I ran across Jeff Williams while researching a story recently, and the man primarily responsible for keeping the NCAA football records book up to date was kind enough to share some insights on the job — and why he loves it.

Title: Associate Director, Media Coordination and Statistics for the NCAA

Age: I’ll be 43 in November.

Hometown: I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. (Yes, I was a big Razorbacks fan growing up.)

Are you a big sports fan? I’ve always been a big sports fan, and I’ve always had an interest in the way the numbers tell the story of the game. I collected baseball cards as a kid and enjoyed reading the backs. I feel like what I do now is sort of like making the back of those cards. Not only do the numbers tell the story of the games, but numbers/statistics allow us to maintain the history of the sports.

Is your job football-specific, or do you handle all sports? I handle statistics and records for Division I football (both FBS and FCS) and Division I baseball. I also serve as media coordinator for the NIT (men’s basketball) and I serve on the media coordination staff for the Division I Baseball Championship and College World Series. In addition to that, I work closely with our IT staff as we try to make our systems for collecting the statistics, displaying them and using them for records more efficient.

How big is the staff that deals with records books? We have a staff of 15 that compiles and distributes 40 national rankings (many of which are done daily) throughout the season (all divisions in several sports), does full records books for those sports and also compiles championship records and results for all 90 NCAA championships. Our group also oversees the media coordination efforts for all 90 NCAA championships.

How often are errors found? We receive updates regularly. I don’t know that it’s always “errors,” but we do rely on the SIDs at schools to provide a lot of the information in the records. We have gotten better over the last few years at being able to pull records from our database. But there are still some records that don’t pull from the database and we have to come across those records in other ways or get updates from SIDs. That said, with the number of things we track, there are times when there are omissions or errors.

Who finds them, media, schools, fans? We get emails from media, SIDs, fans, former student-athletes and parents. When we get a request for a change or update, we try to get confirmation of the record.

How often are new lists added to the football records book? These days, new lists aren’t added very often. The book is pretty robust. While there are things we could add, it’s a pretty full book.

Have you/the staff ever tried to research something and couldn’t find a definitive answer? Yes, but I don’t have an exact example right now. We often get off-the-wall requests that we can’t answer.

How long have you been with NCAA in this position? I’ve been with the NCAA almost 12 years (it will be 12 years in November). I have worked with statistics and records my entire time at the NCAA but our staff has evolved in my time here.

What college did you go to? I went to Ouachita Baptist, a small Division II college in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. (Kiehl Frazier led its football team to an undefeated regular season in 2014 after transferring there from Auburn for his senior season.)

Did you play football, or any other sport? Not in college. I was an average high school football and baseball player. If there were recruiting web sites in those days, I would have been a half-star recruit with a scouting report that said something like, “a 6-0, 155-pound tight end who is an average blocker but makes up for his small stature by having absolutely no speed.”

Seems like a cool job. Is it? Or is it tedious? It is a job that I enjoy, and, sure, there are tedious parts. But my favorite parts are collecting the data and turning those into national statistics or records — and I’m sure someone else would view that as tedious. But I’ve also been able to work the last 12 College World Series and shoot baskets with my daughters at Madison Square Garden, so yes, it’s a pretty cool job.

Did you have this type of job in mind coming out of college? When I left college I got into sports information and thought I’d probably work in sports information or media relations as a career. I left a sports information job for family reasons to move to Indianapolis before this job became available, and when a job opened up I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But I think my sports information background put me in a position to do this work. My favorite part of being an SID was doing the statistics and using those to promote our student-athletes if they were chasing records, etc. Now, I feel what we do supports our membership as they do the same thing on their campuses.

Are records books printed/published anymore? Or are they just digital? We do not print the books anymore and haven’t for several years.  They are only available as PDF files at this point. We do encourage SIDs to print the sections they need.

Are you still a big Razorbacks fans? I still follow Arkansas (especially in football) but I wouldn’t say that I’m as big a fan as I once was. If I’m home and they are on television, I’ll watch them play, but I don’t schedule any game as must-see TV. Having worked at a couple of different schools, I find myself rooting for the teams and coaches I know. For instance, in baseball I was rooting for Missouri State in the 2015 Fayetteville Super Regional and the 2017 Fayetteville Regional — I know the staff from my days of working at Missouri State before coming to work at the NCAA.

Would you like to give a shout-out to your family? I have a wife (who swam at Minnesota and was a two-time Big Ten champion in swimming – 1650-yard freestyle – and competed in the 1996 Olympic Trials) and two daughters (12 and 10 years old).