Amy Brooks
Episode 166
4 APR 2022
She was inducted last year into the Athletic Hall of Fame at DeSales University, a Catholic school where she was a standout runner on the women’s cross country and track & field teams. During her time at DeSales she was a part of three Cross Country PAC Championship teams, earning PAC Runner of the Year and All-PAC First Team honors twice each in 1994 and 1996. She was named to the PAC/CSAC 25th Anniversary Cross Country Team and was a member of the 4×800 meter relay team that continues to hold the indoor school record. Before DeSales she had been All-Catholic for the Philadelphia Catholic League every year of high school – in cross country as well as indoor and outdoor track. She had been awarded MVP in her junior and senior year, the latter also seeing her win Female Athlete of the Year, which encompassed all sports at Cardinal Dougherty High School. She has also coached at a high school.
Notable guest quotes:
“We would… go to church every Sunday as a family. We often walked to church and my dad would have us sit in the front pew.”
“We always prayed before meals, grace before meals, but we also prayed the Sacred Heart of Jesus prayer for our family. And that was really important. I was always grateful for that, to have that faith in my life.”
“I started teaching at a Catholic school. I taught seventh and eighth grade for four years… And then I got a job teaching at a Catholic high school.”
“I’ve been educated in Catholic schools my whole life and I also was an educator in Catholic schools for 14 years.”
“My faith, I guess, was always so much a part of my personality.”
“When I started teaching high school, I decided that I was going to start every class with (the St. Francis Prayer). And all my students, I would give them a copy of that. They’d put it in the back of their notebook and that’s how we started every day. And then often I would say, ‘St. Francis,’ and they would say, ‘Pray for us’ and then I would just randomly say (different) saints.”
“And then I started questioning God, like, ‘(running) isn’t helping anyone. Why can’t I have, like, this dynamic personality where I lead people to serve you or a great voice where I can lead people in song to praise you’?”
“I definitely see that God had a plan that I didn’t see.”
“I wanted to make sure when I gave a speech, I witnessed to the fact that the school was Catholic and that I was able to go to Mass every week and that my faith was able to be a part of my life there.”
“I remember thinking, ‘Okay, if Jesus can carry His cross to His death, I can run up this hill.’ And that was the thought that would keep me going… As I look back, God was giving me the opportunity to offer up suffering and unite it with His suffering.”
“Every time I held onto my faith, and I chose a choice that was what I thought God wanted more than what I wanted, I learned who God wanted me to be. And my faith really helped me to learn what it means to be yourself and how God has a plan for everyone.”
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