James Loy:

Major Insight is a production of Miami University. This is where we showcase successful students, their promising new research and its relevance in our world.

Jackson Polish aims to help re-define the sport of hocky.

As a sport leadership and management major – also known as SLAM – and a double coaching and general business minor, Jackson is also the Founder of SP Analytics, a hockey application that makes in-depth analysis of video and in-game data to make strategic decisions during competition.

And he’s spent the last several semesters managing a team of student programmers to conceptualize and launch the application

He is also assistant director of hockey operations for the men’s varsity team, and on this episode, Jackson talks about combining his interests in sport, business, and analytics to inform his future goals, his plans for the app, and more.

Peter Everett:

Obviously, you help coach the hockey team, you’re into Miami’s hockey world, which is a big deal here. Why don’t you, for everyone listening, tell everyone you’re name and major and what you do here.

Jackson Polish:

My name's Jackson Polish. I'm a senior. I'm a Sports Leadership and Management major with a coaching minor and general business minor. I'm pretty involved with the hockey team here. I'm considered the assistant director of hockey ops. So basically day to day operations go as me cutting up game film and practice film, creating pre scout reports by going through the opposing team film and analyzing different lineups as well as different in game systems.

Peter Everett:

And then using that to generate some sort of analysis to help strategize?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. So basically we look at the opposing teams like defensive zone, structure, and then once they gain possession, it turns into the breakout positioning. And then as it moves into the neutral zone forecheck as well as neutral zone regroup.

Peter Everett:

All right. So for those of us listening like myself who don't know what those words mean, like neutral zone, I'm not sure is this at the middle?

Jackson Polish:

That's the middle. Yeah.

Peter Everett:

Okay, awesome. So neutral zone and then ...

Jackson Polish:

Forecheck. So that's basically when you're pressuring the opponent and trying to angle them to one side or the other to try to gain possession of the puck.

Peter Everett:

So is that like when you see people, shoulder checking people into walls, is that.

Jackson Polish:

Exactly yeah.

Peter Everett:

Okay. We just can't use those words. Right. I've watched Goon, I know some things. That's awesome. So you're a mastermind in other words?

Jackson Polish:

I'd hope so.

Peter Everett:

Yeah. I always thought about learning how to play hockey. Cause it looks so much fun, but then I thought, and then I realized that I had to learn how to skate. So then there, that was the obstacle. Oh man. It's not too late though, right?

Jackson Polish:

No, you could always learn, especially here at Miami there's ton of different levels for intermurals. So beginners all the way up to advanced depending on your skill level. So I think you definitely enjoy getting out and playing some intermural games if you haven't yet.

Peter Everett:

And you said you were a Sports Leadership and Management major, I feel like that could be like a broad range of things. What's your specific area of study and how does it directly apply to what you're doing on Miami's campus?

Jackson Polish:

Like you said, it is a pretty broad area of study throughout my four years, so far, I've taken a lot of kinesiology based classes, which is kind of like the science of sport. I've also taken a good amount of leadership classes and they do a good job of having students take classes through the Farmer School of Business and then the remaining emphasis of studies just kind of in concentration based. So I've taken a good amount of analytic based classes as well as management focused classes.

Peter Everett:

Any classes or professors that were particularly impactful?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. Few I'd love to name are Dr. Chase. She's always gone above and beyond in helping me find internships as well as, checking in on things. So she always goes out and make sure to form a firsthand relationship with her students. And then Dr. Vealey as well is very similar in that. I've had her for a bunch of leadership classes and I think she's done a tremendous job and kind of teaching me how to learn rather than memorize. Her classes are very outgoing. So you have to be very involved in her teaching style for it to work. And then Dr. Beissel has been a great mentor in analytics projects. I've worked with him specifically on concept design for the analytics application that I've been working on the past few years for hockey. He also led our Sport Leadership and Management team for the data analytics competition through Farmer.

Peter Everett:

You also mentioned, of course, your hockey analytics software, which you also mentioned, you took to a business competition. And I'm curious if you could tell us more about what exactly the software is in layman's terms and how it's helping not only Miami's hockey teams, but other hockey teams as well, if I'm right.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. So the Computer Science and Engineering Department [crosstalk 00:03:43] which is with professor Stahr. So as a senior capstone, the past three years, I've had three to five students each year work on different components of the application. Basically the whole purpose of it is to kind of help athletes understand what value they're bringing into the game and kind of take advantage of those areas while also finding weak areas of the game so that they can go and critique that during practices.

Peter Everett:

So, does the software ... do you input for example, like certain stat lines from different players and then it comes up with some sort of picture or a graph? Is that ...

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, so there's about four different screens that pop up and it looks at like where shot locations are. Shots on net. And then time on ice, basically you can go back and look at individual shifts for each player when you go to video review with them and then possession time. So how much time you possessed with the puck as a team, and then it can break it down into individual player possession. So yeah, it's very critical and finding basically all the components of the game.

Peter Everett:

Maybe an example of a problem area might be out of the data would be okay, we have a lot of time with the puck, we possess the puck for a long period of time, but we're not taking many shots on net. Would that be something where you'd be like, Oh, that's a pinpointing an area where, Oh, you're, you're good at keeping hold of the puck, but you're not actually making any shots like type of ...

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. And then also like areas where you have possession of the puck. Like it's a lot different for team success to have the puck in the opposing team zone rather than maybe the neutral zone or defensive zone. So just kind of being aware of the different areas that possession time is being dominated by makes a huge difference in the game because obviously you want to try to advance it as quickly down to the opposing zone as possible so that you can give yourself the chance to score.

Peter Everett:

Gotcha. See that's really cool to me. Is there any like stat or maybe type of an analytical line of thought that's like underrated that your software picks up on?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, definitely. One thing that I personally want to look at is how contact in hockey could be considered an overrated stat.

Peter Everett:

Okay. So overrated, not underrated, cool.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. And the reason behind is there's such a big emphasis within the game of physicality and when examining a power play goal percentages, typical success rates about 20% and what leads to a power play opportunity is when a team takes a penalty. Usually penalties occur from physicality. Exactly.

Peter Everett:

Okay I got you. Yeah. For a second, I thought the power play meant or power play like a guy shoving a dude into a wall, but you're saying a power play is when the enemy team has an advantage.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. Usually when a team takes a penalty they go down a man. So it'd be like five on four. They could go down to five on three, if a team takes two or more penalties.

Peter Everett:

That doesn't sound good.

Jackson Polish:

No. And obviously a five on three is going to be a bigger scoring chance than a five on four play. But I want to look at hits based on opposing team possession time. Because if you just look at hits as a whole, it doesn't really give you the entire picture. Whereas if you look at opposing time spent without the puck, it'll give you a better example of how physical a team really is. And then I want to see how that correlates with winning and if it has a negative correlation, then that means basically that my prediction is true and physicality really isn't necessary within the game of hockey.

Peter Everett:

And actually is a active detriment. You can change the whole perception of hockey with your analytics. That's awesome. But it also means that the only hockey movie I've seen Goon is wrong and glorifies violence, and it's actually bad for hockey, but you know, it's okay, I'll take that.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. I wouldn't say that it's bad for the game. I would just say that you wouldn't ... coaches wouldn't really have to recruit for that side. It would just be an additive feature. So I don't think obviously there's a time and place for it. Like you want to be able to rob people off the puck, but blow up hits are usually the ones that lead to penalties. So just kind of learning how to just use your body and position it in a way to gain possession rather than try to send a message to the opponent.

Peter Everett:

Is there any experience here at Miami where you felt like, okay, this is the direction I want to go, some sort of defining moment in your academic career or in your sports career that really pushed you into the, this awesome area where you are now, or you're literally helping redefine the sport of hockey.

Jackson Polish:

I think one of the redefining moments was DataFest.

Peter Everett:

So what's DataFest?

Jackson Polish:

DataFest is a competition, ran through the Farmer school of business where they give you a huge data set and you have to go scrape it to kind of form a story that basically depicts a conclusion. And two years ago was the first year that team from slam competed in the competition. And you can kind of tell right away just because we weren't necessarily the typical student participating in that we were kind of underdogs going into the competition, but we were fortunate enough where it was a sport themed event. And I was analyzing Canadian sevens rugby, which was pretty cool because I'm not too familiar with the sport. So kind of gave us an opportunity to look at it from a different angle, just because the people participating had background with hockey, baseball, football, and soccer. So we kind of were able to combine forces and figure out a way to bring all our different avenues together. And we ended up finishing second in the competition, which was pretty cool.

Peter Everett:

So when you put group work on your resume, you actually mean it. It's not just like a throwaway line.

Jackson Polish:

No, we all did our collective part to get that result.

Peter Everett:

And then that moment at DataFest, then that encouraged you to continue the project and keep building on what you'd started there.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah. And it kind of made it clear that this is something I could have success in.

Peter Everett:

And how would you define success?

Jackson Polish:

I think success comes from what you see in yourself. Obviously you are what you you're doing when no one's watching. So it's just kind of going above and beyond and, you know, your coursework, your extracurriculars, and just taking pride in everything along the way.

Peter Everett:

So for you like work ethic translates directly and it's almost the definition of success.

Jackson Polish:

That's what I would like to define it as just because that's something you can personally control. You know, everyone has their own strengths, but one thing that we all have is our work ethics so ...

Peter Everett:

Yeah, I heard somebody say recently that finding success, finding the career that you love. Isn't always following your passion, but it's bringing your passion with you and then so obviously having a strong work work ethic allows you to push into something you might not necessarily passionate about, but you always bring that passion with you and that work ethic and passion kind of work really well together. Do you have any advice for incoming students on how to translate whatever degree they're thinking about going into or their academic work into a successful career into a passionate project? Like how do you make that transition?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, I think it comes down to just your first year taking a variety of different classes and just kind of weighing in the pros and cons of what you enjoy from each. I know a lot of people that came in with a set mind and they ended up a year or two switching majors just because they took a different class that they felt fit their career needs a little better. So I just think it early on just kind of taking advantage of the Miami plan and weighing in on a bunch of different classes, just to get a better idea about what your real interests are. I came in with the mindset that I was going to try to do everything I can to be a sports agent ...

Peter Everett:

Is that like Jerry Maguire?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, exactly.

Peter Everett:

Notice all my movie references. It's all I have.

Jackson Polish:

No, yeah. I'm a big movie guy too, so I get along.

Peter Everett:

Okay. But yeah, that's kind of, you were looking at, or ...

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, it's becoming a sports agent, which would obviously entail going to law school. Yeah. And then now that's still one of the avenues that I'd be interested in going into, but obviously getting to Miami and taking abundance of different classes, I'd be very happy going into the coaching side of the game or the data analytics side, just because that's a growing profession. So there's a lot of future opportunities within the game of hockey and the sports world as a whole. So it's just, I've found a bunch of different things to be passionate about. And there's not one set career path for me.

Peter Everett:

Just to close this out. I got to know what's your favorite sports movie.

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, I definitely, I watched The Express the other night, which is a movie about Ernie Davis, his life he's a well renown running back and was the first African American to win the Heisman trophy. It's just kind of cool getting to see what he had to go through during his career at Syracuse.

Peter Everett:

Absolutely sounds super inspiring. And who knows, maybe we'll make a movie about you one day, "changing the name of sports analytics," who knows?

Jackson Polish:

Yeah, we'll see.

Peter Everett:

All right, Jackson, it was awesome talking to you. Thank you so much for coming in.

Jackson Polish:

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

James Loy:

Jackson Polish is a sport leadership and management major at Miami University, where he created of SP Analytics, an application which is helping to provide new insights into the game of hockey.

If you know anyone who hopes to make a powerful impact on their world, please tell them about the Major Insight podcast. You can find many more episodes wherever podcasts are found.

SHOW NOTES:

Featured Majors: 

Sport Leadership and Management, Coaching, General Business

Featured Organizations & Internships:

Miami RedHawks Ice Hockey, DataFest

Career Clusters:

Economics and Data Analytics

Engineering and Technology