Fumble the Football Player
Fumble was a great football athlete, but not such a star in math. He couldn’t figure out why his school stressed that he needed to know math so much. So his teacher decided to teach him math the only way he could think, through football. Fumble was an all star quarterback His teacher "pig skin" he was nicknamed knew this and used to teach fumble the basics.
"Fumble you know a football field is 100 yards right?"
"Yeah", he responded. " Well lets say you start at the 20 yard line, what happens if you throw the ball 15 yards and someone catches it. And then runs 12 more yards, what yard would they be on?
"I don’t know, who cares anyways all I have to do is make sure we move up not backwards."
"O.K. so your at the 47 yard line, the next play your sacked at hit back thee yards. Where are you now?"
"44 yards", Fumble replied. "Not like I get sacked anyways."
"So you’re a little ruffed up so you give it to your half back, he doesn’t pass the line of scrimmage which could be considered o, so every yard past the line is positive yardage and every yard back is negative, your halfback is hit for -2yards.Where are you?"
"Ummm... 42 yards?"
"Right! So you have four downs to make a set ten yards but you have been moved back 5 yards, and this is your third play or down as they’re known. So it’s 3rd and 15. You have to get 15 yards here or you’ll have to kick the ball away, so the best thing to do would be to through the ball. You throw th ball to your "go guy" or best receiver and he catches on the opponents 49 yardline, dodges a tackle and runs all the way to the end zone to get a touchdown. How many yards did he make before the catch, and how many yards did the receiver run?"
"7 yards?"
"Not quite, you threw it to the opponents 49 yard line, the feild is divided 50 yards by 50 yards. So how many yards would it be?"
"9 yards!"
"That’s right, so how many yards after the catch?"
"Easy. 49"
"So when you watch TV they always make up drive summaries which describes the dive, whic knowing your integers would help in. Lets start from the beginning:
1. Own 20 yard line, 27 yard pass from QB to WR
2. Own 47 yard line, -3 yard QB sack
3. Own 44 yard line, -2 yard HB run
4. Own 42 yard line, 58 yard pass from QB to WR (Touchdown)
Pretty easy to understand, right?"
"Very easy!" Fumble answered.
There was so much for the teacher to go over with Fumble, he soon learned how important math was in sports and in life in general. If it wasn’t for math the only thing he would be good at wouldn’t even exist.
