John Urschel made headlines this offseason when he announced his retirement from the NFL after three seasons. The former Ravens offensive lineman is well-known for being extremely smart, graduating from Penn State with a bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics with a 4.0 GPA. He's already explained his reasonings for stepping away from the game, but he went into more detail recently on the Freakonomics Podcast.
He said even though he retired following a study on CTE in NFL players, he has no hard feelings toward the league. He loved every second he played in the NFL, for the Ravens, and says he only made the decision to retire so he could focus on mathematics.
Continuing with that, he revealed he was a full-time Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While he didn't hide the fact he was taking courses at MIT, Urschel didn't tell the full story that he was studying during the football season, and not just during the offseason.
Here's a transcript from the podcast, where he's talking with host Stephen J. Dubner:
URSCHEL: Yes. For the majority of my NFL career, actually.DUBNER: How did that work out? When did you do what, as a doctoral candidate, around the football season?URSCHEL: Well, I was — I shouldn’t say “was.” I am a full time Ph.D. student at MIT and I was full-time the entire time, so there wasn’t really any working around to be done.DUBNER: But, obviously during the football season you’re not attending classes. That’s not possible right? Football’s [a] very full time job.URSCHEL: Yes, of course. This is a natural question. I guess since I’m retired, I’m allowed to say, I was full-time, full-time. For example, last fall I took courses at MIT.DUBNER: During football season.URSCHEL: Yes. Via correspondence. I took courses which I thought were very manageable in season; areas that I was more or less familiar with previously, classes which had a textbook, which the professor followed the textbook and I would just do the assignments and then just send them in.DUBNER: You say that you can tell me, “Now that you’re retired.” Am I to gather, then, that you didn’t tell the Ravens that you were actually full-time at MIT during the football season?URSCHEL: I did not tell anyone this. Well, except MIT. But I don’t think an NFL team would be extremely happy to hear that I’m working towards my Ph.D. also in the fall.DUBNER: How did a standard day work out?URSCHEL: My schedule — to put the MIT things in perspective — what I would do is, I would play the game on Sunday. Then from Sunday — suppose it’s a home game, one o’clock kickoff. I get home around 5:00, perhaps 5:30. From Sunday, 5:30 p.m. until Tuesday, say, 11:00 a.m. — when I have to go into the Ravens — all I am doing is MIT coursework and math. That is all I am doing. MIT accepted me as a Ph.D. student, but they don’t have part-time Ph.D. students. If I have to finish in four years, maybe five, this is just completely infeasible if I’m only working on the Ph.D. half a year.
DUBNER: During football season.
Most NFL players struggle with the insane schedule of a professional athlete, but Urschel was somehow able to fit in being a full-time Ph.D. student at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. It's also understandable why he hid that information from the Ravens. The team may have told him to stop taking classes, and focus on game film and opponent strategy instead.
Thankfully the situation worked out well for everyone, as Urschel can now put all of his attention on his education at MIT.
