Demorest — A group of business students are hoping to change Piedmont sports forever utilizing data science. 

Mark Mitchell, Julia Nichols, Maggie Moody, Geeth Mahagamage and Valeriya Zhurakovskaya presented at the session, “Using Data Science to Understand and Prevent Sports Injuries” at the 2020 Piedmont Symposium. Working with the athletic department, the students examined where injuries most occur among the Lions’ athletes. 

“We used data from the sports department, from every sports team on campus to see how injuries have occurred, some background from the athlete there, like height, weight, race, gender, and type of injuries,” said Mitchell. “Using this data helped us see what we need to do to move forward with Piedmont Athletics pertaining to their players, and what helps and what doesn’t help.” 

The group wanted to focus on this topic in the hopes of helping future Piedmont Lions athletes. “It was something we could use to help the school, and what another way to help our school by giving them data that can help them in the long run that could improve our athletics,” said Mitchell. “Remember numbers don’t lie. Plus, data science is used across sports to see what works and what doesn’t.” 

They wanted to prove that in certain sports, players can be kept on the field by changing a few things. One of those things would be the addition of a certified strength and conditioning coach.