Ravens Offensive Lineman Publishes Math Paper

He wrote this recently: <a href="http://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theplayerstribune.com&#x2F;why-i-play-football&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;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.&quot;<p>Refreshing to see such a grounded athlete get press. I&#x27;m sure there are a lot of them out there, but typically you don&#x27;t see a lot of stories about them.

Good for him.<p>I hear what&#x27;s he&#x27;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&#x27;s you versus the guy across from you.. There&#x27;s not many chances in this world to test yourself like that. I think that&#x27;s some of what he means when he says he&#x27;s &#x27;addicted&#x27; to the physical contact of football. I certainly miss that aspect.

If you liked this story, there are more like it, e.g.<p>Natalie Portman - <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01angier.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;03&#x2F;01&#x2F;science&#x2F;01angier.html</a><p>Brian May - <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/07/science/sci-queen7" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;articles.latimes.com&#x2F;2008&#x2F;jun&#x2F;07&#x2F;science&#x2F;sci-queen7</a>

Definitely one of those examples of not judging a book by it&#x27;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.<p>And I can completely relate to him. I&#x27;m an engineer, but I&#x27;m also 275lbs and grew up on a farm. I&#x27;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.

Avid chess player and a kickboxer? He could be a really good chess boxer: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chess_boxing</a>

For those who are interested, here&#x27;s some background on the field:<p><a href="http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/spielman/sgta/SpectTut.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.yale.edu&#x2F;homes&#x2F;spielman&#x2F;sgta&#x2F;SpectTut.pdf</a><p>While the topic of graph laplacians may sound obscure, there are a lot of direct applications to image segmentation, social network analysis, bioinformatics, etc.

I know just how he feels.<p>I&#x27;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.<p>It&#x27;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.

I would love to find out how he has the time to do research. I&#x27;ve always wanted to do research but after joining the industry I&#x27;ve convinced myself that I don&#x27;t have the time, and will just save up and go back to school when I don&#x27;t have to work anymore.<p>I wonder what his schedule is like.

Given that american football cause brain damage [1], his simple pleasures won&#x27;t last long.<p>Punching people is always reciprocal and always with consequences.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_players_with_chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_NFL_players_with_chroni...</a>

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

&quot;The paper gave Urschel an Erdős number of 4.&quot;

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).

Good for him, and I&#x27;m not surprised, but why don&#x27;t we congratulate everyone who publishes a math paper?<p>Will we also have an article if a pretty woman publishes a math paper?

That is so awesome :D

He&#x27;ll regret it when he can&#x27;t do math after he retires because of the encephalopathy he gets from repeated head trauma.

More like Ravenclaw :)<p>...I&#x27;ve probably been reading hpmor.com too much lately, but thanks HN for turning me on to that.

What I find most interesting about this is that NPR misunderstands that putting a paper up on arXiv is not &quot;publishing&quot; a math paper.

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.