Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with creating a “ball state depth chart.” Now, I’m not a sports analyst or anything, I just thought it would be a fun little project to organize some data and see if I could make something that looked, you know, official.
First, I gathered all the player information. This was the most time-consuming part, to be honest. I went to the team’s website and just started copying and pasting names, positions, jersey numbers, all that stuff. It wasn’t glamorous, but it had to be done. I put it all into a simple spreadsheet to keep it organized.
Then came the slightly trickier part. I needed to figure out how to visually represent the depth chart. I mean, I could have just listed the players in order, but that’s boring! I wanted something that looked like those charts you see on TV.
I started by sketching out a basic layout on a piece of paper. Just simple boxes for each position, with lines connecting them to show the different levels (starter, second string, third string, etc.). This helped me visualize what I wanted the final product to look like.
Formatting and making it look good
After I had my rough layout. I used some color-coding to make it a bit easier to read. I put the starters in bold, and then used different shades for the second and third-string players. Nothing fancy, just enough to make it visually clear.
- Find the roster online. Copy and paste it to the spreadsheet.
- Organize it base on positions.
- Figure out a way to make the chart.
- Color code and bold important things.
Finally, I just played around with the formatting until I got something I was happy with. I adjusted the spacing, added some borders, and tweaked the colors a bit. It took some trial and error, but eventually, I had a depth chart that looked pretty decent!
It wasn’t perfect, of course. If I were doing this for real, I’d probably use some more dedicated software. But for a quick and dirty project, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon and learn a little bit about organizing data visually.
