Game Theory, Football, and Finding Your Passion: Alumni Spotlight with Danush Chelladurai
When people talk about football, it often leads to discussions about home teams, player stats, and, more recently, who will be making the playoffs. But sometimes we take for granted the immense thought process that goes behind every play, draft, and decision on the field.
Danush Chelladurai, Mass Academy Class of 2020, admits that after watching Patriots football for years, he only just started to focus on the analytics as he began studying mathematical models in high school. As a football player in high school, one of his earliest memories was watching games with his dad, trying to decipher what all the yelling was about.
But, he also, as all good MAMS kids know, had some nerdy roots—specifically in mathematics. Danush says he was “always a math kid growing up,” fascinated by how math applied to so many different situations. Even before his college applications, he knew math would be at the core of his academic path.
His interests in math and football ultimately found the time and space to connect, and it all started with a Game Theory class he took in high school. As an online course, it showed him the intersection of math and economics, a combination that eventually shaped his major at Yale University. In high school, he was extremely competitive, the kind of person who plays games with friends and immediately tries to figure out the optimal way to win. The math modeling he was learning in high school, and later theoretical and applied economics he encountered in college, clicked in a way that felt natural.
Yet Danush’s time at MAMS didn’t just shape him academically. He originally came to MAMS “to make friends” and signal to colleges that he was interested and dedicated to STEM, but that changed quickly. In Ms. Small’s humanities class, he encountered Recitatif by Toni Morrison, a story where race and identity are central but intentionally masked. The ambiguity, the social layers, and the conversations around it changed his mindset in a way he didn’t expect.
He describes that moment as one of the first times he truly understood how social structure and hierarchy affect the people around us. “It was powerful,” he recalled. That shift in perspective stuck with him and ultimately sparked a deeper interest in teaching and understanding people, not just the problems that come with them.
These experiences and passions eventually led Danush to Yale, where he arrived hoping to get involved in sports analytics. “The [Sports Analytics] club had died a bit when I started as a freshman, so me and a few of my friends got together to revive it.”
By finding new projects and rebuilding the club, he got the chance to see the behind-the-scenes work of coaching and decision-making across multiple sports, everything from varsity football to smaller club teams. He emphasizes that sports organizations don’t get enough credit for the strategic work that happens off the field. “You have this massive roster, these complex decisions, and the public only sees what happens on game day,” he said.
After a recent visit back, he was amazed to find the club with 120 active members, a huge leap from the handful of students he started with. “There are so many people who are interested in the number-crunching side of sports,” he marveled.
Outside of sports analytics, teaching became one of the most meaningful parts of his college experience. He worked with students ranging from Pre-K to high school, sometimes teaching game theory, sometimes helping with math foundations. He describes teaching as “one of the most fundamentally touching things you can do,” and it’s clear that the spark for this began at MAMS. The shift from solving problems himself to helping others learn became unexpectedly important to him.
When asked what advice he’d give MAMS students, he didn’t hesitate. “Grow your skills—math, coding, science—learn as much as you can,” he said. “But more importantly, make side projects. Solve problems you actually care about.”
He explained that the growth you see from one personal project to the next matters far more than any assignment. “You won’t come back to your classwork,” he stated, “but you will come back to your own projects.” Whether it’s a sports model, a game theory simulation, or a random problem you thought about in the shower, those are the projects that stay with you.
Despite entering MAMS as a self-proclaimed “STEM kid,” Danush left with a broader sense of the world and his place in it. It’s shaped by data, of course, but also by stories, teaching moments, and people who guided him. His journey shows that the most meaningful parts of MAMS often begin where you least expect them, and that the curiosity you build here can take you far beyond what you originally imagined.
Prisha Nair ’27
Junior Staff Writer
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