In the 31⁄2 years of college I attended – plus the five hours one morning when I tested out of 12 hours of mandatory courses – I attended not a single class in mathematics. One of the advantages of majoring in Journalism and Communications at Point Park University decades ago was the absence of a math requirement. There was a semester in Probability and Statistics in high school, though I couldn’t probably tell you much of what I learned.
I didn’t need any of that, anyway, to know a dumb stat when I see one. And there’s none more vacant than the Olympic medal count. LIVE OLYMPICS MEDAL COUNT: Overall table | Who is winning the Olympics? | Who's won the most gold? It was ubiquitous during the Paris Games, as it always is: on NBC during breaks in competition, even on the nighttime local news.
It even came up on my computer screen every morning when I logged on to start work. And it’s still the stupidest statistic in all of sports. You think rebounding margin doesn’t matter anymore? Or the RBI? There has been a revolution in the way mathematics are used to evaluate performers in nearly every sport.
So why are we still hearing about the medal count that treats a single medal presented to one person for two gymnastics routines the same as 18 medals presented to soccer players who endure a schedule of six games in 16 days? MORE: USWNT was never as ahead, or behind, the rest of the world as we thought We started using calculators when I was in high school nearly a ha.