GREEN: Through Shoeless Joe and other works of fiction, students in Doug Froelich’s language arts class are learning sports can be in step with literature and art.
Froelich’s classroom at Green High School offers proof. The English teacher is clearly a sports fan. A Steelers banner keeps company with an Ohio State banner on the wall above his desk. In a photo on the wall behind, a grinning Froelich stands with Steelers hall of famer Jerome Bettis. The sports icons share space with posters of Shakespeare, his Globe Theatre and the movie Dead Poets Society.
The semester-long class is interactive and hands-on. It looks at football first, then baseball and will finish with basketball. The schedule coordinates with the Super Bowl, Opening Day and heading into the NBA playoffs.
While students do have reading assignments, they also write. This year, for the first time, they also researched and developed a website on the 11 greatest moments in pro football history.
“I didn’t want to do the typical, standard research paper,” Froelich said. “I wanted to do something that was maybe more applicable to the students as they move forward, when they get out into the world. Maybe they’re going to have a job where they have to create a webpage or contribute to a website. I wanted to move in the direction of digital literacy.”
Students can show prospective employers the site, he said. The project also gave students the chance to collaborate instead of just sitting and writing a paper.
His inspiration came from a project that arose from the National Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2013, when a committee put together the list of significant moments. They chose 11 for the number of players on the field at one time.
The committee’s leader, Joe Horrigan, executive director of the hall and nationally known football historian, came into the class and talked to the students about the project. He gave them suggestions and information they wouldn’t have been able to find with internet research alone.
“That face-to-face correspondence with him helped them,” Froelich said, so that being able to put a face to name brings the project to life.
The students also went to Canton to visit the hall of fame, where they saw some artifacts relating to the historic moments.
The hall offers a series called Heart of a Hall of Famer, in which school groups are invited to visit and speak with a hall of famer once a month.
“They talk about their playing career, but a lot of it is about character and dealing with adversity, challenges that they face and lessons kids can learn not only about their career on the field but by life outside of the game of football,” Froelich said. His class got to see Bettis. Students from Floyd Juszli’s art class came along, too.
The students also looked at the bronze-bust gallery and learned about the process of how they are made. The artists use photos or measure the actual player for the dimensions.
The art aspect comes into play through Arts in Stark’s creation of works that represent the 11 football moments for downtown Canton. So far, four are done. The group’s executive director, Robb Hankins, also came in to talk to the class.
Students are working on their own art project to go with the list. They were given one of the moments to illustrate.
On a recent school day, freshman Christopher Derus, 15, who plays lacrosse for Green, was working on a poster to represent a newspaper page from when Pete Rozelle became commissioner of the NFL. His illustration includes articles with headlines from that era. His favorite teams include “sadly, the Browns,” Ohio State and North Carolina. He liked seeing Bettis at the hall of fame.
Senior Kayla Koontz, 18, was working with junior Leah Stennett, 17. Kayla, who said she loves sports, plays currently lacrosse for Green; Leah has played in the past. Their drawing represents the merger of the AFL and NFL with Rozelle’s help. It shows two hands over a football with the leagues’ letters.
Sophomore Ryan Bader, 16, who plays lacrosse for Green, likes the Bengals, Royals and Yankees. He didn’t want to just take an average class.
“I took this one because it involved sports. It’s been hard, but it’s a good class,” he said.
“The perception among some kids is because it’s a sports-based class, we’re just going to sit and talk about sports whatever all day,” Froelich said. “But then when we get into the reading part of it ... a lot of the good stuff that’s written about sports is written so well, it tells the story. You can sit down and watch a football game, you can watch a baseball game, you can watch a basketball game.
“Literature gives a little more insight into significant moments in sports that you can’t get just by reading, or watching something on TV. It tells the story that you might not get just by listening to or watching a sporting event.”
Monica L. Thomas can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @MLThomasABJ and www.facebook.com/MLThomasABJ.