Ned Stechschulte has now attended 418 straight games at Columbus Grove, including 375 as the team’s statistician.
Chris Howell | The Lima News
COLUMBUS GROVE — The product Columbus Grove fans see on the field is a result of several dedicated people working as one well-oiled machine.
From the ball boys to the chain gain and all the way up into the booth, everyone has a role on gameday, and fulfilling that role helps the coaching staff focus squarely on the team.
It takes a reliable village of people.
One of those key pieces to the puzzle is team statistician Ned Stechshulte, who hasn’t missed a game at Columbus Grove since week six of 1986.
If you do the math, that’s 418 games in a row as a player, coach or statistician.
More specifically, for the last 375 games, Stechschulte has been running the numbers for the Bulldogs with a program he designed himself years ago.
It’s a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel powered by formulas that allows him to keep in-depth, up-to-the-second stats, which has made him an asset to the coaching staff at Columbus Grove.
When he first started, all stats were taken by hand in a book. As time went on, Stechschulte continued to find ways to improve his craft, eventually by developing his own program with the help of some formula writing from his co-worker, Dave Bensman.
After playing for the Bulldogs from 1987-1990, Stechschulte developed a strong relationship with then-coach Mike Fell, the same guy who benched him in favor of Scott Palte, a former Grove head coach who’s currently at LCC.
He agreed to do stats for Fell in the fall of 1991, and since then, he’s served the same role for Jerry Cooper, Palte and current coach Andy Schafer.
“To be a part of this, it’s all just so much fun. I just enjoy being around it. As far as the stats go, I’ve been called a nerd, a geek and all of those names. I just laugh about it,” Stechschulte said with a smile.
The idea of taking stats for the team first popped into his head when he watched his brother do it for Dan Risser, who coached at Columbus Grove from 1981-1983.
“I thought that was the greatest thing to be on the field, watching the game and figuring out who did what,” he said. “I never said that it was something I’d do someday. It kind of just happened after I became friends with Mike Fell.”
Despite being benched by Fell during his playing career, Stechschulte went to work for his old coach, and the rest was history.
Over time, taking stats turned into tracking tendencies, which eventually landed him a headset on the offensive staff during Palte’s time as head coach. It wasn’t for calling plays or making suggestions, but more of a resource for the coaches to stay ahead of things like ball spot and down and distance.
It’s something he does now with current coach Andy Schafer. Although Schafer took a few years to warm up to the idea, he admitted that both Stechschulte and his program impressed him when he first started at Columbus Grove.
“I was a newcomer to this community when I first got hired here, so I was just meeting people and trying to get established,” Schafer said. “Ned approached me before the season about doing stats. I had a similar guy when I was at Cory-Rawson, but Ned turned out to be pretty special when I sat down with him.
“He showed me his spreadsheet, and it was a little different than what I’d seen before. I started thinking that it’d be useful information to have during a game. That’s when he told me about giving Scott Palte some in-game stats.”
Schafer agreed to put Stechschulte on the headset in his fifth season at Columbus Grove but under a few conditions.
“I told him first off, I didn’t want to hear play suggestions. It’s basically a quiet mike, and if I ever need something, I want you to get it. Sure enough, he’s done that.”
As an offensive coach and former coordinator, Schafer’s focus has always been on how balanced the playcalling is. He wants to know how many times his team goes right or left, what they do on either hash or what they look like on a specific down.
Stechschulte provides all of that information when needed, using his program.
“He charts every play we do by formation, by play and even which hash we start the play on,” Schafer said. “It gives me a self-scouting report in-game. He also sends me a report at halftime so we can see what plays are working out of what formations on which yard lines.
“Ned has definitely 100% made us a good coaching staff. We don’t take it for granted.”
Stechschulte inputs something into about seven different columns of his spreadsheet before a play, things like down, yards to go, yard line, possession and hash mark.
His headset is used to hear the playcall, then he enters the formation and direction.
The program recognizes whether it’s a run or a pass based on the playcall. After the play, he inputs the player’s number, and if it’s a pass, he has a separate column to mark whether it was completed.
Then, the next time he enters the down and distance, stats are automatically attributed to that player and reflected in the live box score.
All that information travels to a report that shows things as elaborate as yards gained per down, conversion success, red zone stats and tendencies of plays during the game.
For example, against P-G, Grove ran 15 plays at the left hash. Nine of those plays went to the left, six went to the right. On the right hash, 15 plays went to the left and three to the right.
He sends a halftime and postgame report to Schafer so the coaching staff can scout its own offense so as to not become predictable for the other team.
Keeping stats is also a way for Stechschulte to compile the history of Columbus Grove football, something he’s created a 105-page book which gets updated every week. It includes playoff team photos, list of names and all-conference players, records and results against each team and anyone who’s either scored a point or made a tackle.
When he decides that he doesn’t want to do this anymore, he expects someone to pick up where he left off, mainly to provide him with the information he needs to keep the history books updated.
“I don’t want that to become something that’s haphazard after I’m done. It’s all there for someone to continue,” Stechschulte said. “I love Columbus Grove football. I’d do anything for the program to succeed because when you have a great team in this town, the attitudes of the people change. They love it.
“I could easily say that when Andy’s done, I’ll be done, but I don’t know. If the next coach wants me around, who knows, maybe I’ll stay around.”
Reach Chris Howell at 567-242-0468 or on Twitter/X at @Lima_Howell
