4 ms·
Reminds me of John Urschel, MIT mathematician who quit his NFL career because he was afraid of possible brain damage. Looks like he finished his PhD in 2021 [0]
by marttt 5y ago
Reminds me of John Urschel, MIT mathematician who quit his NFL career because he was afraid of possible brain damage. Looks like he finished his PhD in 2021 [0]. Congrats!
Apparently, Urschel had suffered a concussion a few years before his decision [1, 2]. There was also an interesting, semi-related HN thread about football and brain trauma earlier [3].
0: https://math.mit.edu/~urschel/ https://math.mit.edu/~urschel/
1: https://archive.is/RG9tg https://archive.is/RG9tg
2: https://news.mit.edu/2019/student-john-urschel-math-football-0515 https://news.mit.edu/2019/student-john-urschel-math-football...
4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16291827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16291827
- gumby 5y agoHe put in the time to qualify for a league pension, then quit then quit the NFL. Somehow this overlapped with his time as a masters student (source, iirc, alumni section of technology review).
- antasvara 5y agoHe's got a solid book [1] with some insight into his decisions. He's an interesting guy- definitely worth a read. [1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557242/mind-and-matter-by-john-urschel-and-louisa-thomas/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557242/mind-and-mat...
- reedf1 5y agoHe has written a book as well! Now if he can play an instrument and embroider he'd be my choice for the human general talent gauntlet.