Just the stats, m'am.

[Grand Poobah]

WFTDA leagues all over are starting to get more serious about their stats nowadays. Does your league have a stats geek? Which stats form does your league use?

[Grand Poobah]

So nobody out there keeps stats? Scary.

[Hugh G. Wreckshawn]

Hard knox keeps stats and I know alot of other leagues keep them as well. Some leagues post them on there forums and have Roller Girl Cards (same as baseball cards) with there individual stats on them.

[adam jednorog]

we have always just had volunteers do the stats and such. we did have a really good stat dude (one of our refs brothers and a great freind of mine) and alas his job has took him to charm city....bad for us good for them i guess. but we are really trying to have a stat crew....i joined roller derby stat geeks on yahoo groups for help. how else does one build a stat army ( sorry for using the detroit term..lol)?

[Grand Poobah]

I've found that the word "statistics" can scare people off.

Tell them you're looking for scorekeepers. It sounds less intimidating.

If they seem more visually oriented, make 'em scorekeepers. If they're good listeners (and will watch for hand signals) make them penalty trackers. If they're a warm body and can read and write (and preferrably know the skaters) make them lineup trackers. Lineup trackers don't need to be on the inside. Putting them on the outside of the track where they can read the names and numbers works great.

Priorities: Lineup trackers start while the skaters are lining up. They look in their team's penalty box, record those skaters first (always record a penalty boxed skater as being in the jam, she deserves any stats hit she may have caused by not being on the track). THen they focus on blockers, then the pivot, and finally the jammer. They should be able to get all this down before the whistle blows, but if it takes longer, jammers and pivots tend to be easier to pick out than blockers. Which is why you wrote down the blockers first.

You can optionally do a four count board for the benches. I found that coaches couldn't see the thing and that it was wasted effort. I switched to a hot board which only showed skaters numbers who have three minors. It's really up to what your skaters and management want from you in that regard. Penalty trackers (or even another person) can manage the hotboards. Penalty trackers and scorekeepers work better on the inside, as that's where their refs are.

In a perfect world you've got enough people that you can start tracking blocks. Lineup trackers can double as block trackers, as they shouldn't be doing much after the lineup is set. Doing the lineup also makes them familiar with who's skating on their team, which makes them a good block tracker as well. Block tracking is probably best done from the outside. You can actually see more and get less dizzy from the outside.

Each block tracker could follow a jammer. See who hits her and see who assists her. That means doing both teams though. Some find this easier than tracking offense and defense for a single team. YMMV.