Menlo is known for its rigorous academic expectations, but it also is filled with an athletic spirit both in and beyond the field. While over four-fifths of the student body competes on its highly competitive sports teams each year, most of the remaining students obtain their physical education credits through exercises like off-season lifting, yoga and dance. There lies a lesser-known path, however: becoming a team statistician, manager or both. This alternative not only checks off students’ P.E. credits but also allows them to immerse themselves in the unity, camaraderie and passion that a sports team fosters.
Junior Melanie Goldberg immensely enjoyed her time spent playing for the freshman volleyball team, but wasn’t sure if the highly competitive and time-consuming experience of moving onto the JV team the next year interested her. However, she loves the sport and being on a team, which led her to reach out to volleyball coach Quinn Holland to see if there was another way for her to get involved. In response, Holland told Goldberg that the team needed a person to do stats, organize the equipment for practices and assist with refereeing. “I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll do that,’ because I really just wanted to be on the team,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg was inspired by her older brother, Nate Goldberg (‘23), who helped manage varsity boys basketball’s statistics with Jake Lieberman (‘23) during their senior year. She said that her brother got enjoyment from participating on the team in a meaningful way that he was skilled at. It wasn’t until after the season had ended that she realized she could earn P.E. credits from the experience; she said she took on the position simply because she wanted to experience the camaraderie of the team while still having time for her other extracurricular activities.
Though junior Aaron Lowe enjoyed playing basketball for many years, he never got involved in the sport at Menlo — that is, until he heard that they were looking for a team statistician and manager and decided to reach out. Though he was unsure if he would get the position, he figured he might as well reach out. “I have the skillset where I know how to program and I know a little bit about data science [and] data analytics, so I figured, ‘Hey, why not?’” Lowe said.
Lowe learned to manage the statistics using MaxStats, an online stats program meant specifically for basketball. However, Lowe found the app to be difficult and slow to use. “I also found that, [when] looking down at an iPad and taking your eyes off the game, you can miss a lot of stuff,” Lowe said. Because it requires little effort to type without looking down at your hands, Lowe decided to create his own text-input-based stats program after the third game of the 2023-2024 season.
The program, which is yet to be named, has made managing the surplus of data from each game easy for both Lowe and senior Edward Xu, who also helps manage the team and collect statistics. Lowe said that though he enjoys the convenience of receiving P.E. credits for his statistician work, he would fill the position regardless. He intends to continue helping boys basketball during his senior year, and also assist with the collection of statistics for boys and girls lacrosse.
Xu assisted with managing boys basketball and gathering data in his sophomore and junior years, and though he still helped for the 2023-2024 season, he took a step back to allow Lowe to take on more of the responsibility. In his sophomore year, JV basketball needed someone to do their scorebook and reached out to Xu, who was friends with a few of the players. Though he has never played basketball personally, he has an appreciation for sports and exercise and decided to accept the position. “I just thought it would be interesting [to do the scorebook and manage the team], and I found it’s quite fun,” Xu said.
He also said that he enjoys the convenience of earning P.E. credits in exchange for his work. “It was quite nice,” he said. “I didn’t have to do yoga.”
