Teaching Sport History as a Public Service

Education is public service. Yet sport historians may grapple with the value of teaching sport history for students and administrators who demand practical knowledge and transformative social impacts. This article examines the role of public sport history as a critical pedagogical tool in higher education, particularly within sport management and kinesiology programs, to support the significance of teaching sport history. Sport historians can leverage public sport histories, such as museum exhibitions, to highlight values of sport history. By aligning public sport history with theories of critical pedagogies by John Dewey and Paulo Freire, educators can encourage students to question social structures and be empowered to impact communities. As an example, the 2023–2024 museum exhibition Running for Civil Rights: The New York Pioneer Club, 1936–1976 demonstrated that public sport history can offer novel interpretations of sport history to respond to contemporary social issues, such as racism in sport. The exhibition showcased the contributions of Black American athletes to long-distance running and positioned their work as foundational to the development of the modern marathon. An analysis of the reception of the exhibition demonstrates that public sport history aligns with the facilitation of sport and is significant to the study of sport management and kinesiology. By integrating public sport history into curricula, educators offer a public service by demonstrating the significance of sport history to students who may enter careers in the sport industry and affect the future development of sport.