Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/250321
Profile Know&Tell Jeff Kranz shows his students how math is a part of the sport they watch on television. CTA MEMBER TACKLES MATH USING HIS NFL CONNECTIONS BY CECIL CONLEY J E F F K R A N Z H A S B E E N playing the field and his wife knows all about it. Even his sixth-grade students at Crystal Middle School in Suisun City are hip to his extracurricular activities. Kranz abandons his wife whenever there's a San Francisco 49ers home game. The veteran math teacher puts his skill with numbers to good use as a statistician for the National Football League team. His wife, Laura Rodriguez, understands. She realized long ago that statistics are a Kranz family trade, and Sundays in the fall are for football. Both Kranz and his wife, who teaches fifth grade at Laurel Creek Elementary in Fairfield, are members of the FairfieldSuisun Unified Teachers Association. Like father, like sons His father, the late Richard Kranz, was a sportswriter who moonlighted as a statistician with the Oakland Raiders. He compiled statistics at several Super Bowls, often bringing his children. Kranz attended five Super Bowl matches. Kranz's brother David followed in his father's footsteps and recruited Kranz to be a number cruncher for the 49ers. David lives in Sacramento, so he drives and stops PHOTOS COURTESY OF CECIL CONLEY AND JEFF KRANZ Educator 02 Feb 2014 v2.2 int.indd 17 in Vacaville to get his brother. The Sunday commute will be farther next season, now that the 49ers have left Candlestick Park and moved to Santa Clara. The two will be on the road shortly after sunrise, and Kranz hopes to get home "by halftime of the night game." That means Rodriguez has the day to herself, and she "makes the most of it," he says. Kranz, who also attended Giants games at the stadium before the baseball team moved to AT&T Park in 2000, has many fond memories of his days at Candlestick Park and is sad the stadium is being sacked. "I can't believe they're going to tear FEBRUARY 2014 www.cta.org 17 1/28/14 10:50 AM