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A: FROM MENTOR DAVINIA CHISM
IN TX
Congratulations on knowing want you want to do and looking
for ways to
combine other skills with your dream. Yes, you can combine
math with a
career as a basketball player (or any other sport for that
matter). Math
actually gives a professional athlete an extreme advantage.
I have a
degree in Mathematics and have participated in many sports
and still am
active in quite a few sports. As I become serious in a sport,
I have
discovered just how important math is to those that become
truly great in a
sport. Let me explain a few ways.
First: Statistics is a mathematical discipline that is useful
for more than
just comparing your favorite teams or making bets! Statistics
can help you
as a professional athlete in two ways: understanding your
development as a
player and in understanding your competition. By keeping track
of your
performance (jump height, speed to run court length, percentage
of free
throws made, endurance time, percentage of shots made from
a specific
location, etc) you can learn a great deal about your strengths
and
weaknesses and where you need to work to improve your game.
Rather than
using a subjective approach or an opinion, you can look at
the cold, hard
facts: where you are good, where you are OK, where you are
bad, where you
are improving or even getting worse. This can help plan your
training
regimen and even help you to come up with some creative ways
to work on
skills. It can also help you work with your coach to play
you in the
positions that best highlight your skills or fulfill a certain
strategy for
a game.
As a professional athlete, you'll find yourself spending a
great deal of
time watching videos of your competition. You can use statistics
to track
the same parameters you track on yourself - except now you
are watching a
competitor you will be playing or want to emulate. You can
learn their
strengths and weaknesses. This will help you to decide what
strategy will
work best against them. Or it can help you to decide which
areas you would
like to be strong in - a 'benchmark' to compare yourself against.
So, statistics is used everyday in athletic training and strategizing.
Second: Geometry. Every basketball player uses it with every
shot they
make! Understanding basic geometry and angles helps an athlete
to
visualize the approach to make a shot. While this can certainly
be gained
from experience and trial and error, a player may have an
advantage by
having the mathematical understanding of how to address a
new shot they
have not attempted before. A good understanding of geometry
can actually
help an athlete learn new things faster (of course, it can
never replace
the muscle memory that only comes through practice!)
If you think about it, I am sure you can come up with many
other
applications for math in the career of a professional athlete
(calculating
huge salaries would be a nice use!). In addition, math is
a very good tool
for athletes that retire from playing and move into coaching
or other
supporting roles.
Good luck and I hope we see you on the court!
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