Okay, so I’ve been wanting to dig into this whole Lafayette Jefferson football thing for a while now. It seemed like a cool data project, and honestly, I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Getting Started
First, I needed to figure out where to even start. I mean, “Lafayette Jefferson football” is pretty broad. I spent a good hour just Googling around, trying different keywords, looking at news articles, and generally just feeling lost.
Eventually, I stumbled upon some local sports websites. This seemed promising! I started poking around, looking for anything that looked like stats, schedules, or player info. It was slow going at first, lots of clicking and scrolling, but I started to get a feel for things.
Building My Data Collection
My initial plan was super simple: grab game scores and dates. That’s it. I started copying and pasting stuff into a spreadsheet. Very manual, very tedious. I quickly realized this was not going to work long-term. I needed something more… organized.
I felt like I was swimming in data, but none of it was really usable. So, I stepped back and thought, “Okay, what do I actually want to know?”
- Game Results: Wins, losses, scores – the basics.
- Dates: When did these games happen?
- Maybe opponent: Get to know who they played against.
I kept it to the basics, no big deal.
The “Finished” Product (For Now)
It is not any fancy website, but I’m pretty happy with my simple spreadsheet. I’ve got a decent record of games, scores, and dates. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
This whole thing was definitely a learning experience. I spent way more time just figuring out where to find information than I did actually collecting it. It showed me that even a “simple” project can have a lot of hidden challenges. Would I do it again? Probably. But next time, I’m going in with a much better plan!
