Journalism students from around the state, including members of The Lion’s Tale staff, had the opportunity to meet with former NFL player and Ph.D. mathematician John Urschel on a video conference on March 18 to talk about his memoir, “Mind and Matter.”
Currently, Urschel is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, although he is currently on leave. His memoir, which was published with the help of Urschel’s wife, professional writer Louisa Thomas, was selected by the University of Maryland’s Sports Journalism Program for their state-wide high school book club, which is now in its sixth year of operation.
“We read the book together, and then, in our favorite part, we have the special opportunity to speak to the authors,” Povich Center Director Mark Hyman said. “Some of you today may be inspired to start a journal, and maybe you’ll even be thinking about a career in sports journalism as a result of the conversation today.”
Through extensive interviewing of Urschel, Thomas was able to create a book that covered his method of balancing his passions for both math and football. Urschel played as an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT in 2021. He also earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Penn State in Mathematics. While studying Mathematics at Penn State, he also played football for their football team.
Urschel was drafted in the fifth round of the NFL draft in 2014 before retiring in 2017 due to his worries about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a severe neurodegenerative disease that is commonly developed in football players.
“This [CTE] was actually a serious concern of mine,” Urschel said on a Freakonomics Radio Podcast shortly after his retirement. “Yes, I am retiring; I did retire. But at the same time, I love the NFL. I love football. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for the world. I do believe that football is a great game. I didn’t want to be fodder for anti-football establishments.”
The call was set up by the Povich Center, which is a department of the University of Maryland (UMD) that focuses on preparing students to be leaders in sports journalism. It started with an introduction from Hyman before proceeding to questions from Povich Center staff, followed by questions from the four schools present at the meeting. These schools included JDS, Rockville High School, BF Johnson High School, and Parkdale High School.
Urschel discussed the process of writing the book and how it originally began as a math book without an explicit connection to football. With the advice of his publisher, Penguin Books, it became a memoir that focused on his life as both a mathematician and a football player. He also introduced the concept of alternating between math and football chapters. He stressed how this was to highlight how important, yet different, each of those aspects was to his life.
“There was something elegant about that kind of bifurcation,” Thomas said. “And so once that structure became apparent, then it was pretty easy to go from there and end [the book] quite fast.”
When it came to balancing his dual life, Urschel had several tips for the students. First, he stressed the importance of not accomplishing everything you want. He highlighted how students have to be able to choose what’s most important to them and save certain activities until after accomplishing other priorities. His second tip was to build good habits, such as pushing yourself to try hard things and to work on improving every day.
“You [a student-athlete] are not a normal college student,” Urschel said. “You cannot do everything that a typical college student does. You have a calling that is slightly different, and you need to recognize that, and your lifestyle and your choices need to be in line with that.”
Among the JDS attendees was sophomore Ephraim Blair, who is a news editor for The Lion’s Tale. Additionally, sophomores David Federowicz and Eli Loeffler, who are the sports editors for The Lion’s Tale were also in attendance.
“As a busy student and an NFL fan, it was inspiring to hear about how he was able to balance so many difficult things and succeed in doing things that he both excelled in and loved,” Blair said.
