Episodes

Ciaran Clarke

He is an undefeated professional MMA fighter, currently boasting a 9-0 won-lost record, with his most recent victory having come on March 22nd, winning by way of a third-round submission in a featherweight match, after which he said, “I feel really great in this weight class and please with the help of God we can keep this streak going.” He hails from Dublin, Ireland, and is signed to Bellator MMA. From March 2012 to November 2018, he had 24 fights as an amateur. He had begun his combat sports journey through boxing at age 12 before transitioning to MMA a few years later.

Notable guest quotes:

“It was very much a Catholic household … Every Sunday, obviously, go to Mass and every night we’d say our prayers and again as a young kid, a lot of people think of praying as it’s maybe asking for something or praying for better days.  Well, actually when we were young, we were just praying for world peace or maybe there was a trial in someone’s life that we knew, or praying for good health and being thankful, to be honest.  It was actually praying to God to be thankful for things and also that was a big thing growing up when we were young.”

“In Ireland… when I was going to school, all the schools were Catholic.  You know, we made our first communion, confirmation, that was just, like, it’s a part of our culture and Ireland’s had great faith and still has.”

“When I was growing up, me being the eldest, I kind of had a little bit of a, you know, a bit of responsibility in my own young mind of kind of, I don’t know, like I had this responsibility of like kind of being, I suppose, the man of the house type thing.”

“As I became, you know, definitely as a professional … I would say, you know, the sport that I’m doing, definitely made me grow stronger in my faith.”

“What I pray for is the courage and the strength to get through the training, to stay injury-free, leading up to the fight, go in there healthy, and then for the two of us, the two competitors, which is myself and the other guy I’m competing against, to fight safely and go home to our families, win, lose, or draw.”

“I never (pray), you know, to win, you know, because, of course, you have to submit to God’s Will.  And that’s another thing, you know, I’m learning to deal with, you know, but like, I think that has most definitely, you know, my faith has grown massively in that.”

“When you really do put 100% trust in God, you know, you don’t have a lot of anxieties and it definitely relieves it.”

“As we all know, with great faith comes miracles.  And I know, you know, what God has done for me, and He’s never let me down.”

“We… always try and, in the area, you know, of the fight, we… always get to Mass that day.  And that would be a big thing like, you know, it’s we’ve created that kind of, I suppose, if you want to call it a ritual, you know, pre-fight ritual, you know, we go to Mass that day.”

Related link:

Ciaran Clarke on Instagram

(This episode contains a prayer seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Anna Zschuppe

She grew up playing soccer from the age of 9 and played goalkeeper and striker for AC Premier, Croatia Cleveland, and Kirtland High School and was trained under some notable former U.S. national team players.  She also has received her youth futsal/indoor referee license from the U.S. Soccer Federation, and she served as the girls’ head soccer coach at Braves Soccer Academy for U9-U11 teams for two years.  She now partners with Ignite Athlete Training in Dallas, Texas, as a soccer trainer. Meanwhile, she quit her six-figure, Fortune 500 job in corporate America as an HR consultant at age 26 to start her own business helping faith-based believers who feel like they’ve hit a breaking point in their lives or careers to discover their unique purpose, boost their confidence, and become the most authentic versions of themselves while keeping Christ as the focal point through mind-body-spirit wellness and connection.

Notable guest quotes:

“I quickly fell into soccer… and soccer is something that is huge within my family.  My dad, he was almost on a professional league for soccer.  My grandfather also played division one in Germany.”

(in college) “Easter Sunday hit and there was just something in me that said, you know, I missed Mass, like, I actually missed going to Palm Sunday Mass, going to Easter Sunday, so that’s when I started going… I started realizing, oh wait, I actually want this to be a part of my life, to some capacity.”

“The things that I learned in that season and was still able to love and participate in soccer and just a different way than I expected, was such a gift, such a blessing.”

“I was hitting this roadblock… of … I’m trying to get all of my happiness by all of these things I’m involved in: Bible studies, community groups, hanging out with people, having a different relationship with a different person, but I was still feeling unhappy.”

“You need to rewrite those lies with God’s compassion and truth.”

“I was really building this authentic relationship with the Lord, and I was actually having two-way conversations with Him, like, things that I would see and envision and hear from Him and everything.”

“That gave me the courage.  I knew the mission that the Lord had on my heart.”

“It was definitely a surrender.  I had to trust in the Lord that this purpose that He has for me, that it’s going to ablaze.”

“The Lord doesn’t call us to do easy things.  He actually asks us to take up our cross and follow Him.  The yoke is easy, his burden is light.  So, taking on his yoke, and for me, when I realized that, I was like, it would be a disservice if I didn’t follow this.”

“One of the things I realized in soccer was how much of a high achiever I was – that I wanted to find my identity by looking good on the soccer field.”

“Why is it that we have these beliefs that we have to look good, that our identity is tied into our sports life?  That we have to be liked and approved by others when, really, the person is the Lord, and He already sees us as perfect, whole, and complete.”

Related links:

Anna’s official website
Anna’s Linktree
FREE 15-Minute Prayer Session with Anna
FREE Coach Over Coffee Session with Anna
“Sacred Wounds: Stories of Redemption, Healing and Growth” Book
“TAG Talks Transcribed” Book

(This episode contains a prayer by Fr. Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Claudio Reilsono

He has had a long career in baseball, including being the all-time leader in wins as coach of the Carnegie Mellon University baseball team, which he guided to consecutive conference championships in 2015 and 2016.  As a professional scout, he has assisted in professional player signings all over the world and in 2002 was named General Manager of the Global Scouting Bureau.  He is also a professional hitting instructor, conducting his own hitting camps in several states and serving as a hired instructor at many baseball camps. He was voted into the “Steel City Sports” Hall of Fame in 2014, and is the author of a book called, “Lead from the Heart Up, Not the Neck Up.”

Notable guest quotes:

“My mom is the one who taught me things, talked to me about God, about prayers, Italian prayers and the importance of having it in your life and faith.”

“I remember going by our church and I didn’t realize I did it so audibly, so loud, that I used to pray, ‘Please don’t let my daddy go blind.  Please don’t let my daddy go blind.’ … My dad never went blind… Three or four doctors told him that he had glaucoma, and he was going to go blind… He would tell you, ‘It was little Claud’s prayers that got me through’.”

“My uncle used to work over at Three Rivers Stadium, where the Pirates and Steelers used to play.”

“My dad had a landscape business.  I learned how to switch hit (by) hitting apples and rocks.  So, I was constantly hitting and swinging and throwing and my mom used to say if there was a baseball in the air you could be sure Claudio is underneath it.”

“I got a job at Quigley Catholic High School for a whopping 800 dollars a year, but I enjoyed those two years, and we were playing in a tournament one time, and I remember my dad told me, he said, “I’m very proud of you.’  He said, ‘You treated this Quigley Catholic baseball team as if it were the Yankees.  You bloomed where you were planted’.”

“I’ve had a lot of negatives, banana peels, I’ll call them, that I had to avoid.  I learned a lot.  I learned that through faith, that’ll help you get through.”

“That day, I always say, the good Lord presented me, said, ‘Here, Claudio, this is your gift,’ you know, ‘This is it, this is going to be your day’.”

“Without the good Lord’s presence and my parents, (I) guarantee you all those accolades or jobs or whatever opportunities I’ve had would not have occurred.”

“The good Lord would have said, ‘Hey, have faith, in a couple years you’re going to be at that ballpark.  You’re going to sign that guy on TV.  You’re going to sign that guy’s nephew.’  Things can happen in life.”

“How did they happen?  I always say, Very simply; through faith, through hard work, perseverance, or, I condense it into the word T-O-P-P – I had to be tough, I had to overcome, I had to be persistent, and I had to pray.”

“Everything I do is from a Christian foundation.  That’s how I was raised.”

Related link:

Claudio’s official website

(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.)

Mark Aylward

He has played sports his whole life. He was captain, All-Star, and MVP of his high school baseball team and a starter on their varsity basketball team.  Collegiately he attended Notre Dame and played in the Bookstore Basketball Tournament all four years that he was in college.  After high school he had continued to play in a variety of sports into his middle age, including softball, tennis, golf, and basketball, across multiple leagues. Present day, he continues his exercise in the form of walking, yoga, stretching, and calisthenics.  He also has been an avid sports fan his whole life.  And, he has created a free, downloadable publication called, “Find Your True Purpose: A Simple Workbook to Help You Connect Your Gift to Your Work.”

Notable guest quotes:

“Two of my uncles were priests, and one of my aunts was a nun, who eventually left the church; not left Catholicism, she left the church with a priest in her parish, and they got married and spent the rest of their lives together as practicing Catholics.”

“We were in Catholic school the next year.  It was a good move, because we did, we got a lot of discipline, and I can only imagine how challenging school would have been for me if we never made that transition.”

“My brother played, we played on the same teams growing up.  We were undefeated for three years in a row in Little League when my father was a coach.”

“(At Notre Dame) it was a wonderful experience.  I certainly got the whole Catholic environment culture vibe.  You know, professors talked about it openly.  There were events, Catholic events all the time everywhere.”

“The nature of my fatherhood was so intense.  I took them everywhere.  I went to all their games.  I met with all their teachers.  I worked from gymnasiums and dance recital studios.”

“So, I did some self-reflection and I thought, you know, this can go two ways.  This can go bad and sinful, or this could be a really good opportunity to reconnect with God.”

“One of my favorite things that I’ve ever heard one of the priests say is, you know the one thing that we all have in common here is we’re all sinners.”

“Everything I do is spiritually influenced and, you know, I’m very thankful to God as often as I can be.”

“It’s become much like my faith, you know, practicing, my exercise and my breathing and my visualization and meditation and prayer, and then walking, getting out in the sun and exercising my lungs, when I miss a day or two, I can feel it.  It’s no different than when I miss a day of reading that prayer in the morning, which I almost never do.”

Related link:

Mark’s official website

(This episode contains a prayer attributed to legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Paul Joel

He has a miraculous health-related story. On the sports side, he played football in high school and college, including in the Glenwood Football League and training camp with the New York Jets’ farm team. During his first two years he became the best table tennis player in college. As a Pulmonary Fellow at Mass General Hospital, he worked with some of the world-class runners competing from the Boston Marathon. He is the author of a novel called, “A Man Like You and Me: A Supernatural Adventure Story,” whose purpose, he says, is to increase faith in God in the reader, and is about supernatural events that started in his life in 1982.

Notable guest quotes:

“I had a kind of a rough childhood, kind of I was always alone… the only way that I made friends was on these sports teams.  So, sports was kind of like a saving grace – suddenly you have friends.”

“We were high school kids, and we were playing against men who were like 25, 26, 30 (years old).  I played four years in that league, and we won the championship three times.”

“I woke up in the middle of the night and the orthopedic surgeon, a resident, sawed open the cast and my foot was paralyzed and numb.  So, I had a numb, semi-paralyzed — the strength came back but since 1971, that was the end of football and that was also the end of being an orthopedic surgeon.”

“All of the Boston Marathon elite athletes would come through and they would get tested.  And, of course, they could do much more exercise than I could because they were world-class athletes, but when it came to the anaerobic threshold, the part where you’re now making lactic acid because you’re using up more oxygen than you’re taking in, I was able to go further than any of those people.”

“I get a message.  I don’t hear anything, it’s just somebody who’s just talking right into my brain.  ‘I love you, your sins are forgiven,’ and suddenly I’m all happy and I’m excited and the creator of the universe just communicated with me.”

“My wife… she’s a firm believer… a fine graduate of Catholic high and very devout Catholic.”

“I look back where the light is and I see a Christmas tree for a few seconds.  That disappears.  And I see an Easter candle for a few seconds.  That disappears.  And then I see the face of Jesus and I’m petrified.”

“We’re in Rome… in October 1982, western Europe, on Europasses, and I’m walking up the Spanish steps and I look up and I see the Holy family with baby Jesus… and that’s important because that’s the reason why we went to Barcelona, to see the sacred family church.”

“On April 29, 2022, miraculously my memory comes back.  What’s even more of a miracle is all the MRIs showed that the parts of my brain responsible for memory were destroyed.”

Related link:

Paul’s official website

[This episode contains a prayer (poem) by Central Catholic High School (Pittsburgh, PA) Principal Ed Bernot, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport]

Terry Tucker

He attended The Citadel on an athletic scholarship, going on to co-captain the men’s basketball team in his senior year and then receiving the Senior Class Sportsmanship Award at graduation. He had played for Marist High School in Chicago and was co-captain and MVP of his team in his senior year and was All-State Honorable Mention. He had also played for St. Charles Prep High School in Columbus, Ohio, playing both for the JV and the varsity basketball teams. He’d started out playing on the St. Anthony Middle School basketball team that won the Boys’ Basketball of America National Championship. More recently he was the varsity coach of the girls basketball team at Emery High School in Houston. He is also the author of a book called, “Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life.”

Notable guest quotes:

“Catholic faith has always been an important part of my life… I was an altar server growing up, loved being an altar server.”

“The Catholic faith has been a huge part of my life… years of trials, tribulations, ups, downs, goods, bad, but keeping God, Jesus, at the center of all that’s been going on.”

“I… went to The Citadel… my youngest brother… pitched for Notre Dame… my middle brother… played for the Cleveland Cavaliers.”

“There was a priest (at college)… and so I would go to Mass every day that I possibly could… and then my junior year I was elected as president of the Citadel Religious Council.”

“I had three knee surgeries in high school… So, playing in college was literally a miracle.  I mean, the fact that I had the opportunity to do that after three knee surgeries was absolutely amazing.”

“He says, ‘Terry, I’ve been a doctor for 25 years, and I have never seen the form of cancer that you have.’  And at the time I was told it was a death sentence, that if I received a miracle, I might be alive in five years, but more than likely I would be dead in two years.  So, I was given the death sentence and thought well maybe through the grace of God I can turn that death sentence into a life sentence.”

“Humility I just define as service above self – what can I do to make other people’s lives better?”

“The faith, the family, the friendships that I’ve had – which I call my three F’s – those have absolutely kind of melded together.”

“And there’s sort of that old joke that says when we talk to God it’s called prayer; when God talks to us, it’s called schizophrenia.  And God never told me to write a book.  But I think what God does is, He puts people in your life that start making the suggestion, ‘You should do this.  You should write a book’.”

“Our purpose in life should not be to fill ourselves up.  Our purpose in life should be to empty ourselves out, certainly for the betterment of ourselves, but also for the betterment of our family, of our friends, of our community, of our country.”

“I say a rosary every day.  And I spend at least an hour in prayer.”

Related link:

Terry’s official website

(This episode contains a prayer by Gregg Easterbrook from the NFL.com and ESPN.com column “Monday Morning Quarterback,” as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Dave Schultz

He was active playing baseball as a youngster, and then added swimming to his list of sports when he got to junior high. As he got into high school, he stuck with swimming but dropped baseball, only to find out in the future that he was being scouted at the time. Later in life he taught at a Catholic school where he was also the softball coach and took a group of girls who never won a game prior to him coaching to being division champs. He would also coach baseball for the city parks and rec league, plus he coached for a couple of years in the Catholic Youth Organization.

Notable guest quotes:

“I was born and raised Catholic, but after I was confirmed, my parents did not push to go to church anymore.  We were regulars in the pews every week up until that point.”

“(My father) was a well-rounded athlete, growing up… and, the baseball part, I like to think it’s genetic too ‘cause my grandfather would’ve gone pro if it wasn’t for World War II.”

“Baseball was very big to me.  I played baseball from age five all the way to ninth grade… I was one of those kids that would just play any sport that was available.  I played basketball… flag football… golf.  I played tennis, a little bit of everything.”

“During (college) I remember going to church and I would hear friends talk about going to church and it just kinda popped in my head that, ‘Ya’ know, I kinda miss that part.’  I just remember having some feelings that kinda started pulling me back towards it.”

“One of my friends who volunteered regularly at one of the churches near campus, they said, ‘Hey, there’s openings for some catechists.  Do you want to join as a volunteer…’ and, I agreed to it.”

“I moved on to a Catholic school and taught there for three years, but during those times I volunteered to be the softball coach!”

“I’m the kinda coach, also, I’m always giving advice, but I’m always doing it positively… You’ll never hear me bash a player.  I don’t believe in that.  I don’t like seeing that.”

“It’s taking a step back and realizing it’s not about you… When they’re out on the field you can’t do everything for them.  You just have to teach as much as you can and hope that they’re able to do it out there on the field… You’ve got to give some release to your ego.”

“I was on the Parish Council for a couple years…  It was just something I felt called to do…. and… I was an active Knight for about two years or so.”

“The Catholic education, we think it’s been great for (our kids).  They’ve been very aware… of their faith and what it means to help out each other and what it means to give of themselves.”

(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.)