• Merchantside Square Ad
  • Now Hear This 300x250 Ad

Jason Jones

Episode 90

19 OCT 2020

He fought (Kyokushinkai) (Japanese karate) in the Tokyo Dome in Japan in 1995, representing USA, and continues to compete to this day. He had also played football in high school.  He is a movie producer and — among numerous other projects he has done — was the Executive Producer of a TV documentary called, “Mother Marianne: Portrait of a Saint.”  He is also the founder of Movie To Movement, which promotes the incomparable dignity and beauty of the human person through the power of film.  They just released a documentary that longtime NFL tight end Benjamin Watson is the executive producer of.

Notable guest quotes:

“As a boy I think I was lonely a lot, and I longed for companionship.  I also longed for a mentor.  And, that’s something you get from sports, right?  You get companions.  You get cohorts.  You also get coaches who are mentors.”

“There’s a sacramental nature of sports… It’s a secular sacrament in that when you’re competing, it’s a sign in a little moment of your life how you’re going to live the rest of your life.”

“For me, what sports taught me was honesty and sincerity.  You can’t fake it.”

“Here I was a black belt, a guy that fought in the world tournament… and an MMA fighter came from England and … said… that I was kind of a letdown.  But I’m so glad that happened… My buddy said, ‘This is part of your vocation’.”

“I love this little small type of media, ’cause we’re a tribe.  We’re guys who are Catholic guys, right?  This is like the locker room at your local Catholic high school, but now we’re old dudes but we love our sports.”

“All of us who are Catholics, when we go to whatever it is our sport is, we’re bringing Jesus Christ into our tribe.”

“I think the tribal aspect of sports is a great opportunity to share the gospel too.”

“When I read the New Testament, what really startled me was just this idea of God becoming man.”

“Saint Maximilian Kolbe was someone I discovered… that to me seemed to be the model of the type of person I wanted to be.  I wanted to be somebody that would risk all and give all for the vulnerable.”

“The Catholic moment isn’t when there are huge conferences and bishops are there selling box sets of DVD box sets.  The Catholic moment is when people are scattered, people are alone.”

Related link:

Movie To Movement website

(This episode contains a prayer by Fort Worth Christian Football League parent Linda Fleshman, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)