The Really Real 81

In January, we had a four hour mini-camp where we went over player fees, practice schedules, team rules, and all the fun stuff, before having a 2 hour practice with the coaches. We put down our three choices for numbers from the ones available, and took pictures for the website. A couple days later, our player profile was up on the roster page of the website, and we found out which number we would be wearing for the rest of year, and most likely, the rest of the time we play football.

I had put down three choices, but got my first choice: 81.

So why 81?

In the IWFL, lineman have to wear numbers in a certain range. Outside of them, players can pick any number they'd like, especially given the fact that most people play multiple positions on any given team. With that choice though, I knew I wanted a number in the usual given spectrum for NFL receivers: the 80's. In recent years, NFL players have started wearing numbers in the teens for receivers, but eh, I'm a traditionalist.

As a Vikings fan, growing up in the 90's, I was naturally a huuuuuuuge fan of Cris Carter. Unfortunately, 80 is already taken on the team. There was another Carter on the Vikings though back in the day. He's not a future Hall of Famer or anything, but I was still a fan of Anthony Carter.

There were some others available. I crossed 87 off my list right away. A prime number? No thanks.

I'm glad I got 81. Some FUN FACTS about it:

(From Wikipedia)
Eighty-one is the square of 9 and the fourth power of 3. Like all powers of three, 81 is a perfect totient number. It is a heptagonal number and a centered octagonal number. It is also a tribonacci number, and an open meandric number. 81 is the ninth member of the Mian-Chowla sequence.

In base 10, it is a Harshad number, and one of three non-trivial numbers (the other two are 1458 and 1729) which, when its digits are added together, produces a sum which, when multiplied by its reversed self, yields the original number:
8 + 1 = 9
9 X 9 = 81

(although this case is somewhat degenerate, as the sum has only a single digit).

While relatively unimportant, an interesting fact about the number 81 is that its inverse is 0.012345679 repeating. While this has no mathematical use, 1/81 is seemingly the closest fraction possible to a repeating set of all the numbers 0-9 placed successively. The exact value is 13717421/111111111.

I later texted my mom to let her know what number I had gotten, only to find out that my brother had worn the exact same number in high school. Weeeeeiiiiird.

My second choice by the way was 88 (how fast you have to get a DeLorean to go to travel back in time).