Veridiction: John Tamanaha

Sometimes deciding whether a pontificator was right or wrong when making a prediction is not cut-and-dried. The post-mortems for a veridiction (my name for the process of verifying predictions) can be tricky when dealing with politics (an example here for example) or finance (another example say), but when it comes to sports, it is easy-peasy.

The formula is simple as the Predictor makes the pronouncement that Team will win or lose. The game is then played, the score is tallied up, and the result is known. That result is then matched up against the Predictor’s guess. It’s quite binary. It’s either yes-or-no. It’s effortless to see if the Predictor was wrong or right.

The 2012-2013 NCAA football season opened up last week and that means any sports columnist worth their sweat-stained salt took their SWAG as to who would win on the gridiron.

For this post, I picked one columnist in particular, John Tamanaha of NBC Sports, where he made his predictions for Week One. Tamanaha not only attempted to select the winning team, but he also predicted the final score. For my purpose, I will only look if he picked the correct team.

How did he do? Let’s go to the tape.

Prediction: Alabama beats Michigan 26-19
Result: Alabama wins 41-14

Prediction: Michigan State defeats Boise State 31-20
Result: Michigan State wins 17-13

Prediction: Clemson over Auburn 27-19
Result: Clemson wins 26-19 (ooooh, only off by 1 point)

Prediction: Virginia Tech beats Georgia Tech 27-17
Result: Virginia Tech wins 20-17

Prediction: South Carolina defeats Vanderbilt 24-23
Result: South Carolina wins 17-13

Prediction: Notre Dame over Navy 28-16
Result: Notre Dame wins 50-10

Prediction: Washington State upsets BYU 31-30
Result: BYU wins 30-6

Out of 7 games, Tamanaha correctly predicted 6. His only “loss” came on what he billed as his upset game as BYU was heavily favored to win that contest.

Congrats to you, Mr. Tamanaha. If I knew you had a favorite fight song, I would play it right about now.

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Could, May, Perhaps and other lazy words

A year ago today, the headline from the sports section of the September 30, 2009, edition of The Washington Post read:

Friedgen’s Future At Maryland Is Unclear
Could Franklin Take Helm Sooner Than Expected

The point of the story was to suggest that after a 1-3 start to the season, Ralph Friedgen, the head coach of the University of Maryland football team, would be shown the door in favor of James Franklin.

Of course, if you happened to click the link I placed in Friedgen’s name above, you will see that Friedgen continues to helm the Terrapins on the gridiron despite ending the 2009 season with an overall record of 2-10 and 1-7 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Out of the gate this year, the University of Maryland is 3-1.

This posting is not so much to harp on the fact that the Post writers went with a storyline that wound up being wrong. If that was the case, I would have filed this blog entry under my category of “Veridiction“, the act of verifying predictions.

No, I am writing because this story highlights an aspect of journalism I find unsettling. I read the Post (and yes, I still read the ink-and-paper version of the newspaper) and listen to the radio to find out what is news. By “news”, I mean those events in the world that are new. I want to know what is happening outside of the shell that I inhabit.

Please don’t tell me what could happen, what may happen, or what perhaps will happen if only A, B, X, Y and/or Z occur. If I want conjecture or opinion, I will go to the op-ed page or consult a Ouija board. By no means am I saying that a good SWAG doesn’t deserve its fair share of ink or airtime, but I am saying don’t make it a lead or a headline.

Stories that lead with a Could, May, or Perhaps are simply spin or trial balloons masquerading as news. Respectable (and hard-working) journalists shouldn’t have to spend their time (and mine) reporting on things that could, may, or perhaps happen when there is plenty enough in the world that is actually happening.

Next time you come across a story with a Could, May, or Perhaps, simply append to the conjecture some variation of the phrase “…result in hamsters gaining self-awareness…” and you’ll find the story makes just as much sense.

Here…let’s try with the first line taken from this random story from the BBC News online site that I found by simply entering the word “could” in its search box.

The first line now reads “Up to 70% of child psychologists and behavioural specialists in Somerset could lose their jobs and hamsters could gain self-awareness as part of cuts being proposed by the county council..“.

Which is odd, because it is precisely the lack of funding that would prevent hamsters from getting smarter as noted here.

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