duncan228
11-08-2008, 10:31 PM
For the love of the stats: Walter Stoops (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/For_the_love_of_the_stats_Walter_Stoops.html)
Richard Oliver
It was a forgotten game against a forgotten opponent, but Walter Stoops remembers the pain all too well.
Seated next to former Spurs radio announcer Jay Howard at a game at the Alamodome, Stoops looked up to see a basketball bounding toward him. He reached up to stop the errant pass and the ball slammed into his fingers, breaking his left pinkie.
“My finger still can't bend straight,” Stoops said Friday night, displaying the crooked digit. “But I didn't even drop my pen. I just shook it off.”
It's not surprising. Stoops, the statistician for Spurs radio broadcasts, has missed only six games in 24 years, all because of family emergencies. At 58, the Oklahoma native serves these days as the low voice in the ear of play-by-play broadcaster Bill Schoening.
Passing along vital information such as personal fouls, turnover totals and individual scoring totals, the Wells Fargo Bank loan operations official by day keeps working the numbers on game nights.
“He's done an amazing job, because having him stay on top of the numbers makes my job much easier,” said Schoening, the Spurs' play-by-play man since 2001. “It allows me to concentrate on personnel situations, the strategy and environment.”
Seated at Schoening's right elbow, speaking into a headset, Stoops delivers the information — which only the announcer and nearby engineer Eddie Morris can hear — in quick-hit offerings designed not to be disruptive to the broadcast.
“I try to keep it as minimal as possible,” Stoops said. “But most of the time, since we've been together seven years, most of the time I know what he wants. So I try to talk as little as possible.”
For Stoops, who moved to San Antonio in 1980 after growing up in Corpus Christi, holding back is the toughest part of the job. Outgoing and upbeat, a passionate sports fan, the graying grandfather loves working the games only slightly less than he does talking about them.
Wearing an ever-present Spurs pullover jacket, still tracking statistics longhand on several sheets of paper, Stoops has seen more than 1,000 contests, from the cozy confines of HemisFair Arena to the cavernous Alamodome to, now, the modernistic AT&T Center.
That journey, which has resulted in a watch and three rings commemorating the Spurs' NBA titles, began in 1984 when insurance agent Bill Mochel, a longtime member of the team's statistics crew, solicited Stoops to help fill an opening.
“I just thought he'd be good at it,” said Mochel of Stoops, who at the time was a teller at San Pedro State Bank.
In the years since, the stat man counts off a checklist of memorable moments, most notably Sean Elliott's remarkable 3-pointer, now dubbed the “Memorial Day Miracle,” to defeat Portland in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals in 1999.
“I'm a fan,” Stoops said. “When I'm at home watching, my wife goes in the other room. I let loose. When you're here, you've got to control yourself.”
When the Spurs aren't in action, he serves as radio statistician for broadcasts of the WNBA's Silver Stars and high school football, working with longtime announcer and friend Gary DeLaune.
As he relaxed in a front-row seat at the AT&T Center on Friday night, Stoops displayed a bauble representing the 2007 championship on his left hand, alongside his once-fractured pinkie. In a few moments, the Spurs would be tipping off against the visiting Heat, and the anticipation of another ballgame felt just as electric as it did when he first accepted Mochel's invitation in 1984.
Five years later, Stoops shifted over to working the stats for Howard. When Schoening took over in 2001, Stoops stayed put.
“It's the best part-time job I've ever had,” said Stoops, who receives $75 per game for the work. “People always ask me, ‘When you leave, can you let them know I'm interested in taking it on?' But they're going to have to carry me out of here, I think.”
WALTER STOOPS
Age: 58
Position: Statistician, Spurs radio broadcasts
Personal: Oklahoma native moved to Corpus Christi when he was 6. ... Played golf at King High School, posting a 74 scoring average as junior. ... Moved to San Antonio in 1980. ... Has spent much of his professional career in banking, including the past 15 years in the loan operations department at Wells Fargo. ... Works all Spurs and Silver Stars home games, along with high school broadcasts with Gary DeLaune. ... He and his wife, Mary, married in 1982.
- Richard Oliver
Richard Oliver
It was a forgotten game against a forgotten opponent, but Walter Stoops remembers the pain all too well.
Seated next to former Spurs radio announcer Jay Howard at a game at the Alamodome, Stoops looked up to see a basketball bounding toward him. He reached up to stop the errant pass and the ball slammed into his fingers, breaking his left pinkie.
“My finger still can't bend straight,” Stoops said Friday night, displaying the crooked digit. “But I didn't even drop my pen. I just shook it off.”
It's not surprising. Stoops, the statistician for Spurs radio broadcasts, has missed only six games in 24 years, all because of family emergencies. At 58, the Oklahoma native serves these days as the low voice in the ear of play-by-play broadcaster Bill Schoening.
Passing along vital information such as personal fouls, turnover totals and individual scoring totals, the Wells Fargo Bank loan operations official by day keeps working the numbers on game nights.
“He's done an amazing job, because having him stay on top of the numbers makes my job much easier,” said Schoening, the Spurs' play-by-play man since 2001. “It allows me to concentrate on personnel situations, the strategy and environment.”
Seated at Schoening's right elbow, speaking into a headset, Stoops delivers the information — which only the announcer and nearby engineer Eddie Morris can hear — in quick-hit offerings designed not to be disruptive to the broadcast.
“I try to keep it as minimal as possible,” Stoops said. “But most of the time, since we've been together seven years, most of the time I know what he wants. So I try to talk as little as possible.”
For Stoops, who moved to San Antonio in 1980 after growing up in Corpus Christi, holding back is the toughest part of the job. Outgoing and upbeat, a passionate sports fan, the graying grandfather loves working the games only slightly less than he does talking about them.
Wearing an ever-present Spurs pullover jacket, still tracking statistics longhand on several sheets of paper, Stoops has seen more than 1,000 contests, from the cozy confines of HemisFair Arena to the cavernous Alamodome to, now, the modernistic AT&T Center.
That journey, which has resulted in a watch and three rings commemorating the Spurs' NBA titles, began in 1984 when insurance agent Bill Mochel, a longtime member of the team's statistics crew, solicited Stoops to help fill an opening.
“I just thought he'd be good at it,” said Mochel of Stoops, who at the time was a teller at San Pedro State Bank.
In the years since, the stat man counts off a checklist of memorable moments, most notably Sean Elliott's remarkable 3-pointer, now dubbed the “Memorial Day Miracle,” to defeat Portland in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals in 1999.
“I'm a fan,” Stoops said. “When I'm at home watching, my wife goes in the other room. I let loose. When you're here, you've got to control yourself.”
When the Spurs aren't in action, he serves as radio statistician for broadcasts of the WNBA's Silver Stars and high school football, working with longtime announcer and friend Gary DeLaune.
As he relaxed in a front-row seat at the AT&T Center on Friday night, Stoops displayed a bauble representing the 2007 championship on his left hand, alongside his once-fractured pinkie. In a few moments, the Spurs would be tipping off against the visiting Heat, and the anticipation of another ballgame felt just as electric as it did when he first accepted Mochel's invitation in 1984.
Five years later, Stoops shifted over to working the stats for Howard. When Schoening took over in 2001, Stoops stayed put.
“It's the best part-time job I've ever had,” said Stoops, who receives $75 per game for the work. “People always ask me, ‘When you leave, can you let them know I'm interested in taking it on?' But they're going to have to carry me out of here, I think.”
WALTER STOOPS
Age: 58
Position: Statistician, Spurs radio broadcasts
Personal: Oklahoma native moved to Corpus Christi when he was 6. ... Played golf at King High School, posting a 74 scoring average as junior. ... Moved to San Antonio in 1980. ... Has spent much of his professional career in banking, including the past 15 years in the loan operations department at Wells Fargo. ... Works all Spurs and Silver Stars home games, along with high school broadcasts with Gary DeLaune. ... He and his wife, Mary, married in 1982.
- Richard Oliver