Sills '96 scores with ESPN column

Sometimes a simple e-mail is all it takes. For Jonathan Sills '96, author of ESPN.com's "Behind the Numbers" column, a little bit of initiative went a long way.

Sills, an avid ESPN.com user while studying at Oxford University the year after his Princeton graduation, took a special interest in one ESPN column that blended science and sports.

"I just randomly wrote in one day and asked if they had any interest in doing a similar column on math and sports," said Sills, who majored in engineering and management systems at Princeton. "I think I just caught the right guy on the right day."

About six weeks later, Sills received a reply asking him to send a writing sample and a proposal for the column.

Sills' writing career was soon launched when ESPN gave him a six-article contract, which has since been renewed three times.

"It's really about mathematics and sports and some of the issues that arise when you look at sports from a mathematical perspective," Sills said of the column. "I like to propose some different ways of looking at statistics and mathematical issues in sports."

"The point is to go a level deeper," he added. "A lot of people focus on highlight performance without thinking of the opportunity cost."

Sills has applied mathematics to a wide range of sports issues in columns such as "Is the '3' Too Easy?" which examines basketball's 3-point shot; "How strong is the World's Strongest Man?" which analyzes the scoring system of the World's Strongest Man competition; and "The Art & Science of Dinger Distance," which shows how announcers determine home-run distances in baseball.

"Behind the Numbers" usually deals with general issues rather than specific players and events, but as Sills writes more columns, he finds that the supply of general issues to examine in each sport is shrinking.

About 75 percent of the ideas for the column are his own and about 25 percent are readers' suggestions, Sills said.

The fan response is one of the things Sills enjoys most about writing the column. "I get lots of e-mails from the sublime to the ridiculous," he said.

"There are a lot of very analytical fans out there," he added. "They're so passionate, they'll write in these long mathematical arguments in response to some of the stuff I've spoken about."

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Schoolteachers have even used some of the columns in class, Sills said. "People are so enthusiastic about sports that you can perhaps motivate a group of students to learn about some subject if you put it in a sports context," he noted.

After writing one column, Sills received some surprising fan reaction. "Probably the closest I've come to fame is exchanging e-mails with Svend Karlsen of the World's Strongest Man Competition," Sills said. "I tend to get closer with the quirky characters."

Though he said he enjoys the challenge of using math to examine various sports issues and likes having the column as a hobby, Sills does not expect to make sports writing a career.

"I write this column for ESPN, but I was never a sports writer. I never wrote for a newspaper. I'm trained as an engineer," he noted.

"I'm just a sports fan who enjoys writing and numbers," he added. "Maybe some of that enthusiasm comes through in the articles."

Beyond the numbers

When not writing for ESPN, Sills focuses most of his attention on his job as vice president of strategy and product development at Proflowers.com, an Internet company founded by classmate Jared Schutz '96.

"We're the largest company that uses the Internet to connect consumers directly with growers, which gives people fresher flowers at a better price," Sills said. "By sending flowers direct from the grower, we cut seven to nine days of transit time out, plus the middlemen that mark them up."

Sills, whose responsibilities at Proflowers include acquiring and retaining customers, handling mergers and acquisitions and helping to launch business to business initiatives, said he heard about the company from Schutz. "I thought it was a great opportunity," he said.

Though his background is more business oriented, Sills said his job has greatly enhanced his knowledge of flowers.

"I may be one of the only people in all of business that's been quoted in PC Week and Bridal Guide," he said.

Sills developed many of the skills he would need for both jobs during his four years at the University.

"One of the things I loved about Princeton was that even though I was an engineering student, that doesn't define you," Sills said.

"I took a lot of statistics and operations research," he added. "I did a Wilson School certificate too, but no sports classes."

Sills did examine, however, the nuances of hockey scheduling for one civil engineering project. Cooperating with the Central Hockey League — a professional minor league — Sills used linear programming to develop better hockey schedules.

Sills' senior thesis — "Virtual Integrity" — examined the manipulation of photos in newspapers and magazines.

"He was a very persistent person," said professor Herb Abelson, Sills' thesis advisor. "He came to my office his junior year during the second term and began to lay out the design for this project he wanted to do, which really boggled me."

Professor Erhan Cinlar, to whom Sills sent drafts of his first few ESPN columns, said Sills was an excellent student with an "outgoing, pleasant personality."

Cinlar remembered one class for which he gave Sills an A+. "I don't give A+ to anybody unless I think he's better than me," he said.

Professor John Wilmerding, with whom Sills took a course on American art and culture, also said Sills was a memorable student.

"He stood out pretty much from the start, and in the end we became quite good friends," Wilmerding said.

"I would hold him up as one of the models of the best kind of Princeton graduate — somebody who's a natural character but just extraordinarily well-motivated, very bright."

But Sills did not only study during his four years at the University. In fact, at least one of his favorite sports experiences still dates back to his years as a Princeton undergraduate.

"The UCLA game," Sills said, remembering men's basketball's upset of the defending champions in the 1996 NCAA tournament.

"I was on Prospect watching it. There was this big rig going down Prospect, and everybody jumped on the truck, everybody was hugging each other. That would definitely be the defining moment."

Though his knowledge of mathematics earned him a chance to write for ESPN.com, Sills said one thing would never be determined by any formula. "No matter what the numbers say," he said, "my heart will always be with Princeton."