Episodes

Drew Vilinsky

He played four years of varsity hockey at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland and then played four years of club hockey (two at Division II and two at division I) at Saint Louis University. After his playing days he served as varsity hockey assistant coach and j.v. baseball assistant coach at St. John’s Jesuit in Toledo, Ohio for one year. He returned to his alma mater and served in a variety of roles: J.V. head coach for eight years at St. Ignatius High School, varsity hockey assistant coach for one year, two years coaching j.v. soccer and j.v. baseball, and three years of freshman baseball. At St. Ignatius he has created and directed the Sports and Arts Chaplaincy Program.

Notable guest quotes:

“Catholicism was the air that we breathe. It wasn’t something that we talked about much, but it was presumed that we’d be at Mass at Holy Family Parish on Sundays. The picture of Jesus right next to the front door and the blessing of my parents wedding from the Pope were hung on the walls and that’s just what it was.”

“My high school is an exceptional place. It’s a place where the Holy Spirit flows really freely. When I was a sophomore, we had a student gathering… where four kids had 45 minutes to speak to the entire student body about their experience going on a service trip to the Dominican Republic. And hearing what they were talking about and the way that they were living with families and digging latrines, it sounded like something that I wanted to do and was called to.”

“Our Catholic faith shows us accompanying the poor and discovering Christ in and through the other, especially the poor and vulnerable and being the face of Christ for them.”

“Being with people who did not have nearly as much as I had and spending time with them, those pregnant moments where there’s nothing going on, opened me up to a way of living, a way of being and experiencing Christ in the other.”

“In college, the happiest people that I met, the brightest people that met, were practicing Catholics, were people who took the time to get in front of the Eucharist, to go to Confession, to pray before they ate meals.”

“I was lucky enough to be on the team with our head coach… We prayed before practice. We prayed before games. It was part of what we did. And so I was in an environment that made it easy to continue to practice the faith.”

“In the exact same way that a football coach should know every single aspect of his team but is also going to have an offensive coordinator – because offense is so important, we need somebody to drill down on that and to make that his or her own – at St. Ignatius we have 20 people who run the chaplaincy for 25 different teams and performing arts, that help invite kids to know Christ in and through their sport.”

“I came back to the school, and I wanted to know, how are we inviting kids into the faith through sports. We say that we are and I saw it happening in an ad hoc way… I wanted to see, is there an institutional way that we can do this… I remember like Father Ken Styles being at the end of the bench when I was playing hockey at school.”

“I’ve actually gone to Rome and talked to some people at the Dicastery for Culture and Education and sports falls underneath that, and the idea of laypeople being the chaplain is something very, very different in our church for high school level, moreover in North America.”

“My buddies, when I was in high school, we would wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go play hockey. We wouldn’t wake up at 5:30 in the morning to go to Mass. But to leverage their love of hockey, their love of basketball, their love of soccer, to show them how God’s reaching out to them in that, and then that becomes an inlet to go to Mass.  That becomes an inlet to engage with the church. That’s what we’re attempting to do at our best.”

Related link:

Sports and Arts Chaplaincy Program at St. Ignatius

(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)

George Rose

In light of Pope Leo XIV’s canonization of the Catholic Church’s two newest saints last week Sunday and due to other timely and relevant reasons you’ll hear cited at the very start, this is a reissue of what was Episode 188, exactly three years ago this month. The now departed George Rose was the Executive Advisor of Pacific Rim Operations with the New York Yankees, which included having served as a Japanese translator for the likes of Hideki Irabu, Masahiro Tanaka, and Hideki Matsui, among others. He also served as an advisor for Japan’s Yomiuri Giants baseball team. He was a board member of “Catholic Men for Jesus Christ,” a more than 25-year old organization. He also had a radio show called, “Brothers in Arms,” which he talked about here. And, he was a cancer survivor who by far was not only the first person to come on this show with a story about a miracle that would help confirm a saint, but probably the ONLY person who will be a guest and have that kind of witness to share — the closest that any of us will come to hearing something like this firsthand.

Notable guest quotes:

“I went to Catholic school just about my whole life, grammar school, high school, and college.  The first time I didn’t go to a Catholic school was when I got my MBA.”

“My mother was actually a nun at one time in her life.  When she first got out of high school, she was in the convent for three years.”

“When I was in eighth grade there was nothing I wanted more than to be a Major League Baseball player.  I used to sleep at night with my batting gloves on and my mitt.”

“When I was in my late twenties – 29 to be exact – I got sober at the time and about six months into my journey as a sober man I wandered back into St. Paul the Apostle on 59^th and Columbus, for Mass one Sunday, and when I went it was kind of like I was hearing the words of the Mass for the first time.”

“I did go away to college, in Worcester, Massachusetts, I went to Holy Cross, which is a Jesuit school.”

“I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer about five-and-a-half years ago, in 2017… I wrote to ask friends and family and anybody else to pray for a miracle of healing for my lung cancer.”

“I have a devotion to Sister Faustina and, of course, to all the Polish saints, right, Sister Faustina, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Pope John Paul II, just giants of the 20^th century.”

“I’ve been involved in Catholic Men for Jesus Christ for the last 12 or 13 years… we do Catholic men’s conferences in New Jersey in the Diocese of Trenton, near where I live, and I help organize the conferences and have been on the Board.”

“Even when you have cancer, every day, does become just a little more precious, I would say… And it was incredible how close I felt to God when I first got sick.”

Celebrating 1000 Career Episodes

A super special edition to celebrate the one thousandth episode hosted of Bruce Wawrzyniak’s podcasting career. In this special release, there are excerpts from all of the shows he has hosted over the years: Now Hear This Entertainment, Catholic Sports Radio, TASCAM Talkback, Capture Your Art, and the PBLA Podcast. Below are links for easy access to go hear any one or more of either the specific interviews featured here or just the podcast(s) in general. It took over eleven-and-a-half years to get to this point, but this is indeed a truly special milestone worth commemorating in this way.

Guest quotes:

(Eva Gardner) “When you’re really pushed and you really have all that pressure, for me, you just have to reel it back in and just remember that we’re here to play a show. We’re all sharing a stage. We’re all here for the audience. The audience is here for us and just to have fun with it because that’s why we’re all here in the first place.”

(Dom Morley) “If you’re working with someone like Sting or someone that’s just been doing it a very long time, … you’ve just got to make sure that you’re providing the environment that they’re used to, to create and to be as good as they can be because they’ve got more pressure as an A-Lister than somebody who’s doing a new project because the person’s doing a new project, obviously, they’ve probably paid for themselves. So, there’s definitely a lot of pressure there. But they don’t have a whole company of people that are relying in them to do a certain level of commercial success, which I think is challenging for anybody, particularly when they’re doing an artistic endeavor.”

(Mark Osegueda) “Decades after … it was released, we were approached by Carl’s Jr. for that to be used in a commercial. We thought when we were contacted by them that at first it was some sort of joke to say that someone was playing a joke on us, but no, it was true.” (Rob Cavestany) “It was also one of the three songs that was on our Kill As One demo tape that was produced by (Metallica’s) Kirk Hammett, that inevitably got us signed to our first record contract.”

(Mark Parfitt) “I was just blessed to be able to mix a song with Carter (Lang), and it came out and I’m just really happy because this is something that, it took me years to even be able to get in front of Justin Bieber and be able to record him, let alone have the chance to mix a song.”

(Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein) “It’s a lot of work. It’s fun because it’s something you like but it’s grueling man. Touring is hard. You play every night. It’s just like a job. Your friends will come and see you at certain cities and to them it’s party night and you get off the bus and want to go to bed. I’ve worked all day. I’m shot, you know, but it’s good.”

(Kyle Schmidt) “Even right after the game, still with my gear on, it was not to downplay winning a national title, especially the first in your program’s history. It was incredible and everything I dreamed of, but the one thing that I couldn’t wait to do was get back up to Duluth and later that month become Catholic.”

(Fr. Michael Lightner) “And then I hear this voice, and it says, ‘If I get her out of the, out of the wheelchair, will you enter the seminary?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’ve got a whole career ahead of me. You know I want to play football’.”

(John Livsey) “I think that when you look at the business of sports, it’s so dynamic and it’s so ever changing that if you get a chance to take a ride on the roller coaster of any project or league or team, it’s sports, it’s cool, it’s great because what I always loved about sports is that there’s a beginning and there’s an end.”

Links:

NHTE 283 Eva Gardner (bass player for P!NK)
NHTE 308 Death Angel (GRAMMY nominees)
NHTE 360 Dom Morley (GRAMMY-winning producer)
NHTE 540 Mark Parfitt (recording & mix engineer)
Capture Your Art 4 Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein (Misfits guitarist)
TASCAM Talkback
CSR 2 Kyle Schmidt (hockey player)
CSR 80 Fr. Michael Lightner
PBLA 1 John Livsey

Tony Saladino

In light of his passing just under two weeks ago, a reissue of his December 2019 “Catholic Sports Radio” interview. (Later this year he is going to posthumously receive the Sam Bailey Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Tampa, which will enshrine him in their Athletics Hall of Fame.) Every year since 1981 a tournament has taken place to promote high school baseball in Hillsborough County, which has Tampa, Florida, as its seat.  It was first established as a memorial for Tony Saladino, Sr. and, as of December 2019, had grown from eleven public schools to a 32-team event, with 38 players that have participated in the tournament having gone on to play in the Major Leagues, 12 of which were first round draft picks.  He had been at the heart of all of this for all those years.

Notable guest quotes:

“I was born Catholic… And we tried to instill all the spiritual stuff to our kids, grandkids, and all the players in high schools in Hillsborough County.”

“I played recreation ball, high school baseball, metro league fast pitch softball, and semi-pro baseball.”

“Regarding our high school tournament, we schedule it no Sunday games, no Sunday practices.  It’s strictly for church.”

“We want to make it a cordial, family style, safe, nostalgic event each year.”

“We used to have a breakfast for all the players before the tournament started, and (the Fellowship of Christian Athletes) would bring in various speakers to give Christian messages.”

“(Fr. Tapp) comes to the tournament opening day, when available, does a blessing to the tournament… and gives a brief message to the kids.  And he’s awesome.  Big part of my life.”

“We’re just trying to take care of these high school kids to become caring and responsible citizens.”

“I start each day by reading a daily devotional… and my personal daily mission is to help others somehow, and attempt to motivate, influence, and inspire youth and adults to progress and improve and succeed in life using faith and family involvement.”

“I admire role models that exhibit and demonstrate family and family in their lives.”

“(I pray) that no one gets hurt, that everyone succeeds in life – not only in baseball but in life – and become caring and responsible citizens.”

Related link:

Saladino Baseball Tournament website

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