Numbers being crunched is nothing new to sports, as this 1959 video of the Case Institute of Technology basketball team reminds. The assistant coach was an undergraduate computer whiz named Don Knuth who fed data into an IBM 650 to help improve his school’s chances (when he wasn’t busy freelancing for Mad). An excerpt from an interview at computer history.org in which Knuth recalls the first time he saw a computer:

“Later on in my freshman year there arrived a machine that, at first,  I could see only through the glass window. They called it a computer. I think it was actually called the IBM 650 ‘Univac.’ That was a funny name, because Univac was a competing brand. One night a guy showed me how it worked, and gave me a chance to look at the manual. It was love at first sight. I could sit all night with that machine and play with it.”