Ever wonder how the world of sports has impacted American culture? The answer is currently available to nine Texas A&M University-Commerce students, as Dr. Brad Klypchak is teaching a class titled “Sport in American Culture.”
“This is the first time the class is being offered,” Klypchak, who has previously taught at Miami University in Ohio and Bowling Green University, also in Ohio, said. “It’s both [sport’s impact on American culture and America’s impact on sports] – while I do talk about sports in regard to sociological theory, I also talk about the way it’s conducted from an interdisciplinary perspective.”
The class -actually cross-listed as SOCI 497 and CAS 320 – is a hybrid class, with students participating online as well as attending regular class in the Arthur C. Ferguson Social Sciences Building.
In the online portion of the class, students read lectures in the form of PowerPoint presentations, are given readings, partake in reading discussions and take weekly quizzes. In the classroom, students take part in discussions and are given any additional material.
Having only nine students isn’t a problem for Klypchak.
“What’s nice about this group is we’ve got some highly committed to sports and some who are outsiders to sports. Students are willing to chime in – it’s not all rah-rah for sport, as it’s a welcomed environment [for all points of view],” Klypchak said.
Both scholarly and popular literary works play a major role in class discussions.
“I scripted the course through journal articles – media studies, criticisms, histories, newspapers, and everything else – [as well as] a couple more popular writings such as the ‘North Dallas Forty’ by Peter Gent,” Klypchak said.
While the course doesn’t specifically delve into current issues such as Michael Vick’s indictment and O.J. Simpson’s alleged burglary, such issues are part of classroom discussions as students bring them up. But discussions about these instances revolve around components involved in each situation from a cultural perspective.
“We look at the construction of athletes as a significant figure of the populace, probing why we see them a certain way,” Klypchak said. “We say, ‘here are the actions of a celebrity, now why do we react this way [to their actions]?’ Sport’s a considerable portion of American culture.”
Klypchak isn’t sure if the class will return for a future semester.
“I would hope that if this particular course doesn’t come back, a similar one takes its place,” he said. “I think one of the strengths behind this course is its way of considering sports in perspectives that we don’t normally consider or encounter.”
At least one student on campus was interested in the future of the course.
“The class sounds kind of cool,” Anthony Valle, an undergraduate kinesiology student, said. “I’d probably take a class like that – it sounds interesting.”
While the class isn’t a specific requirement for sociology or liberal studies majors, it does fill the prerequisite for a 400-level class for sociology students, and it can serve as the theory course required by the liberal studies degree program.
If the class does return in the future with Klypchak as an instructor, students will need to remember one underlying question throughout the course of the class – why.
“The class is all about looking into how and why we know sports in the way that we’ve come to know it,” Klypchak said. “Why are certain people considered athletes? Why do we as spectators come to consume sport the way we do – why do we collect memorabilia?”