As part of our Math Awareness Month celebrations we asked Dr. Michael J. Schell, about his interests in mathematics and sports. Schell is the Chair and Scientific Director of Biostatistics at the MOFITT Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, yet he is also the author of Baseball’s All-Time Best Hitters: How Statistics Can Level the Playing Field and Baseball’s All-Time Best Sluggers: Adjusted Batting Performance from Strikeouts to Home Runs. While Schell might spend his weekdays researching cancer data, he likes to spend his weekends watching baseball. Schell has even found that analyzing statistics in baseball has helped him in understanding and analyzing cancer data!

As part of our Math Awareness Month celebrations we asked Dr. Andrew Gelman how his interest in sports has had influence on his career in statistical mathematics.  Although Dr. Gelman noted that he was often picked last in gym class, he continues to be a fan of sports and his credentials in academia certainly make up for his lack of athleticism. Dr. Gelman is currently a Mathematics Professor at Columbia University. His statistical expertise has won him various awards such as the Outstanding Statistical Application award from the American Statistical Association, the award for best article published in the American Political Science Review, and the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies award for outstanding contributions by a person under the age of 40. He is also the author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do.

As a part of our Math Awareness Month celebrations we talked with Dr. Mason Porter about how his initial interest in baseball led him into a career in Mathematics.  Porter received his doctorate from Cornell University in 2002 and currently teaches courses in applied mathematics at the University of Oxford.

As part of our Math Awareness Month celebrations we asked Mathematics Professor, Dr. Tim Chartier, about how he incorporates his love for soccer and other sports with his passion for mathematics. Chartier is a professor at Davidson College where he specializes in numerical analysis and partial differential equations, and even taught a class on how to produce mathematical brackets for March Madness. He has been recognized by the Mathematical Association of America in 2007 when he received the Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member.

As part of our Math Awareness Month celebrations we interviewed previous faculty member of the United States Military Academy at West Point and current Associate Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College, Dr. Mike Huber. Although Huber teaches courses ranging from Statistics to Calculus his real passion is sabermetrics, the computerized measurement of baseball statistics. Huber finds that he is able to relate to students most through sabermetrics because he is able to show that what he is teaching in the classroom is relevant to the students’ passion of sports. He is also the author of Mythematics: Solving the Twelve Labors of Hercules

Most people like at least one sport. Many of us are addicted to ESPN. But how many people think of math when they watch sports? Whether you are filling in your March Madness brackets or want to have the highest percentage of goals on your soccer team, math will help you out. Perhaps you are on the track team. How do you adjust your pace to win the race, depending on your lane?

It might be that safety is a big issue for your sport. If you are a NASCAR fan, you might be interested to find that math plays a big part in the manufacture of tires as well as tire pressure. If the design of the car changes, the tires need to change as well. For me, I want to make sure my son’s lacrosse helmet is made of the strongest materials possible and that it fits properly. A new mouth guard is now available that is much safer and increases performance by 25%.

Mathematics is also involved in accurately assessing a team’s chance of winning a particular game, whether or not it is on a winning streak. Baseball managers and owners of teams use math to determine the value of a particular player. Coaches crunch numbers to determine whether they go for a touchdown on fourth and 3. If you have ever volunteered to schedule a tournament for your town’s Little League, you already know the value of math. Can you imagine scheduling the MLB season?

If you are a college football fan, you know that the championship game is not determined by a playoff system but by a combination of human polls and computer ranking methods. Now, you might not like this system, but you have to admit it would be impossible to assign the bowl games without math.

I often hear comments like “I hate math!” or “What is it good for anyway?” It is good for lots of things, and one of the most interesting is its applications in sports. If you are a “math-hater”, pick a sport you like and commit yourself to finding the math behind it during Math Awareness Month. Then, share your new really neat math fact with a friend.

Running all 64 NCAA basketball teams through 5,000 game simulations, sports statistician and PUP author Wayne Winston predicts the odds of each team through the tournament.  His pick:  Kansas to take it all!  Check out the post on his blog.  Last year his methods picked the Final Four!  To learn how he did this, check out Chapter 43 in his book MATHLETICS: How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football