Free Scorecasting by Tobias Moskowitz Page B

small pool of affluent kids whose parents can afford parochial school tuition and probably place football a distant third behind academics and violin lessons. When Kelley’s choices fail, there aren’t many boos from the stands or angry fans calling the local sports talk show or starting websites dedicated to his firing. Since he coaches high school kids, he doesn’t face the threat of player (and agent) revolt the way Tony La Russa did with the Oakland A’s pitching staff.
    That Thursday night game at Pulaski spanned nearly three hours, mostly because of incomplete passes and penalties that stopped the game clock. But it showcased how Kelley’s savvy and well-considered, if unconventional, approach led a decidedly smaller, slower, and younger Pulaski team to victory, 33–20. Afterward, in the postgame breakdown, Kelley said flatly, “The system won that game.” As the players shook hands near midfield, one of the Mustangs sought out the Bruins’ quarterback, Wil Nicks, and told him, “I wish we played like y’all.”
    Pulaski went all the way to the Class 5A state championship game in 2008. In that tournament run, Kelley stayed true to his philosophy. In the semifinal game against Greenwood—the school that had knocked them out of the tournament two years in a row, including a 56–55 heartbreaker in the state championship in 2006—Pulaski started the game with an onside kick, recovered it, and drove all the way down to Greenwood’s six-yard line before turning the ball over after failing to convert on fourth down. That might have discouraged most coaches, especially against a team they’ve had trouble beating. Not Kelley. He continued to go for it on every fourth down, eventually winning the game 54–24 and amassing 747 yards of total offense in the process.
    In the championship game against West Helena Central—a team with eight future Division I players to Pulaski’s one—Kelley again refused to punt or kick. In the waning minutes, the Bruinshad possession and clung to a slim 35–32 lead. Faced with three fourth downs early in the drive, they went for it each time and made it. With less than 1:30 left on the clock, they faced yet another fourth down at midfield. The conventional strategy was to punt the ball, pin your opponent deep in their own end, and force them to drive 60 to 70 yards in less than a minute and a half to get into field goal range. If you go for it and fail, you leave Helena just 20 yards away from field goal range and give them a chance to tie the game. What do the statistics tell you to do? Go for it. That is what Kelley did. The Pulaski quarterback plunged over the right side for a couple of yards, converting yet another fourth down on what would be the final drive of the game as Pulaski ran out the clock and captured its second state championship. Asked if he ever thought about punting on that final drive with so much at stake, Kelley responded without hesitation:
“Never.”
    For kindred spirits in the coaching ranks who are tempted to topple conventional sports wisdom, Kelley has the same advice he gives his teams on fourth down: Go for it. Until they do, at least players have a response at the ready the next time their coaches accuse them of being soft or making boneheaded decisions or failing to do everything they can to help the team win. “Sorry, Coach, but I’m just following the example you set with your play-calling.”
    * The exception: if little time remains and a field goal would decide the game.
    * Research even shows that the brain processes losses differently from gains. In experiments offering individuals different gambles with the same payoff, but with one framed in terms of gains and the other in terms of losses, researchers at UCLA—Sabrina M. Tom,Craig R. Fox,Christopher Trepel, andRussell Poldrack—found that a number of areas in the brain showed increasing activity as potential gains increased, whereas potential losses showed decreasing activity in these