Beantown

Last week I went to Boston for three days to attend the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. If someone took most of my favorite things, shook them up in a bottle, and created a conference, it would be Dorkapalooza (as Bill Simmons, my favorite sports writer, calls the event). I loved the content and I loved the people. It's so easy to turn small talk into big talk when I'm surrounded by stats geeks and sports junkies.

Newbury Street. The conference took place in downtown Boston, but I hardly spent any time in the actual city. To be honest, I hardly went outside at all. My hotel connected to the T (subway system) through a tunnel/ mall one direction and connected to the conference center through another tunnel/mall the other direction. It was pretty cold while I was there, so I didn't mind staying inside minus a brief walk to meet up with friends for dinner or lunch.

The coaching analytics panel. I had a great seat both days. Jeff Van Gundy (far left), Bill Simmons (middle), and Brent Barry (right) are three of my favorite basketball people, especially Simmons. I mainly went to basketball related panels or research presentations, but there were plenty of tennis, soccer, hockey, and baseball analytics events too.

I met up with Becca, a friend from home, for lunch at John Harvard's pub my first day in town.

I ventured to Cambridge again on Friday night to meet up with Nick and Tyler, two of my favorite TASP friends, for dinner. The nice thing about traveling to the education capital of the country is that you're bound to know a student or two in town. Speaking of TASP, can you believe it has been almost nine years?

I also met Adam Silver, the deputy commission of the NBA and most likely the next commish. Bloggers claim he's robotic (at least in lockout negotiations), but he's actually quite personable. I may or may not be coming for his job.

I really enjoyed my time in Boston, but still don't know the city that well yet. I've only been to Boston/Cambridge twice and the first time I went was before I even had a blog (Columbus Day 2006). The weather wasn't great during either visit (at least it wasn't flash flooding this time), so I owe it to the city to visit in the summer. Hopefully they move Dorkapalooza to July next year.