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About Sports By The Numbers
From L to R: David Horne, Marc Maxwell, Joe Rodgers Ph.D. (Statistics professor), and Daniel Brush
Sports by the Numbers was founded in July of 2006.
Our original idea for Sports by the Numbers literally came to us after sitting through an intense afternoon session of a statistical analysis course at the University of Oklahoma. Our professor, Dr. Joe Rodgers, sought to relieve some of the stress inherent among Ph.D. students when discussing such things as part and partial correlation, model comparisons, and non-orthogonal designs, by using to good affect his sense of humor and an almost insane, obsessive amount of knowledge regarding the term pi.
It turns out—among the many other things he taught us—that every number in existence can be found embedded within pi, if you only have the patience to dig far enough to find them.
We are decent students and exceptionally good friends, but above all else, we are die-hard sports fans. So that night, as we sat in front of the large screen TV at Rudy's "Country Store" and Bar-B-Q in Norman, Oklahoma, watching the Atlanta Braves take on the St. Louis Cardinals, it occurred to us that every number in that game could also be found embedded within pi, in the exact sequence in which the numbers occurred—and that realization led us to an obsession of our own, that is, using numbers to tell the stories that make us love sports.
Sports books that talk about statistics are published all the time—we know, because we own most of them—but our idea was much more than what has previously been on the market, and our idea was for much more than just one book.
Our books all contain one thousand numbers—and every one of them tells a story. The format is unique, intriguing, and compelling, because as sports fans we all love the numbers, and in our books the numbers celebrate records, lore, trivia, personalities, anomalies, championships won, championships lost, the good and the bad, and all that is great about sports.
Each book is composed of ten chapters that are made up of one hundred stats in numerical order—and each chapter begins with an introduction that highlights the many exciting stories contained in that chapter.
In August of 2007 we kicked off our first book, University of Oklahoma Football: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports, with a series of signings throughout Oklahoma, beginning with one at Meet the Sooners Day on the OU Campus.
Coach Bob Stoops, who wrote the foreword to our book, and coaching legend Barry Switzer, were both generous with their time and praise for our OU book, and we have found that same support from readers and sports personalities everywhere we go.
Our goal is to write a book for every team, collegiate or professional, in every market across the country—and with our spring release of three new books, ten more books scheduled for this fall, and the addition of several prominent sports writers who have joined our team of authors, we are well on our way.
Thank you for taking the time to find out more about us and our books—and check back often, because our website will soon include a forum where our readers can sign in and talk about their favorite numbers, players, teams, and memories.
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