Photo by Thia Penta

Eamon Daly (formerly known as Scorey Feldman) has been involved with the Windy City Rollers since the days at the Congress Theatre and has been instrumental in the league's growth. Learn what those stats overviews on your favorite team and players' pages mean!

Loco Chanel: You've been involved with the Windy City Rollers since the early days. How did you become involved with the league in the first place?

Eamon Daly: I attended the Rollers' very first bout in 2005 and was completely blown away by the speed, athleticism, and brute force of the whole thing. When Mob Hit Molly and The Chicago Ace put out a request for volunteers, I jumped at the opportunity to be part of the organization.

Through the course of our 6 seasons of play, you've been involved in a lot of projects in the league beyond tallying our points and penalties. What other projects have you worked on? What are you involved with now?

It's been a long, strange trip, that's for sure! In the early days, just the idea of formally recording stats was brand new, so for the first few bouts I just sat in a dark corner of the stage with a legal pad, recording things that I thought might be interesting. Slowly but surely I hammered on those notes and figures to create a reliable set of forms, eventually becoming our Head Statistician. It was a short hop from there to Head of Officiating (formerly "Rules & Regs"), where I helped referees and statspeople work together in perfect harmony; and this season, I was named to the Executive Board to help ensure the league stays true to its mission. From laying the track to shuffling papers to managing staff to balancing budgets, I've been incredibly fortunate to have seen it all.

Except for the bathroom in our practice space. I'm pretty sure I could've gone my whole life without seeing that bathroom.

Our newly revamped website has lots of statistics on the team and player pages. However, even as a skater who 1) keeps her fingers on the pulse of WFTDA Rules and 2) is pretty mathy, I don't understand most of the statistics that are presented (beyond how many minutes I spent in the box). Can you please explain what our statisticians are tracking, what the acronyms mean, and what the percentages show?

It's beautiful, isn't it? New this year is the WFTDA StatsBook, the first real attempt to standardize the way leagues record and display bout data. The stats on our website are just a small window into the many crazy bits of information we're teasing out of those numbers: we're basically recording every hard-earned point, every bone-jarring block, every nasty fall. It's a challenge, but we've got an amazing crew of volunteers who've been knocking it out of the park.

I won't go into every bit of data, but you can get a pretty good overview by keeping an eye on these key columns:

• J, P, and B (Jammer/Pivot/Blocker) tell you what position the skater played
• LJ and LJ% (Lead Jammer/Lead Jammer Percent) tell you how often the skater obtained Lead Jammer status
• Min and Maj (Minors/Majors) tell you how many penalties a skater picked up
• Off and Def tell you how many times the skater did something that helped her Jammer (Offense) or hurt the opposing Jammer (Defense)

Jammer enthusiasts might also geek out over the number of grand slams (GS) or total points (Pts), but I'm a strong believer that the only stat that really matters is the one in the "win" column. The irony of that is not lost on me.

Talk Derby with your Friends!

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