My Stat Man Experience

I wrote this recently for a scholarship exam and really liked how it turned out.

Achieving academic success in high school can very difficult, but what is more difficult is

achieving success in the classroom as well as outside of the classroom. Balancing grades, schoolwork,

extracurricular activities and leadership opportunities can very hard for a student and I feel that I’ve

been able to participate in lots of extracurricular activities while still maintaining exceptional grades.

Basketball has been very important to me for quite a long time. Although I find myself lacking in

the talent department necessary to succeed and compete in high school basketball, I still love playing

the game and looked for anyway to get involved. When an opportunity to be the manger and statistician

for my high school’s boys basketball team came up, I jumped all over it. I was excited to just be a part of

the team to be able to go to all of the games.

I soon realized that missing school and forfeiting time to do homework would not be an easy

thing. I pride myself on my ability to be able to continue to do well in school while be actively engaged in

many extracurricular activated so I just worked harder. Somehow, I have always found a way to make

time for both because I love the game so much and I didn’t want to have to give that up. I did homework

on the bus and made good use of my time whenever possible so I could continue going to the games

and helping the team.

I completed a full season of doing stats for the team my sophomore year and when basketball

rolled around my junior year I once again decided to get involved and be the statistician. The start of

that year an excellent opportunity for me came up, since I went to every game and had a good

perspective on the basketball team the local newspaper, ETV10, offered me a freelancing job to write

articles about the games for their website. It was very exciting and I wrote articles for them throughout

the year while getting a few decent paychecks along the way.

This year I’m once again the statistician for the basketball team and I enjoy it more and more

every year. I continue to write for ETV10 and have also been published for Deseret News. I’ve learned

many things from my time as the “stat man”, how to get along with the players, how to deal with being

criticized by parents above all how to juggle my school work and my extracurricular involvement. I think

that it is good to get away from straight school work in high school and pursue something I enjoy and I

find that sometimes that does help me with my grades by motivating me to push myself harder to new

heights that will enable me to realize my full potential. I’m grateful for my time as Emery’s statistician

become of the experiences and the lessons I’ve learned.

JV: Emery vs Enterprise

Emery High’s basketball season kicked off Tuesday at home against the visiting Enterprise Wolves. Since the Wolves didn’t bring a sophomore team it was the junior varsity that was up first. Emery’s junior varsity came out to start the season just like their sophomore team had ended the previous one, forcing turnovers and running the floor. Tyson Roper led the team in steals with 4 and pushed the break throughout the game. Emery won 72-40.The starters didn’t need to stay long on the court, amassing a big lead at the end of the 1^st quarter and an even bigger one at halftime. This gave younger players some court time, Bryce Dugmore finished with 6 points, 2 assists and three steals and Brinler Tanner put up 4 points while getting two rebounds and a block. Tai Justice finished with an impressive stat line of 12 points, 2 assists, 3 steals, and 4 rebounds to round out a very complete game. Tyson Roper also had a big night with 16 points and 7 rebounds while Emery’s bigs, Beau Roundy and Kevin Butler, held down the middle with 11 points and 1 block each. The scariest moment of the night came when Ridge Nielson went down with what appeared to be an ankle injury in the second quarter. Ridge said that “it’s getting better! I should be good to go on Monday.” That news will come as relief Emery basketball fans as well as the team. It was a good, confidence building win for the JV team in this one as they look to remain as dominant as they were in this game throughout the season.