Professor Lee Green may be stepping away from teaching, but he is far from taking time off.

After 30 years at Baker University, Green will be shifting back to his expertise in sports law. Green plans on working with the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Green first began working with these associations while they had headquarters in Kansas City. He believes he mostly fell into the job due to “luck of geography.” The NCAA in 2000 moved to Indianapolis, the same place the NFHS national office is now located.

Green first began his teaching career at Baker in the fall of 1986. His contract was for one year, and in this one year Green was able to decide between teaching or practicing law. Green said that during his first year teaching, he fell in love with both teaching and Baker.

In Green’s years at Baker, he enjoyed teaching law courses the most. He said another favorites of his was his “issue-orientated” QS 411 Landmark Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Highest on his list were the travel interterms he was able to take students on.

Green said he has always believed that interterms are “something we underutilized” due to the chance it gives both students and teachers the opportunity to do something they’re interested in.

Green created a rotation of four different interterms he would offer to students.

If it was a presidential inauguration year, Green would take his students to Washington, D.C., where the trip would include attending the presidential inauguration. Other interterms included a trip to Cooperstown, New York, to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a New York City trip based around the city’s history, and a trip overseas to visit London, Normandy and Paris.

Green was also given the opportunity to teach at the Harlaxton College campus in England twice. Both at Harlaxton and at Baker, Green loved to “inspire the desire to travel.”

In the beginning of his time here at Baker, Green thought he would start at a small school then move on to a large state school or law school. However, Green soon realized Baker was where he wanted to be.

“I wanted to inspire students to help them on the path to a career or grad school,” Green said. “I was a pre-law adviser, so I liked being able to see those who are interested in law.”

One of Green’s advisees, Savannah Bellem, enjoyed his classes because of the challenges they presented.

“His class was the only class that challenged me and I learned a lot, and he’s the reason I chose to be a pre-law minor,” Bellem said. “He knows literally everything about what he teaches and he’s really good at interacting with the students, like in the classroom rather than just lecturing.”

Senior Aaron Greenbaum was one of Green’s students this past semester and believes Green’s passion helped push his interest into law.

“He made sure the topic stayed interesting” Greenbaum said. “He’s not the only professor that does this, but every professor here that I’ve had has a love for their topic, and I had a little interest going into law, so then having a class with him and seeing his passion for the material he taught made it easier for me to say ‘this is what I want to do’ and decide to go to law school.”