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John Urschel: The 300 Pound Mathematician Who Hits People For a Living
HughPickens.com writes: Kate Murphy writes at NYT about mathematician John Urschel whose latest contribution to the mathematical realm was a paper for the Journal of Computational Mathematics with the impressively esoteric title, "A Cascadic Multigrid Algorithm for Computing the Fiedler Vector of Graph Laplacians." "Believe me, I am aware that terms such as multigrid, Fiedler, and vector are not words that people use in their daily lives," says Urshel.
But as an offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens, John Urschel regularly goes head to head with the top defensive players in the NFL and does his best to keep quarterback Joe Flacco out of harm's way. "I play because I love the game. I love hitting people," Urshel writes. "There's a rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you. This is a feeling I'm (for lack of a better word) addicted to, and I'm hard-pressed to find anywhere else."
Urschel acknowledges that he has faced questions from NFL officials, journalists, fans and fellow mathematicians about why he runs the risk of potential brain injury from playing football when he has "a bright career ahead of me in mathematics" but doesn't feel able to quit. "When I go too long without physical contact I'm not a pleasant person to be around. This is why, every offseason, I train in kickboxing and wrestling in addition to my lifting, running and position-specific drill work."
But as an offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens, John Urschel regularly goes head to head with the top defensive players in the NFL and does his best to keep quarterback Joe Flacco out of harm's way. "I play because I love the game. I love hitting people," Urshel writes. "There's a rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you. This is a feeling I'm (for lack of a better word) addicted to, and I'm hard-pressed to find anywhere else."
Urschel acknowledges that he has faced questions from NFL officials, journalists, fans and fellow mathematicians about why he runs the risk of potential brain injury from playing football when he has "a bright career ahead of me in mathematics" but doesn't feel able to quit. "When I go too long without physical contact I'm not a pleasant person to be around. This is why, every offseason, I train in kickboxing and wrestling in addition to my lifting, running and position-specific drill work."
I prefer cycling and climbing myself; not really into hitting things/being hit. Sitting in a chair all the time isn't healthy.
For the rest of us no surprise at all. 40 years ago I studied graph theory with a professor that was also a competitive karate fighter.
Urschel acknowledges that he has faced questions from NFL officials, journalists, fans and fellow mathematicians about why he runs the risk of potential brain injury from playing football when he has "a bright career ahead of me in mathematics"
Funny how the NFL officials only care about potential brain injury on players who are good at math. If the risk of brain injury was truly that high, nobody should be playing it.
I'm not sure which is worse: That someone might read this and think this you're smart or insightful for saying it, or that you might think yourself smart or insightful for saying it.
Kinda lame not mentioning the three co-authors that worked with him on that paper.
Plenty of people have an aggressive streak to match their drive. It's better to get it out through exercise (e.g., contact sports, competitive racing) than taking it out on your colleagues/friends/family. Endorphins are great. You should try some.
So I don't understand why this seems to come as a surprise to a lot of people. We're physical *and* mental beings, you need to exercise both aspects to be truly healthy IMO. However there do seem to be far to many people who focus on one to the exclusion of the other (and even more who don't focus on either but thats for another argument).
Scholarly & Athletic: I was a lettering NCAA athlete in Lacrosse (violent enough) for LeMoyne College (an often division or national champ @ division II level) + good enough to get room + board partial combined academic/athletic scholarship for it.
(I was pretty much "straight A's" elementary school to highschool - senior year I didn't give a hoot since I had my credits done by junior year & I went to work after going for 1 class most of senior year only in the a.m. then off to work during the rest of the day, & I even played football as a cornerback defensemen, 1st string for an often state championship winning team in highschool - I didn't play my junior & senior year since my Dad cut off monies he gave me & asked me "how old are you now?" & I said then "16" & he said "you can go work for money now" so, I did... He also pointed out that I should pick one sport over the other, & that football was FAR more dangerous + had more competition for scholarship (nevermind the pros), so, Lacrosse it was instead, since better chance for scholarships etc. that way since I learned & played it in the BEST city in the nation for decades in it, in Syracuse N.Y. ...).
You can be *ANYTHING* you want in this life, both the mind & body are "plastic" responding to the needs you have you place on them...
*There are, no limits: Only the limits you put on yourself...
APK
P.S.=> I think it's great there's people like the man in this article setting that example - it's close to the 'greek ideal' of "sound mind, & sound body"... apk
two years ago i took up tennis at the recommendation of a friend. before that i'd done tai ji, full-contact karate (shin kyu-kshin), long-distance skating (86 miles athens-to-atlanta 1999, 65 miles new york park 1999, 26 miles rotterdam 2006) and yoga (ashtanga and T.M Asanas). it's a big list of different physical activities, which have the following things in common:
* complex coordinated movement
* requiring or recommending very deep breathing (skating especially)
* very long and regular practice
the reason why i specifically love tennis is that in addition to these things it is necessary to not only be extremely physically fit but also, if you would like to win, you require strategy and planning both on and off the court. tennis is particularly harsh on the body in that it is a series of very short explosive sprints, standing still, *then* hitting the ball, and then doing it all over again.
also the types of movement required are *unbelievably* complex! serving involves *six* degrees of freedom of movement (x-y-z, rotation in x-y-z) in order to impart the maximum amount of inspired deviousness into a small yellow round object.
to fully understand why it was that, aged 44, i started this sport and now practice over an hour a day, you have to understand that prior to that i was sitting 12 hours a day in front of a computer screen: average distance approx 1 metre. for the prior 4 years that was a 24in imac, so the panorama i *initially* thought was great.... turned out to have caused extreme alterations in my eyes.
just over two years ago i discovered that my eyes had gone "prism". this is a new development: i've always had -0.75 astigmatism, but prism basically means that i can focus easily on an object that's 1 metre away, but if i look at something 3 metres or greater away i see *DOUBLE*. in the dark, i can't bring the two together.
the implications of that are that not only has there been physical damage caused by long-term computer usage but that there has also been *NEURAL* damage caused by long-term computer usage.
the bottom line of this story is, in this context, that this football player is being extremely sensible. if a few neurons get knocked out of place by a concussion, so damn what: his pursuit of mathematics will, by virtue of it being so incredibly challenging, allow him to grow new pathways and literally grow new neurons. the reason why his peers get brain damage is because they *don't* have anything other than football to challenge them.
each of his pursuits therefore supports the others. the physical exertion keeps his body - and his heart - fit. that in turn allows him more oxygen with which to feed his brain and thus sustain the pursuit of mathematics. the increased mental alertness allows him to play with tactics and strategy that the average player would not be able to consider. his specialty in mathematics would allow him to apply physics (moments of inertia) in a *really* practical way that would keep both him and the people he smacks down safer than would otherwise be done by someone without his knowledge.
but the best part of all this is that if he has a successful long-term career, i predict that he will end up inspiring thousands of young football players to pay a bit closer attention to their other studies, and that coaches will have an example - a specific person - that they can quote as to why, when they go recruiting, they are looking for someone who has not only the physique but also the high academic aptitude as well. ... wouldn't it be great to have an entire team of football players who not only kick ass (literally) but who have degrees and even PhDs? that would change how people think of football, forever.
This just shows that you don't know what the word means. I've know a couple of real sociopaths over a lifetime, and they were mean, manipulative, vindictive arseholes. One thing that they were not, was violent. They preferred to destroy people in more lasting and important ways than a few bruises. The closest everyday concept that mcuttatches the condition is evil.
Most blokes like burning off steam though. Not all of them, some are more shy retiring delicate types such as yourself. But for most men, regardless of whether they end up in the ivory towers of academia or cutting blocks in a yard, physical contact is normal. Success tends to correlate with the ability to control it and project it on demand. That's why we see sports as being a good outlet for it. I've known surprising number of martial artists in academia, they were all very straight forward about why they did it: they like punching things.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Ha, that's nothing!
"There's a rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you. This is a feeling I'm (for lack of a better word) addicted to, and I'm hard-pressed to find anywhere else."
This is your indication that you are talking with an adrenaline/endorphin junkie.
I play futbol (soccer) defense, and can completely understand this. Its an otherwise thankless position. If you do it well pretty much nobody but your goalie notices, and if you mess up everyone hates on you. So why do it? Honestly, I believe I got addicted to the adrenaline/endorphin hit. I don't even feel right until I've had my first hard tackle. It is next to impossible to get that fix in real life, but a good physical confrontation will bring it right up. I once hadn't got there yet, and then a (clearly juicing) big forward knocked me to the ground while the ref wasn't looking. I got up laughing and thanking him. Not quite the reaction he was expecting.
I don't know how many here have seen Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way but Loose, but the main character Philo clearly had this as well. It was a major plot point that he had to fight, and had an unusual thing where he got better the more he was hit. Classic Endorphin/Adrenaline junkie.
I think it ought to go without saying that as a mathematician Urschel isn't going to get his body chemical "hit" in his daily life. I've certainly found that to be the case as a software engineer.
The Ravens are a professional football team. The majority of his income almost certainly comes from football, not math.
He is therefore a footballier first and a mathmaticiary second, not the other way around.
I bet this guy will kick ass at chess boxing when his NFL days are over.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) about 6 years ago. One of the first things I noticed was that there seemed to be a higher percentage of technical/professional than I found in other athletic activities I had done in the past. Yes the UFC has made BJJ a bit trendy but it is more than that. BJJ is great for a smaller and weaker person because it effectively demonstrates technique over strength from day one.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I think that the 'surprise' here is related to the (quite numerous, now that the NFL has pretty much lost the battle to keep CTE under wraps) stories about how the head trauma you experience in football has a nasty habit of wrecking your brain in a variety of unpleasant ways.
The fact that not all math professors are wholly sedentary, feeble, and bookish isn't a huge surprise; but seeing one doing something well known to have a high risk of chewing up his brain and spitting it out, that is somewhat curious. I would have expected him to choose something with more below-the-neck contact. Soft tissue damage and broken bones are something that humans cope with fairly well, and Team Medicine knows a lot about dealing with, if natural recuperation isn't cutting it; but brains are touchier; and there is a lot less we can do for you if yours isn't working so well.
This just shows that you don't know what the word means.
It's a personality disorder depicted by extreme anti-social behaviour. It's actually a quite broad word which describes a very broad range of personality traits.
Somehow being an unpleasant person when you're NOT smashing someone about fits that definition quite nicely regardless of what you *think* it means.
I'm a neurotic workout fiend. I have been since I was in my late 20s.
Bear in mind, I wasn't an athletic kid. Not because I had no inclinations, I just lacked confidence and being an introvert didn't help matters much.
So I took up martial arts - any kind anyone would teach me - and my husband would tell me the difference was unbelievable. Much better than just trying to run alone or work out in my basement. Apparently, it wasn't just being in shape that was affecting me: it was also the fact that I would interact with people, and once I knew what I was doing, I'd be able to teach newcomers as well. I also slept better at night and lost weight. It's physical AND mental.
I'm not saying all introverts have to do this, but I become intolerable if I spend too long coming home at night just to sit and watch TV until bedtime. Hubby's come to accept that I have to work out at least five days a week, at least two hours a night, in order to maintain this. And that's fine with both of us, but for anyone to assert that I might be a special case hasn't ever taken part in an athletic activity which promotes interaction with other people.
You'd find that people who aren't training to be pros, but work out that much, are probably more common than you think.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Eh, if you're on an internet forum and you're really that concerned about people who downmod you, maybe you should take up martial arts yourself.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
There are sociopaths that do overt violence; but most of them don't last so long in the wild. Either somebody kills them, or they kill somebody stupidly and impulsively and the criminal justice system gets them. (Though much of our more rigorous research on sociopathy is built on them; because people doing very long sentences in high security prisons are comparatively easy to sign up for studies, it breaks the tedium if nothing else, while getting high-functioning sociopaths with busy schedules who aren't in prison to cooperate can be tricky).
That aside, mistaking voluntary physical aggression for mutual entertainment for 'violence', because the mechanics look fairly similar, seems to be a mistake similar to mistaking consensual sexual behavior for 'rape', because the mechanics look fairly similar. It is pretty weird what our more atavistic tendencies have led us to think is fun; but so long as everyone involved is an informed and willing participant, so what?
First, a guard is possibly the least likely player on the field to get a concussion. Sure they hit hard every play, but it's almost more like wrestling than anything, and almost never the high speed impacts that result in concussion.
Second, I think it's great for young men to hear this. We've spent pretty nearly the last 20 years identifying "male" behaviors as pathologies that need to be circumscribed, if not outright "corrected", and wonder why young men are checking out. There is a joy to physical head to head competition and no reason one can't be intelligent AND enjoy such activity immensely.
-Styopa
I see you couldn't address my simple question.
Why doesn't he want to live in Africa, among his own race, and ONLY his own race? Could it possibly be because he is a 'white supremacist', and believes that white people make better societies than blacks do?
Perhaps because most people don't take race into account at all for such positions and economically people tend to be much better off in the US? Afterall if his goal was to live among white people as you suggest then several countries in Europe would be a far more sensible choice.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I know it's just an anecdote, but in my personal experience, at the higher levels of football (college and up: I played in college and have known several people that have moved on to the NFL) it takes a certain amount of intelligence to succeed, simply because the plays and the calls get more complicated. And while the stereotype of offensive linemen is that they are big and dumb, from what I have seen is that they actually tend to be smarter than other players. On my college team at least 2-3 out of our teams academic top 10 every year were offensive linemen, and a surprising number of our offensive linemen went on to graduate school, whether at our school or others. Of course, I may be slightly biased as I was an offensive lineman, I was one of those that went to grad school, and I was on my team's academic top 10 all 4 years.
Another interesting observation I have made is that certain personalities or characteristics seem to congregate to certain positions. For example, if you were to walk through a college or NFL locker room, more often than not you can tell if a player is offense or defense based solely on the state of their locker: offensive players tend to have cleaner, more organized lockers while defensive players tend to have messier, jumbled lockers.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
In my first year of college I had one math professor who was a former pro football player and another who was a former pro hockey player. Both were excellent professors.
Do you have ESP?
You do realize that most if you go down lists of people who are either confirmed sociopaths or suspected sociopaths, you get a list of serial killers, most CEOs of major corporations, most world leaders, etc. People who like to hit other people aren't typically considered sociopaths. Sociopaths destroy the people around them and society in general as they don't feel the need to conform to social norms and are completely willing to bend those norms and manipulate people to their gain. That's why they tend to end up in positions of power. One of the classical signs of being a sociopath is to have a complete lack of empathy. To know what you are doing is wrong and will hurt others, but to not care about it.
For him to show signs of sociopath tendencies, he'd have to go around hitting people any time he felt he could get away with it, whether or not they're consenting. The fact that he limits it to consensual situations explicitly defines him as to not be a sociopath.
The mind of the true sociopath.
Apparently you don't know what the word sociopath means. Enjoying playing rough contact sports does not make you a sociopath. In fact off the competitive field most athletes who are good at contact sports like football, MMA, wrestling, etc are about as far from being sociopaths as you can get. I've been a wrestler and a wrestling coach for about 35 years so I speak from long first hand experience. Had you bothered to speak with anyone actually involved at those sports you'll find that most of them are very calm, caring, decent people.
When I go too long without physical contact I'm not a pleasant person to be around
Funny I would have thought the opposite.
That's because you made some ill founded assumptions about something you plainly know nothing about.
Thanks for your anecdote, which comprehensively contradicts all other research into abnormal psychology.
You could bother to look up the definition for yourself in any clinical textbook and you'd find that he was largely correct although the term sociopath isn't really used by professionals. Furthermore in both cases the definition has to do with an inability to form emotional attachments or feel empathy towards others. That has NOTHING to do with enjoying rough contact sports. The mere fact that someone enjoys a rough contact sport does not and never did mean that a person has an inability to form emotional attachments, feel empathy or that they are manipulative.
Oh, and if you like hitting people, you're violent. It's sort of the definition of the word. And hitting people is not the same thing as enjoying physical activity or contact.
You will find that most of the male population enjoys rough contact sports to some degree. If you don't personally, that is fine but you ARE an exception. Sports like (american) football, MMA, boxing, rugby, hockey etc are popular in significant part precisely because of their rough nature. Does that make the participant's violent? I suppose to a degree but sports are an appropriate outlet. And you are wrong that it isn't the same thing as enjoying physical activity and contact - it is a subset of those things. What you need to worry about is people who hit others at inappropriate times. If you step on a football field, you know what you are getting into and accept the risks involved which may include you getting hit rather hard. This does not make the person doing the hitting psychotic, sociopathic or otherwise mentally ill.
If you don't understand the difference between enjoying sports and racing to release endorphins and:
I love hitting people
then there's really no helping you.
Nonsense. I've played Ice Hockey for years as a way of getting excercise, stress release, and agression control.
And that works a trick. I was always considered the face of calm rationality at work, the guy that doesn't bother to panic. Assertive but never aggressive. On the ice however, a bit different of a story. I modelled my play after Esa Tikkanen, and Darius Kasparitus, Clowns on the ice that you mess with at you own risk. so I gave and took my fair share of hits.
A hockey player that abuses his wife is pretty rare. We tend to have no agression left after the games. A lot of successful people play that sport, and yes, it is pretty violent. Just like we love it. And yes, we love hitting people within the context of the game. We don't need your help.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Really nobody should be playing football.
Curiously this is almost always said by people who never played themselves. Tell me, what exactly is the problem with consenting adults playing a potentially violent game where there is some chance of getting hurt? How is it worse that an X-Games skateboarder who knows he's going to injure himself at some point? Or a sailor who knows they might drown?
Brain injuries are just one of the numerous medical problems caused by football
The only real problem I see with that is that children aren't adequately protected by the rules of the game when they play it. If an adult wants to take the risk of injury then that's their problem. They can reasonably be expected to understand the potential consequences of their participation. Children, not so much and incidence of concussions and certain other injuries in american football are far higher than for most other sports played by youths.
One might consider why one has hostile moods in the first place rather than trying to control that demon by feeding it.
One of the demonstrated best ways to deal with hostile or other moods is through exercise and sports. I cannot think of a more appropriate outlet or better treatment for such issues. I would much rather someone work out their issues on the playing field than in some less appropriate venue.
Thanks for your anecdote, which comprehensively contradicts all other research into abnormal psychology. A sociopath is just a slightly better adjusted psychopath, and psychopaths are frequently extremely violent.
Why the correlation of someone that plays sports, with psychopaths who kill people?
That certainly escalated fast.
Oh, and if you like hitting people, you're violent. It's sort of the definition of the word. And hitting people is not the same thing as enjoying physical activity or contact.
Such a digital world you live in. But you are wrong. And here's some examples of why. Many women enjoy giving a guy a smack now and then. No malice, no intent to hurt, just sort of I guess you would call it a "love tap". And some times it can sting. They only do this to men they like and know well. My wife does this all the time, usually accompanied with a "smartass" toward me. This is not violence, it's one of the sillier forms of affection.
Now on to the players who hit each other. We're playing a game, we hit each other. But we're not trying to hurt each other - and the exceptions tend to get tossed from the game. Intent is important.
And for people who cannot deal with it, there is always spinning classes.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It is quite rare for someone to be capable of working at a professional level in sports and academics at the same time.
Not as rare as you might think. I've been in the sport of wrestling for 35 years and D1 college wrestling has world class talent in the sport. Right now the toughest wrestling conference in the country is the Big10. The second toughest conference is the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) which consists primarily of the Ivy League and Patriot League schools - schools like Lehigh, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, American, Army, Navy, Columbia and the EIWA routinely has several of the top ten teams in the country. Brains and athletic talent go together far more often than many realize. Schools with high academic standards may not have as deep a bench as schools without high standards but they certainly can compete.
While the number of people who are gifted in both academics and sports is necessarily smaller than the number who are gifted in just one or the other, you'll find that it isn't particularly unusual for someone to excel in both. I myself competed in D1 college wrestling at an EIWA school while getting an engineering degree and I now have two master's degrees, one in business and one in engineering. And I wasn't the most academically gifted athlete on my team. There were guys who were All Americans on my team who got better grades than I did. People who think smarts and athletics rarely go together hasn't met a lot of real athletes.
...he's the Incredible Hulk?
We're making him angry. We wouldn't like him when he's angry.
Not everyone can run the probabilities in their head...oh wait...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I don't follow football a lot, but my understanding is that players on the offensive line are a lot less susceptible to this problem. They don't tend to tack other players or collide at high speeds. They're almost right next to the opposing player who needs to be stopped and usually just end up grappling with this person. Contrast this with other positions where the player needs to tackle someone or ends up getting tackled a lot.
Players on the line are more likely to have their knees worn out. Carrying that much weight around is going to be hard on the knees already and the constant up/down motion doesn't help matters at all.
If you don't understand the difference between a pithy remark and an actual desire to do someone harm, then there's no helping you.
Or are you making the "insightful" claim that all football players are sociopaths?
I doubt they are less susceptible. They may even be more susceptible, as they are butting heads on every snap, not just when they tackle or are tackled. Christ, just take a look at their helmets after the first quarter. I was a pulling guard in high school, and trust me; you'd be amazed at some of the impacts you experience on the line. And that was 20 years ago. These guys today are 6'7, 300+ lbs, and some run a 4.6-4.7 40 yard dash. The amount of power they generate off the line is incredible.
Not anymore they can't...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Pretty much this, been playing hockey (Left D) since I was 5 ish. There's nothing like somebody stepping up to you and then putting them on their ass. Off the ice, I'm easy-going and mild mannered.
Stress relief 101! Nothing takes the edge off a hard day at the office like Hockey. And not like I didn't take my share of bumps.
And the part that some can't understand, except in the case of personality conflict, we'll go out and have a brew or two with the folks after the game. The rough stuff stays on the ice.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Now on to the players who hit each other. We're playing a game, we hit each other. But we're not trying to hurt each other - and the exceptions tend to get tossed from the game. Intent is important.
I think that this is an important distinction to draw attention to. The overwhelming majority of contact sports do not condone the intentional injury of other players. There's a general acceptance that incidental injuries are inevitable, but the same is true for non-contact sports and even solo athletic activities. Even when hitting other people is a part of the sport, doing so recklessly or maliciously is not cool and will end with you being excluded from the game or entire sport.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
100% correct, actually most of the time, the beer effect is applicable to off-the-ice fist fights as well.
I've never understood this whole fighting is 100% bad mentality. We are animals, the product of evolution. We have plenty of traits still with us that meant the difference between life and death on the Savannah's. For some reason, some people think that these traits (such as aggression) are legacy things that are not needed any more. I'd argue that many of these traits are not only needed, but just as important as ever.
I also, think in these days of "think of the children, can't we just hug our problems away, lets form a circle and sing Kumbaya" we simply do not get a chance to properly (practice/hone) these skills/traits and sports creates an artifical environment where we can exercise these traits.
I'm not saying that there are cases where people have REAL issues with aggression, but I'm definitely NOT on the contact sports are evil camp.
You don't like contact sports? Don't play them, but also don't try to force your opinion down everyone's throats. There's all sorts of activities/choices that are proven to cause harm to the body and mind, sitting on your ass in your mom's basement all day, with the only social face-to-face contact you've had with a living human, other than your mom, was six months ago, is probably the worst of them.
Even when hitting other people is a part of the sport, doing so recklessly or maliciously is not cool and will end with you being excluded from the game or entire sport.
Definitely. I was involved in one of those rare cases. A fellow was pissed at me for one reason or another, and took a full downward baseball swing at my lower back with his stick., designed to make it under my padding. Hurt prety good.
That was the involuntary end of his participation in the league.
On the other side, where most players are, I was skating with the puck behind the goal, when another player was messing with me with his stick, like usual, we'll just try to slow the other guy down.
Something got messed up, and the blade of his stick managed to do down the front of my hockey pants, and lift my cup away from my body. We both figured out at the same time, all I could think to do was collapse, he dropped the stick, and the ref stopped the game. I wasn't hurt at all, but the poor guy was fearful he'd get a visit form my wife.
The funny part was the ref (a friend) decided to have some fun by having a conference with the other refs to decide if the stick was allowable to be used again, or had to be discarded as a hygiene issue.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Dude, you have no anonymity. With less than five minutes of my spare time, I know your entire name: Alexander Peter Kawalski, hence your nickname of APK. You are a Verizon customer, and you currently live in Syracuse, New York. You can be found at 903 East Division Street, Apartment #1, bottom floor. The house is a bit of a dingy gray/blue color, you have a few wooden chairs out back in your poor excuse for a yard, and there's a wooden power pole directly by your house.
Post AC all you want, but it's not going to stop anyone from finding out who you are.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I started learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) about 6 years ago. One of the first things I noticed was that there seemed to be a higher percentage of technical/professional than I found in other athletic activities I had done in the past. Yes the UFC has made BJJ a bit trendy but it is more than that. BJJ is great for a smaller and weaker person because it effectively demonstrates technique over strength from day one.
^^^ this. Pretty much almost every person I've seen in BJJ (or Judo) has a technical/professional job. Training is not cheap, and it requires a certain type of income to keep it up. It is also worth noting a significant number of UFC fighters wrestle in college.
That's nonsense. You can have a violent sport like boxing and still have the players be abusers. Plus read this.
Even bigger problem though is that is a misunderstanding of domestic violence and why it happens. It isn't "men have aggression and need to get it out". More like a mix of cultural (shitty views of women as "less than" men, toxic attitudes towards relationships especially marriage, etc) and individual factors. Why not read up on it a bit?
I don't follow football a lot, but my understanding is that players on the offensive line are a lot less susceptible to this problem. They don't tend to tack other players or collide at high speeds. They're almost right next to the opposing player who needs to be stopped and usually just end up grappling with this person. Contrast this with other positions where the player needs to tackle someone or ends up getting tackled a lot.
Players on the front lines have incredibly high rates of TBI because one of the common methods used by both the O and D lines is to whack the opposing player in the head to disorient them. TBI is greatly influenced by the frequent whacks to the head as well as using one's own head as a weapon - one doesn't need to be knocked out to have a concussion or subject to TBI.
The Big Bang Theory taught me that all smart people were pencil-necked geeks or had some obvious visual clue that they were intelligent. It is just not possible for someone to be athletic and intelligent.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Judo is pretty cheap. One can frequently find classes at the local YMCA for $10-20/month. BJJ, on the other hand, is very proud of what they offer. If you can find lessons for $100/month or less, good luck!
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
That wasn't me, but it is nice to see you finally admitting that you got the card--it only took you a year or so.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Not to take anything away from your achievements (I certainly couldn't compete in any sport at that level), but college wrestling isn't exactly "professional-level sports". Your athletic activity was still a part-time one while focusing on your education...
You are quite wrong. Collegiate wrestling very much IS pro level athletics. I've been there and done it and know first hand. It is a full time job on top of your academic load. We're talking 40+ hours a week when in-season. And at a school like Cornell or Lehigh or Northwestern or Stanford they don't cut you any slack in the classroom. While the pay isn't as much as say someone in pro basketball (not even close), the amount of work it requires is very much the same to be at the top of the sport. Furthermore the quality of the competitors in collegiate wrestling is world class in the top programs. There are guys wrestling in college right now who are among the best in the world. Logan Steiber is just now graduating from Ohio State and he has beaten world champions wrestling in the middle of Times Square. Jordan Burroughs won his first of three world and Olympic titles just months after winning his second NCAA title. I assure you that these guys are pro athletes in every sense of the word even if they don't get paid a whole lot.
The professional athletes, whose full-time job is to play sports, are exceedingly rarely accomplished academics at the same time.
Rare but not unheard of. And certainly not as rare as you probably think. There are quite a few coaches in college getting advanced degrees while training for world and Olympic competition. I can show you guys who became national champions while doing medical residencies. I can show you Olympians who were practicing doctors.
Play Eve and he'll be all sorted
That's nonsense. You can have a violent sport like boxing and still have the players be abusers.
DIdn't say you couldn't. Can you give me the quote where I sad that spousal abuse is nonexistent in Ice hockey players? And why are you so sexist, not including women, as referenced below. That's misogynistic, you know.Women do play Ice hockey, and women do get into fights and body checking.
Even bigger problem though is that is a misunderstanding of domestic violence and why it happens. It isn't "men have aggression and need to get it out". More like a mix of cultural (shitty views of women as "less than" men, toxic attitudes towards relationships especially marriage, etc) and individual factors. Why not read up on it a bit?
Since you have taken this down the men are pigs route, which by the way is a very small part of what I was saying. I knew no guy on any tram I played on or any league I platyed in who was not really mellow off the ice. Feel free to call me a liar. Even in my case, even though I have never been involved an any fracas with my wife, she says she prefers me having played several games a week. Even when we lose.
But now, men, being the bastard misogynists that they are, here is something to read: http://www.oregoncounseling.or...
Oregon, that liberal bastion reports....
I'll make a quick quote from the page
"Very little in known about the actual number of men who are in a domestic relationship in which they are abused or treated violently by women. In 100 domestic violence situations approximately 40 cases involve violence by women against men. An estimated 400,000 women per year are abused or treated violently in the United States by their spouse or intimate partner. This means that roughly 300,000 to 400,000 men are treated violently by their wife or girl friend.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
and agression control.
Do you go out on the field specifically to try and hit someone, or do you take your aggression out on the game.
There's one thing about smacking a puck and racing around, it's quite another to feel the need to smash someone just to act like a person.
That is what defines sociopaths.
Or are you making the "insightful" claim that all football players are sociopaths?
Depends. Are you playing football to play football? Or are you playing football to go out and smash someone into the ground because if you don't get your weekly dose of hulk smash you become depressed?
There is a big difference between playing contact sports to play sports, release tension, get exercise etc, and playing contact sports because it gives you a chance to smash a fellow man into the ground.
and agression control.
Do you go out on the field specifically to try and hit someone, or do you take your aggression out on the game.
There's one thing about smacking a puck and racing around, it's quite another to feel the need to smash someone just to act like a person.
That is what defines sociopaths.
I never think about it, so I suppose I don't play specifically to hit people. I play because its one metric ton of fun. The game is really fast - insanely fast at the NHL level - and collisions are simply going to happen, even in the "non-checking" leagues.
The last thing I want to do is injure someone. But yeah, knocking someone on their butt is fun. And yeah, it does tend to take the edge off a hard day. Just the intense activity relaxes you, (I tend to sweat off ten pounds every game) but the hitting does even more. I simply feel more relaxed and mellow after a game. It is acceptance of being a guy. We do this kind of stuff, because it is inherent nature - and its a sort of ritualized quasi-warfare that substitutes for the more nasty killing people type real warfare. It isn't even remotely sociopathic. Sociopaths simply get kicked out after a few games. We don't want them there.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I fully agree. There's nothing sociopathic about playing contact sports. I was just originally calling out the player on his first comments, that he's not a nice person to be around when he's not hitting people.
Whoever marked that troll didn't actually think about what I wrote, or look up the term in the dictionary. For the record I'm not a nice person to be around either when I don't have my weekly dose of endorphin releasing activity (football)
Maybe it was a poor choice of his words, maybe he's actually a sociopath.
When are we going to get him on here for an interview?
I! Tego Arcana Dei.
a guy who knows what he likes to do. Especially when what he likes to do is pound people into the pavement.
Wow, you took OP's comment and went off the fucking rails MRA style. Also, why the fuck would some stranger on the internet look shit up for you? Find your own damn quotes you lazy idiot.
So what you are saying is that you can make any old thing up, and I have to prove I didn't say it? If someone wants to say I said something I didn't - it's up to them to prove it - not me to prove I didn't say it. Derpy. No wonder you are an anonymous coward. Because logic like that is so stupid, you should be embarased to admit you think that way. That at least was a smart move.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You'd find that people who aren't training to be pros, but work out that much, are probably more common than you think.
yep - count me in. i'm currently up to about the same level of exercise as you - about 2 hours a day: tennis or street-skating. tennis is for my eyes - and the social interaction. street-skating is because i find the explosive (sprinting) nature of tennis is causing huge knots in my arm and leg muscles. without this, i am... yeah, not a nice person either :)
I doubt he's really AC more like ohnocitizen in disguise
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I doubt he's really AC more like ohnocitizen in disguise
I'm suspecting the same. And yes, I think he can make any old thing up and expect people to take it as gospel truth.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Domestic violence is under reported in general, but indeed it is more so for men. I didn't mean to imply they are not also victims of abuse. Simply that your statement that men who engage in an aggressive sport are less likely to commit domestic violence. That is bullshit. All you are offering is anecdotal evidence
You're putting words in my mouth, I did not say men are pigs. I also didn't say you said it is nonexistent. You did however HEAVILY imply it is rare BECAUSE of how aggressive ice hockey is. Which is silliness.
What did the AC make up, specifically? Can you point anything out? As for "looking up the quote", it's a total straw man argument. But I guess have fun arguing with each other over that :)
Hehe, tricked into coming out of hiding eh?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh great internet warrior who doesn't know how to reply directly to a comment: Well done! Yes I and the AC are the same person! Your brilliance tricked me into replying to a comment thread and thus revealing my identity! Your valid arguments have further convinced me everything I have said simply must be mistaken. Retire your keyboard oh great one you can do no better than this glorious victory.