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New Patriots’ offensive lineman can solve a Rubik’s Cube behind his back
"I actually signed a brand ambassadorship with Rubik’s — first pro athlete ever."
The Patriots signed offensive tackle Calvin Anderson back in March to help bolster the team’s depth on the O-line and keep both Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe off the turf.
But if Bill Belichick and his staff are also in a bind with the daily Sudoku puzzle, Anderson might come in handy.
Anderson met with the media at Gillette Stadium for the first time on Thursday, touching on topics such as new Patriots O-line coach Adrian Klemm and his approach entering the 2023 NFL season.
But before wrapping up his presser, Anderson also dropped quite a tidbit about his talents away from the gridiron.
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“I can solve a Rubik’s Cube behind my back,” Anderson said.
Sounds like a reality-defying boast, but there’s video evidence of such a feat.
Anderson is an expert at solving the 3D cube and other puzzles thanks to some math-based principles. Along with his behind-the-back trick, Anderson can solve a Rubik’s Cube in about 13 seconds. If blindfolded? That stretches into the 20-second mark.
“My rookie year, I actually signed a brand ambassadorship with Rubik’s — first pro athlete ever,” Anderson said. “And it’s because I came up with a different way to solve it blindfolded. This is gonna sound so nerdy, but, there’s a subsect of guys who solve the Rubik’s Cube … that do it without looking. And there’s a couple different ways to do it. I came up with a new way.”
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Anderson, who majored in mathematical economic analysis while at Rice University, explained how he doesn’t need to rely on colors in order to solve the cube.
“It’s more about memorization and a little bit of probability and some math involved,” Anderson said. “So, do you guys remember matrices from back in the day? … You number the cube off as if you were numbering a phone. And then if you think about sudoku, sudoku has nine boxes, each box has nine smaller boxes. You’re trying to get one through nine in the box while getting one through nine across three boxes — and, preferably, down three boxes.
“So, if you think about the cube, each individual box you can think about as a sudoku box. So, instead of the colors, you can think of them as numbers, then you wrap the sudoku boxes around in that cube form. And then you can remember the numbers because they’re always correlated to another side with numbers.”
If Anderson’s current job as an offensive lineman doesn’t work out down the road, one has to think he can carve out a pretty interesting career for himself in many math-related fields.
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