
Ravens Offensive Lineman Publishes Math Paper - jaynos
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/20/394340722/john-urschel-ravens-offensive-lineman-publishes-math-paper
======
wiremine
He wrote this recently: [http://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-
football/](http://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/)

"I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I already have
more money in my bank account than I know what to do with. I drive a used
hatchback Nissan Versa and live on less than $25k a year. It’s not because I’m
frugal or trying to save for some big purchase, it’s because the things I love
the most in this world (reading math, doing research, playing chess) are very,
very inexpensive."

Refreshing to see such a grounded athlete get press. I'm sure there are a lot
of them out there, but typically you don't see a lot of stories about them.

~~~
jberryman
I think his attitude is refreshing too, but it's a curious comment sitting at
the top of a thread on this forum.

~~~
jordanpg
Oh, well the enthusiastic pursuit of lots of money is totally different if
it's part of a startup. Also Makers are exempt.

------
jgmmo
Good for him.

I hear what's he's saying about the physical contact, and the feeling of
dominating the player in front of you. My high school football coach use to
say, on the football field you could measure yourself. You could see how tough
you are, how strong you are, and if you have the mental toughness required to
win. It's you versus the guy across from you.. There's not many chances in
this world to test yourself like that. I think that's some of what he means
when he says he's 'addicted' to the physical contact of football. I certainly
miss that aspect.

~~~
Swizec
To be fair, I think that's true for any competitive sport. Even many forms of
non-competitive sport. Personally I enjoy sparring in english boxing.

There's something very relaxing about punching people in the face.

~~~
geoka9
What about getting punched?

~~~
beagle3
The timeline for me is clearly separated to "before the first punch to the
nose" and "since that moment" \-- and this description is similar to just
about any other person practicing martial arts that I've talked to.

The first time you get your nose punched while boxing, you have no idea what
hit you, or where you are, or where the floor is. It is very disorienting, and
usually quite alarming. But that experience somehow reconfigures your brain,
and all the times after that are "just" irritating or painful.

And I also remember, that following that day, a lot of things in life became
much less intimidating and much more tractable. For me, it was a small, but
memorable, "life changing experience"

~~~
chris_wot
Boxing reconfigures the brain all right. Just not in a good way.

------
troymc
If you liked this story, there are more like it, e.g.

Natalie Portman -
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01angier.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01angier.html)

Brian May - [http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/07/science/sci-
queen7](http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/07/science/sci-queen7)

~~~
swimfar
I like finding out things like this about people. Very talented athletes who
are also very smart are not as rare as people would think. (Anecdote warning)
Many of the most talented athletes I know are very intelligent people. Here
are some more examples of athletes:

[http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/feed/2010-09/smart-
athletes/...](http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/feed/2010-09/smart-
athletes/story/sporting-news-names-the-20-smartest-athletes-in-sports)

If you think an engineering degree is tough, try doing one while also training
30+ hours/week. ;)

The list of multi-talented musicians and actors is also fun to read about.
Greg Graffin, the lead singer of Bad Religion, has a PhD in Zoology from
Cornell. Here are some more: [http://entertainment.time.com/2012/09/07/school-
of-rock-10-s...](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/09/07/school-of-
rock-10-super-smart-musicians/)

~~~
clarky07
I was never a pro level athlete, but I did play a very time consuming sport in
college at a decently high level. Most people have no idea how hard it is for
athletes, especially when getting a degree in something like engineering, or
in my case Computer Science. During each spring semester, I missed roughly
30-40% of my classes because of travel. Some weeks I would be gone for 3 of
the 5 days.

~~~
Bahamut
That was why I passed up playing Division I tennis in favor of my studies
(math & physics) - in retrospect, I should have probably at least tried, since
competitive athletics comes with people surrounding you who do their best to
make sure you get your work done, and the intense exercise would have been
great for me.

I have a lot of respect for college athletes who pursue difficult majors.

------
JeremyMorgan
Definitely one of those examples of not judging a book by it's cover. People
often assume big brutes are dumb, and that you can either be a big idiot, or a
skinny genius. People rarely fit into molds as much as we like.

And I can completely relate to him. I'm an engineer, but I'm also 275lbs and
grew up on a farm. I'm a volunteer firefighter and people are surprised when
they meet me. Fellow firefighters are surprised when I tell them I write
software, and fellow techies are surprised I kick down doors and enter burning
buildings for free. But both of those things I enjoy immensely from different
parts of my personality.

~~~
pcthrowaway
There is actually a subreddit for pointing out the various ways in which
'swole' people face oppression, and although the users are completely tongue-
in-cheek with all their posts, it does highlight a lot of very real ways in
which assumptions and public attitudes affect the lives of people who choose
to devote themselves to cultivating a fit body.

I am hardly 'swole', being a average-build dude who sits in front of a
computer for 12+ hours a day, with my only real exercise coming from using a
bicycle for commuting, but I do think the subreddit is a great example of how
people can channel oppression they face to derive humor and fuel for
motivation to 'go harder'.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/swoleacceptance](http://www.reddit.com/r/swoleacceptance)
for anyone interested.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
That's hilarious!

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flixic
Avid chess player and a kickboxer? He could be a really good chess boxer:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing)

~~~
nemo1618
I was hoping this would be a team sport:

\- Each team consists of a chess player and up to 16 boxers

\- When one piece captures another, their corresponding boxers fight each
other

\- The winner of the bout determines which piece is removed from the chess
board

~~~
irremediable
That's an interesting idea. The main problem I see is that it would take away
a lot of the advantage of taking pieces.

~~~
nemo1618
Good point. You'd probably want to match "piece strength" with weight class
then, so that a pawn vs. queen is not a fair fight by any means.

~~~
irremediable
That would go some way towards solving it. But what about e.g. a pawn taking a
pawn? It's an interesting thought experiment...

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cafebeen
For those who are interested, here's some background on the field:

[http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/spielman/sgta/SpectTut.pdf](http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/spielman/sgta/SpectTut.pdf)

While the topic of graph laplacians may sound obscure, there are a lot of
direct applications to image segmentation, social network analysis,
bioinformatics, etc.

------
MarcScott
I know just how he feels.

I'm a fairly typical geek in almost all aspects of my life, but nothing beats
the thrill of competing in Kickboxing competition and going one on one with
another Martial Artist.

It's not even about winning, or dominating. Even when I get the seven shades
of shit knocked out of me, I still feel that rush, and walk away with a smile
on my face.

------
rifung
I would love to find out how he has the time to do research. I've always
wanted to do research but after joining the industry I've convinced myself
that I don't have the time, and will just save up and go back to school when I
don't have to work anymore.

I wonder what his schedule is like.

~~~
Gifford
An athlete can't exercise all day and week long, their body would collapse.
During the downtime, they can party or they can study.

~~~
rifung
I agree they can't, but you can exercise for a very long time.. Not only that,
but after you're done it's rather difficult to study because you are so
exhausted mentally.

I don't know much about football but I used to compete in badminton and played
with many professional players. Most people playing internationally train 6
days a week, 3 times a day. Even when I was only training twice a day, after I
was done I would not be able to do anything because of the fatigue, I'd
probably just eat and sleep.

I feel much the same way about working nowadays; even though I do have some
spare time where I'm not working, the time is less productive than if I were
in school where I would be doing nothing but studying. I certainly still learn
new things, but it takes me much longer because my mental state is not fresh.

I wonder if this would be alleviated by studying before work instead of after,
though, which is something I'm experimenting with. The only issue is that I
already have trouble waking up for work, and yet somehow am unable to sleep
early despite being so tired.

------
thesz
Given that american football cause brain damage [1], his simple pleasures
won't last long.

Punching people is always reciprocal and always with consequences.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chroni...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy)

------
perdunov
Reading stuff like this really makes me feel like a piece of shit.

~~~
nemo1618
I'm sure you know this, but that's a very dangerous mindset! People aren't
meant to be compared; comparison implies a winner and a loser. The truth is
that there are no losers here, just different people walking different paths.

~~~
rifung
While I agree, unfortunately life is very much like a competition. If there's
a job opening many people may apply but likely only one person will get it. Or
if a team has a limited amount to use for bonuses, some will get more than
others. Or if you're in love, that other person may choose or another person
to be their partner.

Whether we like it or not, we are constantly being compared, and there is
indeed a winner or loser. I'd argue that we shouldn't try to trick ourselves
into thinking that there are no winners or losers, but to accept that it is
totally okay, and even good, to lose.

~~~
judk
Even the person who got a smaller bonus is still doing pretty well.

~~~
rifung
How do you know? Maybe the other person doesn't even get a bonus. And even if
that's the case, the people who are eligible for the bonus are still being
compared, which is the point I was trying to prove. You and everyone else is
constantly being compared to others.

But if you'd like, we could consider another case where we have two employees
who have the same position. Since we're on HN lets say we have two junior
devs. If the company decides it doesn't need both employees, one of them will
be laid off. Obviously the person in charge will have to compare the two and
decide which one to let go.

------
evilotto
"The paper gave Urschel an Erdős number of 4."

------
cafard
One of my boyhood heroes was Frank Ryan, quarterback of the Cleveland Browns
for their last NFL championship, and Ph.D. in mathematics (Rice University).

------
pekk
Good for him, and I'm not surprised, but why don't we congratulate everyone
who publishes a math paper?

Will we also have an article if a pretty woman publishes a math paper?

~~~
neindanke
> I'm not surprised

Good that you're not surprised. But there's a lot of people out there (and
here in the valley) who subconsciously (or consciously) believe that if you're
dark skinned with curly hair and athletic, then you're deficient in the
intellectual arena, or worse, that you're a thug.

> why don't we congratulate everyone who publishes a math paper?

Because not everyone's story defeats a stereotype that is dangerous and
damaging. I'm surprised that this has to be explained.

------
mattryanharris
That is so awesome :D

------
rquantz
He'll regret it when he can't do math after he retires because of the
encephalopathy he gets from repeated head trauma.

~~~
chernevik
He's an offensive lineman. It wouldn't surprise me if there is less head
trauma in that position than in others.

They make contact with other players with less time for anyone to get to full
speed. The guys they're hitting aren't generally going in exactly the opposite
direction, the way defenders' targets are. That contact is mostly on the body.
And they aren't targets the way ball carriers are.

Also, they're some of the biggest guys on the field. That means they've got
more neck muscle holding their head in place.

~~~
firebones
Depends on the position on the line. The interactive chart here [1] shows that
concussions by position for one year. Tackles have a much higher incidence
than the center, the guards or the defensive linemen. Wide receivers, running
backs, the defensive secondary and linebackers have a lot more though. The
guys on the line have so many more reps in games and in practices that the
damage is of more of a chronic nature.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/concussion-
watch/#po...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/concussion-
watch/#positions_2014)

~~~
ScottBurson
Ah, very interesting. I wouldn't have guessed that tackles (11) have almost
twice the risk of guards (6) -- maybe they tend to get farther downfield on
run plays? I looked through the 11 tackle concussions listed, and only one
said what type of play it was (a run play); another one was from being kneed
in the head.

Centers (3), OTOH, have by this estimate about half the risk of guards (6).
This guy should move to center. That's where you want someone really smart
anyway as centers have to set up blocking assignments at the line. Also I see
the scouting report recommended him for center based on his body type and
playing style.

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seanp2k2
More like Ravenclaw :)

...I've probably been reading hpmor.com too much lately, but thanks HN for
turning me on to that.

------
bjou
What I find most interesting about this is that NPR misunderstands that
putting a paper up on arXiv is not "publishing" a math paper.

~~~
qwert12345
"...published in the Journal of Computational Mathematics"

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chaosfactor
His argument that he keeps playing because he likes hitting people, is
analogous to saying that I keep doing heroin because I like the high.

~~~
icebraining
In what way is it analogous, other than they're both activities that people do
because they enjoy them?

~~~
LeonRobrotsky
Heroin destroys lives, dragging not just the users, but those around them
down. Similar to TBI.

~~~
themoonbus
If doing heroin was a spectator sport where competitors were highly paid and
needed to be in peak physical condition and perform impressive feats in order
to be the best at doing heroin, then this analogy might be slightly more
relevant...

And in that case, if an "extreme heroin" player published a mathematics paper,
I still would be impressed.

~~~
LeonRobrotsky
> then this analogy might be slightly more relevant

Agreed, football is worse: we actively encourage and reward modern day
gladiatorial combat such that otherwise brilliant people feel the need to
participate. NFL players publishing papers and having successful academic
careers afterwards are not the norm.

~~~
themoonbus
You are being incredibly hyperbolic. There are issues with football, but
equating the sport to actual bloodsport (or heroin use... really?) is a
ridiculous stretch.

It really doesn't do anything to further the discourse.

