Daniel Maigler
Episode 309
30 DEC 2024
He played football his freshman year of high school, moved on to discus and two conference championships in that sport, and then went on to a long career in lacrosse, a sport that he remains involved with to this day. He played for the Illinois Wesleyan University Club Lacrosse team, Oxford University, and Second City/Windy City Men’s Club, and he still plays in an over-30 league. On top of all that, he not only has officiated lacrosse, but has coached five high school teams since 2001, plus, Park Ridge Youth Lacrosse, which he has now been coaching for three years. (Be forewarned of two emotional stories in the second half of this episode.)
Notable guest quotes:
“I am a cradle Catholic… So … we were a weekly Mass family.”
“In the football two-a-days, I ended up having another player step on my back and ended up with a stress fracture in my L5 vertebrae… they said I should never play contact sports again.”
“This Catholic Life Community, it filled me up and gave me a sense of purpose, mission and just reason to have hope.”
“I had this desire to live a life of service.”
“I ended up changing from there to go to work at Holy Trinity Catholic High School in Chicago. And that’s when I was able to start doing the coaching alongside that because my passion for lacrosse that I picked up in college.”
“In so many ways, it’s not even what we necessarily say to kids. It’s, we are an example of what they’re seeing of, what is a man like and how do we model for them? How do we mentor them through our behaviors, through our actions, of sharing our values day to day in all the things we do in the way we carry ourselves?”
“We’re all role models, whether we want to be or not. Our only choice is whether to be a positive role model or a negative role.”
“The saving grace for me was the service work because I think … sometimes when we give service to others, it helps to heal our heart.”
“There’s … no reason why we can’t treat each other respectfully. There’s no reason why there has to be trash talk. There’s no reason why our victory has to be someone else’s loss.”
“For as long as I can remember my entire career, I’ve said the prayer of St. Francis every day… And when my father passed away, he actually, in going through his things, he had a little keychain with the prayer of St. Francis on a medallion, and I got to take that… it gave me a special extra connection with my father.”
Related links:
Paws For Patrick
Coaching Boys Into Men
