Top recruit fulfills promise -- but not in sports

The fierce recruiting battle over Sam Dittmer came down to two schools, Brigham Young University and Stanford. A paid recruiting trip from his Indiana home to BYU in January 2008 helped sway the decision in the Cougars' favor. During that visit to the Provo, Utah, campus, Sam realized he could get reps with the first team straight from the get-go at BYU. To top things off, he got along rather nicely with Tiancheng Ouyang, the man who would be his coach if he became a Cougar.Sam eventually accepted BYU's scholarship offer and committed to becoming a Cougar. After graduating from Zionsville Community High School, he enrolled at BYU in time for fall semester 2008. He earned a spot in the starting lineup as a true freshman and was instrumental in his team's top-25 finish."Once I decided to go to BYU, I was happy with the decision," Sam said. "The people at BYU have been very good to me. I didn't get much help in high school because I reached the point where ... no one in high school could help me (improve). BYU has been great; I've got a good coach there and everything."So, what sport does Sam play? He doesn't. Rather, Sam is a math prodigy. In 2006 he was the national high school math champion. Last year, Sam led BYU to a 23rd-place finish in the 405-team Putnam Math Competition. His individual score placed him 65th out of more than 2,000 contestants and accounted for more than 60 percent of BYU's team tally (Donald Sampson and Michael Griffin also competed for BYU)."It's six hours, probably a longer math test than many people have ever taken in their lives," Sam said. "But it feels like you have to be really, really fast because you have to do 12 problems — that's a problem every half-hour, and these are pretty hard problems."