried to
get said puck through the opponent's goal, and I had heard that hockey
players got into a lot of fights. Beyond that, I was pretty clueless. I
tried looking up information on hockey statistics in the university library,
but what I found assumed a level of knowledge I didn't have. Oh well, I
decided, I would do what I could.

My first step was to find the Cyclone Area Community Center, where the games
were played. The center was commonly called The Barn, because it had been a
dairy barn in its former life. But where was The Barn? It was time for me to
do some exploring.

I spent a beautiful autumn afternoon asking questions and generally
wandering around. Finally I found a suitably barn-like structure on the
south side of campus. When I opened the doors and looked inside, I saw a
skating rink and bleachers. This must be the place, I thought. At least the
walk, about a mile from my dorm room, wasn't beyond reason.

Next I needed to figure out which of the statistics I was going to keep. In
class we were always handed nice, neat tables of numbers (spreadsheets,
though we didn't use that term in those days) upon which to employ the tools
of the trade. At hockey games, however, I would be in charge of actually
collecting the numbers. I placed ads in the student newspaper offering free
admission to anyone who would volunteer to assist me. These ads drew little
interest; Ames, Iowa, was not a hockey hotbed. I would need to write down
the numbers myself.

First I tried to keep track of line changes, noting who was on the ice at
any given time. To do so I got behind the bench and looked at the numbers of
the players as they got out onto the rink. As I was moving behind the bench,
trying to keep my count, I heard a buzzing sound that reminded me of the
time I was stung by a hornet.

"Watch out!" one of the players shouted. A puck flying at the speed of a car
on the interstate had just missed my head by about three inches. I realized
that the shields around hockey rinks are there for a reason. It was time for
me to find something else to track.

Next I tried recording who won face-offs. I wore glasses that gave me pretty
good vision in a really narrow range. I needed to watch something that would
keep still until I found it, and the puck was pretty still before a
face-off. I figured that whoever won the face-off would eventually start
moving down the ice toward the other guy's goal. Even if the rest of our
statistical efforts were incomplete, we always had information about
face-offs. The idea was that even if I was wrong about who won the draw, I
could at least provide the coach with useful information about the game.

This job began a relationship with data collection issues that has been a
large part of my working life ever since. Knowing what information I would
keep track of, I settled into a routine. I would go to the games and get a
cup of hot cider (you wanted something warm in a building that featured an
ice rink!) Then I would head to my spot atop the bleachers at center ice.
>From this vantage point, I was able to watch some good hockey, though the
team's performance was uneven. Coach Murdoch had moved the team out of a
conference with a bunch of Illinois schools to seek stiffer competition. So
the team played a variety of opponents, including other colleges, Canadian
junior hockey teams, and local hockey clubs. There were many games where we
won by ten goals, and a few that we lost by that much. In short, the team
had to play opponents at several skill levels to get through the season.

At the end of periods, I would take my sheet with face-off numbers down to
the locker room and hand it to the coach. I don't remember a lot about the
locker room except that it was hot, damp, and musty. Hockey players jammed
together on benches listening to the coach as he told them what they had
done wrong and what they needed to work on. Once I handed over my sheet, I
would leave the room and head back to my seat as the Zamboni smoothed out
the ice for the next period.

One night I actually got out on the ice. My name was drawn for a contest
where I could win a prize if I could shoot a puck from the blue line into
the goal. I went down to the rink and stepped onto the ice. Haltingly, I
moved to the blue line over a surface I had spent many an Iowa winter doing
my best to avoid. At the blue line I grasped the unfamiliar stick, took a
menacing swipe at the puck, and missed. At this point, and on my next miss,
I knew the crowd was doing something, but I was too preoccupied with keeping
my balance to pay much attention to the noise coming from the stands. Then,
on my final attempt, I managed to dribble the puck toward the goal, but it
did not get anywhere close. I left the ice embarrassed, but knowing I had
given it a try.

The other part of my job was to keep a running total of goals scored,
assists, and penalty minutes for the team and players. I would get the
official score sheet from the coach and update the totals from before the
game. For this work, I was able to use my CCTV system to read the reports on
the game.

The task of keeping scoring totals seemed straightforward, but even this got
me into an argument. On the way home from a game, the player who had given
me a ride (by now the weather was too cold for a joyful walking experience)
told me that the scorer had given the goal to the wrong person. He let me
know that he, and not his teammate, had scored the goal. I brought this up
with the coach the next day. He told me that the scorer's decision had to
stand.

The two years I spent keeping hockey statistics taught me a valuable lesson
that I have carried into my work life--which is very satisfying, even though
it isn't as cool as being a baseball statistician. I learned that numbers
are about something. Just as every goal is scored by a hockey player, every
number I track in my job is about a person. Just as every statistics sheet I
looked at told the story of a hockey game, so every analysis I do in my job
tells a narrative about the human condition. As in hockey, my work with the
government has been about making it count.

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