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Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football
John Urschel, mathematician and former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens--with biographer Louisa Thomas--tells the story of a life balanced between two passions
For John Urschel, what began as an insatiable appetite for puzzles as a child quickly evolved into mastery of the elegant systems and rules of mathematics. By the time he was thirteen, Urschel was auditing college-level calculus courses. But when he joined his high school football team, a new interest began to eclipse the thrill he once felt in the classroom. Football challenged Urschel in an entirely different way, and he became addicted to the physical contact of the sport. Accepting a scholarship to play football at Penn State, Urschel refused to sacrifice one passion for another, and simultaneously pursued his bachelor's and then master's degrees in mathematics. Against the odds, Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete, and so when he was drafted to the Baltimore Ravens, he enrolled in his PhD at MIT.
Weaving together two separate yet bound narratives, Urschel relives for us the most pivotal moments of his bifurcated life. He explains why, after Penn State was sanctioned for the acts of former coach Jerry Sandusky, he turned his back on offers from Ivy League universities and refused to abandon his team, and contends with his mother's repeated request, at the end of every season, that he quit the sport and pursue a career in rocket science. Perhaps most personally, he opens up about the correlation between football and CTE, and the risks he took for the game he loves. Equally at home with both Bernard Riemann's notion of infinity and Bill Belichick's playbook, Urschel reveals how each challenge - whether on the field or in the classroom - has brought him closer to understanding the two different halves of his own life, and how reason and emotion, the mind and the body, are always working together. He asks why, "So often, people want to divide the world into two. Matter and energy. Wave and particle. Athlete and mathematician. Why can't something be both?"
For John Urschel, what began as an insatiable appetite for puzzles as a child quickly evolved into mastery of the elegant systems and rules of mathematics. By the time he was thirteen, Urschel was auditing college-level calculus courses. But when he joined his high school football team, a new interest began to eclipse the thrill he once felt in the classroom. Football challenged Urschel in an entirely different way, and he became addicted to the physical contact of the sport. Accepting a scholarship to play football at Penn State, Urschel refused to sacrifice one passion for another, and simultaneously pursued his bachelor's and then master's degrees in mathematics. Against the odds, Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete, and so when he was drafted to the Baltimore Ravens, he enrolled in his PhD at MIT.
Weaving together two separate yet bound narratives, Urschel relives for us the most pivotal moments of his bifurcated life. He explains why, after Penn State was sanctioned for the acts of former coach Jerry Sandusky, he turned his back on offers from Ivy League universities and refused to abandon his team, and contends with his mother's repeated request, at the end of every season, that he quit the sport and pursue a career in rocket science. Perhaps most personally, he opens up about the correlation between football and CTE, and the risks he took for the game he loves. Equally at home with both Bernard Riemann's notion of infinity and Bill Belichick's playbook, Urschel reveals how each challenge - whether on the field or in the classroom - has brought him closer to understanding the two different halves of his own life, and how reason and emotion, the mind and the body, are always working together. He asks why, "So often, people want to divide the world into two. Matter and energy. Wave and particle. Athlete and mathematician. Why can't something be both?"
256 pages, Hardcover
Published May 14, 2019
99 people are currently reading
1447 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 179 reviews
May 31, 2019
A fascinating memoir, and a very different look at an NFL football player. For people who have the mistaken belief that professional sports figures can also have an intellectual bent, this book will show them different. High concept mathematics, auditing classes at college, at the young she of thirteen. A father and mother, though no longer together, that gave Urschel what he needed to excel in both interests in his life: math and football. Most of these mathematical explanations were way beyond my knowledge, though I had at least heard of some of the theroems.
Football, well there I'm comfortable. Penn State football where Urschel played, and the devastating fall out from the Sandusky case, where unfortunately the students and athletes who punished, were not even present during those years. Urschels dedication to his team mates and school kept Urschel from transferring. His dedication to his studies, his motivation, the way he balanced his life on and off the field, was amazing.
His thoughts as he tries to figure out which course he should pursue, his time with the Ravens, the NfL combine, and so much more. A good book to give the young athletes in your life as it shows how love of sports can be combined with love of study, and how to do both well.
ARC from Edelweiss.
Football, well there I'm comfortable. Penn State football where Urschel played, and the devastating fall out from the Sandusky case, where unfortunately the students and athletes who punished, were not even present during those years. Urschels dedication to his team mates and school kept Urschel from transferring. His dedication to his studies, his motivation, the way he balanced his life on and off the field, was amazing.
His thoughts as he tries to figure out which course he should pursue, his time with the Ravens, the NfL combine, and so much more. A good book to give the young athletes in your life as it shows how love of sports can be combined with love of study, and how to do both well.
ARC from Edelweiss.
May 28, 2019
From the time I realized that I needed another sport to watch to fill the months between baseball seasons, I have watched NFL football with a flaming passion. My son and I have a ritual where on Friday mornings he announces what games we get on our local stations so we can plan our Sunday afternoons accordingly. Because my son wants to study higher level math, he roots for chaos: overtime games that end in a tie, playoff races decided on the last week that come down to percentage point calculations. As long as numbers are involved, he is in his element. An NFL player who is a top student is a rarity, and one who is one of the top mathematicians in the world, even more so. When I found about about former NFL player and current MIT math PhD candidate John Urschel’s memoir Mind and Matter, I knew that it was a book that we both had to read and would not be disappointed by.
John Urschel grew up primarily in Buffalo, New York. His parents were divorced when he was young but both believed that he could conquer the world. His mother bought him logic puzzles from the time he was a toddler and wanted him to go to Harvard, MIT, or Stanford to become a rocket scientist. His father, also named John, was more practical. He saw that his son was big for his age and got him interested in football from the time he was in middle school. He also got his son interested in calculus. From the time John Urschel first studied calculus, he realized that he was smarter than the average student at his school. At Canisius Academy, Urschel desired to be one of the guys and started on the varsity football team for three years. His mother still wanted him to become a rocket scientist and urged him to give up the dangerous game. Yet, around this time, Urschel learned to compartmentalize the two things he loved most: math and football. It was these dual interests that earned him a football scholarship to Penn St.
Urschel used his scholarship at Penn St University to finish a bachelors and masters of mathematics within his five year eligibility. Starting out as in higher level courses as a first year student, Urschel eventually taught sections of courses while still on the football team. He was a dictionary definition of a student athlete and was named an Academic All American in his final year of eligibility. It was during his time at Penn St that a scandal hit that threatened to unravel the entire football program, at the time one of the best in the country. Urschel became one of the spokespeople of the team and caught the notice of NFL scouts who saw him as a potential player who had abilities far beyond the game of football. Even as a college player and potential NFL draft pick, his mother urged him to quit football and focus on math. Math might be his life but football at the time was his livelihood and as the NFL draft approached, Urschel still compartmentalized the two.
Urschel includes many higher level math proofs and functions that are over my head but he presents them in a way to make them accessible to the average person. I admit to stopping after calculus but I found Urschel’s explanation of chaos theory and celestial mechanics as well as other examples of math to be fascinating. During football season, Urschel would barricade himself in an empty classroom for days at a time to finish a difficult proof. He would turn to chess games for relaxation and is still studying to become an American master. Many NFL teams questioned his commitment to football, especially as the dangers of brain damage from concussion have come to light. Yet, Urschel admits to loving the game and wanted a chance in the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens took a chance on him with a low level pick, and Urschel trained hard to eventually make the team and start occasionally for a better part of three years.
John Urschel has appeared in Bose headphone commercials with JJ Watt. He is the one who writes formulas on a chalk board explaining how the headphones work while Watt tunes him out. Urschel only played in the league for three seasons as he realized that football took away from his studies to earn a PhD in math from MIT, the school his mother desired that he attend from day one. Today Urschel is devoted to math full time and is a husband and father. He is truly a Renaissance man and an example to student athletes everywhere as one who used a scholarship to reach the upper echelons of his field. While I am positive that the Ravens miss his presence in the locker room, math has gained someone who will leave his mark on the field for years to come.
Here is an uplifting video of Urschel discussing how his love for math and football intersect:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G5FNHE_...
4.5 stars
John Urschel grew up primarily in Buffalo, New York. His parents were divorced when he was young but both believed that he could conquer the world. His mother bought him logic puzzles from the time he was a toddler and wanted him to go to Harvard, MIT, or Stanford to become a rocket scientist. His father, also named John, was more practical. He saw that his son was big for his age and got him interested in football from the time he was in middle school. He also got his son interested in calculus. From the time John Urschel first studied calculus, he realized that he was smarter than the average student at his school. At Canisius Academy, Urschel desired to be one of the guys and started on the varsity football team for three years. His mother still wanted him to become a rocket scientist and urged him to give up the dangerous game. Yet, around this time, Urschel learned to compartmentalize the two things he loved most: math and football. It was these dual interests that earned him a football scholarship to Penn St.
Urschel used his scholarship at Penn St University to finish a bachelors and masters of mathematics within his five year eligibility. Starting out as in higher level courses as a first year student, Urschel eventually taught sections of courses while still on the football team. He was a dictionary definition of a student athlete and was named an Academic All American in his final year of eligibility. It was during his time at Penn St that a scandal hit that threatened to unravel the entire football program, at the time one of the best in the country. Urschel became one of the spokespeople of the team and caught the notice of NFL scouts who saw him as a potential player who had abilities far beyond the game of football. Even as a college player and potential NFL draft pick, his mother urged him to quit football and focus on math. Math might be his life but football at the time was his livelihood and as the NFL draft approached, Urschel still compartmentalized the two.
Urschel includes many higher level math proofs and functions that are over my head but he presents them in a way to make them accessible to the average person. I admit to stopping after calculus but I found Urschel’s explanation of chaos theory and celestial mechanics as well as other examples of math to be fascinating. During football season, Urschel would barricade himself in an empty classroom for days at a time to finish a difficult proof. He would turn to chess games for relaxation and is still studying to become an American master. Many NFL teams questioned his commitment to football, especially as the dangers of brain damage from concussion have come to light. Yet, Urschel admits to loving the game and wanted a chance in the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens took a chance on him with a low level pick, and Urschel trained hard to eventually make the team and start occasionally for a better part of three years.
John Urschel has appeared in Bose headphone commercials with JJ Watt. He is the one who writes formulas on a chalk board explaining how the headphones work while Watt tunes him out. Urschel only played in the league for three seasons as he realized that football took away from his studies to earn a PhD in math from MIT, the school his mother desired that he attend from day one. Today Urschel is devoted to math full time and is a husband and father. He is truly a Renaissance man and an example to student athletes everywhere as one who used a scholarship to reach the upper echelons of his field. While I am positive that the Ravens miss his presence in the locker room, math has gained someone who will leave his mark on the field for years to come.
Here is an uplifting video of Urschel discussing how his love for math and football intersect:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G5FNHE_...
4.5 stars
June 7, 2019
An easy read save for the few technical math terms and concepts that can be for the most part glossed over as techno-babble without derailing the narrative, and wisely alternating short chapters to keep the entire story moving along. The only really off note was the introduction in the waning pages of a till-then un-hinted at fiance and child who would have been better off left out entirely rather than given such short shrift.
July 31, 2019
An amazing and unique story. John Urshel grew up with two passions in life: football, which he discovered in high school, and math, which he discovered very young. His dedication and determination are detailed in every chapter of this book, in which he alternately discusses his two careers: (a) football, moving from a small Catholic high school in Buffalo to a scholarship at Penn State, when it got sanctioned by the NCAA in 2011 for the Jerry Sandusky scandal, to being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and making it to a starting offensive line position in the NFL, and (b) math, where his intellectual curiosity motivated him to take courses well above his academic qualifications. His learning and collaborative efforts on the field and in research are very impressive, and his attempts to explain his math research to laymen is commendable. Finally, Urshel's decision to retire from football at age 26 to become a mathematician is easily understandable given the rigors and violence of the sport. Recommended.
May 16, 2019
https://www.themaineedge.com/sports/l...
If I were to tell you that someone was a mathematician, you’d have some pretty specific ideas about who that person was. If were to tell you that someone was a football player, you’d have some pretty specific ideas about who that person was as well. And you probably wouldn’t think that there would be a lot of overlap in that particular Venn diagram.
But then you encounter someone like John Urschel and you’re forced to reconsider your preconceived notions … because he has achieved great heights in both arenas.
His new book “Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football” explores the seeming disparity between Urschel’s passions. Along with his co-author (and partner) Louisa Thomas, Urschel walks readers along the parallel paths through which he pursued two dreams that were seemingly at odds. Few athletes ever approach the pinnacle of their sport. Few academics ever approach the pinnacle of their field. John Urschel – still a month away from his 28th birthday as of this writing – has done both.
John Urschel’s tremendous gifts were apparent from a young age. While his intellectual precocity began with a love of puzzles, it wasn’t long before his surgeon father was steering him toward the challenges of advanced mathematics. At just 13, he was auditing a college-level calculus course and more than holding his own. It seemed as though his would be a life of the mind.
But football was also part of the picture. It was there that John discovered the camaraderie of team sports, as well as the discipline that time on the gridiron could instill. An imposing physical presence, Urschel worked his way into becoming a top-tier player at his Buffalo high school, an offensive lineman who flashed the potential to play at the next level.
Urschel would find a home for his paired passions at Penn State. He was a scholarship player on the football team, but he was far from the lip-service “student-athlete” one often finds at the Division I level. Instead, he was constantly challenging himself in the classroom as well as on the gridiron, taking advantage of a redshirt year and some supportive mentors to wind up with not just a bachelor’s, but a master’s degree in mathematics even as he worked his way up to becoming an All-Big 10 selection as an offensive guard.
But it didn’t stop there.
A solid performance at the NFL Combine led to Urschel’s being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. He signed with Baltimore and made the team, but also chose to continue his mathematical studies, landing in a PhD program at MIT.
And so, just like he’d been doing since high school, he simply … did both. The people in either orbit tended to find Urschel’s “other” interest a bit odd, but his seeming eccentricities were never held against him – his professors and collaborators supported his playing career, while his coaches and teammates supported his academic pursuits.
Urschel retired from the NFL after three seasons, choosing to finally devote himself fully to his dream of becoming a mathematician.
“Mind and Matter” is a fascinating read. We don’t often come across Renaissance men like this anymore, people who can reach the highest levels in fields both physical and intellectual. NFL lineman, math PhD candidate – either of those achievements would put someone in rarefied air. But to manage both? It’s almost inconceivable.
And yet, even with all that he has accomplished, there’s a real sense of humility to John Urschel. One gets the impression that he takes none of this for granted and has worked tremendously hard at every stop along the way. His is a journey that is unique, a powerful paean to possibility.
A memoir such as this could easily come off as self-congratulatory, but there’s a healthy sense of perspective here. And Urschel’s voice feels genuine and authentic – one assumes that much of that is thanks to his co-author; Thomas brings to the table not only her own considerable writerly gifts, but also a depth of understanding regarding Urschel’s history and character.
The dual narrative threads make for an engaging storytelling device. By separating the two paths – math and football – we’re given a compelling look at their similarities as well as their differences. However, there’s also enough overlap to get a sense of one passion’s influence on the other, allowing us a wonderful sense of how they connect.
(Oh, and rest assured – Urschel goes DEEP on the math. He delves into the specifics, talking about particular areas of interest and dishing out a little math history to boot. It’s unapologetic in its wonkiness and delightfully dense – and that’s with Urschel undoubtedly dialing it back for the benefit of those of us who aren’t pursuing our PhDs at MIT.)
“Mind and Matter” is the tale of one man’s willingness to do whatever it took to maintain his paired passions – a remarkable feat that combined immense intellect, incredible strength and endless reserves of determination and raw willpower. Sports books like this one don’t come along every day. Then again, individuals like John Urschel don’t come along every day either. Read this book and you’ll understand just how rare they are.
If I were to tell you that someone was a mathematician, you’d have some pretty specific ideas about who that person was. If were to tell you that someone was a football player, you’d have some pretty specific ideas about who that person was as well. And you probably wouldn’t think that there would be a lot of overlap in that particular Venn diagram.
But then you encounter someone like John Urschel and you’re forced to reconsider your preconceived notions … because he has achieved great heights in both arenas.
His new book “Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football” explores the seeming disparity between Urschel’s passions. Along with his co-author (and partner) Louisa Thomas, Urschel walks readers along the parallel paths through which he pursued two dreams that were seemingly at odds. Few athletes ever approach the pinnacle of their sport. Few academics ever approach the pinnacle of their field. John Urschel – still a month away from his 28th birthday as of this writing – has done both.
John Urschel’s tremendous gifts were apparent from a young age. While his intellectual precocity began with a love of puzzles, it wasn’t long before his surgeon father was steering him toward the challenges of advanced mathematics. At just 13, he was auditing a college-level calculus course and more than holding his own. It seemed as though his would be a life of the mind.
But football was also part of the picture. It was there that John discovered the camaraderie of team sports, as well as the discipline that time on the gridiron could instill. An imposing physical presence, Urschel worked his way into becoming a top-tier player at his Buffalo high school, an offensive lineman who flashed the potential to play at the next level.
Urschel would find a home for his paired passions at Penn State. He was a scholarship player on the football team, but he was far from the lip-service “student-athlete” one often finds at the Division I level. Instead, he was constantly challenging himself in the classroom as well as on the gridiron, taking advantage of a redshirt year and some supportive mentors to wind up with not just a bachelor’s, but a master’s degree in mathematics even as he worked his way up to becoming an All-Big 10 selection as an offensive guard.
But it didn’t stop there.
A solid performance at the NFL Combine led to Urschel’s being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. He signed with Baltimore and made the team, but also chose to continue his mathematical studies, landing in a PhD program at MIT.
And so, just like he’d been doing since high school, he simply … did both. The people in either orbit tended to find Urschel’s “other” interest a bit odd, but his seeming eccentricities were never held against him – his professors and collaborators supported his playing career, while his coaches and teammates supported his academic pursuits.
Urschel retired from the NFL after three seasons, choosing to finally devote himself fully to his dream of becoming a mathematician.
“Mind and Matter” is a fascinating read. We don’t often come across Renaissance men like this anymore, people who can reach the highest levels in fields both physical and intellectual. NFL lineman, math PhD candidate – either of those achievements would put someone in rarefied air. But to manage both? It’s almost inconceivable.
And yet, even with all that he has accomplished, there’s a real sense of humility to John Urschel. One gets the impression that he takes none of this for granted and has worked tremendously hard at every stop along the way. His is a journey that is unique, a powerful paean to possibility.
A memoir such as this could easily come off as self-congratulatory, but there’s a healthy sense of perspective here. And Urschel’s voice feels genuine and authentic – one assumes that much of that is thanks to his co-author; Thomas brings to the table not only her own considerable writerly gifts, but also a depth of understanding regarding Urschel’s history and character.
The dual narrative threads make for an engaging storytelling device. By separating the two paths – math and football – we’re given a compelling look at their similarities as well as their differences. However, there’s also enough overlap to get a sense of one passion’s influence on the other, allowing us a wonderful sense of how they connect.
(Oh, and rest assured – Urschel goes DEEP on the math. He delves into the specifics, talking about particular areas of interest and dishing out a little math history to boot. It’s unapologetic in its wonkiness and delightfully dense – and that’s with Urschel undoubtedly dialing it back for the benefit of those of us who aren’t pursuing our PhDs at MIT.)
“Mind and Matter” is the tale of one man’s willingness to do whatever it took to maintain his paired passions – a remarkable feat that combined immense intellect, incredible strength and endless reserves of determination and raw willpower. Sports books like this one don’t come along every day. Then again, individuals like John Urschel don’t come along every day either. Read this book and you’ll understand just how rare they are.
September 3, 2020
Talented in both math and football, Urschel tells us about his two worlds in this autobiography. But there isn't enough reflection on CTE, why it's difficult to have a different career after football, and the focus on football over academics and ethics.
I was frustrated with this book, because there were so many topics related to football, which I know that Urschel knows extensively about, that are practically unaddressed. Instead, we get a very detailed explanation of how to do linear algebra, and Urschel's interest in the 3 body problem. We get an explanation of how he loved his Penn State football teammates, how long and grueling practices were, and how he loved playing in front of the fans. Urschel gets a concussion, but only briefly touches on how football causes brain trauma, and then goes right back into his preferred topics. Urschel talks about how his teammates make fun of him for liking math and his studies so much, but doesn't go into why there exists an anti-nerd culture in football, or the balance between football and academics at the high school or university level. When Urschel chooses to go to Penn State instead of Stanford, for an example, it's just because he loves football, but the societal and peer pressures on him are never analyzed, its just simplified to "I love football", which for me, is not going to cut it. Even a brief rundown of his friends on the team and their valuation of academics vs football is avoided. When Jerry Sandusky is outed as a child molester, Urschel again talks about how much he loves his team, and would support the program, saying that they are not their troubling past. True, Penn State is not their past, and sanctioning the current players for something that happened many years ago by coaches that already left seems ridiculous, but I think there was a lot to think about the administration valuing winning at football ahead of outing Sandusky earlier by filing a report.
I picked up this book because I was interested in society overvaluing football over more important areas of life, like academics, brain health, and ethics. Urschel clearly personally feels that he values brain health and academics over the NFL since he retired in 2016 to pursue his PhD. Analysis at a deeper level than just stating that he loves both football and math, and was gifted at both, was basically avoided.
I was frustrated with this book, because there were so many topics related to football, which I know that Urschel knows extensively about, that are practically unaddressed. Instead, we get a very detailed explanation of how to do linear algebra, and Urschel's interest in the 3 body problem. We get an explanation of how he loved his Penn State football teammates, how long and grueling practices were, and how he loved playing in front of the fans. Urschel gets a concussion, but only briefly touches on how football causes brain trauma, and then goes right back into his preferred topics. Urschel talks about how his teammates make fun of him for liking math and his studies so much, but doesn't go into why there exists an anti-nerd culture in football, or the balance between football and academics at the high school or university level. When Urschel chooses to go to Penn State instead of Stanford, for an example, it's just because he loves football, but the societal and peer pressures on him are never analyzed, its just simplified to "I love football", which for me, is not going to cut it. Even a brief rundown of his friends on the team and their valuation of academics vs football is avoided. When Jerry Sandusky is outed as a child molester, Urschel again talks about how much he loves his team, and would support the program, saying that they are not their troubling past. True, Penn State is not their past, and sanctioning the current players for something that happened many years ago by coaches that already left seems ridiculous, but I think there was a lot to think about the administration valuing winning at football ahead of outing Sandusky earlier by filing a report.
I picked up this book because I was interested in society overvaluing football over more important areas of life, like academics, brain health, and ethics. Urschel clearly personally feels that he values brain health and academics over the NFL since he retired in 2016 to pursue his PhD. Analysis at a deeper level than just stating that he loves both football and math, and was gifted at both, was basically avoided.
July 8, 2020
I like his introduction to calculus which begins with imagining a cannonball zooming by you at close range in what looks like a straight horizontal line. Back away far enough and you see that line is really a curve.
Yu: it is not enough just to pass the exams. you have to choose the right problems and find the right people to work with (his diff eq teacher, a PhD student who switched from Roe to a different advisor when he worked and worked but still didn’t understand Roe Algebra)
Each solution becomes the basis for new problems. (graduate school)
Chalkboards lined the walls of the hallways. And people stop to use them. Mit.
Someone I know I’d like to have dinner with! Very interesting
Yu: it is not enough just to pass the exams. you have to choose the right problems and find the right people to work with (his diff eq teacher, a PhD student who switched from Roe to a different advisor when he worked and worked but still didn’t understand Roe Algebra)
Each solution becomes the basis for new problems. (graduate school)
Chalkboards lined the walls of the hallways. And people stop to use them. Mit.
Someone I know I’d like to have dinner with! Very interesting
December 26, 2019
I was thrilled to get an advance copy of this book and thought I might read a chapter or two on a cross-country flight, in between a nap and in-flight movie. To my surprise, I never put it down. I read the book cover to cover! Urschel has led a fascinating life and the story reads almost like a movie.
I appreciated the clear explanations of both math and football - neither of which is a particularly strong interest of mine. Both were made interesting and accessible.
Moreover, the book is beautifully written by Urschel and Thomas. The writing flows.
Finally, I am an academic myself so this peek into the world of PhD programs, research, publishing, and academia was refreshingly accurate.
Highly recommend!
I appreciated the clear explanations of both math and football - neither of which is a particularly strong interest of mine. Both were made interesting and accessible.
Moreover, the book is beautifully written by Urschel and Thomas. The writing flows.
Finally, I am an academic myself so this peek into the world of PhD programs, research, publishing, and academia was refreshingly accurate.
Highly recommend!
December 17, 2024
High-key inspiring overall. Urschel comes across as an incredibly pure-intentioned person. Defining clear (and simple) goals is his superpower. In particular, his autobio motivates much of his accomplishments with simple incentives (I just wanted to win, I just wanted to understand this problem) as his guiding principle.
Slight nitpick on the msg (not on the writing itself): Urschel def worked hard, but he also mentioned (soft) absolutes such as (paraphrased): to make it big in NFL and Math, you need to decide on one when young. These beliefs make his decisions make sense, but I personally think these advice may not apply to everyone depending on their goals. Or mayb im just naive and unrealistially optimistic.
Slight nitpick on the msg (not on the writing itself): Urschel def worked hard, but he also mentioned (soft) absolutes such as (paraphrased): to make it big in NFL and Math, you need to decide on one when young. These beliefs make his decisions make sense, but I personally think these advice may not apply to everyone depending on their goals. Or mayb im just naive and unrealistially optimistic.
May 19, 2019
This is John Urschel's love story to both math and football. As I share one of these loves, it was refreshing to hear from someone so enthusiastic about math. His love started from exactly the same place as mine: puzzles. Overall, I really enjoyed reading the book, even with little interest in football. I will recommend it to my students because John makes math seem fun, beautiful, and accessible (with hard work and curiosity).
The Pyr Review
The Pyr Review
May 19, 2021
This was for school 🤝
256 pages of wasted paper. Is there an audience for this? I guess. According to this app people love this book. But when you read it in your English class where no one understands the math portion of the memoir at all, you can’t expect many people to like it. In the words of my math teacher, “ he sounds so stuck up and I can’t imagine having to sit in a room with him.”
The chronology of this book was also odd. On paragraph we’re in his childhood watching him do math and then he’s at Penn State getting his degree. Switching his two passions back and forth didn’t make sense in the grand scheme of things, and in doing so, he left out MAJOR details of his life that are randomly brought up throughout the book. A couple pages from the end of the book and we are informed that he has a fiancée and is going to have a kid soon. HUH? they were never brought up at all.
I don’t know. Clearly people like this book, and I’m glad. It just wasn’t exactly my taste.
256 pages of wasted paper. Is there an audience for this? I guess. According to this app people love this book. But when you read it in your English class where no one understands the math portion of the memoir at all, you can’t expect many people to like it. In the words of my math teacher, “ he sounds so stuck up and I can’t imagine having to sit in a room with him.”
The chronology of this book was also odd. On paragraph we’re in his childhood watching him do math and then he’s at Penn State getting his degree. Switching his two passions back and forth didn’t make sense in the grand scheme of things, and in doing so, he left out MAJOR details of his life that are randomly brought up throughout the book. A couple pages from the end of the book and we are informed that he has a fiancée and is going to have a kid soon. HUH? they were never brought up at all.
I don’t know. Clearly people like this book, and I’m glad. It just wasn’t exactly my taste.
July 13, 2024
An extremely inspiring and thought provoking book, especially around parenting, and approaching "tough" things with the eyes of a child/beginner. I flew through it in one sitting! Urschels writing is simple and personal, which was highly effective at humanizing perhaps one of the most impressive people currently alive. My one wish is that the book had been more personal, talked about more than just math and football, but those were certainly already very compelling on their own!
May 25, 2019
I read the bulk of this book, two hundred pages, in one sitting.
It was so engrossing partly because of how well written this book is, the co-author, Louisa Thomas is a well known writer; and partly because the book addresses two worlds that are dear to my heart: mathematics and sports. I didn’t engage either one of the worlds in the depth that the author does, I am an engineer and a youth coach, but the juxtapositions of the two worlds was held deep attraction for me.
For most of the general audience the two worlds are seemingly diametrically opposed, but the authors manage to portray the deep love that the two world engenders in John Urschel. Indeed, the authors did a magnificent job coupling the two seemingly disparate threads together into a cogent whole. At first, I feared that I was going to dislike the structure of the book: they chose to alternated math and football chapters, but the book was so well written that my perceived distraction evaporated as I dove into the book.
John Urschel’s story is widely reported in the popular press. He straddled the football and math worlds as an undergraduate, a graduate student, and a post grad while playing at Penn State and in the NFL. He was good enough to be drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and having a productive three years while also studying for his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This book roughly described his journey. The book tells a great story in an unselfconscious and natural way. John Urschel came through the account as a genuine and honest person, even as he addressed a few issues that could have been controversial: the fall out from the Sandusky affair at Penn State and the effect of repeated concussions on his potential as a mathematician, he honestly told his story focused on his own perceptions and thoughts, while assiduously avoided inflaming any nerves. He told the story through his eyes without extrapolating the facts to come to any indefensible conclusions, which is all we can ask for.
The other part of the book that could have been difficult is the mathematics. I have had the background and training to get through most of the mathematics, most of the concepts were on an advanced undergraduate to graduate level, John Urschel’s teaching ability was evident and shone through in his explanations of some of the more advanced mathematics topics. I moved away from any thoughts of majoring in mathematics after my initial experience with real analysis, so I was cognizant but not an expert in many of the areas; but I was able to understand his explanations of his work in Graph Theory, algorithm development, uncertainty, and spectral bisection. His explanations assume some background in math, but he was able communicate to the readers in an exceptionally clear fashion just in terms of concepts and intuition and without employing any mathematical language. In fact, intuition was his guiding light as he powered through his way through his mathematical explorations, and he was able to explain the role that intuition played in his mathematical thoughts.
The football portions of the story were told somewhat matter-of-factly. I would imagine that this was intentional, as the authors may have assumed that the general public who would read this book are thoroughly engaged in the intensity and passions of football in America. Two parts of the football story engaged me: his freshman year workouts with his strength and condition coach at Penn State and the Raven’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and loss to the New England Patriots in the NFL playoffs. Those stories captured and conveyed the passion that John Urschel had of the game of football as well as the mindset he employed to become successful in football.
In possibly one of the great acts in self-awareness and honesty comes in the last chapter when he describes why he walked away from football and is devoting his considerable intellect to mathematics. Unlike most great athletes, he recognized his shortcomings and he was able to explain his logic and reasoning for walking away with aplomb and honesty.
I was a nice easy read but the book talks about the mathematics that he is doing as well as taking the reader though his life so far. I think that our culture’s preoccupation with specialization drives our internal narrative. We are expected to focus and be great at one thing, that one thing should give us all a good life while contributing to the orderly conduct of our life in society, but we all know that human beings are complex, and our intellect can be multi-faceted. What John Urschel’s story illustrates is that by exceeding societal expectations in terms of what his role is in life, he is staking his claim as a polymath.
This was, a very enjoyable and entertaining read.
It was so engrossing partly because of how well written this book is, the co-author, Louisa Thomas is a well known writer; and partly because the book addresses two worlds that are dear to my heart: mathematics and sports. I didn’t engage either one of the worlds in the depth that the author does, I am an engineer and a youth coach, but the juxtapositions of the two worlds was held deep attraction for me.
For most of the general audience the two worlds are seemingly diametrically opposed, but the authors manage to portray the deep love that the two world engenders in John Urschel. Indeed, the authors did a magnificent job coupling the two seemingly disparate threads together into a cogent whole. At first, I feared that I was going to dislike the structure of the book: they chose to alternated math and football chapters, but the book was so well written that my perceived distraction evaporated as I dove into the book.
John Urschel’s story is widely reported in the popular press. He straddled the football and math worlds as an undergraduate, a graduate student, and a post grad while playing at Penn State and in the NFL. He was good enough to be drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and having a productive three years while also studying for his PhD in mathematics at MIT. This book roughly described his journey. The book tells a great story in an unselfconscious and natural way. John Urschel came through the account as a genuine and honest person, even as he addressed a few issues that could have been controversial: the fall out from the Sandusky affair at Penn State and the effect of repeated concussions on his potential as a mathematician, he honestly told his story focused on his own perceptions and thoughts, while assiduously avoided inflaming any nerves. He told the story through his eyes without extrapolating the facts to come to any indefensible conclusions, which is all we can ask for.
The other part of the book that could have been difficult is the mathematics. I have had the background and training to get through most of the mathematics, most of the concepts were on an advanced undergraduate to graduate level, John Urschel’s teaching ability was evident and shone through in his explanations of some of the more advanced mathematics topics. I moved away from any thoughts of majoring in mathematics after my initial experience with real analysis, so I was cognizant but not an expert in many of the areas; but I was able to understand his explanations of his work in Graph Theory, algorithm development, uncertainty, and spectral bisection. His explanations assume some background in math, but he was able communicate to the readers in an exceptionally clear fashion just in terms of concepts and intuition and without employing any mathematical language. In fact, intuition was his guiding light as he powered through his way through his mathematical explorations, and he was able to explain the role that intuition played in his mathematical thoughts.
The football portions of the story were told somewhat matter-of-factly. I would imagine that this was intentional, as the authors may have assumed that the general public who would read this book are thoroughly engaged in the intensity and passions of football in America. Two parts of the football story engaged me: his freshman year workouts with his strength and condition coach at Penn State and the Raven’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and loss to the New England Patriots in the NFL playoffs. Those stories captured and conveyed the passion that John Urschel had of the game of football as well as the mindset he employed to become successful in football.
In possibly one of the great acts in self-awareness and honesty comes in the last chapter when he describes why he walked away from football and is devoting his considerable intellect to mathematics. Unlike most great athletes, he recognized his shortcomings and he was able to explain his logic and reasoning for walking away with aplomb and honesty.
I was a nice easy read but the book talks about the mathematics that he is doing as well as taking the reader though his life so far. I think that our culture’s preoccupation with specialization drives our internal narrative. We are expected to focus and be great at one thing, that one thing should give us all a good life while contributing to the orderly conduct of our life in society, but we all know that human beings are complex, and our intellect can be multi-faceted. What John Urschel’s story illustrates is that by exceeding societal expectations in terms of what his role is in life, he is staking his claim as a polymath.
This was, a very enjoyable and entertaining read.
May 22, 2019
In alternating chapters of Mind and Matter, John Urschel takes you through his life in mathematics and his life in football. As Sullivan Jones reads the book aloud for Audible, he completely becomes John Urschel's voice, except in those instances when he changes his voice to become a roommate, one of Urschel's math teachers or mathematician colleagues, or one of his coaches in high school in Buffalo, at Penn State -- and yes he is there when the abuse scandal hits -- and at the NFL's Baltimore Ravens. You are never in any doubt that it is Urschel talking. I highly recommend approaching this as an audio book.
The most striking aspect of the story is the simplicity and clarity with which Urschel introduces us to most of the main aspects of being a mathematician, not only what it means to be a mathematician in habits of thought and approach, but also in clear (and brief) descriptions of a lot of key mathematical concepts, such as graph, matrix, vector, eigenvalue (seriously, i have never understand what that was all about until now) and including the main idea of differential calculus, probability, the law of large numbers, voronoi diagrams, and even Simpson's Paradox. Believe me, if there is anyone who is well suited to being a professor of mathematics, it's John Urschel. He could probably explain four-dimensional graphics to you over the phone. To explain and describe math concepts in a way that works in an audio book ... that's a gift. I would listen to that part of the book all over again, if I didn't have to listen to the part about football.
Not that I didn't like hearing about his football career! It was rendered with suspense (there are some real surprises) and, like the math chapters, with a considerable amount of humor. Football, both playing and enjoying, is a part of the lives of many men. I was like "I can't believe I am walking around Staples with headphones on laughing my ass off about 5th degree polynomial equations" and that happened in the football chapters too.
Another thing to think about as you are enjoying this book is that mathematician Urschel is married to biographer and New Yorker contributing writer Louisa Thomas, which I'm not sure is mentioned in the text. I promise you will love the last sentence of this book, which she made possible!
I hope this book is super influential, so I'm giving it five stars, but even if it's not I enjoyed reading it.
The most striking aspect of the story is the simplicity and clarity with which Urschel introduces us to most of the main aspects of being a mathematician, not only what it means to be a mathematician in habits of thought and approach, but also in clear (and brief) descriptions of a lot of key mathematical concepts, such as graph, matrix, vector, eigenvalue (seriously, i have never understand what that was all about until now) and including the main idea of differential calculus, probability, the law of large numbers, voronoi diagrams, and even Simpson's Paradox. Believe me, if there is anyone who is well suited to being a professor of mathematics, it's John Urschel. He could probably explain four-dimensional graphics to you over the phone. To explain and describe math concepts in a way that works in an audio book ... that's a gift. I would listen to that part of the book all over again, if I didn't have to listen to the part about football.
Not that I didn't like hearing about his football career! It was rendered with suspense (there are some real surprises) and, like the math chapters, with a considerable amount of humor. Football, both playing and enjoying, is a part of the lives of many men. I was like "I can't believe I am walking around Staples with headphones on laughing my ass off about 5th degree polynomial equations" and that happened in the football chapters too.
Another thing to think about as you are enjoying this book is that mathematician Urschel is married to biographer and New Yorker contributing writer Louisa Thomas, which I'm not sure is mentioned in the text. I promise you will love the last sentence of this book, which she made possible!
I hope this book is super influential, so I'm giving it five stars, but even if it's not I enjoyed reading it.
January 2, 2020
John Urschel deserves a biography. Not many people are NFL starters, and not many are research mathematicians. The one who checks both boxes is an interesting character! As a mathematician and a football fan, I guess I'm the target market.
Unfortunately, the book felt rushed to me. Urschel, who was on the football team at Penn State when news of the sex abuse scandal broke, does acknowledge the gravity of the program's betrayal of trust, but almost in passing -- he moves rather quickly to the team's performance on the field. His concussion and subsequent retirement, too, are described, but not in the depth I would have wished.
Urschel does a good job of expressing his interest in mathematics, the difficulty of pursuing both math and football, and the ways people around him reacted to his unusual gifts. I enjoyed this, and wish he could have taken us a bit deeper into his world.
Unfortunately, the book felt rushed to me. Urschel, who was on the football team at Penn State when news of the sex abuse scandal broke, does acknowledge the gravity of the program's betrayal of trust, but almost in passing -- he moves rather quickly to the team's performance on the field. His concussion and subsequent retirement, too, are described, but not in the depth I would have wished.
Urschel does a good job of expressing his interest in mathematics, the difficulty of pursuing both math and football, and the ways people around him reacted to his unusual gifts. I enjoyed this, and wish he could have taken us a bit deeper into his world.
June 11, 2019
I bought this book for my husband's birthday, as he is both an aerospace engineer by training and a Ravens fan. This book turned out to be so much more than that. It tells Urschel's story of being fully immersed in two worlds: math and football. I admire the elegance with which he moved between them. He also does a great job sharing his passion for math and why it matters without bragging about his enormous talent in this area. I'm no mathematician but if Urschel ever wins the Fields Medal, the Venn Diagram of NFL players who did so will be a lovely concentric circle. I do think Urschel could have gone a little more in depth about his concussion. He does say he lost some of his higher math skills for a while but they came back. That had to be utterly terrifying while it was happening, and I would've liked to see him explore more of his emotions about that time. But I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is caught between two worlds.
September 13, 2023
John Urschel alternates telling his story-so-far between a love of math and a love of football. From a young age, Urschel's love of puzzles and logic naturally led to enjoyment of mathematics (though originally his mother was pushing for aerospace engineering!). Given his size, he also performed well on the football field as a lineman, continuously focusing on improvement in order to secure a college football scholarship. He writes about the aspects of math and football that drew him in, with any likely reader relating to at least one of those. His work ethic propelled him to the highest levels of both things he loved, as a Baltimore Raven and as a PhD candidate at MIT. An enjoyable reflection on Urschel's life and desire to be outstanding in two areas that seem opposing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2020
Some of the math discussion was a little tough but I really enjoyed this inside view of being a Big Ten football player, then NFL and also being an elite mathematician. As a Penn State alum I was of course interested in John Urschel as a PSU player and alum but the book is not a rah rah PSU book but his account of being both a football player and mathematician at a high level. I started to read one of his papers he had co-authored after reading this book and although I began as a math major this was way over my head and I gave up. Quick read.
December 15, 2019
This was a great memoir-and I don’t love math or football! John Urschel has such a great work ethic and describes with lots of detail the thought processes that guided him in making important decisions in his life. He is someone all young people could look up to as they decide what paths to follow in their lives and what character traits they want to show the world.
November 3, 2019
Recommended reading for every student
I will be assigning this book to all my first year students and advisees! A great book detailing the effort required outside of the classroom and a good example of the growth mindset.
I will be assigning this book to all my first year students and advisees! A great book detailing the effort required outside of the classroom and a good example of the growth mindset.
May 23, 2019
I read a lot of nonfiction books and the majority are rather repetitive. This book made me realize that NO ONE writes about being passionate about math except for Urschel. Definitely a unique person, inspiring for all of us dorks, and worth reading!
June 18, 2019
3.5 stars. I would have rounded up but the ending was quite abrupt and was not as strong as the rest.
I enjoyed Urschel’s memoir about his early life and rise to success in the worlds of football and math. Each chapter focused on a period of his life in either math or football, and the resulting organization was very clear and easy to read. It also allowed Urschel the space in each section to fully discuss his progress in each field. I appreciated the insight into both higher math and college and professional football: two fields I know very little about.
He is clearly brilliant and not just in football and math. Urschel’s significant emotional intelligence and writing skills were evident. It all made this an informative and pleasant read!
I enjoyed Urschel’s memoir about his early life and rise to success in the worlds of football and math. Each chapter focused on a period of his life in either math or football, and the resulting organization was very clear and easy to read. It also allowed Urschel the space in each section to fully discuss his progress in each field. I appreciated the insight into both higher math and college and professional football: two fields I know very little about.
He is clearly brilliant and not just in football and math. Urschel’s significant emotional intelligence and writing skills were evident. It all made this an informative and pleasant read!
July 1, 2023
In his book, Mind and Matter: A Life of Math and Football. John Urschel chronicles how his interests as a boy would become his vocations as an adult. He explains how his love of puzzles as a child grew into a love of calculus in the classroom. It wasn’t until he reached high school that Urschel discovered a passion for playing football. This skill eventually led to a scholarship to a play for Penn State and an opportunity to play in the NFL as a Baltimore Raven.
Throughout Mind and Matter, Urschel describes how he was able to balance and excel in two distinct fields. The book alternates between the academic and athletic chapters of his journey and reveals how Urschel pursued each field with equal vigor and accomplish his goals while maintaining a personal life as well.
Mind and Matter is a fascinating look at one man’s drive to excel despite difficulty in two divergent fields. Urschel displays uncommon grit and determination as he pursues his two passions. The ambition to succeed allowed him to overcome obstacles that others would find insurmountable. The math theory that Urschel explains toward the end of the book is a bit technical and tedious. However, Mind and Matter is a fascinating story of one man’s success in two fields that seem worlds apart.
Throughout Mind and Matter, Urschel describes how he was able to balance and excel in two distinct fields. The book alternates between the academic and athletic chapters of his journey and reveals how Urschel pursued each field with equal vigor and accomplish his goals while maintaining a personal life as well.
Mind and Matter is a fascinating look at one man’s drive to excel despite difficulty in two divergent fields. Urschel displays uncommon grit and determination as he pursues his two passions. The ambition to succeed allowed him to overcome obstacles that others would find insurmountable. The math theory that Urschel explains toward the end of the book is a bit technical and tedious. However, Mind and Matter is a fascinating story of one man’s success in two fields that seem worlds apart.
July 14, 2019
It's rare for somebody under 30 to write a memoir. You'd expect them to have done something truly extraordinary. Urschel instead has done two things, both unusual but not extraordinary enough on their own to justify a memoir. He is a competent mathematician, with several papers on linear algebra and related topics. He's also a talented football player, having been on the Penn State team and then the Baltimore Ravens. A core topic of the memoir is how those two activities interact.
Alas, the author is clear that mostly they don't interact. He likes math and he likes football and for some years he was talented and hard-working enough to manage both. As he explains, almost every decision you make as a football player on the field is made unconsciously by conditioned response; you don't have time to think consciously. You can usefully describe tackles in terms of vectors and levers, but this is neither necessary nor sufficient to do it properly.
Because the two topics interact so loosely, the book's structure effectively alternates the two; we have math chapters and sections, and we have football sections. Ironically I thought the football ones were more interesting. I have spent all my life around academics and most of it around specifically quantitative academics; this book is one of the very few portraits I've seen that explains what football is like as a player. We get long discussions about trick plays and why they worked, the influence of morale, what you do as an offensive lineman.
There are a number of interesting digressions along the way. Urschel was on the Penn State team at the time the Sandusky sex scandal emerged, and gives us a long explanation of what it felt like at the time. Something he highlights, that I didn't understand at the time, was that the chief villain, Sandusky, had been long since retired and the sub-villain, legendary coach Joe Paterno, was also already on his way out. The players had nothing whatever to do with the scandal and felt that it was unfair that they were being sanctioned because of offenses committed by senior leaders and people who were no longer connected to the football program. Urschel acknowledges that this was a somewhat immature perspective, but there's definitely something to it -- the NCAA was inflicting a lot of opprobrium and harm on perfectly innocent people to indirectly punish a university.
Something Urschel describes but does not emphasize is that he wound up where he did largely as a result of parental influence. His mother constantly encouraged him in mathematics and science, starting very young with arithmetic puzzles -- and showed up to support him in a football career that she deplored. His father smuggled him into a college calculus class at the age of 13 -- which Urschel did well in. His father was a former college football player and, while he didn't directly encourage him to take up the game, did push him to be physically active and gave him detailed coaching and advice. In sum, he had parents who did everything they could to put him on the track his life then took.
This is clearly a book with several implicit purposes; Urschel wants to justify why he shrugged off the physical risks of football for years before abruptly quitting; he wants to inspire young people to math, and he wants to explain why there is considerable redeeming merit to big-name collegiate football. I'm not a core audience for any of those but I thought it did a good job with them all.
I have the sense this book is pitched slightly to a high school audience; the diction and sentence structure in most of it feels like it's geared to an 11th grade reading proficiency and I would bet that when Urschel writes math, his prose is more complicated. This is a quick light read; there aren't deep insights, but if you have time on an airplane or a beach, this is a fine thing to read.
Alas, the author is clear that mostly they don't interact. He likes math and he likes football and for some years he was talented and hard-working enough to manage both. As he explains, almost every decision you make as a football player on the field is made unconsciously by conditioned response; you don't have time to think consciously. You can usefully describe tackles in terms of vectors and levers, but this is neither necessary nor sufficient to do it properly.
Because the two topics interact so loosely, the book's structure effectively alternates the two; we have math chapters and sections, and we have football sections. Ironically I thought the football ones were more interesting. I have spent all my life around academics and most of it around specifically quantitative academics; this book is one of the very few portraits I've seen that explains what football is like as a player. We get long discussions about trick plays and why they worked, the influence of morale, what you do as an offensive lineman.
There are a number of interesting digressions along the way. Urschel was on the Penn State team at the time the Sandusky sex scandal emerged, and gives us a long explanation of what it felt like at the time. Something he highlights, that I didn't understand at the time, was that the chief villain, Sandusky, had been long since retired and the sub-villain, legendary coach Joe Paterno, was also already on his way out. The players had nothing whatever to do with the scandal and felt that it was unfair that they were being sanctioned because of offenses committed by senior leaders and people who were no longer connected to the football program. Urschel acknowledges that this was a somewhat immature perspective, but there's definitely something to it -- the NCAA was inflicting a lot of opprobrium and harm on perfectly innocent people to indirectly punish a university.
Something Urschel describes but does not emphasize is that he wound up where he did largely as a result of parental influence. His mother constantly encouraged him in mathematics and science, starting very young with arithmetic puzzles -- and showed up to support him in a football career that she deplored. His father smuggled him into a college calculus class at the age of 13 -- which Urschel did well in. His father was a former college football player and, while he didn't directly encourage him to take up the game, did push him to be physically active and gave him detailed coaching and advice. In sum, he had parents who did everything they could to put him on the track his life then took.
This is clearly a book with several implicit purposes; Urschel wants to justify why he shrugged off the physical risks of football for years before abruptly quitting; he wants to inspire young people to math, and he wants to explain why there is considerable redeeming merit to big-name collegiate football. I'm not a core audience for any of those but I thought it did a good job with them all.
I have the sense this book is pitched slightly to a high school audience; the diction and sentence structure in most of it feels like it's geared to an 11th grade reading proficiency and I would bet that when Urschel writes math, his prose is more complicated. This is a quick light read; there aren't deep insights, but if you have time on an airplane or a beach, this is a fine thing to read.
June 2, 2019
As someone who both reads voraciously and listens to music, it is easy to judge a book by its cover. As humans, I think we are constantly in a mode of trying to categorize things so that the world makes as much sense as possible. Unfortunately, it is usually when we attempt to put everything into neat little boxes that we will sell something or more likely someone short, simply we were too lazy or too scared to figure out the truth. John Urschel was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL (in keeping with the theme of selling people short, Urschel immediately earned my scorn for this as I am a rabid Cleveland Browns fan) but unbelievably he is also a mathematician and currently a PhD candidate in mathematics at MIT. Of course, I say "unbelievably" because it is difficult to reconcile football to math, but Urschel's story contains both.
On the surface, Urschel has a pretty unique story to tell. When reading this book you find out that Urschel's heroes really live in the world of mathematics--he name drops different "superstars" of the math world throughout the book, but because we've never heard of them (we aren't mathematicians after all) they are just names to us. However, Urschel is so enmeshed in that world that he holds them probably in higher esteem than the sports stars that many of us know and love (he uses former NFL and University of Michigan star Jake Long as an example of an offensive lineman he looked up to--a mistake, as we know future Hall of Famer and Cleveland Browns star Joe Thomas was the better of the two.) As Urschel's narrative continues he basically sets the world of football and the world math on a collision course, eventually he picks one over the other (and given what I've told you above it's probably easy to figure out which.)
While Urschel's story is pretty unique, there are moments when this book is on the cusp of being so much more than it could be, but Urschel does not feel the need to address the more controversial elements of his life story--the idea that football injuries and especially concussions may lead to early deaths for players, the fact that the NCAA profits off of student athletes (Urschel was at Penn State when the Jerry Sandusky thing broke--he effectively was one of the people punished for the actions of coaches that he never even played for), and the fact that opportunities in STEM disciplines seem to pass by both women and minorities--each of these areas are also a part of Urschel's story, but when given the chance to expound on those issues, Urschel demurs. For him, I think this book is actually an attempt at catharsis for choosing something other than playing in the NFL. By putting his story to paper he has found peace with his decision to pursue math. Perhaps he believes that his choice speaks for him when it comes to these issues, but I think it would have been better had Urschel explicitly stated his views. In a world where conservative commentators attempt to invalidate the views of a LeBron James by telling him to "shut up and play" I think Urschel could be an important voice here, but he does not meet the challenge.
I certainly hope that this is not the last time we hear from John Urschel. His story is a fascinating one, but he is not even 30 years old and I have a feeling that there many other great moments ahead of him. It will be interesting to see where life takes him from here.
On the surface, Urschel has a pretty unique story to tell. When reading this book you find out that Urschel's heroes really live in the world of mathematics--he name drops different "superstars" of the math world throughout the book, but because we've never heard of them (we aren't mathematicians after all) they are just names to us. However, Urschel is so enmeshed in that world that he holds them probably in higher esteem than the sports stars that many of us know and love (he uses former NFL and University of Michigan star Jake Long as an example of an offensive lineman he looked up to--a mistake, as we know future Hall of Famer and Cleveland Browns star Joe Thomas was the better of the two.) As Urschel's narrative continues he basically sets the world of football and the world math on a collision course, eventually he picks one over the other (and given what I've told you above it's probably easy to figure out which.)
While Urschel's story is pretty unique, there are moments when this book is on the cusp of being so much more than it could be, but Urschel does not feel the need to address the more controversial elements of his life story--the idea that football injuries and especially concussions may lead to early deaths for players, the fact that the NCAA profits off of student athletes (Urschel was at Penn State when the Jerry Sandusky thing broke--he effectively was one of the people punished for the actions of coaches that he never even played for), and the fact that opportunities in STEM disciplines seem to pass by both women and minorities--each of these areas are also a part of Urschel's story, but when given the chance to expound on those issues, Urschel demurs. For him, I think this book is actually an attempt at catharsis for choosing something other than playing in the NFL. By putting his story to paper he has found peace with his decision to pursue math. Perhaps he believes that his choice speaks for him when it comes to these issues, but I think it would have been better had Urschel explicitly stated his views. In a world where conservative commentators attempt to invalidate the views of a LeBron James by telling him to "shut up and play" I think Urschel could be an important voice here, but he does not meet the challenge.
I certainly hope that this is not the last time we hear from John Urschel. His story is a fascinating one, but he is not even 30 years old and I have a feeling that there many other great moments ahead of him. It will be interesting to see where life takes him from here.
January 7, 2020
A remarkable book. I read it in three days cover to cover. The writing is fluid and outstanding. It describes a young man's growth from the prep school level, through college, to the NFL, all the meanwhile enduring tumult and division scholastically, and being driven to solve mathematic puzzles concurrently.
As a reviewer I have a tripartite connection. From my life as someone who also played Div I athletics, studied the sciences with an advanced degree, and happened to have played chess in a tournament with John, I confirm his is a rare perspective as most anyone can imagine. I am glad he took the time with Louisa to set it down. They are both fine people. After we all meet briefly at the tournament I can say without doubt that John has an understanding of humility, introspection, poise, and analysis that is remarkably rare for the NFL culture. He played chess with someone literally 250 pounds lighter than he- a boy. John scrunched down to be less intimidating, and was gracious in his win. I will always appreciate that, thinking about him driving away in his Nissan Versa, telling me, "eh, some days are like that", encouraging even on my own loss, this giant guy bimbling back home to see his mother after some brainy games.
The fun thing about that small personal connection is that I read all the text in his voice, as if being spoken to. It was as Emily Dickinson speaking to Emily Saliers through the pages. The rigorous depth of the content is even there down to the quantum level. It was suprising. Now my undersanding of eigenvalues is greater, as well as the historical context of Schrodinger and Heisenberg as regards matrix algebra and commutation, and the turning of classical mechanics to the new atomic age. I was astonished to read a better interpretation of orbitals than my P-chem professor gave.
Very few people in life have such a drive for the truth that everything they write is reflected by underpinning logic more than a few levels deep. This book is like that, it's like reading Schopenhauer instead of Kant, or Spinoza instead of Sartre; informative, flowing, obviously packed with truth. Every sentence is unpretentious and worthwhile. By contrast I would read Whitman or Steinbeck with pain, hanging on to derive something new every 50 pages. But here, the thoughts and perspective are crystalline and precise. They have been made easy to grasp, as written from someone with teaching experience who puts the student or reader before the ego, and for that I am grateful for the breath of fresh air. Reading someone both gifted and powerful is refreshing because the author needs prove nothing, so the readers ego is spared any palliation of pomp.
But the reader need not be a mathemetician at all to appreciate this fine book, or even an athlete. It flows remarkably easy; faster than JK Rowling. I turned pages rapidly. If you would like to find a person that blends athleticism and intellect, someone who straddled two worlds at once, and integrated them together, intuition and logic, this is the place. If your life is strained and divided, take hope, he did it.
Thanks John. I hope to be ready the next time we might see each other, but you'll probably still be better in logic, poise, weightlifting, diligence, effort, and unflappability and a pile of other things. Still, you're heroic. Maybe I can scratch up something about bioengineering to fascinate you as a friend.
Cheers
As a reviewer I have a tripartite connection. From my life as someone who also played Div I athletics, studied the sciences with an advanced degree, and happened to have played chess in a tournament with John, I confirm his is a rare perspective as most anyone can imagine. I am glad he took the time with Louisa to set it down. They are both fine people. After we all meet briefly at the tournament I can say without doubt that John has an understanding of humility, introspection, poise, and analysis that is remarkably rare for the NFL culture. He played chess with someone literally 250 pounds lighter than he- a boy. John scrunched down to be less intimidating, and was gracious in his win. I will always appreciate that, thinking about him driving away in his Nissan Versa, telling me, "eh, some days are like that", encouraging even on my own loss, this giant guy bimbling back home to see his mother after some brainy games.
The fun thing about that small personal connection is that I read all the text in his voice, as if being spoken to. It was as Emily Dickinson speaking to Emily Saliers through the pages. The rigorous depth of the content is even there down to the quantum level. It was suprising. Now my undersanding of eigenvalues is greater, as well as the historical context of Schrodinger and Heisenberg as regards matrix algebra and commutation, and the turning of classical mechanics to the new atomic age. I was astonished to read a better interpretation of orbitals than my P-chem professor gave.
Very few people in life have such a drive for the truth that everything they write is reflected by underpinning logic more than a few levels deep. This book is like that, it's like reading Schopenhauer instead of Kant, or Spinoza instead of Sartre; informative, flowing, obviously packed with truth. Every sentence is unpretentious and worthwhile. By contrast I would read Whitman or Steinbeck with pain, hanging on to derive something new every 50 pages. But here, the thoughts and perspective are crystalline and precise. They have been made easy to grasp, as written from someone with teaching experience who puts the student or reader before the ego, and for that I am grateful for the breath of fresh air. Reading someone both gifted and powerful is refreshing because the author needs prove nothing, so the readers ego is spared any palliation of pomp.
But the reader need not be a mathemetician at all to appreciate this fine book, or even an athlete. It flows remarkably easy; faster than JK Rowling. I turned pages rapidly. If you would like to find a person that blends athleticism and intellect, someone who straddled two worlds at once, and integrated them together, intuition and logic, this is the place. If your life is strained and divided, take hope, he did it.
Thanks John. I hope to be ready the next time we might see each other, but you'll probably still be better in logic, poise, weightlifting, diligence, effort, and unflappability and a pile of other things. Still, you're heroic. Maybe I can scratch up something about bioengineering to fascinate you as a friend.
Cheers
March 21, 2025
Some books are enjoyable. Others are inspiring. But every once in a while, a book comes along that completely shifts your perspective on life. Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football by John Urshel is that book for me. It is, without a doubt, one of the most compelling, insightful, and deeply personal memoirs I have ever read. As a college student, educator, entrepreneur, and firm believer in Christ, I found Urschel's story to be not only relatable but profoundly affirming in ways I never expected.
John Urschel is a man of many gifts - an accomplished mathmatician and a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. He takes us into the depths of both disciplines, revealing the striking parallels between the precision of mathematics and the strategy of football. His writing style makes even complex mathematical concepts accessible, allowing readers to appreciate the elegance of problem-solving just as much as the thrill of a perfectly executed football play.
As someone who was born prematurely, weighing only one pound and seven ounces, I have firsthand experience with being underestimated. But through the grace of God, I have no limitations. Urschel's story reminded me that the very obstacles that people believe will define or limit us are often the ones that propel us into our greatest purpose. His ability to break barriers in both math and football mirrors the resilience I strive to instill in my students: to embrace their challenges, to work diligently, and to trust that God has equipped them with everything they need to succeed.
Though Mind and Matter is not overtly religious, I could see God's hand all throughout Urschel's story. His ability to juggle the demands of rigorous mathematics and professional football is nothing short of extraordinary. While Urschel does not explictly discuss his spiritual beliefs, his story speaks to biblical principles - hard work, stewardship of gifts, and perseverance through adversity. As a firm believer in Christ, I found his journey to be a living example of Phillipians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".
Mind and Matter is more than just a memoir - it is an anthem for those who refuse to be confined by societal expectations. For students struggling to balance their interests, for educators seeking to inspire, and for anyone who has ever felt torn between callings, this book is a must-read.
This book is a gift, and one that I will be recommending for years to come.
John Urschel is a man of many gifts - an accomplished mathmatician and a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. He takes us into the depths of both disciplines, revealing the striking parallels between the precision of mathematics and the strategy of football. His writing style makes even complex mathematical concepts accessible, allowing readers to appreciate the elegance of problem-solving just as much as the thrill of a perfectly executed football play.
As someone who was born prematurely, weighing only one pound and seven ounces, I have firsthand experience with being underestimated. But through the grace of God, I have no limitations. Urschel's story reminded me that the very obstacles that people believe will define or limit us are often the ones that propel us into our greatest purpose. His ability to break barriers in both math and football mirrors the resilience I strive to instill in my students: to embrace their challenges, to work diligently, and to trust that God has equipped them with everything they need to succeed.
Though Mind and Matter is not overtly religious, I could see God's hand all throughout Urschel's story. His ability to juggle the demands of rigorous mathematics and professional football is nothing short of extraordinary. While Urschel does not explictly discuss his spiritual beliefs, his story speaks to biblical principles - hard work, stewardship of gifts, and perseverance through adversity. As a firm believer in Christ, I found his journey to be a living example of Phillipians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".
Mind and Matter is more than just a memoir - it is an anthem for those who refuse to be confined by societal expectations. For students struggling to balance their interests, for educators seeking to inspire, and for anyone who has ever felt torn between callings, this book is a must-read.
This book is a gift, and one that I will be recommending for years to come.
July 12, 2019
(Audiobook) Perhaps I am biased in that I am a Penn State fan and fondly recall Urschel’s success on the football field, but I really enjoyed this memoir. When you think of individuals getting PhDs in mathematics at MIT, a 6-3, 310lbs African-American is probably not the first image that comes to mind...and one that gave up a potentially lucrative career in pro football to boot to do said mathematics. Yet, that is what Urschel did. Having been instilled with a love for math at an early age (by a single mom, no less), competitiveness and a desire to understand “why”, this work takes those themes and describes the two main passions in his life: football and mathematics.
As the book progresses through his life, he alternates chapters between football and math, showing passion for both. However, you get the sense that while he loved football and was dedicated to being good at the game (earning a scholarship to Penn State and getting draft in the NFL, eventually starting on the offensive line in a couple of playoff games), Urschel’s real passion is for math. It was the desire to be a professor and a player in the mathematics field that won out over football (that, and concern that another concussion could harm his future academic and family prospects).
He hasn’t had near a full life yet, but he has seen a lot. From being right smack in the middle of the worst scandal in college football history and dealing with the aftershocks to being published in several math journals as a masters student, while getting theories named after him, teaching classes...while playing said game...it is quite a tale. Perhaps a little early in life, but if it helps inspire others, especially other African Americans to get into math like he did, then Urschel will have achieved his goal.
A minor nitpick is that it would have been nice to have the author narrate the work, but sometimes, offensive linemen are not known for being very talkative. Still, you don’t have to be a Penn State or Baltimore Ravens fan...or a math fan to enjoy this work. Highly recommend, either the audiobook or the hard copy/ebook.
As the book progresses through his life, he alternates chapters between football and math, showing passion for both. However, you get the sense that while he loved football and was dedicated to being good at the game (earning a scholarship to Penn State and getting draft in the NFL, eventually starting on the offensive line in a couple of playoff games), Urschel’s real passion is for math. It was the desire to be a professor and a player in the mathematics field that won out over football (that, and concern that another concussion could harm his future academic and family prospects).
He hasn’t had near a full life yet, but he has seen a lot. From being right smack in the middle of the worst scandal in college football history and dealing with the aftershocks to being published in several math journals as a masters student, while getting theories named after him, teaching classes...while playing said game...it is quite a tale. Perhaps a little early in life, but if it helps inspire others, especially other African Americans to get into math like he did, then Urschel will have achieved his goal.
A minor nitpick is that it would have been nice to have the author narrate the work, but sometimes, offensive linemen are not known for being very talkative. Still, you don’t have to be a Penn State or Baltimore Ravens fan...or a math fan to enjoy this work. Highly recommend, either the audiobook or the hard copy/ebook.
August 7, 2019
The main reason I loved this book was that it so clearly demonstrates, repeatedly, how much is possible when we don't place ourselves (or others) into separate and distinct categories. Urschel reminds us of opportunity we all have to be more - to be talented in more than one thing, to love and enjoy and become skilled in multiple areas. I cannot describe how much I love that idea and, in this era in which so much emphasis is placed on the negative, or what we or others cannot do, or how we are supposedly limited - how utterly refreshing this book is. Why must we be so binary? Why can't we love a sport and love academics? Why must we limit ourselves as being this and not that? As Urschel's own life demonstrates, at some point some preference may be given to one area of life but that doesn't negate the possibility for excellence in other areas too. As a parent of a child naturally gifted in math, I enjoyed hearing Urschel's perspective on his childhood (but I also would love to talk to his mom to hear hers!). He and his co-writer navigate the balance between describing the influences of math and football in his life well. I particularly enjoyed the integration of mathematical concepts within several of the chapters. Urschel also handles the discussion of CTE well - not only its misrepresentation in the media (anyone with even the most basic training in science writing is aghast at so-called reporting on scientific studies in most outlets) but also his genuine concern about its potential impact on his other great love, mathematics, and his future. But he makes it clear that freedom to love and pursue a significant interest might be a life more deeply lived than one that avoids all risks or simplifies one's life. And that could be the overall theme of the book - we are free to become more, to experience more, to pursue multiple paths that build us into a greater, stronger whole person with a broader positive impact on our communities... So why don't we?
July 21, 2019
I had high expectations for this book, and it was actually better than I expected because a good book lets you see things in a new light.
Though I knew of John Urschel as a Baltimore Raven, I did not know that he had gone to Penn State. I, definitely, did not know that he had gone to Penn State during the time when the abuse of Jerry Sandusky hit the press. I knew that Penn State was sanctioned for it, and I thought what had happened was right. However, Urschel was a student at the time. In the first part of the book, I was a little uncomfortable with the great respect he had for Paterno. It was interesting to see his perspective on how the Sandusky incident affected the student-athletes at Penn State who did not even really know who Sandusky was while also taking what Sandusky had done very seriously. I think that it was tough to strike the right balance here but that somehow the book managed it.
It was interesting to see how Urschel viewed himself as both an athlete and as a mathematician. In this book, it seems like he thought that his potential in math was much higher than his potential in football. I found this endearing.
He also discusses his love of chess.
On page 174 of the hardcover version of this book, Urschel discusses a paper on bias in STEM and how the authors were not measuring what they thought they were measuring. Toward the end of this page, he says, "There must be a reason why, in my math classes, it was more common to see a woman born outside the USA doing well than it was to see an American woman." At that point, I wanted to immediately hand him a copy of Unlocking the Clubhouse because this topic is discussed in that book in the context of computer science.
Though I knew of John Urschel as a Baltimore Raven, I did not know that he had gone to Penn State. I, definitely, did not know that he had gone to Penn State during the time when the abuse of Jerry Sandusky hit the press. I knew that Penn State was sanctioned for it, and I thought what had happened was right. However, Urschel was a student at the time. In the first part of the book, I was a little uncomfortable with the great respect he had for Paterno. It was interesting to see his perspective on how the Sandusky incident affected the student-athletes at Penn State who did not even really know who Sandusky was while also taking what Sandusky had done very seriously. I think that it was tough to strike the right balance here but that somehow the book managed it.
It was interesting to see how Urschel viewed himself as both an athlete and as a mathematician. In this book, it seems like he thought that his potential in math was much higher than his potential in football. I found this endearing.
He also discusses his love of chess.
On page 174 of the hardcover version of this book, Urschel discusses a paper on bias in STEM and how the authors were not measuring what they thought they were measuring. Toward the end of this page, he says, "There must be a reason why, in my math classes, it was more common to see a woman born outside the USA doing well than it was to see an American woman." At that point, I wanted to immediately hand him a copy of Unlocking the Clubhouse because this topic is discussed in that book in the context of computer science.
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