URSCHEL: Yes. For the majority of my NFL career, actually.

DUBNER: How did that work out? When did you do what, as a doctoral candidate, around the football season?

URSCHEL: Well, I was — I shouldn’t say “was.” I am a full time Ph.D. student at MIT and I was full-time the entire time, so there wasn’t really any working around to be done.

DUBNER: But, obviously during the football season you’re not attending classes. That’s not possible right? Football’s [a] very full time job.

URSCHEL: Yes, of course. This is a natural question. I guess since I’m retired, I’m allowed to say, I was full-time, full-time. For example, last fall I took courses at MIT.

DUBNER: During football season.

URSCHEL: Yes. Via correspondence. I took courses which I thought were very manageable in season; areas that I was more or less familiar with previously, classes which had a textbook, which the professor followed the textbook and I would just do the assignments and then just send them in.

DUBNER: You say that you can tell me, “Now that you’re retired.” Am I to gather, then, that you didn’t tell the Ravens that you were actually full-time at MIT during the football season?

URSCHEL: I did not tell anyone this. Well, except MIT. But I don’t think an NFL team would be extremely happy to hear that I’m working towards my Ph.D. also in the fall.

DUBNER: How did a standard day work out?

URSCHEL: My schedule — to put the MIT things in perspective — what I would do is, I would play the game on Sunday. Then from Sunday — suppose it’s a home game, one o’clock kickoff. I get home around 5:00, perhaps 5:30. From Sunday, 5:30 p.m. until Tuesday, say, 11:00 a.m. — when I have to go into the Ravens — all I am doing is MIT coursework and math. That is all I am doing. MIT accepted me as a Ph.D. student, but they don’t have part-time Ph.D. students. If I have to finish in four years, maybe five, this is just completely infeasible if I’m only working on the Ph.D. half a year.