John Urschel’s Unreasonable Goals: From the NFL to MIT

Former NFL offensive lineman John Urschel fell in love with math before he fell in love with football. He pursued both fields with equal intensity. How he has succeeded in both (his mother played an important role) is an inspiring story - and as good a reason as any to bring back this 2015 conversation from the Wavemaker archives. But I’m revisiting it now because of a major new study out this week that concluded at least one of every four former NFL players has been afflicted with the degenerative brain disease CTE, which is caused by the cumulative force of repeated hits to the head. The risk of suffering brain damage from playing professional football was what led me to contact Urschel in the first place - and to learn why a person who aspired to be a leader in the field of math, would take such a risk.