On Monday, January 27, Athens Academy senior Clara McLanahan successfully defendedher Athens Academy Capstone project, “Ready, Set, Go: Exploring the Importance of Sports Analytics.” Clara originally set out to study the mental health of athletes following the COVID-19 pandemic; however, during a visit to Samford University during her junior year, she met with a professor in the sports management program. “During that conversation, I realized that my passion is actually on the analytical side of sports…I have always been interested in Georgia football and following their scores on sports apps like CBS Sports and ESPN.”

With this new focus in mind, Clara—who had been a water girl for the Athens Academy football team since fifth grade—asked Coach Robert Hill to be her mentor. As an avid Spartan fan, she was familiar with MaxPreps, but she began experimenting with iTouchdown and Hudl. She also wrote her junior research paper on Sabermetrics: “a fancy word for sports analytics in baseball.”

Clara met and talked with a lot of experts along the way. She interviewed John Painter, the assistant athletic director for communications at Maryville College, as well as Darin White, the executive director for Samford University’s Center for Sports Analytics. She shadowed the students in the Sports Information program at UGA, where she got to see behind the scenes of the score-keeping process for football and volleyball games.

For the contribution piece of her project, Clara kept the stats for several different sports at Athens Academy. Her data was used to inform viewers watching the webcasts at home, and they were even more helpful to the coaches, who used the stats to evaluate their players’ performance and to shape their future training and play. She also feels her data collection and analysis can be used to help individual players see their overall impact on the team in a way that traditional scorekeeping can’t indicate.

For the girls’ basketball team, Clara tracks efficiency points for Coach Brian Olson. Efficiency points award positive and negative points for certain actions or plays. “The reason Coach Olson wanted me to do this is because a player could not be the highest scorer, but they could have the highest amount of efficiency points,” she says. “Another reason why these are helpful is that so many players who are not necessarily the top shooters can know that they had an impact in the game.”

Through the Capstone process, Clara feels she developed several soft skills including a closer attention to detail, which improved her overall focus in her daily life, including in the classroom. She learned the importance of taking initiative and following up with people.

Congratulations to Clara on all her hard work and for her dedication to the world of sports analytics in support of players and coaches!The Capstone Project is an opportunity for Upper School students to explore a passion via four criteria: research, mentorship, experiential learning, and an outward contribution. Each student submits a research paper detailing an aspect of the project, and they defend the project before a committee of faculty and administrators, similar to a Ph.D. oral defense. Students whose projects are approved by the committee receive the Capstone designation at commencement in May.

Athens Academy is an independent, co-educational school for students in K3 through 12th grade, located on a beautiful 152-acre campus in Northeast Georgia. Now in its 57th year, Athens Academy pursues its mission of “excellence with honor” through academics, athletics, fine arts, and service and leadership. Ranked the #1 private school in Athens, #6 private school in the state of Georgia (out of 400+ schools), and #1 private school in North Georgia (Niche.com).

For more information, please contact Kelley Cuneo, communications director, at [email protected] or 706-433-2410.