Dan Leonardi
Episode 351
20 OCT 2025
He has been playing soccer since the age of five, although in high school he also played travel baseball. Following four years of high school soccer he played the sport at Belmont Abbey College. He played rugby after college and made a semi-pro soccer team, plus he spent six years as a soccer referee and has spent time coaching in the sport as well. He also is presently in a competitive volleyball league. He is the Director of Advancement at The St. Austin School, which is a pre-K – 8 Catholic school in St. Louis.
Notable guest quotes:
“Cradle Catholic as they say, and my mother was actually a convert before my brother and I were born, and through that conversion experience she actually met my father and then they had us.”
“We were indeed raised Catholic. We were homeschooled for a majority of our elementary educational years with some Catholic Montessori mixed in… And then for high school my brother and I both went to Catholic high school.”
“We’re called to be formed mind, heart, and spirit.”
“I always love defending; defending the faith, defending on the soccer fields. Whatever the case may be.”
“We had to memorize 15 quotes that were about Catholic teaching on sports or very Christ-centered messages around being faithful and fit. The school’s motto was excellence in virtue. And those 15 quotes, we had to memorize those, and we would get quizzed on them before we could step onto the field.”
“We may lose a game, or we may get tackled and we may get hurt a little bit, but it’s persevering through that pain much like our Savior did on the cross and in his ministry.”
“The three hearts pilgrimage… it’s usually in October when they have it, and that pilgrimage is essentially maybe a smaller scale version of the Camino.”
“It’s fascinating that the Almighty in His infinite wisdom chose to make Himself manifest as man beyond our understanding and maybe a conversation we can enter to into Him with when we see him in the beatific vision, God willing, of course.”
“I’m sure Saint Joseph himself was physically fit and… I always love to picture Saint Joseph, yes, as the terror of demons but also if anything happened or any physical threat to the whole family came, he was more than ready and willing to defend them and protect them as he was so strong.”
“I was just recently talking to our girls volleyball team here at St Austin and the coaches wanted me to talk about how to be more Christ-centered in their games and in their huddles and when they’re talking to each other, so I said, ‘Girls, look at the cross’.”
“He had to carry His cross after He was beaten and with people berating Him and spitting on Him and hitting Him and He fell three times and had the cross land on Him with all His open wounds but He was physically fit, yes, and even more spiritually fit and He was performing the will of His father as we are all called to do.”
“I think, in His divine wisdom, the good Lord sends us things in our life that we cannot understand, and we don’t see the reason why they’re happening, and I learned that in college soccer specifically.”
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