![]() ![]() He understands that his long list of impressive accomplishments and public persona make him a role model for rising mathletes and children across the country. John the athlete, John the scholar, is also John the communicator. John is a rare breed of scholar-athlete, one we can only hope will become far more common in future years - and if John has any say, it will. As news outlets profile the athletes in the upcoming NFL draft and shower attention on those players with the best times in the 40 and highest weight on the bench press, it is worth acknowledging that John's formidable academic achievements stand out as an anomaly on the stat pages. He distinguished himself on the field and in the classroom, and by his senior year, Penn State had come calling with a football scholarship.Īnd here we are, five years later. John was chosen for the football team and quickly became a standout player. Fortunately, Canisius was well equipped to deal with players of all head sizes. John had yet to play even a single down since his failure to make the team back in middle school. John's football career began when he received a scholarship to Buffalo's Canisius High School, known for its rigorous academic program and nationally recognized sports teams. At parent-teacher conference nights, even with John's 96 percent average, she complained to the teachers that she was unsatisfied and asked what John needed to do to receive a perfect score. She bought math and science workbooks two to three levels above his current grade and expected him to complete the work. A first generation college graduate and single mom, Venita felt it was her duty to make sure John filled every part of that giant, helmet-averse head with as much math and science as he could. His mother, Venita Parker, set high academic standards for her son, and John made it his mission to meet them. John Urschel is, justifiably, a big deal.Įven as a kid, it was obvious John was headed for great things. If that wasn't impressive enough, during his last year at Penn State he taught a trigonometry class to undergraduates while fulfilling all his obligations to his team and also published a paper, "Instabilities of the Sun-Jupiter-Asteroid Three Body Problem," in the journal Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy. Campbell Trophy, presented by the National Football Foundation to the nation's top football scholar-athlete, and this month he became the 84th annual Sullivan Award winner for the top amateur athlete in the country, joining past big-name winners Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow, Michael Phelps and Michelle Kwan. In addition to being selected as a first-team All-Big Ten guard, he recently completed both bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics at Penn State, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. If we determined our sports superstars based on a combination of sports skills and academic prowess, John Urschel would be the undisputed #1 pick in this year's NFL draft. And no, it wasn't the stereotypical "big head" you might normally associate with a standout athlete. It wasn't that his skills were lacking, it was just that his head was too big. When Penn State graduate and 2014 NFL prospect John Urschel tried out for his middle school football team, he didn't make it. “They put in a lot of hard work and are so motivated to keep working toward this.Meet John Urschel, the Smartest Athlete in the NFL Draft “I know they were really inspired by our high school athletes this year to go as far as they could in this competition,” commented Renner. There were 24 students in third through fifth grade who participated in Math League this year.Īfter an internal school competition, the eight Pueo qualified to represent Maui Prep at the state level. ![]() The competition was divided into four rounds: Sprint Round (30 word problems, 40 minutes) Number Sense (80 questions in ten minutes) Target Round (four pairs of word problems, six minutes for each pair) and Team Round (kids work together to solve ten word problems in 20 minutes). Inspired by their Upper School peers who have earned state titles in basketball and golf, the eight “Mathletes” came to the competition with goals of their own. Under the direction of third grade teacher Shannon Renner, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders Max Derakhshan (Class of 2031), Maxwell Bailey Frommer (’31), Max Otero (’31), Ari Rosenkrans (’30), Noah Conley (’30), Isabel Pearson (’29), Jacob Gasinsky (’29) and Michelle Nguyen (’29) competed in a four-round individual and team competition. ![]()
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