Rochester Institute of Technology Athletics

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, RIT intercollegiate athletics and the sports information program took a giant step forward, due in large part to the diligent work of Reuben Farber, a General Computer Science student at the Institute. Prior to Farber’s arrival, sports information compiled statistics manually, a very time-consuming process.

Farber, a Bronx, N.Y. native, attended RIT from 1978 until his graduation in 1983. With a love of baseball, he immediately volunteered as manager and statistician for the RIT baseball team. Through three fall seasons and four spring seasons, Farber only missed two doubleheaders. All the while, he was working to maintain a 3.65 grade point average.

He joined the sports information staff in the spring of 1980 and immediately began covering many of RIT’s sports. He covered home events and traveled to away contests for baseball, men’s basketball, men and women’s hockey, men and women’s soccer, men and women’s lacrosse and softball. At the time, RIT did not field women’s basketball or women’s lacrosse.

As a co-op assignment Farber wrote statistical programs for baseball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, volleyball, and soccer allowing Sports Information to generate game and season statistics. During that period, few schools in any division had computerized statistical programs. RIT was on the cutting edge.

Farber was an invaluable contributor to intercollegiate athletics, Sports information and the Institute. Today RIT is utilizing other computer programs for its varsity sports. But, the groundwork was established through Reuben’s early efforts. To this day, Farber maintains copies of RIT sports statistics from his days at RIT.

After graduating he founded Statistics Technology, which further developed sports statistics programs for colleges, high schools, and other sports organizations. Several hundred clients have utilized his programs and services.