Behind the scenes, Bates was the best
As high school football rolls towards its fourth week there is one behind-the-scenes topic worthy of mention.
Mapletown opened its season with consecutive wins before falling to Avella on Friday night but there was something different about the statistics that were emailed in from those games.
The name of Chris Bates is no longer the sender.
Sports reporters know how valuable a very competent, accurate scorekeeper can be, especially nowadays when they usually have to also shoot photos and might miss a play here or there.
No one was better than Bates, who stepped down at the end of the Maples’ glorious 11-1 season a year ago in.
Statisticians are always appreciated but there are a few who like to pad the numbers for their team’s players. Bates, however, was the most honest, accurate scorekeeper I’ve ever dealt with.
Mapletown coach George Messich expressed his gratitude for Bates.
“He was my stat keeper for 35 years and I don’t think you could find anybody who did a better job than Chris Bates,” Messich said. “I never had to call a game in because he was always there.
“And I know a lot of people add yards to their kids’ stats, but not Chris. There were times where I thought my kid had 100 yards and took him out and Chris would come up to me and say, hey, he’s only got 97. There was no rounding up with Chris and I respected him and give him a lot of credit for that. He’s first class.”
Last year Bates declared he was relinquishing his post and mailed out a packet with a bevy of information, including full stats on the 2023 season and individual accomplishments and career game-by-game sums of star Landan Stevenson, year-by-year won-loss records, team and individual records and accomplishments, and career coaching records.
I was amazed as I looked through it all.
Kris Adkins was trained by Bates to be his replacement and he has done an admirable job so far filling such huge shoes.
Sports Editor Rob Burchianti can be reached at rburchianti@heraldstandard.com or on X at @rvburch.