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Garrett Craig / CC BY 2.0

Doug Glanville, a former professional baseball player, ESPN baseball analyst, and 1992 Engineering graduate, will teach a class for the Annenberg School for Communication in the coming spring semester. 

The class, titled "Communication, Sports, and Social Justice," will "examine the current relationship between sports, celebrity and the power to communicate for social justice,” according to its course description on Penn InTouch. 

Glanville, who grew up in New Jersey, played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, and Texas Rangers before starting as an analyst for ESPN. Glanville left the network during ESPN’s massive wave of layoffs during April of this year.

Glanville joins a range of celebrity professors at Penn, including former Vice President Joe Biden and New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant.  

In addition to his work as an analyst, Glanville has used his experience as a baseball player to write columns for The New York Times, as well as a book titled “The Game From Where I Stand.” He has tackled topics such as gender equality, racial profiling, and his relationship with law enforcement.

The course description for his class states that "students will learn to evaluate the patterns and strategies that athletes have employed to elevate an issue" by looking at case studies, current events, and empirical evidence. His class will also tackle current issues such as the activism among many NFL players, spearheaded by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who chose not to stand during the National Anthem as a protest against racial injustice in the United States.

This course will also be guided by Glanville’s experiences as a professional athlete. Glanville aims to teach his students to think critically about what has and has not worked in past and present social justice movements, as well as to discuss which communication approaches are the most effective and influential within the realm of sports.