TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — As Andrew Adair passed a volleyball to the girls on the Catalina Foothills High Schools’ varsity volleyball team, he instructed them on how they could improve.
Back in 2014, he was in their shoes, having been on the school’s team throughout his entire high school career.
Now as head varsity coach, he gets to pass on the knowledge he learned in high school and as a player on the University of Arizona’s team.
He’s also the creator of Stat Together Volleyball, an app that lets teams track every game and see a team’s record.
“I wasn’t a huge fan of any of the apps that were out there so I decided I would just try to make one on my own as my senior project,” he said.
It was after using other score keeping apps at a tournament that he decided to stay up all night one night in 2019 making the first version of the app. The project came together in phases until it was released to the public six months after it was tested.
“All night that night, made the first version of the app. On Saturday, day 2 of the tournament was when we tried it out,” Adair said.
Apart from the score of the game, the app tracks the amount of serves, attacks, sets, defense, and receiving plays, which then goes to Max Preps, which tracks stats for teams all across Arizona.
Users can track every game, see records and view stats for individual games or whole seasons. It also breaks games down by home and away games.
He also created its partner app Stat Together Streaming in 2020, which lets people watch the game live and see the score and statistics for that game.
“Once COVID hit, we could play games, but parents couldn’t be in the gym, so we were looking for a way to live stream,” Adair said.
As a coach Adair said the app makes it easier for him to instruct his players on how to improve.
“Being able to go back and watch film and show the girls film and show them what you’re talking about and they can see it in real time,” he said.
Middle blocker on the varsity team Cassie Leary transferred to Catalina Foothills High School from Rincon/University High School.
It was there that Adair launched the app when he was coaching the school’s team and Leary was able to use it too.
“If you’re playing another team, you can see their stats as well, and so you kind of know what you’re up against and then for me, if I didn’t do too well in a game, I can see exactly why,” Leary said.
She along with her teammates also use the app to keep score of the boys’ games and vice versa. Leary said it’s easier to use than just a plain old-fashioned scoreboard where the numbers flip over.
“It’s one button that you just keep pressing and it’s way easier if you make a mistake to edit it just within the app,” she said.
Adair is currently looking for ways to improve the app and he said he gets feedback through coaches who can directly email him through the app.
For him, the app is an opportunity to help other teams. He said it’s being used by thousands of teams including teams at the high school and collegiate levels.
Apart from those teams, he wore a smile when talking about how the Volleyball League of America is also using his app.
“That’s never really where it was supposed to go but I think people have just found it useful and it took off,” he said.
