Football & Math

It's unusual, but not impossible, that two of my favorite things come together. And technically, math isn't one of my favorite things, but football is, and when one of "my" players wants to be a high school math teacher when he's done playing for the Giants, well, that's close enough to cognitive science for me.

All this to introduce a cute story in Saturday's New York Times about backup linebacker Chase Blackburn, who is trying to figure out "whether the team’s assistant athletic trainer, John Johnson, had used enough athletic tape in his 50-year career with the Giants to circle the earth." He knows

"... the circumference of the earth [and] how long Johnson had been wrapping body parts. [He and his teammates] could guess how many players he wrapped each day and each season.

"They did not know how many feet of tape each roll contained."

Bummer. But Blackburn is "finishing a math degree from the University of Akron, where he played football, by taking courses at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. He hopes to complete a master’s degree, too, and he says he would like to teach high school math when his football career ends."

I love football, and I love science, and I love when football players like, er, math. Go Giants!

For More Info
Branch, John. Giants' Blackburn May Get Chance to Solve the Eagles. New York Times, Dec. 8, 2007.