Coach Curtl brought his own peculiar Czechoslovakian style to the teams under his guidance, chief among them his overwhelming faith in statistics. Every athlete would be given a mimeographed sheet onto which their times (for track & field), yards (for football) batting average (for baseball) and any other relevant statistics could be entered.

Curtl and his assistant coaches would hover nearby, stopwatch or tape measure in hand, during every practice. Afterwards, he would laboriously calculate derived statistics and normalize them–this in an era of slide rules! Student athletes whose Curtlmetrics (as they called them) showed improvement or at least maintained a consistent level of (Curtl-defined) quality were fine.

Those who slipped got their pick of an escalating series of punishments: extra practices, demotion on the roster, or even cutting. All cuts received a detailed sheet from Curtl explaining their crimes in detail.

When Anderson got his, though, he had an inkling that the numbers weren’t quite right.