22-04-2025
Moneyball comes to IHSAA track and field: Inside these students' sports analytics project
Park Tudor students are analyzing IHSAA track and field data in a computer science class.
The students and teacher Ryan Ritz are figuring out to make IHSAA track and field the best it can be.
They post findings to @trackinsights on Instagram.
INDIANAPOLIS — Park Tudor track and field coach Ryan Ritz wanted fair varsity standards for years.
He and his fellow coaches typically developed the times and marks themselves, but it was imperfect — always easier to letter in some events than others.
A 2023 Indiana High School Athletic Association mandate changed how Ritz, also a computer science teacher at Park Tudor, approached varsity standards. The IHSAA asked coaches to make all meet results available on the platform DirectAthletics. Ritz's son Cason, then a junior, started exploring the data, trying to figure out how his 4x800 relay time stacked up to others across Indiana.
"That got me thinking, 'It would also be interesting if we could utilize this software to help generate varsity standards for our track and field program,'" Ritz said. "What we were able to do with this program was figure out what the 50th percentile was for each event across all the sectionals, and then utilize that number as our varsity standards."
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Ritz's analysis of the data involved many of the same skills he was teaching his data science students. He started using the IHSAA data in that class last year, noticing students were engaged because of the real-life applications.
He took it a step further in his computer science seminar class this school year, centering the course around it — finding the data, cleaning it, sorting it and using it for analysis. His seven students post findings to an Instagram account called Track Insights, followed by many in the IHSAA track and field community.
Their work has become a chance to examine long-debated questions. What happens if the state meet's scoring is changed? Are small schools at a disadvantage? What could improve IHSAA track and field?
Recent Instagram posts have highlighted whether there's a correlation between a school's size and state meet team placement, the top candidates to win the 2025 IHSAA track and field championship and what sprinters were fastest among all sectionals last season.
It was an arduous, semester-long process just to get to this point. The raw data was on the internet but unorganized. The students needed it collected in a way where athletes were connected to their school, times and specific meets.
Several challenges arose. Senior Emily Wang said they discovered an athlete with the last name Null, which in the programming language SQL means something doesn't exist and drops it from the database. When students searched his name, it would return nothing because it was as though they put in a zero. They put the athlete's names in quotations as a fix, she said.
Students also had to figure out how to organize names of athletes with two last names and those connected by a hyphen, junior Justin Li said.
"I thought that was really cool," Li said. "This isn't synthetic. This is a very natural way to learn about data science."
The group worked into winter break to make sure the data was usable by the spring. It's been full speed ahead since.
Among the first analysis they conducted: examining the percentage of relays per class that qualified for state. Track and field is a one-class sport, so they used football classes (A-6A) to determine schools' classes.
They found no A or 2A schools qualified relays to state in girls track and field over the past two seasons. The percentage of large school relays went up dramatically from sectionals to regionals to state, Ritz said.
"Everyone would understand those numbers in terms of why that's the case," Ritz said. "But, when you see it graphed out, it's more apparent — the disparity between a 1A and 6A school."
The group is in the early stages of what Ritz envisions as a years-long project. But they've already found one outlier when it comes to small schools' challenges qualifying relays to the state meet: Bishop Chatard. The 3A school sent 10 relays to state from 2023-24 — the second-most of any school in the state.
Chatard coach Sean McGinley has stayed in touch with Ritz about the project. He's felt having a good team at the state level requires 20-25 talented athletes. What Ritz's class has found backs that theory, McGinley said.
"But you, as a smaller school, can still find ways to be successful," McGinley said. "To have 20-25 kids is a lot, but maybe find different relays or events each year that we feel can have a lot of success at the state level."
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McGinley is among several Indiana track and field coaches engaging with the project. The Instagram account features an email where followers can send requests. Followers have asked them to find the fastest sectionals and analyze pole vaulting.
Ritz also took several students to an Indiana Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches conference in February, where they connected with coaches and others in the track community. They heard comments about how frustrating it was to be a small school stuck in a competitive regional. Others told them how cool their work was. Several approached them saying, "Some of the data that you guys are showing says stuff that we've talked about or debated for years. Now we have the actual numbers and data to prove our side."
"What really surprised me is how many track coaches, particularly small school track coaches, resonated with this data and how many of them were actually interested," Li said. "It surprised me in the moment, but it makes sense now because track is all about numbers."
Another request from coaches: understanding the impact of the state meet's scoring. Track and field only counts the top nine finishers toward state meet scoring — different from a sport like swimming and diving, where 16 athletes from the final and consolation final count toward a team's score. This method drives up the score for schools with a handful of standout athletes versus programs with many well-rounded athletes.
Students examined what would happen if they awarded points for places 1-20 at the state meet (only for events without preliminary heats) and doubled the relay points.
It wouldn't have changed the leaderboard of the 2024 IHSAA track and field championship too much. Fishers, Hamilton Southeastern and Bloomington North would have remained the top boys teams. Warren Central still would've won the girls title. But the Brownsburg girls would've shot to second under the different scoring, up from fifth.
Coaches who spoke to IndyStar aren't interested in a multi-class system. Neither is the IHSAA, track and field commissioner Jane Schott said. But she said she wouldn't have predicted what Park Tudor has found in terms of large schools' relay dominance.
Questions of fairness — from how sectionals and regionals are organized to changes to scoring — are central to Park Tudor's research. But Ritz also acknowledged fair is a "moving target," particularly with sectionals as they trend up and down over the years.
"We compared the sectionals to see how they stack up against one another," Ritz said. "What you see, which is not too surprising, is some sectionals are going to be more dominant than others. It might be by event group. ... It's never perfect. It's never going to be perfect. But coaches would feel, if you're in a tough sectional, you're at a disadvantage."
The data has changed how track and field coaches view the state of the sport in Indiana. It's also resonated with Ritz's students, some of whom run track and field. Pretty much all want to go into computer or data science programs. Several mentioned how interesting it's been to see their work have real world applications.
Li runs track and noticed he's viewed meets through a more analytical viewpoint. At the Hoosier State Relays, informally known as indoor state, he watched Bishop Chatard excel in the small school division and run times that would've secured top finishes in the large school division. Li thought about Chatard as an anomaly among schools, then reflected on how small and large school divisions would work in outdoor track.
Several questions have come up in class that initially didn't have answers, like "How does one map all of the high schools in Indiana?" Ritz and the class weren't sure. But student Aashiv Jain explored the topic, conducted independent research and created a map — an awesome accomplishment, Ritz said.
The goal is to make IHSAA track and field the best it can be, Ritz said. There will be more certainty about how to do that as the project continues. One idea they have in mind now: automating the process of qualifying from sectionals to regionals, then regionals to state. Currently, it takes days to figure out which athletes have advanced because the process is done by hand and involves figuring out at-large bids alongside automatic qualifiers. Student Owen Warner is working on automating that in Ritz's class.
The IHSAA has several of its own data analysis systems, Schott said, but always looks for input from member schools. She doesn't have any specific needs in mind now, but said the IHSAA will keep its options open.
There are more conclusions to be drawn, more data to be studied. It's all a learning process, one marked by curiosity and enthusiasm.
"Whenever you see that, you know as a teacher you've inspired students and that's what this is all about: inspiring them in the work that they're doing and being able to broaden their horizons," Ritz said.
