Keeping Score
It's an overlooked job, but scorekeepers have been a vital part of high school basketball for decades. But now the little-paid, mostly volunteer-based manual roles are increasingly under threat from new forms of technology.
The scoreboard at Gainesville High School is mechanical.
When a player sinks a basket or a referee blows the whistle, John Wilson reaches for the controls, adding points by hand — or click — and stopping the clock without ever taking his eyes off the court. In close games, there is no room for error. The crowd notices everything, and it is quick to complain if he seems even a second too slow.
Wilson has been doing this for more than 30 years. Fifteen minutes before every tip-off, he is there, checking the controls, making sure the system is ready.
Across town at Santa Fe High School, Angie King Thomas performs a similar role. For 33 years, she has kept the books for basketball games in a worn green scorebook — “never the blue one, always green” — the same kind she has used for decades.
Nobody notices the pair unless something goes wrong. They are volunteers, unpaid or barely compensated, doing work that seems simple until you try to do it yourself.
And they might be disappearing.
Wilson didn’t plan on spending three decades behind the clock. He works in the guidance office at Gainesville High School, doing data entry, never having played sports beyond recreational tennis. But in 1988, a friend asked him to help keep score for a baseball game. He said yes and was hooked.
What keeps him coming back is something Wilson calls “magic time” — those moments during a game when he is so engaged that everything else fades. For a few hours, there’s only the game and the responsibility of getting it right.
“You can’t drift,” Wilson said. “If you drift for even a second, you’ll miss something and everyone in the building will know it.”
A Gainesville native and GHS alumnus, Wilson sees the job as a way to give back to the school that shaped him. Over decades, he has watched generations of students come and go, witnessing wins that felt enormous and losses that lingered long after his final buzzer.
His dedication extends beyond the scorer’s table. Wilson runs a Twitter account documenting Gainesville High sports history and maintains a YouTube channel where he uploads recordings of old games, including boys and girls basketball and volleyball championship matches, moments that would otherwise disappear. With a history degree from the University of Florida, he treats the work like maintaining a public archive.
Gil Brodach, a longtime Gainesville High announcer and friend of Wilson’s for nearly four decades, said Wilson’s reliability is what allows everything else to function.
“If there’s something that needs to be done for any sport at Gainesville High, John is involved,” Brodach said. “He’s meticulous. He’s trustworthy. I’ve never known him to miss something that mattered.”
The mechanics of the job seem straightforward. Wilson adds scores by hand, starts and stops the clock and coordinates with referees and scorekeepers.
“People think it’s easy until they sit down and try it,” Wilson said. “As long as you pay attention, you’re fine. But that’s the whole job, paying attention.”
Twenty miles north at Santa Fe High School, Thomas works with similar intensity, but different tools. A retired nurse who spent her career at Alachua General Hospital, she was eventually drawn to the scorer’s table through family: her husband, Len Thomas, has been involved in basketball for nearly 50 years, and her children attended Santa Fe. Now, her grandchildren are coming through the same gym.
Thomas keeps track of fouls, points and free throws by quarter. In close games, there is no time to double-check; everything has to be right in real time. She prefers her traditional green scorebook to newer technology, though she adapts when needed.
Her work has not gone unnoticed. The Mid-Florida Officials Association has recognized her for her work multiple times. Officials know her by name and trust her information, a faith that helps games run smoothly and keeps the crowd’s focus where it belongs.
She’s now paid $15 per game, the same amount for roughly a decade. Before that, she did the work for free for more than 20 years. She says she would have continued either way.
Elliott Harris, who coached boys basketball at Santa Fe from 2008 to 2021, saw Thomas’s impact firsthand. Harris first encountered Thomas when he was a player, when she was already at the scorer’s table. At the time, he barely noticed her. Only after 13 years of depending on her work as a coach did he understand just how essential she was, not only to the game but to the program.
“She makes you better,” Harris said. “She makes the whole program more efficient.”
More than that, Thomas has become a fixture at Santa Fe. Harris has three sons, and they all know her name. She’s traveled to away games for both boys’ and girls’ teams, a commitment that went far beyond her job description.
The investment has never just been about basketball. Thomas wants to represent Santa Fe well and build something that lasts beyond any single season. At this point, it’s her family.
“We’ve all grown up in that gym together,” Thomas said. “The coaches change, the players change, but when the referees walk in and see us at the table, they know everything’s going to be okay.”
“I’ll be running the scorebooks until I die.”
Traditions like these, however, are becoming harder to sustain.
Technology is slowly absorbing this line of work. Data that was once recorded by hand now transfers automatically to platforms like MaxPreps. Apps such as Hudl and GameChanger log statistics in real time.
Wilson still does unofficial stats for coaches using the same handwritten methods he always has. Thomas still prefers her green book. But both know the truth: the need for their work is shrinking.
They occupy that reality in different ways.
Wilson mostly works alone, while Thomas is surrounded by family — her husband, children and grandchildren are all connected to Santa Fe athletics across generations. Wilson came to the role by accident. Thomas was drawn in through connections, and over time, it became part of who she is.
Set their differences aside, and something consistent emerges. Both have deep ties to Alachua County. Both have spent decades on the sidelines, watching students move through gyms in games that once felt all-consuming and later became memories.
When they are gone — and they will be gone, whether through technology or time — something harder to quantify will go with them. Not just the work itself, which machines may handle more efficiently, but the steady presence of people who know the game and the community around it.
Who replaces people like Wilson and Thomas? Who commits decades to running a mechanical scoreboard or keeping the books for little or no pay?
The answer is not clear. For now, though, the routine continues.
Wilson arrives at the gym half an hour before tip-off. He runs through his checks, making sure the scoreboard is ready. Across town, Thomas sits at the scorer’s table with her green book open, pencil in hand. Players warm up. The crowd filters in. Officials confirm everything is set.
Another game is about to begin.
