Rival Schools Have Strength in Numbers : Football: When Carson and Banning go head-to-head, statisticians Finny and Holstein get to resume their rivalry.

High over the brightly lighted field, above the seats where only pigeons dare to go, Friday’s prep football game between rivals Banning and Carson will become a numbers game in the cavernous press box at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.

Longtime statistical wizards Tim Finney of Carson and Harold Holstein of Banning, far removed from the pops of shoulder pads and helmets on the grassy plain before them, will scrutinize, document and record each play to the nth degree with pencils, calculators and a dozen student helpers at their sides.

Few volunteers do what they do better and, ironically, the rivalry between the men is fueled by that of the football teams.

On Friday night, another chapter in their long-standing stat wars resumes.

“There’s a degree of tension there,” said first-year Carson Coach David Williams, who spent several seasons spotting plays in the press box and has watched the men during Banning-Carson games. “Both men take enormous pride in their schools and both like to win at the other’s expense.”

Prep football stats have long been suspect to the media. Prep coaches frequently turn play charts over to ill-trained team managers and third-string quarterbacks. That often leads to padded statistics or incorrect totals because of lack of training.

Finney and Holstein have built reputations for accuracy and efficiency. There are few numbers about their respective schools they do not know. Finney publishes a Carson record book that requires nearly $3 in postage. He and his student staff routinely compile statistics such as the hang time of punts.

Counters Holstein, who wrote his own computer program to handle the load of numbers he shuffles: “We haven’t done hang time on punts. But that’s about all we haven’t done.”

Both say statistics have become more complicated in the computer age.

“Everybody wants more,” Finney said. “In 1970, putting out a four-page summary was a big deal. Now I turn in 15-16 pages each week, half on the game and half on the season update.”

Each man derives a sense of pride and loyalty in his school. In the South Bay, where the Banning-Carson game traditionally produces one of the most exciting matchups of the season, Finney and Holstein have lived and died with the results, sometimes twice a season in the 11 cases when the teams have met during the City Section playoffs.

Said former Banning Coach Chris Ferragamo: “Both men are in the same cut. They’re excellent. Holstein is a true Pilot and Finney is a true Colt. This is the battle of the statisticians this week when Carson and Banning play.”

Finney will tell you proudly that Carson leads the series, 22-19. Holstein counters that Banning began playing football in 1921 and the Pilots’ overall winning percentage is greater than 60%.

“He has the advantage in the sense that he started right about the time Carson football started,” Holstein said of his Colt counterpart. “So he knows all of the longest runs and these kinds of things. There are some things from past years that I just can’t find. It’s a frustrating problem.”

Neither Finney nor Holstein played football. In fact, before Holstein, a retired Banning math teacher, began taking statistics in 1975, “I didn’t follow the team at all.” He was coaxed into compiling statistics by Ferragamo, who had a 157-36-4 record as coach from 1969 to 1986.

“I needed stat help,” Ferragamo said. “He was a math and physics teacher and wondered if this guy would help.”

Holstein, who graduated from Banning in 1944 and taught math at the school until 10 years ago, obliged. He prides himself on honesty and accuracy. After the Pilots’ 19-16 victory at Tustin, he amusingly discovered that the Tillers made a 100-yard mistake in the rushing yardage reported to newspapers for one of their backs.

“I can’t say what it was,” he said. “But I think they added kickoff return yardage to his rushing total.”

Finney attended the University of Santa Clara, where he played basketball. He began teaching at Manual Arts High in 1968 and transferred to Carson in 1970, seven years after the school was opened. The lanky 55-year-old teaches English and honors classes and like his Pilot counterpart, had little interest in attending prep football games before 1970. Instead, he helped out with the Colt baseball team. But when the man doing statistics for the football team dropped the ball, Finney stepped in. Friday marks his 276th consecutive Carson football game.

“It’s fun,” he said. “In 30 years of existence, this school has had 186 kids make All-City, almost 400 make all-league. . . . I’m convinced that most of them made it on the basis of stats recorded by (my helpers and me). It’s fun to see these kids succeed.”

Each man has more than a few stories to tell.

Finney recalls the 1971 game with Banning, won by Carson (who else?), 29-28, on a two-point conversion run with less than a minute remaining. He dislikes attending games at Narbonne because he says a bitter cold wind blows there and he has to sit in the bleachers with his stat crew. Gardena often doesn’t chalk all the lines of the field, making it difficult to record yardage.

Earlier this year, when the Carson booster club asked Finney to name the 18 Colt players who have played in the NFL, Finney came up with 16 off the top of his head.

Over the years, the names have blended into one another for Holstein. The names he remembers most are the students that have helped him.

“Don’t ask me much about the players,” he said. “They kind of come and go. There are only two or three in my mind that stick out.”

But the numbers do. To the crews of youngsters he trains each season, Holstein preaches consistency in performance.

“It’s a matter of training people so they do things right,” he said. “What’s the difference between a pitchout and a forward pass? You have to get these things across to them. That’s the part that makes the difference.”

Finney is equally as dutiful with the students he trains--and protective. When the subject of a photo of he and his Banning counterpart was brought up, Finney insisted he be allowed to get his student helpers in the picture. Holstein objected, because the photo would be taken on the Carson campus, where he couldn’t bring his student helpers. Finney reluctantly agreed to be photographed only with Holstein. Both asked that their student workers, who they say do the bulk of the statistical work, be mentioned.

Neither wanted them to be thought of as just numbers.