A new book by graduate student John Urschel chronicles his decision to retire from the NFL and pursue his passion for mathematics at MIT, reports the Associated Press. Urschel explains that through his book, he “wanted to share my love of math and also perhaps train certain peoples’ thinking about math and show them some of the beauty, elegance and importance of mathematics.”
Yorai Shaoul, a second-year student at MIT, won the men’s triple jump at the NCAA Division 3 Outdoor Track & Field Championships, helping the Engineers secure a second-place finish, reports The Boston Globe.
Graduate student John Urschel appears on Good Morning America to discuss his new book chronicling his career and passion for football and math. “Math is something that I have loved ever since I was very little,” explains Urschel. “I love puzzles, I love problem solving. Math, truly, is just a set of tools to try to solve problems in this world.
Graduate student John Urschel speaks with Karen Given of WBUR’s Only a Game about how his mother helped encourage his passion for mathematics. "Most kids get their allowance by, you know, mowing the lawn — things like this," Urschel says. "My mom, because she recognized that I was strong in math, wanted to encourage me with respect to math."
TIME reporter Sean Gregory visits MIT to speak with graduate student John Urschel about his new book, and his passion for both mathematics and football. “The United States, more than any other culture, has the strange marriage of athletics and academics,” Urschel says. “I thought it was important to show that this is something that really can co-exist.”
In an article for The Boston Globe Magazine, Neil Swidey highlights MIT as a model of “what an athletics-affirming but recruitment-light culture might look like.” “Despite refusing to put a thumb on the scale for athlete applications, MIT has produced a successful sports program that enhances, rather than detracts from, its academic reputation,” explains Swidey.
Graduate student John Urschel discusses his new book and passion for both math and football on Fox and Friends. “Football coaches, they tell their best players to dream big,” says Urschel. “I would love to see math teachers telling their students you can be an elite mathematician, you can be a top physicist, you can even dream to be the next Einstein.”
Graduate student John Urschel visits the Today Show to discuss his new book and what inspired him to pursue a PhD in mathematics. Urschel explains that his mother tried to ensure that “whatever I wanted to be the only thing that would limit me was a lack of talent, bad luck, lack of hard work, but it wasn’t going to be the household I was born into or a lack of resources.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Scott Kirsner highlights Perch, a company founded by alumnus Jacob Rothman to help improve safety for weightlifters. Kirsner explains that Perch developed a system for an iPad that allows users to, “log in to a weightlifting station and access a personal routine, which can be crafted by a coach.”
The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference has expanded to show interest in virtual reality, machine learning, and artificial learning, reports Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. The work highlighted at the conference “is in some ways breathtaking, with sports understood in ways that seemed unimaginable at the start of the century,” writes Speier.
NBC Boston highlights five athletes to watch at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, including MIT alumnus A.J. Edelman. “There was this pull on me to try to achieve something greater in sports that would have a meaningful impact," said Edelman, who represented Israel in skeleton racing.
Tara Sullivan of The Boston Globe writes about MIT alumnus AJ Edelman '14, who is representing Israel as a skeleton racer at the PyeongChang Olympics. Sullivan writes that Edelman’s journey to the global competition “represents one more beautiful example of the best of what the Olympics can be.”
MIT freshman Katie Collins is highlighted by The Boston Globe for her “noteworthy performance” at the Division 3 pre-nationals women’s cross-country meet. Collins’ performance helped the Engineers to a second-place finish in the meet.
Washington Post reporter Travis Andrews writes that MIT researchers have created a workout suit with ventilating flaps embedded with bacteria that automatically open and close in response to sweat. Andrews explains that “as the bacteria relaxes and shrinks into itself, the cells pull away from the wearer, opening the flaps and letting fresh air flood in.”
MIT researchers have developed a workout suit with vents that are triggered by bacteria to automatically open in response to sweat, reports Rob Verger for Popular Science. Verger explains that the researchers hope to apply the technology to create clothing that can, “produce a pleasant smell when you sweat.”