How to Be a Double Unicorn, with John Urschel | Better in Person

He was thriving in the N. F. L., but then he decided to focus on mathematics — a subject he now teaches at M. I. T. John walks Stephen Dubner through the whole story, teaches him some blocking techniques, and explains why some infinities are bigger than others. If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today.

• 0:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, and this is a bonus episode that we are calling How to Be a Double Unicorn. Comes from our new video talk show, which is called Better in Person, and the guest is John Urschel, a former NFL lineman who now teaches math at MIT. John is one of my very favorite people, and I think you will like him too. To watch this episode, go to the Freakonomics YouTube channel or search for Better in Person on Apple Podcasts. The entire first season of the show has now been published, so go ahead, binge. As always, thanks for listening.

• 0:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you'd never opened a math book on the Ravens facility?

• 0:54Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 0:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  And because you're busy doing football?

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I'm busy doing football.

• 1:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and John Urschel. A lot of us spend our lives trying to find the one big thing we're really good at. John Urschel had a slightly different problem. He turned out to be world class at two things, two very different things, football and math. One path led to the NFL, the other to MIT. Eventually, he had to make a choice.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  I am the son of a, of a pretty good college football player.

• 1:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  This is your dad?

• 1:33Speaker 01

  My dad, yes, my dad.

• 1:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Who also became a thoracic surgeon.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Yes, and not only did he become a thoracic surgeon, he, while in college, playing college football, was in medical school. Some of these universities have these programs where, you know, they really accelerate people to med school. You know, you do two years and then straight into med school. He did exactly this.

• 1:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Where did he play football and go to med school?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  University of Alberta. So he's Canadian, I'm Canadian. So my mom and dad had me, I was born in Canada. They moved to Buffalo for my dad's work. And then eventually my dad moves back to Canada.

• 2:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Got it, and you stay in Buffalo with your mom?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  But I would visit my dad all the time and, you know, he's working as a thoracic surgeon. He's, you know, really busy person. He would pick me up, he would take me to the hospital, he would do his rounds, he would let me like look around on his computer. And then after he would do his rounds, he would take me to the local chapters. And he would be in the cafe, he would just be working.

• 2:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  You're how old at this point?

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Eight or nine.

• 2:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  What are you reading? What are you doing?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm looking at all different types of books. I'm just sitting and reading books, exploring, and I find myself just mostly hanging out in the math section. And I'm just opening up things and picking up things that I have no business picking up.

• 2:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Did that strike you as unusual?

• 2:49Speaker 01

  No, it was fun. I don't know, you know, I have, I'm here four or five hours every second Saturday. Like, I am in elementary school, but, but this is fun.

• 2:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  And I know you liked puzzles from the time you were very young.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  So this is the other section I would spend a lot of time in, is the puzzle section.

• 3:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  You know, we asked you to bring something for show and tell. You brought this book.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  The big book of Tell Me Why. So this is something my mom bought for me.

• 3:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  I noticed there's like a big boot print here and coffee stains there. You think that's your mom or your dad, or you think that's you?

• 3:21Speaker 01

  No, so this is because this would go in the trunk, and so.

• 3:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Just so that you'd always have it with you when you're?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Well, around, let's say, third grade. So my mom is working as an attorney, and she has a lot of night court. She went to law school very late in life. And my grandmother had died the year before, so we're without childcare. So now she's taking me places. So she has night court, and she doesn't think I'm quite old enough to stay at home. Well, she did leave me at home a bit, but I don't think it went too well.

• 3:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  I mean, were you lighting fires, things like that?

• 3:53Speaker 01

  No, just like a little bit of chaos, like, you know, maybe like the bathtub, you know, gets too full, you know, things like this. And so she would always have this in the trunk, and then she would just sit me in the last row of the courtroom. And she would just give me the book there for hours. I would look at this, sometimes I would do puzzle books, but this was like the stalwart.

• 4:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  Maybe look through the book and tell me a couple of things that you recall being intriguing to you.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Right, yes, so chapter five, how things are made. And that was one I really liked. A striking one, it must be in here somewhere, is how does a mirror work? And I mean, I'm sure.

• 4:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, how does a mirror work?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  So it's all about light and reflections and angle of reflection and angle of incidence.

• 4:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  And did that feel like math to you as a kid?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  No, it just felt really cool. I never viewed the things I really liked, this is going to sound very strange, as explicitly math until I got to college.

• 4:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  But you loved football.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  I loved football, and when I was a kid, my dream was to be an offensive lineman in the Big Ten.

• 4:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Wow.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Like, I grew up watching like Jake Long, and I, you know, I wanted to be the left tackle for Michigan. Because, okay, I played tackle in high school, and, you know, there's a star system coming out of high school. I was a two-star recruit, the scale was out of five. And so I'm like two out of five. So somehow, being like an all-Big Ten, all-American offensive lineman at Penn State, this is just like the dream come true.

• 5:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  But you chose to go to a football school rather than, like, you were, you had a chance to go to Stanford, but you'd already committed to Penn State, is that right?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, and at the time.

• 5:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  And your mom wanted that?

• 5:29Speaker 01

  My mom wanted me to go to Stanford, and at the time, I had like this very strong sense of honor, which.

• 5:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  You don't have it anymore, you're saying?

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it was probably misplaced. Like, I'm not sure it was deserved, but at the time, I had this really strong sense of, you know, like.

• 5:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Meaning I've committed to Penn State?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I have committed to Penn State. I'm sorry, you know, you know, John Harbaugh calls me to come visit Stanford, and, you know, for me, and I say, you know, I'm sorry, Coach, I have already committed to Penn State. And he says, oh, that's okay, you can still just come and, you know, see how things are. And I say, no, Coach, you know, I've really, I've already committed, I've given my word, like, you know.

• 6:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Paterno was your coach for your first year or two?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  My first three.

• 6:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  First three years, okay. And then he's gone, and then what's the program like in your fourth year as your senior there?

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Very different.

• 6:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Who's your coach?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Bill O'Brien.

• 6:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right, okay, yeah. Turned out to be a really good coach?

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Turned out to be a really good coach, although he's, he's suffering quite badly at Boston College right now. Although I think it's hard to, it's hard to win there, especially in the current NIL.

• 6:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  So NIL is name, image, likeness, which is the way for college athletes now to get paid, essentially, right?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yes, I remember when I played, you could not make a dime.

• 6:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  You couldn't take a free hamburger?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  You couldn't take a free hamburger. And really at Penn State, they were, they were really honest about this. I mean, Paterno was very, very serious about this, and so this was legitimate.

• 6:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  And so when you're in that environment where you can't take, does it feel like you're in a, not like a religious order in the military, but like, what does it feel like to be that constrictive?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, it's a tough, it's a touch strict, and I think it was too strict before. I mean, for instance, you know, I was at Penn State, and not that I have any complaints about it, but I remember like, you know, my face is on like banners downtown, I'm doing all these things. There's other players whose jerseys, I mean, my jersey didn't sell so well, I'm an offensive lineman. There are other players whose jerseys are just, you know, everywhere. And, you know, we are not, you're not making a single cent out of, not even like some money towards a 401K or something, you know what I mean? So name, image, and likeness, objectively, a good thing that players can make a little bit of money off of their.

• 7:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Or a lot of money.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Or a lot of money.

• 7:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  When you started playing at Penn State, let's say, were, did you think you had a pretty decent chance to make the NFL?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  No, I thought I had no chance.

• 7:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  No chance, yeah. When did you start to think you had a chance?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  My junior year, I'm playing well, I'm an all-Big Ten offensive lineman at the time as a junior. And my coach, you know, sort of meets me after the season, my position coach, and sort of, you know, says, you know, you're coming back another year.

• 8:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Like, please?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Not please, but sort of like, I don't want you thinking any crazy stuff, you're coming back another year.

• 8:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Crazy stuff like declaring for the draft?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Declaring early, as a joke, like, I don't want you to think about anything crazy. And to be honest, I wasn't really thinking about the NFL at all. And so it wasn't until like, you know, this conversation, which was kind of a joke in passing, like, right at the end of the season.

• 8:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Did that give you more confidence then for your final year? The fact that he assumed that you were bound for the NFL?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Not confidence, but I would say like, this idea that this is something that is about to happen if I want it to happen. And then he would say things in practice like, you know, oh, they're gonna, you know, they're, you know, I do something, and you say, oh, they're gonna love that in the league.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, oh, okay.

• 9:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  During his last year at Penn State, Urschel interviewed with nearly all of the NFL's 32 teams. Some teams knew he was a math major and a serious student, some didn't. His math talent gave him options outside of football, but when the Baltimore Ravens chose Urschel in the fifth round of the NFL draft, Urschel chose football. Can I just say, I think most people don't understand that most linemen, offensive and defensive,

• 9:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  it's an arms race, it's a weight race, you have to put on a lot, a lot, a lot of pounds in order to succeed.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  So what was your peak weight in the NFL?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  My heaviest period, there was a time where I was 320.

• 9:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  And how were you expected to do that, just by eating and, and working out, or no?

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Working out doesn't help you.

• 9:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, I mean, what, what us amateurs are told is that muscle weighs more.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  That's true, but somehow, you know, things in the NFL are already so optimized.

• 9:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  So there's a diminishing return to it?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. So the point is, I'm already, you know, let's say in the offseason, I'm already working out, you know, one to two times a day.

• 10:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, an hour to two, maybe?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Two to three.

• 10:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  And how intense is the workout?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  I'm doing deadlifts, I'm doing squats, I'm doing bench, I'm doing, you know.

• 10:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  What could you bench?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  I don't know, I usually don't max out, like, so somehow in, in college, this is something that happens, you know, a lot.

• 10:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  You try to see like how much weight you can lift. In the league, there's just no point in this.

• 10:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Like, there's no point to do like a one rep max. So I think in college, you know, like I've lifted four oh five before, like in college.

• 10:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, you could lift like two and a half of me.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Well, to be clear, so this will give you a good sense. When I was at the combine, everyone tries to bench press two hundred and twenty-five pounds.

• 10:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  As many times as they can.

• 10:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hmm.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  And I did it thirty times.

• 10:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  So that's the sense, but you know.

• 10:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  I, I think I've conflated your intelligence with your athleticism a little bit.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  So my job is hitting people.

• 11:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  And so you're supposed to be very big.

• 11:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is the hitting really fun when you're that big?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was fun. I had a lot of fun.

• 11:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah. I mean, was that the funnest part of football for you is getting to legally?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I mean, it's the only part of football for me.

• 11:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, no, if you're, but if you're, if you're a wide receiver.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  No, but for me, it's the only part.

• 11:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you love about hitting?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  It's sort of nice, like, you know, you imagine you're, no, you're out on a field and imagine it's us in this sort of like controlled environment together.

• 11:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  And we line up next to each other.

• 11:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  And my goal is, I want to move you.

• 11:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  I want to dominate you.

• 11:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  I want to impose my will on you. Not hurt. I want to impose my will on you.

• 11:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  And you want to do the same to me.

• 11:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Blocking is more complicated than it looks on TV. So I asked John to give me a demo, but I was not interested in having him impose his will on me, so I offered up our producer, Theo Jacobs.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  I would get in a stance.

• 12:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  So I would step.

• 12:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And then I'm just moving like this. I'm moving. And that's the idea. And the idea is I want my hat like right here.

• 12:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, okay, all right.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  I'm being kind, my hands are out here, but.

• 12:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Don't be kind.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Oh. Do you want to see one that involves two people?

• 12:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Sure.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Sit.

• 12:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  So much fun, you're right?

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

• 12:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  We do have really good health insurance, I'm gonna say. So if you broke anything, I think we'll be.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  I want your stock.

• 12:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  This episode of Better in Person is presented by ChatGPT. ChatGPT work moves beyond answers into getting real work done. It's a new experience in ChatGPT for bigger, multi-step projects across web, mobile, and desktop. You can give ChatGPT work a goal and have it gather context, choose an approach, create the output, and continue iterating, all while you stay in control. It can help turn messy inputs into useful outputs like briefs, spreadsheets, dashboards, presentations, prototypes, landing pages, and workflows. You can even ask ChatGPT work to take on entire workflows with a single request. Here's an example. It can turn customer research into a campaign brief, use that brief to create marketing assets, and adapt

• 13:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  those assets for different markets, carrying context through every step. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today.

• 13:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  While you're playing for the NFL, where they want one hundred and ten percent of your physical and mental devotion.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  You're also getting your PhD in math at MIT.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yes, although I am not cheating, I would say, because I asked for permission first.

• 13:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  From whom? From the team?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  From the Ravens, yeah.

• 13:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  John Harbaugh, the coach?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  So I reached out to the coach.

• 13:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  And I asked if it was okay. I said, you know, coach, I want to go back to school to get my degree.

• 14:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, you had, you had two degrees already, right?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, you know, it's, but it is true. I want to go back to school to get my degree.

• 14:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And he said, you know, absolutely, this is something we completely support, like, we support people like, you know, finishing school and getting their degrees.

• 14:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, cool.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  So I say, okay, great, thanks, coach. So he texts me back maybe like a minute later. He says, but wait, but I thought you, but I thought you had your degree and your masters. And so then I sort of say, uh, but that's true, but I don't have my PhD. And he texts me back something like, oh, okay. And then that's, that was, and that was it.

• 14:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, so that's permission.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So I, I'm not attending any lectures.

• 14:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  And I'm carefully choosing courses that I can get by on by reading the textbook.

• 14:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  And courses that do not have exams.

• 14:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  So I read the textbook and I do the problem sets.

• 14:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  That sounds like a PhD light or something, though. Is that like, it's, did, was MIT concerned that you were getting, that you were taking a?

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no. So I had to take a full course load, which was three PhD courses in the fall.

• 15:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  While you're playing football?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  While I'm playing football.

• 15:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  In the NFL?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, and I would choose, I chose my three courses.

• 15:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  To make sure they were courses that did not have exams, so I could pass the class without being there.

• 15:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, I get that, but still, let's just talk about workload. When you're playing in the NFL, how many hours a week would you say you're working on football?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  A lot. I mean, you know, every, every day I'm devoting just about all my time to football.

• 15:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, all but.

• 15:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  What about the evening?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  All about, and the evening. You're watching film.

• 15:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Film study.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're preparing.

• 15:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, so when are you doing your math?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Also, you aren't leaving the building until quite late, actually. You leave after dinner. But let's suppose it's the time where people are winding down.

• 15:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Like, a time where you might wind down is you're flying for an away game.

• 15:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hmm.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  And everyone's relaxing, you know, people are watching movies.

• 15:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yep.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  If I was reading a chess book, this is totally okay. If I'm reading a math book,

• 16:04Speaker 01

  it's maybe a touch dodgy.

• 16:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I'm reading a math book, it's a little dodgy.

• 16:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's dodgy because they might think that you're like devoting too much time to your.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm reading and, you know, someone would say, is that a math book? I'd say, no, it's a chess book. And I show them, and they say, oh, okay, you know. So I'm doing football all day, every day. Then how am I doing MIT? Players get a day off from Sunday afternoon all the way until, you know, Tuesday morning.

• 16:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  I am full math and I am scrambling to finish my problem sets. And the way that I am able to do this is that I have already read the books for the courses before the semester even starts.

• 16:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Otherwise, how could I possibly do this?

• 16:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  So in the, in the offseason of the course you're reading, which is the offseason of, so, but did that mean you were doubling up with spring courses?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in the summer, I'm reading books.

• 16:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  I see.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  But in the summer, you have time. In the spring, I'm reading.

• 17:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm doing some work. And so this is one thing where, you know, I say this all the time, if I was an English major.

• 17:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hmm.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I don't see how I could have ever succeeded in college, let alone while doing this in the NFL.

• 17:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Because you take some class, you have to read all these pages, you have to write, you know, a certain page report.

• 17:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  In math, the way that you're sort of tested is usually you're given very few problems, but the problems are really hard.

• 17:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  And so how long it takes you, the time you invest is mostly invested in increasing your sort of skill and ability.

• 17:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  But if you already know the material pretty well, then the problem sets don't take as long.

• 17:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Were you ever thinking about a problem set while you were in the weight room?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 17:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Really?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Mentally.

• 17:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  You are a massive compartmentalizer, though, it seems, yeah. Um, do you think that's a trait that has helped you succeed?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  My wife would say so.

• 17:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, you're succeeding in the NFL, you're getting a PhD in math from MIT at the same time, and then there's a variable that comes in, which is a huge amount of attention paid to CTE. It's brain trauma, let's call it, from repeated blows to the head. And this, for several years, was really the headline in the NFL, which is brain damage far and wide.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Although, to be fair, the evidence for this is very difficult to assess.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's a difficult thing to exactly nail down, but.

• 18:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  You can't diagnose it while someone's living?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 18:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  The brains that are donated for research predominantly come from people who died young or tragically.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yes. It's a bit of a strange thing that, you know, this thing comes out, and this thing that happens around the time that I'm like really thinking about retiring.

• 18:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you're saying it gave you cover?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  It gave me very good cover. I mean, of course, it was like.

• 18:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Because until then, you weren't concerned about it particularly, were you?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Before then, I was concerned about it. There's a couple of things going on. You can focus exclusively on CTE.

• 19:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Or you can talk more broadly about the wear and tear that your body suffers. And what I was concerned about, like that offseason, was I was sort of thinking, is this going to be my last season, or do I even want to do another season?

• 19:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  You're playing off your rookie contract still, I assume, right?

• 19:16Speaker 01

  So this is the last year of my rookie.

• 19:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  And your next contract, had you gotten one, which you probably would have, you were on a trajectory to get one, that would have been a lot more money, correct?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, a decent amount.

• 19:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  I mean, a couple of.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  At least a million a year. But like, my base salary, I think the first year in the league was four hundred and twenty.

• 19:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I'm thinking, maybe I do one more, maybe I don't. And, you know, I'm going back and forth, and I'm just saying, no, I'm not going to, like, come on, I need to. And then I say, no, I should. You know, sort of going back to high school me, this like, I have a year left on my contract, I need to see my contract out.

• 19:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hmm. So this is similar to when you committed to Penn State, and even if Stanford might have been a nice choice for you.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  But when you were talking about having committed to Penn State, you said, at the time, I had a lot of moral whatever about that.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at the time, again, I was really, these days, I don't even know why I was, I mean, I get it, but like, they could have fired me whenever they wanted, you know?

• 20:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  And so. That's a good point. And these contracts are not guaranteed.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  And they're not guaranteed.

• 20:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  If you're hurt, you're done.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, in hindsight, why is this such a hard decision? Like, I needed to retire and focus on math and like go like hang out with my kid. And the more time I spent at MIT, math really sort of went above. And then, you know, this idea of being a parent, this is also going above. And so now, like, in hindsight, like, if football's the third most important thing to me.

• 20:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hmm.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  And it's a legitimate liability for the first two, you know, for, you know, a long math, or not to mention all the hours it's taking away. And the toll it's, you know, it takes on your body, you know, not even your head, but, you know, your entire body to walk when I'm fifty, to, you know, be able to pick up my grandkids, or, you know, even pick up my daughter when, you know.

• 21:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, let's say a hundred people in America, what share of them would you say probably like math?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  A truly honest answer. I'm going to say, if we define math based off what they think math is.

• 21:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Is 4% too low.

• 21:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, wow. That's, okay, so that's a shockingly low and slightly sad number.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Because I find that, you know, some people, you know, say, I really like math, but it's very rare, even among quantitative people, I find sometimes.

• 21:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, back up a minute. You said it depends what you think of math as. So why don't we figure out what you think of math as?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I would say my sort of view of math is math is some quantitative language that we all collectively have that we use to reason about problems. And so when I think of an engineer, I think that's math. When I think of, you know, someone doing physics in some sort of theoretical way that's using quantitative information, I think this is math. I think of statistics as math. I think of theoretical computer science as math. And so I have a very broad view, and I really think about it as not so far apart from doing puzzles, not so far apart from, you know, just this goal of understanding something.

• 22:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Last semester at MIT, John taught matrix analysis and computations. I thought it might be fun to have a private math lesson with him. So we picked a bunch of problems from a textbook and we used a big spinning wheel, the kind you'd use on a game show, to let gravity decide which one to solve. So I thought maybe if you could walk us through a proof of some kind, is that what you would call it typically?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  So it's a beautiful spinning wheel.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  With a lot of math problems that I'm told are not that hard.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  I see. So you picked some very hard things.

• 23:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  You think they are hard?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I see, I see a lot of millennium problems.

• 23:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  What is a millennium problem, John?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  You solve it, you get a million dollars.

• 23:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah. Okay, I guess it isn't fair to give John a problem that has never been solved, but can't blame me for trying. We'll give the wheel another spin.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Okay, let's see what we get.

• 23:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  So what can you show us about Cantor's diagonal?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Cantor's diagonal argument is about something that's really hard to think about, but is pretty cool. And the idea is that there's levels of infinity. So it's about infinity and it's about levels of infinity.

• 23:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Wait, stop right there. What does that mean?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so first, let's think about something infinite we know. If I just started counting numbers, you know, one, two, three, four, five.

• 23:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  I do happen to like math, but I have a sense that John Herschel math is well beyond my comprehension. So we'll just do our best.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  There are infinitely many numbers in the set, every, you know, whole number. But some infinities are bigger than others.

• 24:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  So for instance.

• 24:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is this like when you're a kid and you say infinity plus one?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So let's say, okay, this has infinitely many things. And also, if I looked at this set, which I'll denote with an R, this contains all of these numbers.

• 24:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right? Sure, I guess.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Now let me bring in a third player.

• 24:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, a third player? I'm still processing the first two. This is starting to make football seem simple.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  You might say this feels bigger than that.

• 24:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yep.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  But I could define some pairing of them where for every number here, I pair it to a unique number here.

• 24:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, are you following this?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Each one of these boxes, I get a number.

• 24:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So I say, this is my first number.

• 24:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  And I say, this is my second number. This is my third one. This is my fourth one, my fifth one, my sixth one.

• 24:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Though they're both infinite, the sort of size of the infinities are the same. Because I can associate with every number in this one, a unique number in this one. 1, 100 plus 1 times 1 times 2 squared, which is the same as 1.

• 25:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  Got it, yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  And so if it can't be in the list, then it means that all the numbers between zero and one, I can't count them. They're what we call uncountable.

• 25:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  So that means there are more than one infinity.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  There's more than one infinity, and this is countable infinity, and this is uncountable infinity.

• 25:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  I have to say, I feel like I understood a solid, like, 4% of what you just taught me.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, to be clear, it blew my mind the first time I saw it. Like, infinity is really a hard thing to get your hands on.

• 25:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  It dawns on me that for John Herschel, doing math is, to a large degree, playing. Same way that football is also, to some large degree, playing. And he loved it, especially the hitting part, but over time, he came to love other things.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Meaning, my wife really taught me, I would say, about like some of the softer things in life.

• 26:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  For instance?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  You know, my wife is a writer, an amazing writer.

• 26:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  Really good. I'll vouch for that. She's a really good writer.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  You know, she, she majored in, you know, English in college.

• 26:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  Her name is Louisa Thomas, let's say for the record.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 26:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  You met your wife when she came to write an article about you?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  When she came to write an article about me, you know, she thought she was going to be a poet originally.

• 26:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  And she writes about sports in a very, very interesting way.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  In a very sort of like.

• 26:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Holistic and thoughtful.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  And I would say even like in a beautiful way. She really, you know, she really like paints these pictures of, you know, of these scenes. And so I sort of started to gain an appreciation of just like the nicer things in life. Like, we go on vacation, you know, in upstate New York, we stay in a little cottage and things are nice and quiet and, you know, she's reading things and, you know, there's a like softness.

• 27:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  You have a daughter and a son now.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  How would you feel about either of them playing football?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  So the, I hope it's okay for me to say, the daughter, I don't think should be playing football.

• 27:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  I think that's a level of danger and risk. I wouldn't want.

• 27:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so that's your daughter. What about your son?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  That's my daughter. My son, I think I would let him if it really seemed like something he needed to do. And what I mean by needed to do, football is a great sport. If you're, you know, a young person who really craves and really feels like you could benefit from like consensual violence, from controlled, consensual aggression. You know, some place where you're, you know, you're following rules, you're not trying to hurt anyone.

• 27:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  I mean, it's a proxy for war, if you think about it.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  You're just going out on the field and you're, you know, you're just running into people hitting people.

• 27:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right, right.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And I think that was really good for me as an aggressive high school kid.

• 28:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And so, you know, if that was the case, I would say, oh, maybe we try wrestling, maybe we try judo.

• 28:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  But if he really wanted to, I would.

• 28:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  But he's like three years old, so you got a little time.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  But he's three years old, but if he just says, oh, I want to because you did, or, or I want to because my friends did, I think, no, you really, I really want to make sure you're ready for that. That you have like, you really have the right.

• 28:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  I get it.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  You have the disposition that's really meant for that.

• 28:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  I get it. What's your relationship like with football now?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  So these days, I don't do so much. I mean.

• 28:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  You watch?

• 28:35Speaker 01

  I watch. So my best friend is a coach. He's the tight ends coach for Penn State right now.

• 28:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  And so I watched Penn State when he was, you know, the offensive coordinator for Western Illinois. I would watch Western Illinois every time I could. So I watch a lot.

• 28:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  NFL? You watching?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Not so much. I just don't have time.

• 28:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't even have time to watch enough college football. I just sort of watch, you know, I watch whatever team my best friend's coaching.

• 28:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  I have to say, I'm just like so taken by you because you're very, very good at a few difficult things, which, you know, I just admire people who accomplish things like that because they're hard to do. Now, I might subtract a little bit because, you know, talent plays a role in that. And you're plainly talented, both athletically and mathematically.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 29:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, you're not that good?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  In terms of athletically, I mean, I've sort of come around to the fact that I, I do have some athletic talent, like I have broad shoulders. But if you compare me, let's say, to NFL players.

• 29:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  I am not talented.

• 29:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  So how did you succeed?

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Hard work. Just an incredible amount of hard work.

• 29:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Where did the ability and desire to work that hard come from?

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Wanting to do better. So, you know, for instance.

• 29:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is that a talent or is that a, like, when you look back at the totality of your life to date, what are you, 34, 35?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  34.

• 29:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  34. When you look back at your life thus far.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  And you look at, you know, let's just take the top two, math professor and NFL player and parent, let's say, right? Those are all nice, nice accomplishments.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  And you had to create a little pie chart for, you know, genetics, environment, will, luck. How do you assess your route?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Lot of luck, obviously.

• 30:23Stephen J. Dubner?

  I think most people don't think when they succeeded, obviously.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, but okay, let me put it like this, you know. No, I'm a math professor at MIT. Like, how many, you know, how many people, you know, there's not that many of us.

• 30:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Dreaming of being that, you're saying?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, a lot of people actually do dream of that, you know, a lot of like really strong people do. And so how does luck not, you know, play, like, yes, you need to be good.

• 30:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Did your football reputation help you get that job?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I don't know. I hope not.

• 30:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  I hope not.

• 30:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  I have to say, it's just so great to talk with you, to learn from you. I feel like, I feel like you're like the little brother I never had.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that.

• 31:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  And also the math teacher I never had.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  You know, thanks for coming by.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  It was great to talk to you, man.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 31:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thanks again for checking out this audio version of our new TV talk show, Better in Person. If you would like to see the whole conversation, go to the Freakonomics YouTube channel or search for Better in Person on Apple Podcasts. And that is a wrap on this 10-episode pilot season of the show. I'd love to know what you think of it. Our email is [email protected]. We will be back soon right here with more Freakonomics Radio. Until then, take care of yourself and, if you can, someone else too.

• 31:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  I thought it would be really fun to show some footage of you playing and go over it. But do you know how expensive it is to license NFL footage? Like, I'm making a TV show in my living room, so I don't have the money to license.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Do you know how expensive it is?

• 32:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, we looked into it.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Okay, for 60 seconds, I'm going to guess 5,000.

• 32:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, John Herschel, you're bad at math, man.

• 32:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thanks again to ChatGPT for sponsoring today's episode of Better in Person. ChatGPT can help teams move from goals to real outcomes. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new ChatGPT desktop app today.