“What do you think it is?” asked Upper School math teacher Mr. Cushman Laurent his students, wondering what they thought a bobsledding team scored during one of their practice rounds. 

“52.” 

“108.”

His students’ guesses flew in from around the classroom. 

“58,” said the coach of the bobsledding team in the movie the students were watching. Awe filled the room as nobody guessed the correct score. 

The classroom was filled with students, who were mostly wearing hoodies because it was cold. The students’ clothing was fitting, considering they were watching “Cool Runnings,” a 1993 movie about the first Jamaican bobsledding team to compete in the Winter Olympics. 

The movie was shown as part of a selection of films for “Classical Sports Movies,” a class Mr. Laurent taught during Interim Term. Filled with only seniors and juniors, Mr. Laurent was teaching this class for the first time.

“This is a great movie,” said Mr. Laurent, who is an assistant coach at Kinkaid. 

Mr. Laurent said he believes in merging the athletic and educational parts of school together. He also thinks that sports movies show athletes good values to have.

“Whether it’s grit or determination, or being forgiving and accepting, all of these things in sports movies are important values to have,” he said.

Walking into class the next day, students wondered what movie they would be watching,

Would it be “Field of Dreams,” a movie about a baseball field that attracts the ghosts of baseball legends? Or maybe “Dodgeball,” a comedy about misfits who enter a dodgeball tournament? 

Not quite, it was the legendary 1986 basketball movie “Hoosiers,” a drama about a coach who becomes a contender for a championship game.

When asked why he started this class, Mr. Laurent said, “It was a way to bring the field and classroom together.”