“I had always prided myself on not sacrificing football for math, or math for football.”

Penn State Alum and now Baltimore Raven’s guard recently added another gridiron to his collection of fields conquered. After starting his PhD studies at MIT in January during the offseason, he has been training with MIT’s division three program.

In a recent post with The Players’ Tribute, Urschel credits the reinstatement of his passion for football to training with the MIT team. “I never imagined they’d have so much to teach me,” he said in the post.

In high school, Urschel wanted to (and successfully did) play football and a Division I powerhouse. His mother on the other hand wanted him to go to MIT where he would still be able to play, just not on a competitive level. Seven years later he would finally take the practice field with the Engineers.

The team environment was a culture shock. The sizes in the weight room and the fact that student culture didn’t really involve athletics was something vastly different than what he experienced at Penn State.

There are no athletic scholarships or aggressively mandated practices. Players of that team are there because they love football. “They show up every day and work hard because it’s their choice — because they love to play.”

You can find his full post here here.