My first question to Ravens rookie center/guard John Urschel was whether he could teach Baltimore reporters some statistics.
"If you want to get something going, we can get a blackboard," he said with a laugh. "Listen, I'll do whatever they need."
If you haven't heard by now, Urschel is one smart cookie.
The fifth-round pick out of Penn State was the winner of the Campbell Trophy as the nation's premier college football scholar athlete. It's the NCAA's highest athletic-academic award.
He was so smart that he graduated with a bachelor's degree in math in just three years (with a 4.0 GPA), then got his masters in math in one year. He's now working on a second master's, in math education.
He's got four academic papers written, including one titled "Instabilities of the Sun-Jupiter-Asteroid Three Body Problem." He had a favorite theorem: the Riemann Rearrangement Theorem.
Even more impressive is that Penn State actually paid Urschel to be a math teacher as well.
He taught Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry in the 2013 spring semester and Integral Vector Calculus Trigonometry (a course I never worked my way up to, or even heard of) during the 2013 fall semester.
Can you imagine having a college football player as your math teacher?
Take a look at these awesome videos to see Urschel at work (Mobile users click "View In Browser" above):
Urschel is already getting some love from fellow math fans in the Baltimore area.
At the Baltimore Ravens facility. A fan just mailed me a Physics textbook to read in my downtime. I love it! — John Urschel (@MathMeetsFball) May 15, 2014
