Drew Vilinsky
Episode 347
22 SEP 2025
He played four years of varsity hockey at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland and then played four years of club hockey (two at Division II and two at division I) at Saint Louis University. After his playing days he served as varsity hockey assistant coach and j.v. baseball assistant coach at St. John’s Jesuit in Toledo, Ohio for one year. He returned to his alma mater and served in a variety of roles: J.V. head coach for eight years at St. Ignatius High School, varsity hockey assistant coach for one year, two years coaching j.v. soccer and j.v. baseball, and three years of freshman baseball. At St. Ignatius he has created and directed the Sports and Arts Chaplaincy Program.
Notable guest quotes:
“Catholicism was the air that we breathe. It wasn’t something that we talked about much, but it was presumed that we’d be at Mass at Holy Family Parish on Sundays. The picture of Jesus right next to the front door and the blessing of my parents wedding from the Pope were hung on the walls and that’s just what it was.”
“My high school is an exceptional place. It’s a place where the Holy Spirit flows really freely. When I was a sophomore, we had a student gathering… where four kids had 45 minutes to speak to the entire student body about their experience going on a service trip to the Dominican Republic. And hearing what they were talking about and the way that they were living with families and digging latrines, it sounded like something that I wanted to do and was called to.”
“Our Catholic faith shows us accompanying the poor and discovering Christ in and through the other, especially the poor and vulnerable and being the face of Christ for them.”
“Being with people who did not have nearly as much as I had and spending time with them, those pregnant moments where there’s nothing going on, opened me up to a way of living, a way of being and experiencing Christ in the other.”
“In college, the happiest people that I met, the brightest people that met, were practicing Catholics, were people who took the time to get in front of the Eucharist, to go to Confession, to pray before they ate meals.”
“I was lucky enough to be on the team with our head coach… We prayed before practice. We prayed before games. It was part of what we did. And so I was in an environment that made it easy to continue to practice the faith.”
“In the exact same way that a football coach should know every single aspect of his team but is also going to have an offensive coordinator – because offense is so important, we need somebody to drill down on that and to make that his or her own – at St. Ignatius we have 20 people who run the chaplaincy for 25 different teams and performing arts, that help invite kids to know Christ in and through their sport.”
“I came back to the school, and I wanted to know, how are we inviting kids into the faith through sports. We say that we are and I saw it happening in an ad hoc way… I wanted to see, is there an institutional way that we can do this… I remember like Father Ken Styles being at the end of the bench when I was playing hockey at school.”
“I’ve actually gone to Rome and talked to some people at the Dicastery for Culture and Education and sports falls underneath that, and the idea of laypeople being the chaplain is something very, very different in our church for high school level, moreover in North America.”
“My buddies, when I was in high school, we would wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go play hockey. We wouldn’t wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go to Mass. But to leverage their love of hockey, their love of basketball, their love of soccer, to show them how God’s reaching out to them in that, and then that becomes an inlet to go to Mass. That becomes an inlet to engage with the church. That’s what we’re attempting to do at our best.”
Related link:
Sports and Arts Chaplaincy Program at St. Ignatius