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Porter Moser

Episode 64

20 APR 2020

The head men’s basketball coach at Loyola University Chicago since 2011, has been an NCAA Division I men’s basketball coach for 30 years. His 2018 team went to the Final Four.  As a player he competed on the Creighton University Bluejays and in 2017 was named to the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame for his accomplishments as a player.  He has also been inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame.  Plus he is the author of a new book called, “All In: Driven by Passion, Energy, and Purpose.”

Guest quotes:

“I was born and raised Catholic.  Both my parents were Catholic.  And it was very traditional Catholic upbringing and I was able to go to Saints Peter & Paul Catholic grade school all the way through.  Then I went to Bennett Academy Catholic High School.”

“I remember finding the sanctuary of St. John’s Church right there on the campus of Creighton (University).  It was just, like, 50 yards outside the door of my dorm room… and I’d walk over there and be by myself, and just think and pray and just get my thoughts together and just ask for strength.  And I just remember having that private silent sanctuary to go to at St. John’s Church… And it was a defining moment in my life.”

“What I’ve learned in 30 years of Division I coaching… when I was a young coach I was so much about — and a lot of people are whether they’re in coaching or in business — you’re so much about the trajectory.  You’re, ‘What’s my next step,’ … and you’re so much about the trajectory instead of the journey and the relationships, whether it’s relationships with friends, family, spouse, kids, your relationship with God.”

“I just kept on praying for strength and I remember I just kept on saying over and over and over, ‘God has a plan’.”

“My faith grew and grew and grew and I was strengthened.  And, the adversity, I felt God’s power, I felt it more that God had a plan.”

“You achieve what you emphasize.  If you emphasize that relationship, that that’s a priority, same thing with your faith, you achieve what you emphasize.  If you’re not going to emphasize it, it’s going to keep going down in the pecking order.”

“God’s a lantern inside you.  And, are you going to let His lantern shine through you and have other people see His brightness through you, or are you putting a shade over that lantern to where He’s not reflecting through you? … I want my players to see that light.  I want the opportunities that are given me that come my way, I want it to reflect Jesus.  I want it to reflect my faith.”

“I also love what the Jesuits’ mantra is – men and women for others… I’ve just seen it in place when you put others first on how God finds it to come back to you.”

Related link:

Porter’s book, All In: Driven by Passion, Energy, and Purpose

(This episode contains a prayer from the South Bend Indiana Inner-City Catholic League, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)