Stats For Spikes-Use of Statistics as Goals

In this era of Moneyball, almost all sports are delving into how to coax wisdom from the numbers that are naturally generated from taking statistics from playing the game. The USA National Team has been active in this discovery process, there are coaches who are integrated into the coaching staff and are specifically dedicated to the creation, calculation, and analysis of meaningful statistics based on basic playing statistics. They indulge in the process of descriptive statistics, which is the act of capturing the details of game action — what happened with each act of playing the ball — through the act of assigning values to each action on the ball. This is particularly important in the fast paced, continuously changing, and competitive environment of international volleyball. The statistics staff continuously keep the coaches appraised of the game action as seen through the filter of statistics to cut through the cloud of human biases and perceptions.

Those of us who reside in the less rarified air of high school and club volleyball are also interested in using the statistics for our purposes. Even though we cannot possibly accrue that level of descriptive statistics  in our matches; because of our lack of resources, both human and technical, we sometimes try to use the statistics that we do have and try to use  inferential statistics to help us make decisions about how we should plan our training as well as measure our team’s progress throughout a season. If we wish to measure improvement, we need to first measure our base level of performance, whether it is for individual players and individual skills or for team performances during match play. Regardless of the parameters of the performance measures, we need to make those performance measures  before and after making any changes so that we can compare.  

What is not a given is the vast difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Inferential statistics is based on assumptions made about the processes under measure, whether they are all under the same conditions, whether the processes are under statistical control, and whether the measurement process is repeatable and reproduceable.

We have seen the same need for measurement and improvement when we observe other sports or any other aspects of human endeavors outside of sports wishing to transform observations into corrective action. Statistical Process Control (SPC), and especially Six Sigma Processes, have become ubiquitous in our vocabulary. Indeed, using statistical measures are the keys to creating consistent manufacturing processes, minimize process errors,  and increasing process throughput. Unfortunately, there are critical differences between the manufacturing environment and the sporting environment. In the manufacturing environment, the variability of the machines is measurably minimal because the machines are inanimate and they are, by and large, controllable. This is not to say that it is easy to control those variables; the controllability problem in manufacturing can be difficult because the threshold of error is small and the required signal to noise ratio is large.

In the sporting environment, human actions and responses can be random to the extreme, which drives the uncertainty in the sporting process; to make matters worse, the uncertainties associated with each individual are coupled so that the impact of one person’s randomness is not just limited to the actions of that person, but affects every other person taking part: every player on both teams, the officials, the coaching staff etc. all contribute to the aggregation of uncertainties in all statistical measures. The coupling effect may be miniscule so that much of the coupling can be ignored, but not all couplings can be easily ignored. This is true of the instantaneous descriptive statistics taken during the matches as well, but the averaging in descriptive statistics is minimal as compared to the accruing of the larger statistics that are used to draw inference. For example, a good server influences not only the passer but also the setter, the hitter; the interaction can have secondary and tertiary effects on how the serving team plays as they react to the actions of the passing team. Each action in volleyball, as with most sports, depends on prior actions.

So why talk about this? Because there are many coaches who ask the following form of question: “I have  a Name a Level and Age team, what statistical threshold should my team be performing at when we are performing Name a Volleyball Action?”  

The intent of the question is clear. The coach is trying to determine a reference level of performance for comparison against what they can measure of their own teams. The question is a loaded one because since sports are dependent upon prior actions; that is, there is no way to separate and isolate a specific game action from all that had led up to it, the statistics taken is conditional upon the prior actions, but the measure that we take are singular dimensioned, the measure never truly reflect the deep coupling of the actions.  

To further compound the amount of uncertainties, many assumptions are assumed and tacitly made. The usual practice in statistics is to take many different sets of the one kind of data and aggregating them into one representative set of data by averaging many datasets together. Averaging, as with all things, has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that many datasets can be used to create a uniform and representative set of data which can give the user a good idea of what the general trend is for specific variables: how well the team is performing and how well each player is performing in each of the measured skills. Rather than diving through massive amounts of data, the aggregate data is used. The assumption is that the aggregation is an accurate representation of your team. Which brings us to the disadvantage of taking averages. When an average is taken, the salient contributing factors are smeared, that is: the highs and lows of all the datasets are nullified in deference to the average. The result is that we have erased the unique contributions and variations of individual opponent as well as the team of interest. In essence, averaging your own team statistics creates a fictional “average” representation of your  team. More subtly, the statistics  generated is presumed to be against yet another fictional  “average” team, that of the opponents. This is problematic because the opposing team’s actions are what elicits the response from your team, so the weaknesses inherent to your players and your team in aggregate is disguised by the average of the opponent, which negates any insight that you may gain regarding your team and what you would need to correct in training. Another issue is that  by using an “average”  representation of your team against the “average”  opponent, you are obscuring the specifics of how your team plays: problem rotations that you may have against a good team or a good player. You are also erasing the problems that you may have in certain situations, like passing in the seams or hitting line. You are averaging out your best player’s statistics along with averaging out your worst player’s statistics, so you are unable to identify the problem area.

Note that all the aforementioned situational information are easily available from the descriptive statistics taken during the game, it is when we try to infer our team’s future performance from comparing our team’s general “average” performance against the performance of our general “average” opponent’s against us that the inferential value of the exercise disappears.

Another, more subtle, logical fallacy has also been made and assumed in addition to the averaging problem.  

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Goodhart’s Law as articulated by Marilyn Strathern, Anthropologist

What does the above statement mean?

It means that we selectively choose meaningful measures to help us in determining the truth in what we experience by observing specific variables that will validate or refute the pictures in our minds. The measurement should be performed unobtrusively in order to not affect the  outcome of what we are trying to observe, but if we tried to take a shortcut in our observations by making reality conform to what we perceive we need to observe, i.e., if we made the team aim at the expected measure as targets, we are then skewing our player’s minds to perform according to the artificial horizons set by the measure/target rather than what we hope to achieve: maximize  performance over all of the variables, and more importantly, winning. A good statistical lesson to remember is that correlation does not equal causation. Just because two sets of data correlate do not mean that the one result follows the other.

Using fictitious volleyball truisms as targets for a team can actually hurt the team’s chances.  I was a firm believer in many truisms: the ace to error ratio must be at least one if you want to succeed; teams passing an average of 2.4 on a 3-point scale will always win; set distributions, in order, must be the most sets to the left side, followed by the middle, the right side, and then finally the backrow to win.

Once again, the problem with the truisms is that correlation does not equal causation. When coaches practice and train while using artificially determined goals as the target, the measure stop being the clue to the secret of team performance, they become the target and the end goal. People will focus on the target and work towards achieving that goal and ignore the fact that the purpose of playing the game is to be the winner when the last ball drops. When players get preoccupied by the artificial horizons set by the coaching staff, they are putting the winning and losing and their overall game performance secondary. All coaches have stories about how their teams did everything perfectly according to the statistics and still lost, and vice versa. Statistics should not be the goal; it should be a way to augment the picture that everyone has of the reality they are experiencing.

A Digression.

The  use of averaging happens in real life and it is ubiquitous; even in the way we assess players in general. The avcaVPI measure was instituted to ostensibly help the college athlete determine whether they can play in college as well as help college coaches find the players to recruit based on physical measures. The idea is to use the avcaVPI score to help give players and coaches an idea about how the players would fit in given college divisions and programs by comparing their physical attributes, as measured in non-competitive environments, compare to those who are already playing in college. When the initial VPI measure came out, I remember that it was simply a single score which is an aggregate of various physical measures done at the testing sites. The initial criticism was that the players were not compared against players playing their positions; to AVCA’s credit, it looks like they have corrected that oversight, although the avcaVPI data doesn’t seem like it is further segregated into NCAA, NJCAA, or NAIA divisions, although I could be wrong. The avcaVPI scores are categorized and ranked according to positions, and the percentile where each player fit in each test category as compared to the players who are already playing in college, which is much more useful than before, but it is still  misleading. What is left unsaid again is that correlation does not equal causation, because if a player’s physical measure falls within  the percentile rank of the existing college players, that does not mean that the player is going to get recruited to play in college.

Talent evaluation is a very tricky and uncertain process, just ask any NFL team about their ability to identify a quality quarterback, and then point out that Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round of 2000 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots, 199th overall, and was the seventh quarterback taken.

The avcaVPI really does very little to clear up the collegiate volleyball recruiting picture for all involved.

 

 

Remembering My Father On the 20th Anniversary of His Passing

February 27, 2021 marks twenty years since my father passed away. Twenty years since that horrible night in the hospice room in Findlay Ohio, where my mother and I, holding each other for dear life, sobbing uncontrollably, telling my father that he can go in peace now, that we would take care of each other in his absence. Twenty years since I had to watch my father gasping for air, and then taking his last breaths on this earth. Twenty years.

We humans are sentimental animals, we feel that we must commemorate anniversaries, marking times is important to keep memories alive, those memories that matter the most to us.

Twenty years. So it is that I am writing this essay. I truly don’t want to open twenty-year-old scars, exposing twenty-year-old wounds. Except that I feel like I must. Not so much for the sake of posterity but for my own memories and pent-up feelings.

So much has happened in those twenty years, and yet so much has remained the same, at least in my mind. I still remember sleeping on the couch of my father’s hospice room, dreading the day that would come inevitably, listening to his labored breathing and talking to my father in his few lucid moments. Except this wasn’t my father, it was the shell of the man that I loved and admired, the aggressive cancer treatment had robbed him of the logic that he so prized in himself, the humor that kept our family together, and the love that bonded me forever to him. 

I remember leaving the hospice after he had passed and getting something to eat with my mother and my parent’s dearest friends in Findlay. Of course, the dinner conversation was forced, and the mood subdued. I remember going to my father’s little office in my parent’s condo and sitting up all night, typing on his desktop, trying to come up with the words for his eulogy. I remember trying to describe the many things he had done, the many adventures that he had in China, in Taiwan, in Vietnam, in Honduras, in Bangladesh, in Colorado, in Boston, and in Findlay. I don’t think I did much exaggerating about his many escapades while working in war zones;  I am pretty sure that I wrote that piece of writing with pride. The actual text is lost to the world, as I am unable to find it. It was not my finest piece of writing to be sure, but it was my most heartfelt piece. It was also the hardest thing I had to write. Ever.

I remember going through the days in a daze as we awaited the funeral service. I remember my mother insisting on an open casket at the viewing, which upset me greatly, and then I remember her telling me to make sure I took lots of pictures: that was the last thing I wanted. I remember standing at the viewing and the funeral, numb, emotionally spent, and physically ill. I had gone out and bought a CD of Satie’s Gymnopedies to be played at the funeral, I still have that CD, twenty years later. I remember seeing my friends Wendy and Warren walk in the door, they had driven to Findlay from their home in Chicago, just to be there for my mom and I. I pretty much lost it right there.

I remember reading my quickly written eulogy, hoping that I had put all of my feelings into the piece of writing, trying very hard not to lose my composure emotionally. I think I did break down a couple of times; but mostly, I was numb.

We went to a local restaurant afterwards as people who were at the funeral came to pay their respects. I remember seeing my father’s business partners and customers coming from through out Ohio, Kentucky, and other parts of the country. I remember talking to them and the awkwardness of them needing to say something and not knowing what to say. I remember thinking that I should probably tell them that there was no need, but was afraid that I would hurt their feelings, because they made time to be there for us. I remember my father’s barber coming up afterwards and telling me that he never knew dad did all those things that I talked about. So at least one mission accomplished. I also wanted to tell them all the things that he was to me, all the sacrifices that he had made for me and for my mother, I wanted to share with them all the wisdom that he had imparted to me, and all the lessons he had taught me. There were too many to mention; but I didn’t have the time, nor did they.

In the days, weeks, and months that ensued, mom managed to sell off much of the things that they had accrued, we sold the condo in Findlay, bought the condo in St. Louis; for that was the deal, the one who lives will move to be with me. She had gotten a taste of living in my little house in St. Louis after the funeral, it was a Chinese ritual that she had to be away from the house for seven weeks, forty-nine days. She ended up spending a lot of time with Heidi, my friend Santiago’s wife, she was living in my house as she was in law school and Santiago had moved to Mississippi as a volleyball coach at Southern Miss. The two women teamed up against me, they shake their heads dramatically at my bachelor’s lifestyle and commiserate. Good times.

One thing I had not made it abundantly clear is the close relationship I had with my father. I came late in his life, he had always wanted a child, but my mother went through numerous miscarriages before I came along; it wasn’t an easy pregnancy, she had to be bedridden for most of the nine months in order to not trigger another miscarriage. My father was overjoyed when I was born, he was going to dote and spoil me, and yet he knew that he did not want to spoil me so much so that I become the stereotypical only child: anti-social, arrogant, self-absorbed, and temperamental. My father became my best friend as I grew up. To lessen the sting of leaving friends and re-establishing friendships after our never-ending moves  from place to place, my father consciously ignored our formal Chinese cultural relationship between father and son and deliberately became my friend. As I came of age in Colorado, my weekend nights were spent, by and large, in the basement of our ranch house on Steele street conversing with my father. This was where the foundation of who I am was laid and set, brick by brick. The internal moral coding that is intrinsic to my nature came from those conversations from long ago. This is why experiencing my father ebbing away from the cancer and taking his last breath was so painful, so devastating, so emotionally destructive.

In the intervening twenty years, I had accrued a list of  observations regarding the process of  losing a parent. I share those lessons with my friends who are undergoing the same tragic experience so that I can give them the benefit of my painfully learned observations and to maybe help them realize these lessons without having to go through the tempering of time. One of the things that became obvious to me was that I was in depression for a good number of months, if not years, after his passing. I may not be able to diagnose depression, but I know how I felt, I also know that one day I woke up from my fog and realized that no matter how much I mourn the loss of my best friend, life marches forward. While in my fog, I processed life as it came at me in a catatonic state, I was able to maintain life but not able to drink in life or thrive in my life because of my deep-seated sadness. No one was able to discern my disconnection with the real world, I was good at faking connectedness. To this day, there is a sadness in my mind all the time. It doesn’t rule my life as much as it used to, but it will always be there.

Everything reminded me of my father, I could not bring myself to erase the last voicemail message he left me, I broke down crying for no reasons, and I collected notes, photos, and letters my father sent me. I had a hard time parting with his things. I kept a lot of his library, his pens, his shortwave radio, his technical reports to customers, and I worked very hard to recall things that he had said to me. Over time, I realized that his wisdom had stayed with me, I had internalized it and it is a part of my System 1 reaction, I had proceduralized his wisdom. I am no longer seeking to recover my memories of my Father and his wisdom, because I knew that those memories are hard wired in me. I am able to deal with that part of what I cannot control.

Even though I have come to a resolution with what I cannot control, there is a part of me that goes into deep mourning whenever February 27, my father’s birthday, and Father’s Day comes along. The same gut ripping sadness overwhelms me one each of those days. I relive the scene in that hospice room once again, and I experience the hole in my psyche once again. The twentieth anniversary of my father’s passing is significant only in that it marks another excruciating day in my life, even as I have become older. I will not descend into the depression hell that I once experienced, I would not say that I have become accustomed to the negative emotions, I would say that I have learned to respond to it in a different way and I have matured.