Athletics in Math

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Created on Monday, 11 February 2013 19:39

Written by Samantha Knight

ST. JOHNSBURY- Did you ever think of math as a sport? St. Johnsbury Academy is one step in front of you with their math team.

Their team is not only second in Vermont, but they also have three award winning players on their team. One is a National Merit Scholarship Finalist, one is a Seimens award winner, and one competed as a math league all- star at Penn State Last year. St. Johnsbury's Math teacher, Joe Grasso, is very proud of his team and sometimes doesn't understand how the students "come up with solutions even I haven't thought of, some of them are very elegant, just the way they go about it. It's very quick and easy, the way they see it."

St. Johnsbury Academy competes with other private schools from around New England. The St. Johnsbury Mathletes meet every Thursday at the school. The school will have their next competition next Thursday. There is only 2 more competitions until they have the finals. Grasso believes they have a lot of competition "We're competing against all the private schools in New England all those schools that want to join in with it which, certainly you have some high end schools."

Each team stays at their home base and send the tests in when they are all done. There are 6 competitions where students have 6 math problems that must be completed in 30 minutes. The scores only count for the top 5 scoring schools. Some students have been on the team for a number of years now, one senior Deanna Emery says, "Those problems that you spend maybe half an hour on and finally something comes through. That satisfaction when it does come through, the feeling of pride that you accomplished something. It's just a great feeling that makes you want to continue to do math."

The final competition of the year is on March 14th. They may not be the baseball team or the basketball team, but these athletes use the most important muscle, their brain.