Walking into your first day of a new class, you never know what to expect. You sit down at your desk and observe your fellow classmates, hopeful that your professor has a compassionate heart and a sense of humor because, unfortunately, these two qualities are hard to come by. As your professor enters the room, you stare him or her down from head to toe, acknowledging his or her speech and posture, and in just that instant, you have already made a presumption on what type of person he or she may be.
If you’ve ever met Dr. Glenn Scheyd you might have found yourself in a similar situation. He walked in, read his syllabus, announced that his course requires two textbooks, and you thought to yourself, “Great, what have I gotten myself into?”
With a doctorate and Master of Science from the University of New Mexico, Scheyd specializes in the areas of evolutionary psychology, human mate selection, individual differences in attractiveness perception and intersexual competition. He teaches several of the psychology courses on campus and is an associate professor in the College of Psychology and chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. With all that said, one might infer that his courses are quite difficult; however, if you know Scheyd, then you would agree that his sense of humor and real-life applications of the material makes learning both a stimulating and an enjoying experience.
While in his presence, you never know what to expect, he is always an interesting person to be around. So it was not surprising to learn that from September to January every year for the past nine years, he has taken part in sports handicapping. You probably have no idea what that is, but Scheyd explained that it is actually quite interesting.
“For each major sporting event, the casinos in Las Vegas set a line up, or a point spread, which explains how many points they expect each individual [football] team to win the game by,” said Scheyd. “And so handicapping is basically trying to figure out what side of the line the team will fall on.”
Scheyd explained that his success in choosing the winning team weighs heavily on his understanding of both mathematics and psychology. His background in statistics gives him an understanding of probability, and his psychology background provides him with knowledge of group behavior and risk taking, which are beneficial because he often observes the picks and decisions of others on the board and then decides what to do from there.
It all started back in college, as do many good stories. Scheyd, like most college guys, was very interested in football. So much that he began keeping up with all of the college football teams and kept track of every player and game. College students are known for trying to make a quick buck, so it should be no surprise that a lightbulb went off in young college Glenn’s head that maybe he should invest his knowledge in activities that would gain him a little profit.
“I knew a guy who knew a guy who accepted bets on football games — now that I think about, was a little shady — but, hey, this was back in my youth that I participated in that sort of thing,” said Scheyd. “So that year, I made a good amount of money, and I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I should keep doing this.’”
Of course, football season came to an end, and Scheyd began confidently betting on basketball teams. Like all lucky first-time winners, he then lost all of his money and realized the power of overconfidence.
Fast forward to now and Scheyd has said farewell to his days of booking bets; he now participates in an international online football pool on officefootballpool.com, which includes 100 people. Over the last nine years, Scheyd has had many losses that have shaped his technique for picking teams, and as a result, he has won first place consecutively since 2012. He even admitted to beating several of NSU’s own, who shall remain nameless.
“In the beginning, I used to study the teams very hard, but as I grew older, I didn’t have the time for that anymore,” said Scheyd. “But I don’t really need to do that anymore either; I’ve tested my hypotheses and have learned there is certain numbers I have to test, so I’m sticking to that and hoping nobody every cracks the code.”
These days, Scheyd looks forward to a little friendly competition amongst colleagues and, of course, maintaining his reigning title of NSU’s Sports Handicapping King. While it is important for to him to have a hobby that he enjoys, he also believes it is equally as rewarding to have a hobby that is mentally stimulating. He described his hobby as the universe creating a ball comprised of all the little things he is most good at academically and other things he just enjoys, and then displaying them in the format of a fun football pool.
“I look forward to getting to do something fun with my colleagues and other friends and, even more, frustrating them when they see me moving up in the pool,” said Scheyd. “I think it’s important to find something to do [in your leisure time] that is both intellectually stimulating and fun.”
