You might have seen him explaining the science behind Bose headphones to J.J. Watt. Or maybe playing, and beating a room full of opponents at multiple games of chess. Or maybe you saw him last season protecting Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco from oncoming defenders.
This season, John Urschel, has been vaulted from relative anonymity on Baltimore’s offensive line to the ranks of the NFL’s most recognizable faces along with Aaron Rodgers or Watt. Urschel has gained national recognition, not just for his work on the field, but for his work in the classroom. When he takes time away from the NFL, Urschel is a Ph.D. candidate in advanced mathematics at MIT.
Urschel said that from a young age, he never felt that his pursuits of football or math were mutually exclusive. He said that continuing in both fields was natural, but that there are challenges with pursuing two entirely different careers at the very highest levels.
“It was less a realization, and more of me just doing the two things I loved. I did both since high school, and I never really stopped,” he said. “[But] I’m not sure my strategies during college were the best or the healthiest. I dedicated my whole life to math and football. And everything else, having fun, social life, romantic life, was secondary and peripheral.”
Despite these hurdles, Urschel has excelled in both fields. Now in his third season with the Ravens and in pursuit of his doctorate from MIT, he continues to uphold the 4.0 GPA he earned during his time at Penn State, prior to the NFL. 
For now, Urschel says he mainly leaves his academic work to the offseason so he can fully focus on football. And while his research is certainly unique among his peers, he still feels a sense of camaraderie with his teammates.
“Every player has certain hobbies that make them unique. In the locker room, math is just my hobby. In that way, I’m not so different.”
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One of Urschel’s biggest causes to champion is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in schools. His educational initiatives have been one of the big factors that have boosted him into the national limelight. Urschel teamed up with Texas Instruments for the STEM Behind Sports program which provided resources for teachers and parents to show children how math can be applied in sports.
“Math education is one of my biggest passions. I think it is important to show students why it’s important to have a strong quantitative reasoning and quantitative decision making ability.”
In addition to being a brilliant mathematician, Urschel is gifted writer. One of his education initiatives is The Wednesday Morning Math Challenge, which he publishes weekly on The Players’ Tribune. Each week’s column poses a set of mathematical problems in which Urschel challenges readers to use their creative problem solving skills, before publishing the solutions a short time later. Urschel also publishes other columns from time to time on the site.
One of the other topics he addresses in some of his pieces in The Players’ Tribune is the long-term effects of football, and especially how that affects his situation. In 2016, more than ever, the toll that football can take on brain health was brought to the national spotlight. Given his academic pursuits, the health of his mind is critical and he’s written that he’s considered the risks to this mathematical career numerous times. And while he says that he seeks to pursue a long career in academics and even chess, one of his other passions, he isn’t quite ready to quit football yet.
“Certainly splitting time between the two fields hinders my success in both fields, and this is something I think about sometimes,” he shared. “More than anything, football really hinders math, more than the other way around.”
For now, Urschel says that the physicality and adrenaline of football is something he craves and that helps him balance the two vastly different sides of his life. Regardless, Urschel’s pursuit of his passions is something that he will be able to continue even when he has to hang up his cleats.
“As a PhD student at MIT some days I find myself working in my office from 8 am to 2 am. But, often, those are the days I love the most,” he said. “Working through a complex problem, trying to peel back the layers.”
After all, few people can ever say that they are equally comfortable lining up against a 300-pound defensive lineman or a theoretical mathematics equation.