Mahiri, J. (1994). African American Males and Learning: What Discourse in Sports Offers Schooling. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 25(3), 364-375.

This research investigates language use in a youth basketball program of a neighborhood-based organization and compares it to features of classroom discourse. The central focus is on a key communicative event, the “coaches circle,” where significant verbal exchanges between children and adults occur. Coach-player interactions are also contextualized in the mentoring perspective of the program’s coaches council. Implications are drawn for extending the teacher-as-coach school-reform model based on considerations of language development and learning in this community sports setting.

Full article can be found here:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3195852