Over the past year, many Campo clubs have emerged with distinctive goals to make the community a better place or promote unique interests. However, one club in particular has gained recognition due to its interesting and high-profile activities: Campo’s Sports Analytics Club.
Junior club officers Lucas Katz and Shubh Sharma have both expressed their passion and determination for the club to continue expanding its operations. “We’re big on outreach, we work a lot on individual projects, and we also meet with other college clubs and industry professionals in sports analytics,” Katz stated upon being asked about the club’s activities. “Those meetings have really been a highlight, everyone looks forward to that since it’s about sports analytics in a professional setting.”
Upon the start of the 2024-2025 school year, the Sports Analytics Club wasted no time in reaching out via LinkedIn to connect with guest speakers and college sports analytics groups and gain a deeper understanding of the field. Not only have they reached out to speakers from the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Princeton, and UC Berkeley, but on January 14, a representative from the Miami Heat basketball team visited to speak in a club webinar. “He talked about the different statistics that he uses, and details about what he does for his job,” said senior club member Owen Ludwig. “It was very inspirational to some of us who are considering that as a career.” This Zoom meeting, as popular as it was, proved to become one of the biggest events that the club had ever hosted.
A typical club meeting is usually action-packed as well. “We have a lot of projects, a lot of competitions with Wharton-UPenn. In a competition, we’re given a fake sports league, and we have to predict with code and analytics how well a team will or how well the season is going to play out,” explained Sharma. “We also encourage people to try anything they’re interested in, if it’s something like how good a player is compared to a different player or evaluating the value of a WNBA draft pick. People usually write a research paper and present their findings.”
The success of the Sports Analytics Club has progressed throughout the year, with both its members and officers hopeful for more achievements to come. Katz and Sharma both verified their upcoming plans for the club as well: “Our goal is for us to strive to learn math through data analytics and sports,” Katz said, as Sharma added, “We’ve designed a basketball board game, combined with Math for Children, to engage their learning through math and sports. We’re planning on having a fundraiser for five hundred dollars to print five hundred games, and connecting with local elementary school teachers and underprivileged communities to host workshops and present the game.”
As a senior, Ludwig mentioned, “I hope that people keep joining the club and keep staying interested in it; building on our interest in sports analytics is important.”
