San Jose Math Class Lands On ESPN, Thanks To Fantasy Football

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KCBS)  -- The popularity of fantasy football is spreading out of the office and into at least one high school classroom, in San Jose.

But KCBS's Matt Bigler reports that in this case it's less of a game, and more of a teaching tool.

At San Jose's Foothill High School, John Hagan's math class is using the contemporary craze involving professional sports to help his students learn algebra.

"In the beginning we were using just basic algebra," Hagan told KCBS's Bigler. "And we've built fractions into the equation as well -- it's a pretty long equation. We've been doing the fraction stuff for the last couple of weeks -- and the class likes it."

Hagan says evaluating NFL players' statistics takes quite a bit of math skill.

"First i told parents we were playing fantasy football, and they kind of groaned, and then I showed them the equation, and they were like 'Oh, okay, I guess that's okay now,'" Hagan said.

As for playing fantasy football:

"You choose eight players, and you see which ones do the best," Hagan explained. "Every week you calculate the scores for each of your individual players on your own team, and then whichever team does the best with those eight players gets the best score for that week."

Foothill High's principal is okay with the program as well, especially since the unorthodox teaching tool landed Hagan's class on ESPN, for a feature this coming Sunday.

"[ESPN] spent an entire day here, twelve hours, interviewed several of the kids in depth, went home to the home of one of our students, to really find out what sort of impact the program was having with that student," Hagan said.

He said the students work hard and deserve whatever attention the program brings them.

"Really, at the end of the day, if you finish one of the worksheets, you've done quite a bit of math," he said. "And we're at the point now where most of the kids are able to finish it every week."

The hope is that by applying algebra to football, students will get more excited about mathematics.

"The kids have taken well to it," Hagan said. "Even the kids who didn't know football have been really happy with the program, [though] not as happy as the kids who know football."

"It's cool -- we get to keep up with the football players and stuff like that," a senior named David Rosales told KCBS's Bigler. "It's pretty interesting. It keeps you interested better than reading it out of the book or something, which would be hella boring.

"Like me, I didn't even watch [football], but I started watching the games more, keeping up with the players, see who makes more touchdowns and stuff like that."

(pha)