Episodes

Anthony Acosta

He has played competitive basketball his entire life, saying that his team always won first place in league, and during his senior year at Mark Keppel High School his team made it to the California Interscholastic Federation semi-finals with only one player over six feet. He was featured in his local newspaper twice as part of their basketball coverage. Plus, he ran track in high school as well, having gotten his mile down to four minutes eleven seconds.  On the faith side, he works at Virgin Most Powerful Radio where he hosts two shows: “Through His Wounds” and “Thunderous Theological Thursdays.”

Notable guest quotes:

“(the faith is) the main aspect of our lives. I never really noticed it until I have friends come over our house and be like, wow, you guys are really Catholic. Because on our walls, it’s filled with Catholic art.”

“We prayed the rosary every night, went to confession, monthly, had a great relationship with priests, altar served from a very young age.”

“We would drive 45 minutes to an hour in traffic to go to Father Broom, who many Catholic listeners may know. He has a blog online that’s very popular, Father Ed Broom from St. Peter Chanel. We would go all the way to his parish, out of our way, just to get catechized where he was at and we would go to confession with him face to face.”

“I go by the park and oftentimes there’s a mom who’s trying to show her kids how to play basketball. And she doesn’t know what she’s doing. So, I go in and help them because that’s what my dad did for me.”

“My motto is like, as a Catholic, you are a sacrifice, to live as a sacrifice.”

“If you can’t altar serve, at least when you pass by a church, make the sign of the cross. And in that sense, you’re bowing to your king who is physically present in the tabernacle.”

“You have to guard your mind and the way you do that is through silence because this world is full of noise, full of chaos… And the way you prepare … to filter all that noise is to spend some time in silence, spend some time in front of our Lord in adoration, in meditation, where you’re only thinking about one thing, something holy.”

“My favorite compliment that I ever got from a priest is that, ‘You know what Anthony? You don’t know how to be anything but Catholic.’ That’s because I see the world through the wounds of Christ. That is the best way to interpret this world.”

“You never know what life is going to bring you, but God’s always going to put you in a position that you can handle. And then lean on Him when you feel like you don’t have what it takes.”

Related link:

Virgin Most Powerful Radio

(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)

Brandon Allaman

He played football during all four of his high school years but also spent some time in swimming and tennis. Later he would go on to coach gymnastics, and present day he is active in pickleball and weightlifting. He says that, “Sports taught me discipline and perseverance, which carry into the way I lead and serve today.” Approximately five years ago he even started getting into ultra marathons, including running a 50-miler as well as a marathon and half-marathon. On the faith side, he leads Livin U, a nonprofit helping teens grow mentally, physically, and spiritually through retreats, leadership formation, and mission trips. He is also a Knight of Columbus.

Notable guest quotes:

“My grandparents raised me Catholic. I went to Mass every Sunday, Sunday school, and then in high school went to youth group and did retreats and mission trips.”

“My grandma … she was raised Catholic. My grandpa was Protestant and the day they got married he received all his sacraments. So, it was her side of the family – that is why I’m Catholic.”

“My family is a big Notre Dame fan, so I’ve always been Fighting Irish, Notre Dame, and that’s my team now. I love Notre Dame with a passion.”

“High school football just wasn’t what I expected. I thought I would play a lot more. I thought I would be a star football player but that didn’t come to fruition, and I had to learn a different role of encouraging people, showing my faith, learning my faith, displaying my faith on the team.”

“Those trials of not getting a chance to play all the time and the tough practices, losing games that we weren’t supposed to lose and having to run suicides or do bear crawls, (I) learned perseverance going through that. Those trials, going through those hard moments, it builds character.”

“Football was my passion… all I really cared about. And then I started diving into my faith because I got asked to be on a retreat team and that opened up my eyes to be, like, there’s much more to life than sports.”

“Football teaches you skills and it teaches you lessons but I’m not going to play football for the rest of my life, right? So, it’s just me realizing there’s something much more to life than football and the Catholic faith is the realist.”

“We’re coming together as a team to accomplish a goal and service is what Jesus tells us to do, be his hands and feet. So, I was like, why not make this a part of my mission?”

“I can show them that I care about them, that what I’m saying, who cares.  It’s me showing you that I care about you and hopefully you see that and then you’ll listen to me and the message of putting God first, serving others, and taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually.”

“It’s the old evangelization. It’s the original evangelization. It’s what the apostles did. It’s what Jesus did. And that’s what the church needs to do to build it back up.”

“Holy hours – spending time in adoration. I have to do that. If I don’t then I know my talk is gonna be bad or not the fullest of what God is asking me.”

“I focus on them. It’s not about me, it’s about these kids building a relationship with Christ and I have to be Christ to them. And what would Christ do? Focus on them, not focus on me, my message, (but) caring about their heart.”

Related link:

Livin U website

Kristin Sheehan

She has served as the Program Director for Play Like a Champion Today since its inception. Since 2006 the program has served over 160 thousand coaches and parents through a network of 280-plus partners across the United States and Canada. As a student-athlete she was a gymnast from youth through high school, and then, attending the University of Notre Dame as a Theology major, she was a varsity athlete on the cheerleading team, and now is a certified yoga instructor. On the faith side, she has worked with the Archdiocese of Detroit and has attended both the 2015 and 2022 Vatican Conference, including leading a panel at the latter.

Notable guest quotes:

“Catholics, we’re about communing together and that’s where we get stronger.”

“We were true Catholics every Sunday at Mass… I went to St. Thomas More grade school… first grade through eighth grade. And our faith was very strong.”

“So many times when we are in a difficult situation and we need to do something that we just we know we need to do it, but it’s difficult, offer it up. And God will help us get through it.”

“As kids, we got to go to one game, one football game a Fall. And we always completed that football game with Mass. So, it was a football game, and it was Mass. And I remember so much as a child stretching across the aisle when it was time to say the Our Father. And that was the first place I’d been where they would move out of the pews and hold hands. So, the whole church was embraced in hands, and they would sing the Our Father. And that was powerful for me.”

“There’s no coincidences, there’s God instance. And that’s how I became involved in Play Like a Champion.”

“There was a lacrosse coach at Notre Dame who was also in athletic administration, and he had a passion and had gone to Uganda to teach children in the villages lacrosse. And so, he became a friend of ours and he said, ‘You should come … we should do some character things as well in addition to the physical sport.’ And so, we went over to Uganda and then the next year we took Notre Dame students with us, and it was a credit course.”

“He did what professors like to do, he did a research study, and he published it. It was called Youth Sport Behavior, and the subtitle was The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and detailed, like, we think that sports builds character, but there’s no direct research that shows it builds good character. In fact, it really depends on the environment and what is modeled in the environment and sometimes kids are learning poor lessons.”

“A friend of mine was at Notre Dame for a year doing a certificate program and she is a yoga instructor, and she began teaching yoga at Westville (correctional facility) and she said, ‘I really feel badly because I’ve started this and it’s a good space to be and I’m going to be gone in a year.’ And so, I thought, well you know I might be able to do that. So, that inspired me to get certified and kind of take over for my friend.”

“You find God in your breath and when I teach, I very much am able to use – if it doesn’t offend anybody in the room – spiritual language that, God is in your breath, God is in your movement, it helps to regulate, to manage your emotions.”

“That’s what Jesus did; he saw, and he believed in every person for their inner goodness.”

Related link:

Play Like a Champion Today website

Bob Hurley

In 2010 he was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — one of only three high school coaches ever to receive that honor. He began coaching at St. Anthony’s High School in Jersey City in 1972 and his teams won 28 state high school championships, had 18 undefeated seasons, won nine consecutive championships, were four-time USA Today national champions, and he was a three-time USA Today National Coach of the Year. He finished with an amazing won-lost record of 1,185 victories and just 125 defeats and produced over 150 players to Division I basketball programs and coached six first-round NBA draft picks. He is the President of the People’s Park Foundation, focused on regulation-sized athletic fields and a true community park for Jersey City, plus, in 2017 he founded the Hurley Family Foundation to continue his mission of developing children’s potential in life through the game of basketball.

Notable guest quotes:

“My parents had us all go to St. Paul’s grammar school, and then we all went to Catholic high school. I think our faith was … with us throughout our years growing up, and it helped us shape who we were.”

“When I was playing in my freshman year at St. Peter’s College, my brother Brian was in the eighth grade, and he asked me if I could go to practices – this was, again, my parish St. Paul’s – if I’d go to practice, because the basketball coach … was a fireman, and he couldn’t always get to the Friday night practices. And even though I was playing in college at the time, I was living at home, commuting to St. Peter’s. So, I’m in the neighborhood, I go to Friday night practices, but I would conduct the practice, I wouldn’t just sit there.”

“At St. Anthony’s, even though I was the varsity coach for 45 years, I was the freshman and J.V. coach for five years before that, so actually when school closed, I had been there for 50 years.”

“I never lost my connection with my parish. And I guess, lateraled my connection with Saint Paul’s parish into what was a daily lifelong attachment to Saint Anthony’s parish downtown, which spawned the high school and which became an alternate family for me.”

“Basketball players, I think, probably had more opportunities because of the tutoring program and things that I made available for as many kids as I could. Ultimately, the kids were following the lead of basketball players, and they were becoming, in a lot of cases, the first family member to attend college. And we tried as we could to send as many kids to Catholic colleges as we were able to.”

“As kids got older, kids, if they just weren’t good enough to get a varsity uniform – because you were only allowed to dress 16 – they became my managers. And they would go on to be student assistants in college. And a couple of those kids actually went to colleges and made the team and played in college.”

“All of a sudden, the job opens, and the job is going to be at Xavier, and it’s the summer of ’86. And now, as we’re looking at this, and we go visit … and my wife and I … they show us places we’re going to live. We love every part of it. And we kind of had a handshake on, we were going to do this. And we got home, and my sons were more prepared for this than any test they ever took or any paper they had to hand in. They had all these questions for us about this transition. And after we went through all the questions, I had to call the next day, and said, ‘This is not happening. My kids, they love every part of, they were going to Our Lady of Mercy Grammar School. They both wanted to go and play at St. Anthony’s. They had met so many friends from the different, big CYO program at the time here in Jersey City’.”

“We look back; we were blessed. Every decision we made about family, it was always in what’s the best interest for our children.”

“Over the years you would always say, it’s, yes, the basketball is part of who you are. But your life on a campus with the values and the religious instruction and just the tradition is going to be something that’s going to become part of you.”

“All the little Catholic schools were closing, and we weren’t happy with what was going on with grammar school kids in public schools, there wasn’t any after school programs. The kids were going home, and they were either out on the street, which wasn’t good, or they were shut-ins, which is only a little bit better. So, we opened up the gym and … indicated anybody wants come down to the gym, we’ll open the gym five days a week… and we’ll teach you how to play… we won’t charge you.”

“Even during my time coaching, I’d go to four o’clock (Mass) in the afternoon or if I had to do something on Saturday, eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday and then I’d go to practice.”

Related link:

Hurley Family Foundation

(This episode contains a prayer from the National Catholic Coaches Association’s “The Leadership Papers,” although originally credited in there to The Coach’s Bible.)

Sister Marie Cacciatore

She played basketball and softball in high school and also participated in archery. Present day, she serves in a role at Alvernia University – a private Franciscan university in Reading, Pennsylvania – where she works with the 38 varsity teams, including activities ranging from attending coaches meetings to praying with teams before practices and games, and joining the bus with teams to offer support and prayer. On behalf of Alvernia athletics she also serves on the Thoughtful Assessment Group, and her goal is to continue to expand her work with student-athletes and across campus in order to support and minister to as many students as possible.

Notable guest quotes:

“My parents were prayerful. Certainly, they were practicing Catholics. My mom in fact went to Mass every day. But it was a prayerful atmosphere.”

“I attended our parish school. In fact, the parish was our social, our religious, it was our total life. And then I went to high school actually here in Reading, Pennsylvania. It was kind of a convent boarding school. And then I went to Alvernia and then Villanova. In fact, my only public education was when I went for a degree in clinical and humanistic psychology at the Center for Humanistic Studies.”

“My dad participated in what then was considered semi-professional football for the Eagles. So, we all kind of, in my family, I’ve heard the saying ‘We bleed green’.”

“I don’t know if it was a spiritual call, but I felt drawn to go to that high school. Even though I was young and immature in, certainly in the spiritual life, forgive me, but I think of God pulling me. I have always felt pulled in the right direction. Praise be Jesus Christ for that. And I think that’s what happened. So, at 17 I entered.”

“I threw myself into my teaching. And along the way I had encounters with Christ, with God, that drew me into finally what I think, God help me, was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, with His mother Mary and with God, my father.”

“In one school, I was activities director, and it involved also being at most of our varsity games and even our freshman games and junior varsity. So, I became very involved in learning about each of the sports and meeting with and cheering on the students.”

“The concerns of athletes, I think, are the same no matter what academic level, the stresses of being a fine athlete and being a fine student and having a social life. And then in there is God. Somewhere in there is God, not only to be called upon before a game because … God does not choose the winner. So, the Catholic school across town is praying to the same God to win. So, I never went in there – I used to speak to them about the talents God gave them, and how to be the best with those talents and to use them and to develop the skills.”

“I think of St. Irenaeus. Okay, Irenaeus said, I’m going to change one word in it, but he said, ‘The glory of God is a person fully alive.’ And the word that he had in there was ‘man’ fully alive. So, forgive me, but a person fully alive. And I think that is so true because you’re developing not just your mind, you’re developing your body. And you’re developing a power of the mind and the spirit to want to achieve.”

“God heard me crying on his shoulder, saying, ‘Lord, what are you doing? Did you think about this God?’ And, of course, I was told pray about it… I should have realized if God is sending me it’s going to be fine, and it was.”

“In the very beginning (at Alvernia) the Sisters prayed before every class, if they were present at an athletic event, or if they were having their own meetings, they always paused, remembered God’s presence, and began with a prayer or a reflection or silence.”

“God’s not watching his television to see you win. He’s watching to see how you’re growing, how the world, how his children are growing. So, to be mindful of your opponents, to be mindful of your coach and the referees, I think that’s all a part of our mission moment before any kind of athletic event.”

“I’m a woman full of mistakes and errors, but God is so good to me. And I think God is good to all of us despite our mistakes, and athletes will make mistakes just like the rest of us and it doesn’t mean it’s over.”

Related link:

Alvernia University athletics

Sophi Wrisk

She is going to be playing for the U.S. Women’s National lacrosse team.  She is fresh off the second of back-to-back national championships with the University of Tampa women’s lacrosse team, finishing 2025 with 40 goals and ten assists for 50 points in 14 games, including two goals in the national championship game. In 2024 she was named the Most Outstanding Player of both the NCAA Championship and the Sunshine State Conference Tournament. Before her three years with the Spartans, she started her collegiate career playing at the University of Maryland, where the team won the 2022 Big 10 Tournament. That followed a high school career where she was All-County in lacrosse, volleyball, and basketball. She has also served as the Head Coach of Calvary Christian girls lacrosse.

Notable guest quotes:

“In eighth grade, I committed to the University of Maryland to play lacrosse.”

“I was playing rec lacrosse when I was younger and then I started playing club lacrosse in probably about fifth grade.  So, kind of getting myself out there, getting myself in front of coaches.  I was also very blessed with the coaches that I had growing up, who, they did play for Maryland at some point in their lives.  So that kind of also gave me a little bit of a connection towards them and Maryland was the best.  So, I knew I always wanted to go there.  That was my dream school.”

(the pandemic’s impact on sports) “put a lot on my mental space and my mental health.  Luckily, my family and my faith was there for me, and obviously are still there for me.  But, without my family and my faith, I wouldn’t have been able to get through that part of just having everything seem like it (was) ripped away from me all at once.”

“My end of sophomore year there, I thought about quitting lacrosse almost and just completely dropping it all.  … I was not in a very good space with everything that was occurring.  So, I had a very hard time, took a lot of prayer and took a lot of faith in me just to be like, I have to stick it out.  Just do it.  Even though this is my dream school and all that I’ve had my entire life, there is some place else for me and I just have to put my faith in God that He’s going to lead me to the better place for me.”

“Unfortunately, went down, and I knew it was my ACL right away.  My teammate even 30 yards away from me said that she heard the pop of it, too.  So, very gruesome.  I went down and … the first thing I said as soon as I hit the ground was just dear Lord, like why?  Just like, please, why?  This is not happening.  Give me a sign that it’s not this.  Let this all just be a crazy dream.  There’s no way that this is actually occurring.”

“Just the amount of excruciating pain I was feeling was just so unbearable and so hard to deal with.  And then eventually as the day went on, it turned to just praying and being like, all right, Lord, you had a plan.  This was meant to happen.  This is what you have written down for me.  So, I just have to keep chugging along and just have faith in you.”

“That game (I) got hit, went down the wrong way, and unfortunately probably messed up something else.  And, went out, was praying to God on the sideline once again, just please, please let me finish it.  … that could have been our last game if we lost.  So, I was like, just let me finish out at least my last game.  Just please let me do it.  And then thankfully He gave me the strength and the courage to get back out there and finish out the game and thankfully the rest of the season.”

“I think God gives His toughest battles to those that He knows can handle it.  So, I think it was almost like God picking me up personally to be like, you know what, I’m going to give you this and this is going to happen.  But in the end, you’re going to turn out triumphant and you’re going to finish through it and it’s all going to work out in my favor.”

“It’s given me chances … to … share about my journey and share how the Lord really gave me the strength and the courage to push through it.  And hopefully it gives others the same.”

“Once a week, we had our … devotionals on Wednesday where we had a faculty member or a priest or someone would come out and they would lead us through prayer and just different exercises to share and grow in our faith as a team.”

“I usually do (the sign of the cross) in the middle of games sometimes but definitely at the end of the national anthem just praying that I’m having a good game, that everyone on the field stays safe, especially our team and that we can just do our best with the talent and the abilities that God has given us.”

Related link:

Sophi’s bio on UT website

Tom Dahlborg

He played all four major sports as a youngster, in addition to being active in tennis, racquetball, weightlifting, and boxing. His Little League baseball team won the league title and the city title, before he then moved on to play basketball in high school, and football in college. He would go on to be a youth sports coach and the founder of a youth sports program. He authored a piece called “10 Steps to Bench Bullying by Coaches” and, with his daughter, is co-authoring a Christian book series called, “The Light.”

Notable guest quotes:

“The CCD program was really, I wish … I really focused far more because there was so much goodness being shared.  And it was really designed to connect with the youth, with the children.  And it was a terrific program and through CCD was confirmed years later and learned a ton through that process.”

“I was born with, I had issues with my legs and so I had ankle/foot orthoses that my parents would to strap on me every night since I was a baby, and for years and years.  And they would call them my ‘cowboy boots’ so that I wasn’t as sad or morose to have to put on this metal contraption to address my leg challenges, my leg issues.  So, I would wear those every night, get up in the morning, crawl to my parents to have them take off my ‘cowboy boots’.”

“I was playing for Stone Hill College… if you’re an athlete, you’re used to the term, I believe it’s the unlucky triad.  I think that’s the term that they use for it when you blow out your ACL, your MCL, and you lose some of your cartilage.  Well, I blew ‘em both out, lost cartilage, and I also blew out the posterior cruciate and the medial collateral ligament.  And so, my orthopedic surgeon basically said, ‘You have nothing holding your knee together.’  And long story short, that is literally what ended my career.”

“Throughout that sports journey throughout my faith journey, I’ve been an observer and I’ve gotten to see the goodness within sports and within – in our faith and our communities and those things we want to stand, to fan the flame of good.”

“42% of children are bullied by coaches, 37% are by teachers and it goes on and on.  If a child is bullied, they’re up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide.”

“That’s what got me into coaching was to help my son learn to love himself and tap into God’s love for him by coaching him in basketball.”

“It was off the court.  So, speaking of basketball, off the court challenges that kept arising; that, again, hitting my knees, praying to God that I say the right thing, that I do the right thing, that I could connect with the right expert.”

“People think going into coaching is about, oh yeah, we’re going to score some runs in baseball. We’re going to do this.  If we choose to and we open up our hearts and our minds and look up to God, we have these incredible opportunities to help these children and these families and these communities far beyond the sport itself.”

“If a child has (Adverse Childhood Experiences) … if they also experience positive childhood experiences, that actually leads to mitigation of the impact of the ACEs… And it’s beautiful when we think about Jesus’ message.  We think about … the sermon on the mount, which is so close to my heart, the beatitudes.”

“We can tap into our faith, we can tap into our heart, we can tap into that agape love we experience from the Lord and share that with children, with youth, with family, with community, and truly bring that kingdom of God on earth.”

Related links:

TBKID Youth Sports Program (on Tom’s official website)

10 Steps to Bench Bullying by Coaches

The Light (book series)

[This episode contains a prayer by Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception (Oldenburg, IN) Athletic Director Tim Boyle, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport]