You never thought math was in sports? Just think about it.... Every sport uses numbers in some way, whether it's for scoring, determining averages, or figuring percentages. And when numbers are involved, it usually means math is as well.

Even though computers have saved us from having to calculate a lot of math manually, it is still useful to know how to do so. How could you play a friendly game of basketball without knowing how to keep score? How could you figure out your best friend's batting average? How would you know how many pins you needed to knock down in the last two frames of a bowling game in order to beat your opponent? The answers to these questions require some basic math skills.

Here are four examples of sports that use math in some way. Only one math application is given for each sport, although many more exist. Try clicking on the options below to see how simple calculations can add to your game.

Baseball

Basketball

Bowling

Football

For more insights on how math is used in every day life, visit What Good is Math?

This document was created by Mary Beth Indelicato, a former Education student at the University of Richmond. She completed the original version of this document as a project for a class on integrating technology across the curriculum during the spring semester of 1998. Assistance for this project was provided by Dr. Chris Roellke. Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt has maintained and revised this document as an interactive resource for educators, students and parents. All inquiries and comments regarding this document should be mailed to her at the following address: pstohrhu@richmond.edu

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Teachers may adapt thes resources for classroom use only or per variations that have been suggested. The reproduction of any portion of this site for an entire school or school system is strictly prohibited. No part of this publication may be transmitted, stored, recorded or published in any form without written permission from the course instructor. Modifications, updates and changes to the actual site by making adaptations to create a new genre, theme or grade level, in which a new site is developed for publication to the WWW, must be approved by the instructor. Appropriate citations and links to the original document must be included within the new site. For more information please contact: Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt.

Last updated on February 28, 2006 .