plunge for the scoreboard

Ladue Replaces Outdated Scoreboard In Swimming Pool

by Ishaan Pandey & Aaron Lin

Due to many technical issues with the current scoreboard, a new scoreboard at the swimming pool is being built in the summer of 2023 to benefit Ladue students using the swimming pool.

“[The scoreboard] will really help everyone,” sophomore Oliver Stern, on both the swim and water polo team, said. “It'll be a much smoother experience to have a nice scoreboard.”

The new scoreboard will provide many benefits to the school. It will allow games to run smoother and reduce inconveniences.

“Just a more aesthetically pleasing view of everything that we do at the pool so kind of throughout the swim meets, throughout the water polo games, things like that,” Jacob Jagodzinski said, a math and science teacher. “We'll be able to put different pictures and graphics up to kind of provide some more community with our programs.”

The new scoreboard won’t have to be that big of a change. But it does need to match the requirements of water polo and swimming.

“We just have to ensure that the scoreboard works with the

Colorado timing system, which is what we use for all swimming events as well as all water pool things," Jagodzinski said. "That's really been the main thing is just to make sure that it works amongst all those different things.”

The malfunctioning of Ladue’s scoreboard does cause some heads to turn during the games. These heads are turned back once they find out that the scoreboard is outdated.

“The numbers are displayed upside down,” freshman Glen Widjaja, a freshman on the water polo team, said. “Sometimes our opponents get confused and they ask what the score is, and we have to tell them that the numbers are just upside down.”

There are many other instances of the scoreboard’s malfunction, some even occurring in matches.

“There's just little issues that happen with it. That can just be annoying or because things go wrong,” Stern said. “I remember one incident in one of the JV games, towards the beginning of the season against [Parkway] Central, where the scores were flipped. So it looked like we had nine goals. We had six goals, but it was flipped upside down. It looked like a six and I was just really, really confused what the score of the game was. That was upsetting.”

Freshman Emma Hsiao is the team manager for the water polo team. She often runs the scoreboard clock during games and doesn’t make mistakes with it.

“I remember I was doing the scoreboard at the Founders Cup, which was a varsity tournament, and I and Emma, Vincent's sister and our team manager was sitting next to me doing the clock and she started the clock,” Stern said. “And then J, our Coach, comes running over and I see it's not running on the scoreboard, but it is on the little machine in front of me. And he comes running over like ‘Dude, start the clock,’ and I'm like, ‘It is, it's just not running on the scoreboard.’”

Focusing on the technical aspects, often there is an issue with the display. There are not many problems with the actual clock, but the scoreboard cannot display it correctly.

“There are certain locations on our current board that the lights don't actually work, so it causes different things, different circuit issues, as well as our system’s outdated,” Jagodzinski said. “And so we're just kind of upgrading. Nothing's technically broken, but it's just really an upgrade since we've had this one for quite some time.”

The scoreboard's age has mainly contributed to its problems. Time is a big contriubtor to the issues.

“I know [the scoreboard] has been broken since the beginning of water polo season,” Widjaja said.

The current scoreboard has been a problem for a long time, but it will soon be replaced this summer. Not too much is known about when the scoreboard will be built.

“It's not being built [right now], it'll be put in over the summer or at least that's the current idea,” Jagodzinski said.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW SCOREBOARD?

It think [the scoreboard] is gonna be really cool. I always thought the new basketball and football scoreboard's were cool, so I think this new one is going to be cool."

Glen Widjaja, 9