Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, December 16, 2005, Washington Post

The Score
Some Sports Facts Just Don't Add Up

Sports are a great way for kids to learn lots of stuff. Think of it: Fans of pro football, baseball and basketball know 30 of the biggest cities in the United States. That's because the big U.S. cities have pro sports teams. Hockey fans also know a few Canadian cities, including Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton.

Want to learn math? Sports are filled with statistics. Any kid who can figure out an earned run average or batting average in baseball will find fractions and decimals a cinch. Of course, if you can figure out the formula for college football's Bowl Championship Series or the ratings for National Football League quarterbacks, you must be a young Einstein.

But lately, sports are not a perfect way to learn geography and math. For example, the Washington Redskins are in the East Division of the National Football Conference. That makes sense -- Washington is an East Coast city. But this week the Skins are playing their big East Division rival, the Dallas Cowboys.

Dallas?! Grab a map of the United States and you'll see that Big D is west of the Mississippi River and about 1,200 miles southwest of Washington. Dallas, Texas, is about as East Coast as a 10-gallon hat or a cattle ranch.

To confuse kids even more, the National Hockey League put the Dallas Stars in the Pacific Division of its Western Conference. Dallas is about 1,200 miles from the Pacific Ocean, too. Maybe Dallas teams should be in the Middle Division.

College basketball conferences have an even worse sense of direction than the pros. The Big East -- with 16 teams, it should be called the Huge East -- has teams in Midwestern cities Louisville, Kentucky; Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

How about the Atlantic 10 conference? It has a school in St. Louis, Missouri, more than 950 miles from Ocean City, Maryland. From Missouri, folks in St. Louis would have to drive more than 16 hours through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and clear across Maryland to dip their toes in the Atlantic Ocean.

It seems that the colleges can't count either. Penn State University and its legendary coach, Joe Paterno, won the Big Ten football title this season. That's an even bigger deal than you think, because the Big Ten conference has 11 teams.

The schools in the Atlantic 10 must be even worse at counting. The Atlantic 10 has 14 schools in its basketball league. Sorry, but 10 does not equal 14. Even in the so-called new math.

So keep playing and watching sports. Sports are fun and can teach you lots of stuff. But you better learn your math and geography in school.