In the 11 years that Brian Lampman has coached the Saline High School boys soccer team, he has looked for ways to bring his educational expertise to the athletic field. Now he’ll bring his sporting expertise to the classroom.

Lampman, a social studies teacher at Saline High School, recently received approval to teach a sports sociology course—a rare offering in high schools. Lampman is excited about the ways in which sport can be used to reach students in the classroom.

“I think it’s a great teaching tool,” Lampman says. “Whether kids participate in sports or not, they see its power and its influence. And what a great way to stimulate discussions of race, gender, class, sexuality, when frankly, teachers are often very hesitant to broach some of those topics with students.”

The course, Lampman says, is designed to teach students to think critically about the role that sport plays in society.

To do so, Lampman asks students to consider constructions of masculinity and femininity in the sporting world, the ways in which sport breaks down or reinforces racial stereotypes and the ways in which sport has driven social and political change.

“A lot of times you can’t really get to the heart of an issue in class,” Lampman says. “And I think this is one more great way to do that.”

Lampman is also the co-editor of two books, the most recent of which is a collection of essays titled, “Learning Culture Through Sports: Perspectives on Society and Organized Sports Second Edition.”

Lampman authored one of the book’s 19 essays, in which he describes some of the methods he uses as a coach to teach his players lessons that go beyond the playing field.

One of the issues most important to Lampman is eradicating the attitudes in the sporting world that promote sexist, homophobic ideas of hyper-masculinity.

“Participation in sport often exacerbates (certain) limited constructions of masculinity with its emphasis on winning through the use of power, dominance, intimidation, and even violence on and off the field,” Lampman writes in an essay titled, “The Power of a Coach.”

Lampman writes of one incident in which an assistant coach from another sport program used a homophobic slur to his team that was meant to degrade Lampman’s soccer team.

“You have 40, 50 players who are listening to that coach, and he is the adult that those kids are spending two or three hours a day with, who is shaping their world view and their view of their peers at school,” Lampman says of the incident. “You can create such a toxic cauldron for kids in their development of their idea of what masculinity is.”

Lampman, however, is optimistic about the power that sports have to promote progress in attitudes about gender and sexuality.

“You’re always going to have that fringe group in the macho, toughness, rub-some-dirt-on-it mentality,” he says. “But I like to think that sport is also helping to broaden our conception of what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman.”

Another one of the books’ essays touches on the over-specialization of young athletes who have a potentially unhealthy focus on a single sport.

Lampman likes to see his soccer players participating in other sports and activities in the off-season. The tendency toward overly intense specialization doesn’t usually come from the young athletes, Lampman says, nor is it serving them.

“All the research on youth sports says that the number one reason why kids participate is for fun,” Lampman says. “They want to be competitive and work with others, but they wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun.

“There’s a lot of research that also shows parents and coaches living vicariously through their sons and daughters and athletes, and you’ve got to be careful. The focus needs to be on the kids.”

Lampman’s ultimate goal is to see sports sociology classes included in the curriculum of more high schools.

“It’s a popular offering at colleges,” he says, “and it can be a great tool to engage with students.”