Kelly Larson
Episode 59
16 MAR 2020
An Assistant Girls Track Coach at City High School in Iowa City, Iowa, where the team has won four state championships in her 18 years there. She competed in track & field as well as in basketball at Loras College, a Catholic institution in Dubuque, Iowa. She is also the vice president and a board member of the National Catholic Coaches Association. And she is a religious education teacher.
Notable guest quotes:
“College is sort of a time where once you get out of your home – your parents and everything and the structure – you kind of get out and you start spreading your wings a little bit, and a lot of times people tend to stray maybe away from the things that they did when they were living under their parents roof – church and their faith being one of those.”
“What I was really grateful for is, being surrounded by the Catholic faith, even when maybe I wasn’t paying that much attention to it, it was always there, and it was always sort of a backbone of our education.”
“They were able to also incorporate attending Mass with our teams during basketball season and track season.”
“I really enjoyed learning more about my faith that I didn’t realize I just hadn’t learned in a public school and it just really solidified in me what my faith meant and how important it was to me and how important it was that I continue my faith journey.”
“I hope that something people can describe me by is knowing that I’m a Christian, knowing that I know God and that He’s a part of my life every day.”
“I took her aside and I said, ‘Let’s say some prayers. Let’s take a few moments and make this night about God as well, because you are sacrificing what you wanted to probably do with your family for your team‘.”
“I’m also free to wear my cross necklace… and I let people know that I pray and I thank God for a lot of things in my life and I let the girls know that I’m grateful for them and that I do pray for them and I thank God for them.”
“I just remember being incredibly overwhelmed and not knowing what to do and talking to a lot of people and just so exhausted and it kind of hit me one day, ‘I gotta go talk to my priest’.”
“My first thought was, ‘Why God? Why?! What is the deal?’ And then I went through a little bit of guilt thinking, okay, I shouldn’t be questioning.”
“God is with me. He’s walking with me every step of the way.”
Related link:
National Catholic Coaches Association
