Episodes

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]

Jay Paterno

An author, coach, and commentator with deep roots in college football, having spent over two decades coaching, including 17 years at Penn State. As a student-athlete he played football in high school, was on the 1986 national champion Penn State Nittany Lions in college and then went on to a coaching career that included Virginia, Connecticut, James Madison, and Penn State. His latest book, “BLITZED! The All-Out Pressure of College Football’s New Era,” offers a gripping exploration of the challenges facing today’s college football coaches, from NIL deals to mental health. A sought-after speaker, he regularly shares insights on leadership, resilience, and the changing landscape of athletics. His writing and commentary have made him a respected voice in sports regularly called upon by both fans and analysts for his perspective on what’s next for the game he loves.

Notable guest quotes:

“Our home parish was Our Lady of Victory, which, Phil Knight once joked to my dad, ‘What did they call it before you got there’?”

“We were altar boys, went to Our Lady of Victory Catholic school all the way through sixth grade. There was no Catholic high school in our town at that time, so we went as long as we could, went to CCD all the way through twelfth grade.”

“My mom’s very, very devout.  If you want to find her, she’s at four o’clock Mass every Saturday at the campus ministry, which she has given so much of her life to, and really all of us have been involved as well. So, you’d be hard pressed to find an area of our lives that was not touched by the faith that we were raised in.”

“The reason why I stayed in college coaching, not pro – and why my dad as well – in college coaching… you have the ability to impact people beyond wins and losses, beyond just an entertainment value for fans. You have an ability to take young people that come in as 17- or 18-year-olds that think they know everything and then quickly find that they don’t know everything and then watch them develop as human beings.”

“He was in a coma for a week, at one point was pretty much brain dead, and the doctors flat out told my parents, ‘There’s nothing else we can do. It’s in God’s hands,’ and he woke up on my birthday.”

“Immediately there’s this perception of an unfair advantage. But my dad, from the time I played and then when I coached, he made things harder for me than it was for other people.”

“My mom and dad would always say, ‘God doesn’t give you more than He thinks you can handle.’  And I occasionally would say, ‘Well God may have a much higher opinion of me than I have of myself because this last thing’s a doozy.”

“Now you have players that are coming into college, and their families have expectations of the kind of money they can get. So now it’s, ‘Well you’re at this school, but you’re not playing like maybe you should be. Let’s go to another school because they’re gonna offer you more money and you can raise your profile’.”

“Knowing that Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine was there and having heard that story as a kid and … the idea that you could go to a place that was so important in your faith and actually be on the ground and see the shrine and the shroud that’s there… we went and it was a very moving experience.”

“I read the Bible, and I do readings almost on a daily basis because I find it’s very sustaining.”

Related link:

Jay’s official website

(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)

Bob Zito

He has had his hands in a number of sports over the years. He captained the bowling team in high school, then played on the first-ever JV basketball team at Fairfield University, and later coached basketball and soccer at the club and high school levels.  He even ran the New York Marathon, back in 1988. Plus, he was a sportswriter for eight years, and present day runs a sports management business that represents athletes across five different sports. On the faith side, he serves on the Board and has a scholarship at St. Peter’s Prep and also is the Vice Chair of the FDNY Foundation Board of Directors. When he was Executive Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange, he established the NYSE Fallen Heroes Fund. He has even visited a basilica in Italy where he saw the remains of Saint Zita in the church’s altar.

Notable guest quotes:

“My dad insisted that we go to Catholic grammar school… He insisted that we go to Catholic high schools … My dad tried to make Mass every day, spearheaded a fundraising effort at our parish… and I just remember them always being close to the church.”

“When I was at St. Peter’s Prep in my freshman year, I actually started a weekly sports newsletter to try and capture everything that was going on at the school.”

“We’ve seen so many schools be shuttered, especially here in New Jersey, Catholic schools, because the archdiocese can no longer afford them because enrollment is down and it’s sad to see but it’s a fact of life and it makes you appreciate schools like (St. Peter’s) Prep even more.”

“Cento Amici is an organization; we’ve been around for now for 37 years, my dad and I started it.  It raises funds for need-based scholarships in New Jersey.  Right now, we’ve got 14 schools… We raise money, give it to the schools, and the schools then confer to students who are deserving of that money.”

“I’m just doing what I enjoy.  I love helping young adults and children and seeing them progress.  On the athlete side, I love it when one of our guys or girls is successful.”

“One of the things I have seen in the sports business is the importance of family.  When an athlete has a strong family background, that athlete has a great opportunity to succeed.  When the family unit is not there, there are just too many people pulling at the individual, and not always pulling in the right direction, and it’s very sad to see.”

“My wife … and two of her good friends… All devout Catholics have an organization where they help patients who typically are in serious medical difficulty… I love watching what they do.  That, to me, is more God’s work than what a lot of people are doing.”

“I was kind of amazed by this particular Basilica because I had read that Santa Zita was buried in the facility, so we went in and went up to the altar and there in a glass tomb in the altar are the remains of Santa Zita.”

Related link:

Bob’s sports management agency

Belinda Terro Mooney

As a student-athlete, she lettered in basketball and track, including having been All-District in basketball in her junior year. Present day she enjoys swimming, walking, jogging, dancing, and basketball. On the faith side, she is an author, Catholic Coach, and speaker, and has a story about having met Mother Teresa, which we shares during this interview. Her current writing projects include “Pray With Us: A Saint for Every Day,” “The 3 Works of Reparation: God’s Divine Mercy for Our Times,” as well as making a Catholic edition of her book, “My Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Workbook: Creating a Comprehensive Plan for a Calm, Ordered Life, 2nd Edition,” which contains information and planning for exercise in all forms including setting goals for sports and sports teams.

Notable guest quotes:

“I would witness my dad every night saying his prayers next to his bed before he got into bed. And my mom, saying her rosary in the bed at night, those were just daily occurrences in my life. And they would take us to Mass every Sunday, got us our sacraments… I always had a sense of God as my father, since I was very, very little. So, just a lot of piety as I was growing up.”

“We had a coach who really ran us to death. And that’s when I was in the best shape of my life. It was just an amazing time… And I just learned that you either get tough or you get out and I wasn’t getting out.”

“It was a time in my life when it was difficult– the school that I was at, there was some bullying and stuff. But basketball made me feel like I was strong. Basketball helped me through that time.”

“A good time in my life, especially as a young woman to feel that my body was strong. It was something that God had given me to help me through this life. And I was in the best shape of my life. And that’s when I made the all-district team in my junior year.”

“I probably could have played basketball in college… I let it go. And it was a great loss. I still have regrets about that… I unfortunately had to grieve that.”

“Instead of doing therapy, I’m doing coaching, which is easier for me because coaching doesn’t go back into the past and the pain. It stays in the present and moves into the future; what goals you want to set, just like the improvement that an athlete would have with a coach trying to move them forward in their performance and whatever sport they’re playing. Same thing with life coaches. We’re just doing it with the rest of life.”

“I feel like when you go to a country that has all these saints and especially if it’s saints that you have a personal relationship with – I love many, many saints in heaven and I’ve researched a whole lot of them – so when I was younger, I always wanted to meet up with Saint Bernadette. So, when I was in France, I got a chance to go (pray) at her reliquary… and then I also got to go to Saint Teresa of Ávila.”

“It’s just a lot of grace when you go on pilgrimages and I do recommend it, even if it’s just around where you live, if there are any saints’ relics or anything, you can go to your church and pray with the relics there as well.”

“I wrote to her a couple of times and she replied both times herself. She said, ‘I write all my letters myself.’ So, I still have those two letters from Mother Teresa, which is after I had met her.”

“Jesus told her the saints are the most powerful on their feast day. So, I’ve been praying this way as an intercessory prayer person for many, many years where if I know what the saint is on the calendar, who the saint is for the day, that’s their feast day, I’ll pray with them for all my people that I’m praying for.”

“When you know the saint whose feast day is the day that you’re having a big game or a race or whatever you’re doing, you just ask them to pray with you and ask our Father to help you do what He’s giving you to do.  And you’re going to do better than you would have had you not.”

Related link:

Belinda’s official website

Jerome Pannell

He has been coaching high school basketball for 15 years, including ten as Varsity Head Coach at La Salle Academy, an all-male private, independent college preparatory Catholic school in New York City, where he also serves as the Athletic Director. The survivor of a recent medical miracle, in 2017 he led La Salle basketball to their first-ever New York State Federation Championship, a team that saw one of its players eventually chosen in the NBA Draft. As a young adult he had organized a Friday Night Drop-In Center, where neighborhood youth could play basketball in the parish gym — provided they participated in prayer beforehand. Two of the highlights of his faith life include having discerned a possible call to the priesthood and having met Pope John Paul II.

Notable guest quotes:

“As a very young child, the faith was primary to our existence in our household.  My grandmother ensured that everyone in our family practiced the faith actively and that was initially through the basic ways, the sacraments and attendance at Mass.  After my grandmother passed my mom made sure to kind of take the baton and ensure that I not only knew how to show up for holy days of obligation or Sunday Mass, but not to just come and be an observer in parish life but to be an active participant in the life of the parish and sharing my faith.”

“I started playing (sports) at a young age, ironically all through Catholic organizations for the most part and I played in high school.”

“The intersection of my faith with sports is kind of a foundational piece for me because the two kind of go together in every step of my life.”

“Monsignor Howard Calkins is a inspirational and foundational piece of my life in terms of his support of my family and how I saw him minister to the people of our parish and the people of our community.”

“What we do for those on the fringes is amazing and can be so captivating.”

“I think that being able to teach where you are taught is one of the greatest blessings that you can receive. I love St Joseph and felt like it was an incredible foundation for me, and I was honored to be able to – by virtue of the principal, Simone Jackson, at the time and the pastor, Father Philip Kelly – to be invited back to teach.”

“It was shortly after my dad had passed away and it was in many ways a spiritual awakening because it allowed me to see that while I suffered a tremendous loss, God gave me so much in return.”

“My mom, in her infinite wisdom, called one of my best friends and told him to come get me and take me to the hospital and it took him a couple hours to convince me because I just thought I was fatigued and if he didn’t convince me I wouldn’t be here today.”

“There’s always time for prayer and it’s first. So, you can have a list of 20 things, but two through 20 are great, but it comes first.”

“When you are looking for the Lord, you don’t have to look very far. If you look you will find, and to find a Mass or a church that is open or an opportunity to worship or to serve Him. I get opportunities to serve him each and every day here at La Salle.”

“Here in New York at the Catholic High School Athletic Association we do a code of conduct and a prayer before every game in every sport because we want to lay the foundation for all of us (not) just as Catholic schools but just as human beings.”

(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.)