I'm not planning on turning this blog into a reminiscence of my high school experience (how depressing would that be), but yesterday I did think of another moment from those formative years that I wanted to share.

During my junior and senior years, I kept statistics for a number of my school's sports teams: volleyball, football, JV basketball, men's and women's varsity basketball, and softball.

My only sports team experience had been in 7th grade when I joined the junior high basketball team. No one got cut from the team, but two players had to wear jerseys from the 1970s because there weren't enough team jerseys to go around. I was one of the two who got an ugly jersey, which simply meant that I would have been cut if any cutting had been done. I did get to play in one game, though. I think we were up by 30 points and there was a minute left to play, so the dear coach figured I couldn't screw things up too much. I found myself on the court, and somehow I found myself with the ball. I got fouled, and although I hadn't been shooting we were in bonus so I got to make a foul shot anyway. Only I didn't know this, and as I walked down the court to where everyone was positioning themselves, I wondered where I would stand. Suddenly the ref handed me the ball and I realized that this was my moment to shine, to prove myself to the mean coach who never let me play before. I missed the shot, of course, but did hit the rim. That is an accomplishment because in practice I had never even gotten that close before.

That whole discourse was meant solely to prove that my athletic prowess did not bode well for a future in athletics, not as an athlete anyway. Not to brag, but I was a superb statistician. You probably think that because I was a statistician, I had no real influence on the performance of my team, but you are wrong. Case in point: a women's basketball game against our biggest rival on their home turf.

On this evening, the girl keeping stats for the other team had been fairly nice, although she didn't seem to have it together. The game was going along (we were getting creamed) when a player from the opposing team checked into the game. I looked into my score book at the roster provided by the not-together girl and realized this player's name wasn't there. I brought it to the attention of the girl and she shrugged it off and said to just write it in.

This, my friend, is a cardinal sin. It had technical foul written all over it. So I motioned the referees over and told them that a player had entered the game who was not on the official roster. The foul was called, and a designated player from our team got to attempt three foul shots.

That was my shining moment. My teachers and friends applauded me for my role in the game. The opposing team's coach yelled at the statistician for her ignorance. I realized that I could make a difference.

So maybe this was a cheesy story, but it still brings back fond memories. I was a very well-respected statistician. I even got a varsity letter for it. Which is more than I can say for some of the people who were actually on the teams.