For office use only T1T2T3T4T eam Control Number24857Problem ChosenBFor office use onlyF1F2F3F42014Mathematical Contest in Modeling(MCM)Summary Sheet (Attach a copy of this page to each copy of your solution paper.)AbstractThe evaluation and selection of‘best all time college coach’is the prob-lem to be addressed.We capture the essential of an evaluation system by reducing the dimensions of the attributes by factor analysis.And we divide our modeling process into three phases:data collection,attribute clarifica-tion,factor model evaluation and model generalization.Firstly,we collect the data from official database.Then,two bottom lines are determined respectively by the number of participating games and win-loss percentage,with these bottom lines we anchor a pool with30to40 candidates,which greatly reduced data volume.And reasonably thefinal top5coaches should generate from this pool.Attribution clarification will be abundant in the body of the model,note that we endeavor to design an attribute to effectively evaluate the improvement of a team before and after the coach came.In phase three,we analyse the problem by following traditional method of the factor model.With three common factors indicating coaches’guiding competency,strength of guided team,competition strength,we get afinal integrated score to evaluate coaches.And we also take into account the time line horizon in two aspects.On the one hand,the numbers of participating games are adjusted on the basis of time.On the other hand,we put forward a potential sub-model in our‘further attempts’concerning overlapping pe-riod of the time of two different coaches.What’s more,a‘pseudo-rose dia-gram’method is tried to show coaches’performance in different areas.Model generalization is examined by three different sports types,Foot-ball,Basketball,and Softball.Besides,our model also can be applied in all possible ball games under the frame of NCAA,assigning slight modification according to specific regulations.The stability of our model is also tested by sensitivity analysis.Who’s who in College Coaching Legends—–A generalized Factor Analysis approach2Contents1Introduction41.1Restatement of the problem (4)1.2NCAA Background and its coaches (4)1.3Previous models (4)2Assumptions5 3Analysis of the Problem5 4Thefirst round of sample selection6 5Attributes for evaluating coaches86Factor analysis model106.1A brief introduction to factor analysis (10)6.2Steps of Factor analysis by SPSS (12)6.3Result of the model (14)7Model generalization15 8Sensitivity analysis189Strength and Weaknesses199.1Strengths (19)9.2Weaknesses (19)10Further attempts20 Appendices22 Appendix A An article for Sports Illustrated221Introduction1.1Restatement of the problemThe‘best all time college coach’is to be selected by Sports Illustrated,a magazine for sports enthusiasts.This is an open-ended problem—-no limitation in method of performance appraisal,gender,or sports types.The following research points should be noted:•whether the time line horizon that we use in our analysis make a difference;•the metrics for assessment are to be articulated;•discuss how the model can be applied in general across both genders and all possible sports;•we need to present our model’s Top5coaches in each of3different sports.1.2NCAA Background and its coachesNational Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA),an association of1281institution-s,conferences,organizations,and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.1In our model,only coaches in NCAA are considered and ranked.So,why evaluate the Coaching performance?As the identity of a college football program is shaped by its head coach.Given their impacts,it’s no wonder high profile athletic departments are shelling out millions of dollars per season for the services of coaches.Nick Saban’s2013total pay was$5,395,852and in the same year Coach K earned$7,233,976in total23.Indeed,every athletic director wants to hire the next legendary coach.1.3Previous modelsTraditionally,evaluation in athletics has been based on the single criterion of wins and losses.Years later,in order to reasonably evaluate coaches,many reseachers have implemented the coaching evaluation model.Such as7criteria proposed by Adams:[1] (1)the coach in the profession,(2)knowledge of and practice of medical aspects of coaching,(3)the coach as a person,(4)the coach as an organizer and administrator,(5) knowledge of the sport,(6)public relations,and(7)application of kinesiological and physiological principles.1Wikipedia:/wiki/National_Collegiate_Athletic_ Association#NCAA_sponsored_sports2USAToday:/sports/college/salaries/ncaaf/coach/ 3USAToday:/sports/college/salaries/ncaab/coach/Such models relatively focused more on some subjective and difficult-to-quantify attributes to evaluate coaches,which is quite hard for sports fans to judge coaches. Therefore,we established an objective and quantified model to make a list of‘best all time college coach’.2Assumptions•The sample for our model is restricted within the scale of NCAA sports.That is to say,the coaches we discuss refers to those service for NCAA alone;•We do not take into account the talent born varying from one player to another, in this case,we mean the teams’wins or losses purely associate with the coach;•The difference of games between different Divisions in NCAA is ignored;•Take no account of the errors/amendments of the NCAA game records.3Analysis of the ProblemOur main goal is to build and analyze a mathematical model to choose the‘best all time college coach’for the previous century,i.e.from1913to2013.Objectively,it requires numerous attributes to judge and specify whether a coach is‘the best’,while many of the indicators are deemed hard to quantify.However,to put it in thefirst place, we consider a‘best coach’is,and supposed to be in line with several basic condition-s,which are the prerequisites.Those prerequisites incorporate attributes such as the number of games the coach has participated ever and the win-loss percentage of the total.For instance,under the conditions that either the number of participating games is below100,or the win-loss percentage is less than0.5,we assume this coach cannot be credited as the‘best’,ignoring his/her other facets.Therefore,an attempt was made to screen out the coaches we want,thus to narrow the range in ourfirst stage.At the very beginning,we ignore those whose guiding ses-sions or win-loss percentage is less than a certain level,and then we determine a can-didate pool for‘the best coach’of30-40in scale,according to merely two indicators—-participating games and win-loss percentage.It should be reasonably reliable to draw the top5best coaches from this candidate pool,regardless of any other aspects.One point worth mentioning is that,we take time line horizon as one of the inputs because the number of participating games is changing all the time in the previous century.Hence,it would be unfair to treat this problem by using absolute values, especially for those coaches who lived in the earlier ages when sports were less popular and games were sparse comparatively.4Thefirst round of sample selectionCollege Football is thefirst item in our research.We obtain data concerning all possible coaches since it was initiated,of which the coaches’tenures,participating games and win-loss percentage etc.are included.As a result,we get a sample of2053in scale.Thefirst10candidates’respective information is as below:Table1:Thefirst10candidates’information,here Pct means win-loss percentageCoach From To Years Games Wins Losses Ties PctEli Abbott19021902184400.5Earl Abell19281930328141220.536Earl Able1923192421810620.611 George Adams1890189233634200.944Hobbs Adams1940194632742120.185Steve Addazio20112013337201700.541Alex Agase1964197613135508320.378Phil Ahwesh19491949193600.333Jim Aiken19461950550282200.56Fred Akers19751990161861087530.589 ...........................Firstly,we employ Excel to rule out those who begun their coaching career earlier than1913.Next,considering the impact of time line horizon mentioned in the problem statement,we import our raw data into MATLAB,with an attempt to calculate the coaches’average games every year versus time,as delineated in the Figure1below.Figure1:Diagram of the coaches’average sessions every year versus time It can be drawn from thefigure above,clearly,that the number of each coach’s average games is related with the participating time.With the passing of time and the increasing popularity of sports,coaches’participating games yearly ascends from8to 12or so,that is,the maximum exceed the minimum for50%around.To further refinethe evaluation method,we make the following adjustment for coaches’participating games,and we define it as each coach’s adjusted participating games.Gi =max(G i)G mi×G iWhere•G i is each coach’s participating games;•G im is the average participating games yearly in his/her career;and•max(G i)is the max value in previous century as coaches’average participating games yearlySubsequently,we output the adjusted data,and return it to the Excel table.Obviously,directly using all this data would cause our research a mass,and also the economy of description is hard to achieved.Logically,we propose to employ the following method to narrow the sample range.In general,the most essential attributes to evaluate a coach are his/her guiding ex-perience(which can be shown by participating games)and guiding results(shown by win-loss percentage).Fortunately,these two factors are the ones that can be quantified thus provide feasibility for our modeling.Based on our common sense and select-ed information from sports magazines and associated programs,wefind the winning coaches almost all bear the same characteristics—-at high level in both the partici-pating games and the win-loss percentage.Thus we may arbitrarily enact two bottom line for these two essential attributes,so as to nail down a pool of30to40candidates. Those who do not meet our prerequisites should not be credited as the best in any case.Logically,we expect the model to yield insight into how bottom lines are deter-mined.The matter is,sports types are varying thus the corresponding features are dif-ferent.However,it should be reasonably reliable to the sports fans and commentators’perceptual intuition.Take football as an example,win-loss percentage that exceeds0.75 should be viewed as rather high,and college football coaches of all time who meet this standard are specifically listed in Wikipedia.4Consequently,we are able tofix upon a rational pool of candidate according to those enacted bottom lines and meanwhile, may tender the conditions according to the total scale of the coaches.Still we use Football to further articulate,to determine a pool of candidates for the best coaches,wefirst plot thefigure below to present the distributions of all the coaches.From thefigure2,wefind that once the games number exceeds200or win-loss percentage exceeds0.7,the distribution of the coaches drops significantly.We can thus view this group of coaches as outstanding comparatively,meeting the prerequisites to be the best coaches.4Wikipedia:/wiki/List_of_college_football_coaches_ with_a_.750_winning_percentageFigure2:Hist of the football coaches’number of games versus and average games every year versus games and win-loss percentageHence,we nail down the bottom lines for both the games number and the win-loss percentage,that is,0.7for the former and200for the latter.And these two bottom lines are used as the measure for ourfirst round selection.After round one,merely35 coaches are qualified to remain in the pool of candidates.Since it’s thefirst round sifting,rather than direct and ultimate determination,we hence believe the subjectivity to some extent in the opt of bottom lines will not cloud thefinal results of the best coaches.5Attributes for evaluating coachesThen anchored upon the35candidate selected,we will elaborate our coach evaluation system based on8attributes.In the indicator-select process,we endeavor to examine tradeoffs among the availability for data and difficulty for data quantification.Coaches’pay,for example,though serves as the measure for coaching evaluation,the corre-sponding data are limited.Situations are similar for attributes such as the number of sportsmen the coach ever cultivated for the higher-level tournaments.Ultimately,we determine the8attributes shown in the table below:Further explanation:•Yrs:guiding years of a coach in his/her whole career•G’:Gi =max(G i)G mi×G i see it at last section•Pct:pct=wins+ties/2wins+losses+ties•SRS:a rating that takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule.The rating is denominated in points above/below average,where zeroTable2:symbols and attributessymbol attributeYrs yearsG’adjusted overall gamesPct win-lose percentageP’Adjusted percentage ratioSRS Simple Rating SystemSOS Strength of ScheduleBlp’adjusted Bowls participatedBlw’adjusted Bowls wonis the average.Note that,the bigger for this value,the stronger for the team performance.•SOS:a rating of strength of schedule.The rating is denominated in points above/below average,where zero is the average.Noted that the bigger for this value,the more powerful for the team’s rival,namely the competition is more fierce.Sports-reference provides official statistics for SRS and SOS.5•P’is a new attribute designed in our model.It is the result of Win-loss in the coach’s whole career divided by the average of win-loss percentage(weighted by the number of games in different colleges the coach ever in).We bear in mind that the function of a great coach is not merely manifested in the pure win-loss percentage of the team,it is even more crucial to consider the improvement of the team’s win-loss record with the coach’s participation,or say,the gap between‘af-ter’and‘before’period of this team.(between‘after’and‘before’the dividing line is the day the coach take office)It is because a coach who build a comparative-ly weak team into a much more competitive team would definitely receive more respect and honor from sports fans.To measure and specify this attribute,we col-lect the key official data from sports-reference,which included the independent win-loss percentage for each candidate and each college time when he/she was in the team and,the weighted average of all time win-loss percentage of all the college teams the coach ever in—-regardless of whether the coach is in the team or not.To articulate this attribute,here goes a simple physical example.Ike Armstrong (placedfirst when sorted by alphabetical order),of which the data can be ob-tained from website of sports-reference6.We can easily get the records we need, namely141wins,55losses,15ties,and0.704for win-losses percentage.Fur-ther,specific wins,losses,ties for the team he ever in(Utab college)can also be gained,respectively they are602,419,30,0.587.Consequently,the P’value of Ike Armstrong should be0.704/0.587=1.199,according to our definition.•Bowl games is a special event in thefield of Football games.In North America,a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are5sports-reference:/cfb/coaches/6sports-reference:/cfb/coaches/ike-armstrong-1.htmlprimarily played by teams from the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision.The times for one coach to eparticipate Bowl games are important indicators to eval-uate a coach.However,noted that the total number of Bowl games held each year is changing from year to year,which should be taken into consideration in the model.Other sports events such as NCAA basketball tournament is also ex-panding.For this reason,it is irrational to use the absolute value of the times for entering the Bowl games (or NCAA basketball tournament etc.)and the times for winning as the evaluation measurement.Whereas the development history and regulations for different sports items vary from one to another (actually the differentiation can be fairly large),we here are incapable to find a generalized method to eliminate this discrepancy ,instead,in-dependent method for each item provide a way out.Due to the time limitation for our research and the need of model generalization,we here only do root extract of blp and blw to debilitate the differentiation,i.e.Blp =√Blp Blw =√Blw For different sports items,we use the same attributes,except Blp’and Blw’,we may change it according to specific sports.For instance,we can use CREG (Number of regular season conference championship won)and FF (Number of NCAA Final Four appearance)to replace Blp and Blw in basketball games.With all the attributes determined,we organized data and show them in the table 3:In addition,before forward analysis there is a need to preprocess the data,owing to the diverse dimensions between these indicators.Methods for data preprocessing are a lot,here we adopt standard score (Z score)method.In statistics,the standard score is the (signed)number of standard deviations an observation or datum is above the mean.Thus,a positive standard score represents a datum above the mean,while a negative standard score represents a datum below the mean.It is a dimensionless quantity obtained by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation.7The standard score of a raw score x is:z =x −µσIt is easy to complete this process by statistical software SPSS.6Factor analysis model 6.1A brief introduction to factor analysisFactor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed,correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors.For example,it is possible that variations in four observed variables mainly reflect the variations in two unobserved variables.Factor analysis searches for 7Wikipedia:/wiki/Standard_scoreTable3:summarized data for best college football coaches’candidatesCoach From To Yrs G’Pct Blp’Blw’P’SRS SOS Ike Armstrong19251949252810.70411 1.199 4.15-4.18 Dana Bible19151946313860.7152 1.73 1.0789.88 1.48 Bernie Bierman19251950242780.71110 1.29514.36 6.29 Red Blaik19341958252940.75900 1.28213.57 2.34 Bobby Bowden19702009405230.74 5.74 4.69 1.10314.25 4.62 Frank Broyles19571976202570.7 3.162 1.18813.29 5.59 Bear Bryant19451982385080.78 5.39 3.87 1.1816.77 6.12 Fritz Crisler19301947182080.76811 1.08317.15 6.67 Bob Devaney19571972162080.806 3.16 2.65 1.25513.13 2.28 Dan Devine19551980222800.742 3.16 2.65 1.22613.61 4.69 Gilmour Dobie19161938222370.70900 1.27.66-2.09 Bobby Dodd19451966222960.713 3.613 1.18414.25 6.6 Vince Dooley19641988253250.715 4.47 2.83 1.09714.537.12 Gus Dorais19221942192320.71910 1.2296-3.21 Pat Dye19741992192400.707 3.16 2.65 1.1929.68 1.51 LaVell Edwards19722000293920.716 4.69 2.65 1.2437.66-0.66 Phillip Fulmer19922008172150.743 3.87 2.83 1.08313.42 4.95 Woody Hayes19511978283290.761 3.32 2.24 1.03117.418.09 Frank Kush19581979222710.764 2.65 2.45 1.238.21-2.07 John McKay19601975162070.7493 2.45 1.05817.298.59 Bob Neyland19261952212860.829 2.65 1.41 1.20815.53 3.17 Tom Osborne19731997253340.8365 3.46 1.18119.7 5.49 Ara Parseghian19561974192250.71 2.24 1.73 1.15317.228.86 Joe Paterno19662011465950.749 6.08 4.9 1.08914.01 5.01 Darrell Royal19541976232970.7494 2.83 1.08916.457.09 Nick Saban19902013182390.748 3.74 2.83 1.12313.41 3.86 Bo Schembechler19631989273460.775 4.12 2.24 1.10414.86 3.37 Francis Schmidt19221942212670.70800 1.1928.490.16 Steve Spurrier19872013243160.733 4.363 1.29313.53 4.64 Bob Stoops19992013152070.804 3.74 2.65 1.11716.66 4.74 Jock Sutherland19191938202550.81221 1.37613.88 1.68 Barry Switzer19731988162090.837 3.61 2.83 1.16320.08 6.63 John Vaught19471973253210.745 4.24 3.16 1.33814.7 5.26 Wallace Wade19231950243070.765 2.24 1.41 1.34913.53 3.15 Bud Wilkinson19471963172220.826 2.83 2.45 1.14717.54 4.94 such joint variations in response to unobserved latent variables.The observed vari-ables are modelled as linear combinations of the potential factors,plus‘error’terms. The information gained about the interdependencies between observed variables can be used later to reduce the set of variables in a putationally this technique is equivalent to low rank approximation of the matrix of observed variables.8 Why carry out factor analyses?If we can summarise a multitude of measure-8Wikipedia:/wiki/Factor_analysisments with a smaller number of factors without losing too much information,we have achieved some economy of description,which is one of the goals of scientific investi-gation.It is also possible that factor analysis will allow us to test theories involving variables which are hard to measure directly.Finally,at a more prosaic level,factor analysis can help us establish that sets of questionnaire items(observed variables)are in fact all measuring the same underlying factor(perhaps with varying reliability)and so can be combined to form a more reliable measure of that factor.6.2Steps of Factor analysis by SPSSFirst we import the decided datasets of8attributes into SPSS,and the results can be obtained below after the software processing.[2-3]Figure3:Table of total variance explainedFigure4:Scree PlotThefirst table and scree plot shows the eigenvalues and the amount of variance explained by each successive factor.The remaining5factors have small eigenvalues value.Once the top3factors are extracted,it adds up to84.3%,meaning a great as the explanatory ability for the original information.To reflect the quantitative analysis of the model,we obtain the following factor loading matrix,actually the loadings are in corresponding to the weight(α1,α2 (i)the set ofx i=αi1f1+αi2f2+...+αim f j+εiAnd the relative strength of the common factors and the original attribute can also be manifested.Figure5:Rotated Component MatrixThen,with Rotated Component Matrix above,wefind the common factor F1main-ly expresses four attributes they are:G,Yrs,P,SRS,and logically,we define the com-mon factor generated from those four attributes as the guiding competency of the coach;similarly,the common factor F2mainly expresses two attributes,and they are: Pct and Blp,which can be de defined as the integrated strength of the guided team; while the common factor F3,mainly expresses two attributes:SOS and Blw,which can be summarized into a‘latent attribute’named competition strength.In order to obtain the quantitative relation,we get the following Component Score Coefficient Matrix processed by SPSS.Further,the function of common factors and the original attributes is listed as bel-low:F1=0.300x1+0.312x2+0.023x3+0.256x4+0.251x5+0.060x6−0.035x7−0.053x8F2=−0.107x1−0,054x2+0.572x3+0.103x4+0.081x5+0.280x6+0.372x7+0.142x8 F3=−0.076x1−0,098x2−0.349x3+0.004x4+0.027x5−0.656x6+0.160x7+0.400x8 Finally we calculate out the integrated factor scores,which should be the average score weighted by the corresponding proportion of variance contribution of each com-mon factor in the total variance contribution.And the function set should be:F=0.477F1+0.284F2+0.239F3Figure6:Component Score Coefficient Matrix6.3Result of the modelwe rank all the coaches in the candidate pool by integrated score represented by F.Seetable4:Table4:Integrated scores for best college football coach(show15data due to the limi-tation of space)Rank coaches F1F2F3Integrated factor1Joe Paterno 3.178-0.3150.421 1.3622Bobby Bowden 2.51-0.2810.502 1.1113Bear Bryant 2.1420.718-0.142 1.0994Tom Osborne0.623 1.969-0.2390.8205Woody Hayes0.140.009 1.6130.4846Barry Switzer-0.705 2.0360.2470.4037Darrell Royal0.0460.161 1.2680.4018Vince Dooley0.361-0.442 1.3730.3749Bo Schembechler0.4810.1430.3040.32910John Vaught0.6060.748-0.870.26511Steve Spurrier0.5180.326-0.5380.18212Bob Stoops-0.718 1.0850.5230.17113Bud Wilkinson-0.718 1.4130.1050.16514Bobby Dodd0.08-0.2080.7390.16215John McKay-0.9620.228 1.870.151Based on this model,we can make a scientific rank list for US college football coach-es,the Top5coaches of our model is Joe Paterno,Bobby Bowden,Bear Bryant,TomOsborne,Woody Hayes.In order to confirm our result,we get a official list of bestcollege football coaches from Bleacherreport99Bleacherreport:/articles/890705-college-football-the-top-50-coTable5:The result of our model in football,the last column is official college basketball ranking from bleacherreportRank Our model Integrated scores bleacherreport1Joe Paterno 1.362Bear Bryant2Bobby Bowden 1.111Knute Rockne3Bear Bryant 1.099Tom Osborne4Tom Osborne0.820Joe Paterno5Woody Hayes0.484Bobby Bowden By comparing thoes two ranking list,wefind that four of our Top5coaches ap-peared in the offical Top5list,which shows that our model is reasonable and effective.7Model generalizationOur coach evaluation system model,of which the feasibility of generalization is sat-isfying,can be accommodated to any possible NCAA sports concourses by assigning slight modification concerning specific regulations.Besides,this method has nothing to do with the coach’s gender,or say,both male and female coaches can be rationally evaluated by this system.And therefore we would like to generalize this model into softball.Further,we take into account the time line horizon,making corresponding adjust-ment for the indicator of number of participating games so as to stipulate that the evaluation measure for1913and2013would be the same.To further generalize the model,first let’s have a test in basketball,of which the data available is adequate enough as football.And the specific steps are as following:1.Obtain data from sports-reference10and rule out the coaches who begun theircoaching career earlier than1913.2.Calculate each coach’s adjusted number of participating games,and adjust theattribute—-FF(Number of NCAA Final Four appearance).3.Determine the bottom lines for thefirst round selection to get a pool of candidatesaccording to the coaches’participating games and win-loss percentage,and the ideal volumn of the pool should be from30to40.Hist diagrams are as below: We determine800as the bottom line for the adjusted participating games and0.7 for the win-loss percentage.Coincidently,we get a candidate pool of35in scale.4.Next,we collect the corresponding data of candidate coaches(P’,SRS,SOS etc.),as presented in the table6:5.Processed by z score method and factor analysis based on the8attributes anddata above,we get three common factors andfinal integrated scores.And among 10sports-reference:/cbb/coaches/Figure7:Hist of the basketball coaches’number of games versus and average gamesevery year versus games and win-loss percentagethe top5candidates,Mike Krzyzewski,Adolph Rupp,Dean SmithˇcˇnBob Knightare the same with the official statistics from bleacherreport.11We can say theeffectiveness of the model is pretty good.See table5.We also apply similar approach into college softball.Maybe it is because the popularity of the softball is not that high,the data avail-able is not adequate to employ ourfirst model.How can our model function in suchsituation?First and foremost,specialized magazines like Sports Illustrated,its com-mentators there would have more internal and confidential databases,which are notexposed publicly.On the one hand,as long as the data is adequate enough,we can saythe original model is completely feasible.While under the situation that there is datadeficit,we can reasonably simplify the model.The derivation of the softball data is NCAA’s official websites,here we only extractdata from All-Division part.12Softball is a comparatively young sports,hence we may arbitrarily neglect the re-stricted condition of‘100years’.Subsequently,because of the data deficit it is hard toadjust the number of participating games.We may as well determine10as the bottomline for participating games and0.74for win-loss percentage,producing a candidatepool of33in scaleAttributed to the inadequacy of the data for attributes,it is not convenient to furtheruse the factor analysis similarly as the assessment model.Therefore,here we employsolely two of the most important attributes to evaluate a coach and they are:partic-ipating games and win-loss percentage in the coach’s whole career.Specifically,wefirst adopt z score to normalize all the data because of the differentiation of various dimensions,and then the integrated score of the coach can be reached by the weighted11bleacherreport:/articles/1341064-10-greatest-coaches-in-ncaa-b 12NCAA softball Coaching Record:/Docs/stats/SB_Records/2012/coaches.pdf。
