Okay so today I wanted to see how Calvin University’s football team is shaping up this season, you know, who’s playing, their stats, that kind of thing. Sounded simple enough. Spoiler alert: it was way more annoying than I expected.
The Starting Point: Where’s The Roster?
First, I naturally headed straight to the Calvin University Athletics website. Figured they’d have everything laid out nice and easy. Big mistake. Browsed through their football section, looked under ‘Teams’, clicked ‘Roster’. It loaded… and showed me the roster… from 2022. What? Seriously? The current season’s nowhere to be found on their own site. Felt like I was hitting a brick wall right off the bat. Totally useless.
Switching Tactics: NCAA Site Hoping
Plan B: hit up the official NCAA stats site. They track everything, right? Found the Division III section and searched for Calvin University football. It actually spat out a page. Progress! Sort of. There was a roster listed… but it looked weirdly incomplete. Like, key players I knew were on the team weren’t showing up. Stats? It listed basic season totals maybe for the team, but individual player stats were either missing entirely or buried so deep I couldn’t find ’em without signing up for some account. Ridiculous. Felt like they were hiding the good stuff.
Started searching around desperately:
- Checked local sports news sites. Coverage was spotty, focused mostly on games, maybe naming a star player or two, not the whole roster.
- Looked for fan forums or message boards. Nothing substantial popped up.
- Even considered checking the university directory, but that felt invasive and wouldn’t have positions or stats anyway.
The Manual Grind and Frustrating Discoveries
Getting annoyed now. Ended up piecing together scraps from different places. Found a team preview article from August listing some potential starters and returning players. That helped a tiny bit. For actual names and positions? Had to rely on some game recaps on the Calvin Athletics site itself. Seriously!
For example, for a specific game write-up, they’d mention:
- “Quarterback X threw for Y yards…” Okay, name and one stat.
- “Running back Z rushed for A yards…” Another name, one stat.
- “Linebacker Q made B tackles…” Got it.
I started compiling a pathetic little spreadsheet manually, typing names and positions and the snippets of stats mentioned across different game reports. It was painfully slow. Imagine doing that for every player? Impossible. And stats like tackles, sacks, interceptions? Only occasionally mentioned for standout plays. No way to get consistent season totals. It was like pulling teeth.
Also realized the NCAA site might have the official roster eventually, but only after they submit it later in the season? Or maybe just for playoffs? I don’t know, the whole system feels deliberately obscure for DIII.
The “Final” Result (If You Can Call It That)
After wasting way too much time, here’s the sad truth I uncovered:
- No Centralized Roster: Forget a clean, official, up-to-date roster on Calvin’s site. It’s outdated.
- NCAA Stats Are Patchy: Even the NCAA site’s roster seemed questionable, and individual stats are incredibly hard to access or simply missing.
- Stats Require Archeology: Finding any meaningful player stats (beyond a line or two in a game recap) is a manual treasure hunt. Season totals? Forget it without official reports I couldn’t find.
Honestly, I thought this would be a quick “grab the roster and stats” task. Nope. Ended up with a half-filled spreadsheet cobbled from game reports and a massive headache. If you want to know how Calvin’s team looks stats-wise this season? Your best bet is probably attending the games and keeping your own scorebook. The online info situation? It’s a mess.
