Massey Roots

This is a picture of Gun Inn as you get off the
bus in Hollingworth. 

One of the courses I have taught at Galesburg HS is Diversity Studies. We look at different groups in America and their history- Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans. One of the focuses of the course is to look at the immigration process and the lives of immigrants. Even as we studied immigration, I never looked at that process and how my family had been impacted by immigration.

When I went to grade school in a different era, one of our lessons had to do with our ancestors country of origin. The teacher would have you find the origin of your ancestors. Then we would do work with fractions, you were 1/4 Irish, 1/2 English, and 1/4 Welch. As we did the work, my ancestors might as well have come to America in 1612 for all I cared- it was a long time ago.

Player Impact Estimate

Story on stat used to evaluate NBA and WNBA players....

PIE In the Sky

Anthony Oliva, WNBA.com

Tamika Catchings is the reigning WNBA MVP. She's a versatile forward that can score, rebound and distribute the basketball. LeBron James, the 2012 NBA MVP, can claim the very same.

And in the past, the comparisons between these two superstars would have stopped there.

For the 15-plus years that the WNBA has been in existence, drawing parallels between WNBA and NBA players ended up as an exercise in subjectivity. The styles were different. The rules were different. Maybe above all, thegame clocks were different (the NBA plays for 48 minutes and the W goes for 40). So, when you wanted to measure an NBA player against one in the WNBA (or vice-versa), you had to use some imagination. Until now.

NBA.com/stats has developed a new rating called the Player Impact Estimate, or PIE, that calculates a player’s impact on each individual game they play. Because the formula accounts for a player’s influence relative to each specific game, it eliminates statistical biases created by league, style of play or even era.

And now, thanks to PIE, we can make a definitive link between Catchings and James.