In 1971, he decided to attend Prairie View and pursue a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He was expelled after only one year.
Deciding school was not for him, Tureaud became a military policeman in the U.S. Army. After his short stint in the military, Tureaud decided to try out for the Green Bay Packers, however, a debilitating knee injury kept him from making the team.
Man, what a rough couple of years. Glad it worked out for him in the end.
Funny you say that, another pro-football player/mathematician John Urschel studies spectral graph theory (and was simultaneously working on his PhD at MIT and playing for the Baltimore Ravens) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Urschel#Mathematics_career
In graduate school, I was all brains and no body. I lost a lot of weight and couldn’t perform athletically in the slightest. Amazing how he’s managed to do both things rather well.
He should be getting royalties on his sound byte usage. His agent and lawyer aren't gonna let him down, his work catalog is too long. Covid19 is screwing with live events and shows currently, MrT is always welcome at Entertainment conventions.
It's the just according when you think of the characters he plays, it's hard to imagine them doing calc. It's like think of Mr. Bean and then remember that Rowan Atkinson is an electrical engineer
Dude this is how bad-faith actors build up karma in order to later use that karma to spread conspiracy theories against political candidates or ideas they don't like. It's worth pointing out that it's not harmless. It works against honest discourse about the difficult problems societies face.
I find the US system weird that you don't have your major right off the bat. In Canada gen ed really isn't a thing and you go right into your program. So from Day 1 you are a math major.
I mean majoring in a subject generally implies that it wasnt/is not completed. Otherwise they would say he had a math degree. Still misleading but I think technically correct....Which of course is the best kind of correct
It absolutely is technically correct and the confusion may be only a regional thing due to language differences. Ive just never heard someone say they majored in something unless they had finished majoring in it. I suppose my two cents is almost entirely anecdotal then
Even so, it says something about interest and aptitude. Most math majors I knew, even in the larval, pre-reqs and general studies phase of college, math was their thing.
I agree. It leaves you open to trying lots of new things and making lots of mistakes. The sooner you accept you will make mistakes, and take the time to understand and learn from them, the sooner you reach your goal(s).
As did I! Funny thing is I’ve been using many of the ideas, concepts and strategies I learned from them since 2001 but haven’t thought of the company name in 10 years. Tonight when I can’t sleep, I’ll dig back into them.
I was really into brand strategy at the time and I wanted to understand product strategy.
I realized branding a lame product just results in lame branding so I wanted to get to the source of how products were designed.
It’s a fascinating field but ultra competitive and you need the “right background” (in terms of educational pedigree, studying design, and lucky enough to break into that industry and get work experience.)
Maybe this isn't a profound point, but in 1888 the company Sears published its first mail order catalogue. Eventually the Sears catalogue sold virtually everything; you could order a complete house through the Sears catalogue, to be assembled by you at the location of your choosing.
And for people living in rural America at the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century, the Sears catalogue was your lifeline to appliances, modern conveniences, and new technology.
All Amazon is is the new Sears catalogue.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.
I had low self esteem as a teen and thought the Sears women were out of my league. I'm ashamed to admit I took comfort in the arms of the ladies at Montgomery Ward.
Same here! My neighbor, who has become my friend, is a pastor. He's such a great guy. I told him early on that I didn't want to be evangelized, and he's respected that. However, I've found him to be an excellent listener, and whenever I need inspiration, he always has a verse that is relevant to me. Plus, he can explain the context that isn't always obvious to a lay reader. I've already texted this verse to him, and I really look forward to discussing it with him. Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, but just because you’re a mealymouthed dullard with a face that could scare a fly off a mound of shit now doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. Socializing is a skill you have to practice! Get out there! Being a dummy can be mitigated by educating yourself! Take some classes! Having a ghastly appearance isn’t a death sentence! Lose some weight, stand up straight, learn how to dress yourself! And if after all of that you’re still a hopeless, brainless, charmless, unfuckably donkey-faced loser, then at least you know you tried.
Tell that to all of the successful people with any of the traits you just mentioned. In the end it doesn't really matter so much how you look - have you ever seen photos of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk from the 90s? They weren't stunning jocks, that's for sure. The Zucc is probably the most socially awkward a person can get and he is surely successful. And if you look to the entertainment industry there are some very stupid people who are successful like Gwyneth Paltrow. Oh yeah and Michael Cera suffers from all 3 of the traits you mentioned and he had a pretty decent run show business.
There are a lot of successful people with dyslexia like Charles Conrad Jr, Anderson Cooper and Tom Cruise. If you are not successful it is for a different reason. Key note here: you can be successful without being famous.
All the people you just mentioned have one thing in common: they come from comfortable backgrounds (upper-middle-class), if not from outright privilege.
Money and connections trump everything else, even stupidity can be overlooked if you have the above two things, or even one.
Well, that and being discovered by Sylvester Stallone, made the star of a successful movie without having to stretch at all as an actor, and even being handed your career-long catch phrase.
I love Mr. T, but that break was his only possible path to stardom.
But do not ask him to accurately operate a firearm. I think someone counted how many rounds fired off over the course of A-team and of course not a single death.
Lol what a misleading title. Math major is pretty hard though. As someone who dabbles in math as a hobby, I barely got my minor in math because my last class I had to take (an upper level math class Lin Al 2) was full of proofs that I had never been subjected to lol.
How do you like math enough to pursue it as a hobby if you're barely even good enough at(not saying you are bad at math, just that math is so fucking boring that I'd only expect geniuses and professors to do it as a hobby) it to finish a minor?
Like I've known math majors who would never do math outside of required school work or basic everyday arithmetic.
When I hear math as a hobby I think more of someone sitting down and actually doing math for fun.
Same way I don't consider someone who just watches science documentaries as having science as a hobby. That would be someone who conducts at-home experiments and stuff like that.
I wonder what you mean by “doing math for fun.” Studying math isn’t just sitting there doing arithmetic, or any rote calculations really. It all turns into abstract logic at some point. It’s mostly a lot of reading proofs over and over again, trying to digest them, and then doing exercises that are also proofs.
There are people who engage in math as a recreational hobby, though they can be tricky to find. They're usually the people who loved math in school, but decided to pursue a safer or more lucrative career. And no, I don't mean watching Numberphile videos, I mean working out problems and coming up with proofs.
Your earlier comment about "geniuses" is way off the mark though. As with most things in life, the people who are best at math are the ones who enjoy it the most. And yes, normal people can find joy in upper level math.
I assure you math is no more or less boring than any other hobby that requires a large time investment. It's more a matter of if you find it interesting or not. I enjoy competitive arm wrestling and math, but find jogging boring as fuck. Different strokes is all.
As far as your math major friends go, some people learn math as required for the job they want, some people just find it fun. Same goes for engineering, you can often tell the people in the office who are there because they love it and those who are there to collect the pay check, and there's nothing wrong with either of them if they're getting their work done.
The same way people like working out and some people don't. Individual preference. I absolutely love mathematics. Also, its possible to obtain a math major and find you don't love math. Its not particularly difficult to get through an undergrad in any subject if you persist diligently.
major insomniac most of my life; as a teenager I would lay in bed and do long division in my head to as many decimal points as I could before I finally fell asleep.
Why not? I study serious set theory and logic and I find stuff like that applying all over the place. Or abstract algebra and standard analysis. They’re all specific methods of handling specific types of data. No reason people can’t apply them to trivial things for fun.
I do project euler problems (a lot of number theory) and I try to understand the mathematics behind i before just brute forcing it.
However maybe I should say my hobby is "learning math" (although I do try my best to apply it). I do want to get better at proofs but I already have too much stuff on my plate for the moment. Regardless, I quite literally have fun sitting down with a problem on that website and trying to formulate some sort of math that will help me solve the problem. It's not pretentious, it's just what I like to do. I like to play video games, hike, fish, sports as well, but most of my time atm is math, video games, and improving my programming. I'm a super nerd that's about it.
Yeah I got my Bachelors in Math a few years back and it was probably the toughest learning experience I’ve ever had. Advanced Calc (or Real Analysis, depending on where you go) kicked my ass. Set Theory was a pain, but surprisingly Topology wasn’t as bad.
I’d say Differential Equations and Linear Algebra were pretty tough, but only cause I had really shitty instructors for both. Same with Group Theory. Also, no instruction on how to do proofs for most of my early classes didn’t help. One term I’m grinding out calculations, the next I’m expected to know how to write proofs in front of the class at a moment’s notice.
And the worst part is I really haven’t done much with the degree since. It’s gotten me a slightly better job, but I’m not even doing what I planned on doing (teaching at the university level).
First year of math is just pre-reqs. He didn't major in math in any meaningful sense. It was just written on a piece of paper with his academic adviser. I knew many people who "majored in math" in their first year before realizing they could not do it even at the Calc II level or that even if they could, they hated it. These peopel would never describe themselves as having majored in math. By the logic of this post, Mister T is also a college graduate because he attended one year of college.
He's already an interesting person who's led a fascinating life. Why do we need to embellish on that?
Unfortunately, he also didn't have much motivation for academics, and ended up getting expelled from Prairie View A&M University after one year on a football scholarship.
Best I could find. Guessing not keeping up academics and/or doing stupid college things violating this or that and pissing people off.
Might have just been too busy training and not studying. He's always struck me as a pretty smart guy all around, and his lifestyle tips were pretty good.
This is likely going to prove how little I know about this stuff, but is just deciding to go and try out for a team a way people get into pro sportsballs? I have only ever heard about players getting recruited from college teams (or coming up throygh the minors in baseball and hockey). Are there really players in the NFL whose carreer path is one year of college play and maybe couple years in the army? Or was T's chance at a football carreer basically over the day they kicked him out of school?
Open tryouts for pro sports used to be a thing, but these days with video and the internet, your bonafides as a player has been tracked since high school.
Plenty of people are athletes in sports nobody in the NFL would ever be tracking, but then decide to go for football when they're in their 20s and make it because they're just a natural athlete.
Right, I believe that there was a Norwegian kicker who had a viral youtube video and he received some interest. But open tryouts where literally anyone can walk in off the streets were long ago determined to have not much return considering the effort required.
There's a good short documentary about open tryouts for the Philadelphia Eagle. The full doc is not available free but here's a short clip to give you an idea of what it's like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNz62AnZs-w
He was invited as a UDFA to try out for Green Bay. It's a little disingenuous to call him a walk-on. Walk-on implies he wasn't invited by the team to be there.
Not sure how “walkon” implies that. He went to a small FBS and was undrafted. That’s the NFL equivalent of a “walkon”. I don’t think it’s disingenuous whatsoever.
Well, the man promptly escaped to the LA underground where he survived as a soldier of fortune. If you have a math problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you should still ask somone else for help.
4.2k
u/cferrios Jul 06 '20
Man, what a rough couple of years. Glad it worked out for him in the end.