Identifying talent

Interesting blog post on wired about the difficulties of identifying talent in professional sports ex ante.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/what-jeremy-lin-teaches-us-about-talent/

One quote in particular struck me:

we find no consistent statistical relationship between combine tests and professional football performance, with the notable exception of sprint tests for running backs.

It means everything surrounding the NFL draft is just for show. With the exception of how fast a running back can run they really have no idea how to test whether someone will be a good NFL player. How much of this applies to all careers though? How many times has a job candidate been hired because of great education/experience and been a complete bust? I wonder if anyone has done any studies on "how to identify talented and productive employees."

Superbowl

Great performance by the Giants - though I suspect if the Pats had Gronkowski playing injury-free it would have been a very different games. But injuries are part of the game, if you're going to utilize one player a lot he's going to get hurt more often. Two of the Giants tight ends left the game with injuries.

I kind of consider the Bears my college football team and the Giants are my NFL team. Of course I'll always root for the Bears over the Giants, but I have to say the Patriots are damn fun to watch. Before that last Giants TD I was telling Michael that the Pats should let the Giants score and give the ball back to Brady... and that's exactly what they did! And it almost worked! They just play the game on so many different levels that I'll always be pleasantly surprised whenever watching them.

Next on my reading list

Interesting article in Forbes about a new book: What Capitalism can learn from the NFL

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

Martin compares the idea of maximizing shareholder value as trying to cover the point spread in the NFL rather than trying to win the game. Targeting the real market instead of the expectations market could do capitalism a lot of good. Too often management has the incentive to maximize short term profits at the expense of long term growth. What's worse is that this pressure often comes from the shareholders themselves. I just hope the book is as good as this article.

Performance enhancing drugs

Forget EPO, cigarette smoking can increase serum hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, increase lung volume and stimulate weight loss. Ken Myers makes a pretty convince case in this paper while demonstrating the dangers of medical review literature.

h.t. Infectious Greed

World best vs. world record

Last month the IAAF declared that a woman's time only counts as a world record if its in a woman's only event. I don't get it, I don't understand their logic at all - especially since at many races the elite women start and race mostly separately from the elite women. These writers for the NYT clearly agree with me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/sports/for-womens-road-records-only-women-only-races-will-count.html

What's next, a world record only counts if there are no spectators? But then if a world record falls and no one is around to see it... If this is the way the sport is heading then maybe women should be banned from men's races entirely, those booty shorts are just waaaay too distracting.

The physics of tennis

As I was reading about the US Open I stumbled across this article on the physics of tennis. I always knew the playing surface mattered but I never knew why, interesting stuff.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6906922/the-physics-grass-clay-cement