Zach Eckert
Episode 60
23 MAR 2020
A former lacrosse player who is an avid surfer and serves as the Director of Campus & Sports Ministry at JSerra Catholic High School in Orange County, California. He is also a 3rd degree Knight. He attended Creighton University (a private, Jesuit university) and Franciscan University of Steubenville where he majored in Theology. Be sure to stick around for his emotional story about the “Jersey Ceremony” as well as why May 18th is so significant.
Notable guest quotes:
“It wasn’t until the 1999, the Columbine shootings, that happened at a local high school just down the street from my elementary school, that totally shook my mom and led her just to kind of seek God in a new way and led her back to the Catholic church. And it was there, through the priest there… who kind of counseled her through the teachings of the church and brought her and I back into the faith.”
“My faith and my awakening in the faith just changed my game so much.”
“My coach in high school… a man of faith himself, and just the way that he coached us and the way that he lived this philosophy of his own faith really empowered me.”
“A lot of students… they’ll go on a retreat or they’ll have an experience in their faith and they’re on fire in the moment and then a week or two weeks later they kind of forget it because the feelings have left them.”
“Our faith is something where we have to will it. We have to will to go to Mass on Sundays.”
“He was really coaching us to grow in virtue, which ultimately helped me in my faith just to persevere through those difficult times.”
“Our coach… and even at our public high school would invite us into prayer.”
“There was this philosophy he was instilling in us in everything that we do, on and off the field, what could Christ do.”
“There’s the sports ministry aspect, which is just empowering our coaches, forming our coaches, and providing that spiritual formation for their athletes.”
“We do these Chapel Talks before their home games, for the football team.”
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