Ames, Nine Points Allowed, and Sofia Gets a Letter Too
Cleveland State48
Iowa State9
- Game
- 2036 Week 4
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 4-0
Vikings 48, Iowa State 9, in Ames. Four and oh.
Thirty-nine points of daylight in the cornfields. Seven wins in seven tries against the Cyclones. The defense held them to nine, and I’m told by people who count these things that our linebacker, Vonn Ladd, a fifth-year senior, is chasing quarterbacks the way Five chases my socks: constantly, joyfully, with no regard for anyone’s feelings.
News from next door. Leo’s in Pennsylvania, playing college football and studying engineering and calling home every Sunday. And now Sofia, sixteen, a junior, got a letter of her own. Not for football. From a university in Ohio with a sports analytics program. They’d seen her charts. Her coach had sent them. The letter said they’d like her to “consider joining a research project for high school students next summer.”
Sofia read it on the porch, out loud, to Five, who was asleep. Then she read it to me. Then she said, “Coach Mickey, I’m going to be the one who keeps the numbers for real.” I said, “Sofia, you already are.” She said, “No. For real real. With a computer bigger than Mr. Ken’s.”
Folks, a sixteen-year-old is going to replace Kenny. I’ve always said she would.
Four pierogi. One on the plate.
A thirty-nine-point road win at Iowa State. Four and oh.
Sofia Reyes has been invited to a university sports analytics program. I’ve been asked to comment, as the person whose job she is apparently going to take. My comment: good. Take it. I’ve been keeping numbers on this team for thirteen years and the most useful stat I’ve ever recorded is one she invented at fourteen, “invisible coverage.” I’ve been using it for two years with her name on it. I’d like it noted that the Sofia Stat has appeared in this column more often than any of mine.
I sent her a note. I said, “When you’re running the analytics department somewhere, remember that the numbers are about people.” She wrote back: “Mr. Ken, I learned that from you.” I don’t think that’s true. I think she learned it from watching Mickey watch. But I’ll take it. I’m taking a lot of things this year.
The vacation is in three weeks. Teresa has bought me a hat. It’s a sun hat. It’s very wide. I put it on and looked in the mirror and saw a man I didn’t recognize. Teresa said, “That’s the point, Kenny.”
Back and forth
She’s going to replace you.
Good. I’ll help her move into my office.
A sun hat?
Very wide. I look like a retired botanist. Teresa says I look “relaxed.” I’ve never been called relaxed. I’m unsettled by it.
Seven for seven against the Cyclones, a sixteen-year-old’s charts earning her a letter of her own, and a doubter in a wide sun hat who doesn’t recognize himself and is told that’s the point.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.