Kristin Sheehan
Episode 341
11 AUG 2025
She has served as the Program Director for Play Like a Champion Today since its inception. Since 2006 the program has served over 160 thousand coaches and parents through a network of 280-plus partners across the United States and Canada. As a student-athlete she was a gymnast from youth through high school, and then, attending the University of Notre Dame as a Theology major, she was a varsity athlete on the cheerleading team, and now is a certified yoga instructor. On the faith side, she has worked with the Archdiocese of Detroit and has attended both the 2015 and 2022 Vatican Conference, including leading a panel at the latter.
Notable guest quotes:
“Catholics, we’re about communing together and that’s where we get stronger.”
“We were true Catholics every Sunday at Mass… I went to St. Thomas More grade school… first grade through eighth grade. And our faith was very strong.”
“So many times when we are in a difficult situation and we need to do something that we just we know we need to do it, but it’s difficult, offer it up. And God will help us get through it.”
“As kids, we got to go to one game, one football game a Fall. And we always completed that football game with Mass. So, it was a football game, and it was Mass. And I remember so much as a child stretching across the aisle when it was time to say the Our Father. And that was the first place I’d been where they would move out of the pews and hold hands. So, the whole church was embraced in hands, and they would sing the Our Father. And that was powerful for me.”
“There’s no coincidences, there’s God instance. And that’s how I became involved in Play Like a Champion.”
“There was a lacrosse coach at Notre Dame who was also in athletic administration, and he had a passion and had gone to Uganda to teach children in the villages lacrosse. And so, he became a friend of ours and he said, ‘You should come … we should do some character things as well in addition to the physical sport.’ And so, we went over to Uganda and then the next year we took Notre Dame students with us, and it was a credit course.”
“He did what professors like to do, he did a research study, and he published it. It was called Youth Sport Behavior, and the subtitle was The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and detailed, like, we think that sports builds character, but there’s no direct research that shows it builds good character. In fact, it really depends on the environment and what is modeled in the environment and sometimes kids are learning poor lessons.”
“A friend of mine was at Notre Dame for a year doing a certificate program and she is a yoga instructor, and she began teaching yoga at Westville (correctional facility) and she said, ‘I really feel badly because I’ve started this and it’s a good space to be and I’m going to be gone in a year.’ And so, I thought, well you know I might be able to do that. So, that inspired me to get certified and kind of take over for my friend.”
“You find God in your breath and when I teach, I very much am able to use – if it doesn’t offend anybody in the room – spiritual language that, God is in your breath, God is in your movement, it helps to regulate, to manage your emotions.”
“That’s what Jesus did; he saw, and he believed in every person for their inner goodness.”
Related link:
Play Like a Champion Today website