Episodes

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers

He was a wrestler for Saint Benedict’s Prep School – ranking #2 in his senior year, when he was undefeated in dual meets – and then went on to become the coach of their freshmen and JV wrestling teams.  Earlier on he had played baseball and basketball.  Presently he is a deacon in the Catholic church and travels across the U.S. and around the world speaking at conferences, workshops, retreats, parish missions, high schools, and young adult events. He has a Master of Theological Studies Degree and, among other works, is the author of the best-selling book, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality.

Notable guest quotes:

“I had a heart condition, heart murmur… So, the doctors wanted to play it safe and told my mom, ‘Let’s not let him play football, but he can do pretty much any other sport.’  And so, I was not allowed to play football.  So, when I got to high school, I wrestled.”

“Any good athlete knows that ten percent of the sport is physical, 90 percent is mental.”

“Part of the reason why I was coaching (was) ’cause I was also discerning monastic life at the time.  So, I was actually a postulant in the monastery, in the very early phases of joining the monastic community.”

“It was great to be a mentor for those kids and not just ‘Here’s how you do this move,’ but also be like a big brother or in some cases maybe even a father figure to some of those kids.”

“I’m actually the first baptized Catholic in the history of our family.”

“If you ever come from a household where alcohol is an issue, I don’t have to tell you about the hurtful and the painful and the embarrassing moments when you come from a household like that — often when you wished you lived in your friend’s house than have to go home to your own house.”

“She had been praying a rosary every day for twenty years.”

“In 2012 I left my job in law enforcement — I was in law enforcement for 23 years — left my career to start speaking and writing full-time on the Catholic faith.”

“How could people not believe in God?  When you hear how God can work in someone’s life; the power of God’s grace, when they’re open to receiving what God wants to give them.”

“Even as an athlete, I tacitly wanted my father’s approval.  I wanted him to be proud of me, and the things that I was doing on the (wrestling) mat.  But even more, to be proud of the man that I’d become.”

“Malaysia… it was actually illegal for me to come there and talk about Jesus publicly.”

“What I’ve found in countries where they have to fight for their faith — where their faith is under some oppression — that’s where the faith is most alive.”

“God’s the musician, I’m just an instrument.”

Related link:

Deacon Harold’s website

Trent Klatt

Currently the Director of Amateur Scouting for the NHL’s New York Islanders.  As a player he had a long career in the National Hockey League, having originally been chosen by the Washington Capitals in the 1989 NHL Draft and going on to appear in close to 800 regular season games over almost 13 seasons, plus an additional 74 playoff games, competing throughout his career with four different franchises, including making a Stanley Cup Finals appearance with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1997. He has also done some coaching in hockey as well.  Listen near the end for his emotional report on his oldest daughter’s calling!

Notable guest quotes:

“There was a time I got sent (down) to Syracuse in 1999, I’d already played 400 games in the NHL.  It was one of the greatest lessons I’d ever learned.”

“I can honestly say I didn’t want to be there.  Ya’ know, everybody was wrong because I was sent there.  I’m gettin’ screwed — all that type of stuff.  And we ended up talking about God.”

“We would go have, on an off day, we’d have happy hour, have a beer, and we would end up talking about God and family and all that.”

“At that point in time, I had to start making decisions for God and not for me, ’cause I was just one selfish individual at that point in time.”

“It turned my career around completely, as far as hockey is concerned, and even spiritually it just sent me on a path that I needed to go find answers, and at my weakest moment, Darby Hendrickson was there and so was God.”

“Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re jumping over a hurdle or you’re walking through a mud puddle and the Lord’s gonna clean you up, but when you get beyond it and you look back, you go, ‘Oh, I totally get it now.  I had to be there.  I had to go through that’.”

“The benefit for me as a coach is, I had learned so many lessons as a player that I was able to just stay relatively calm on the bench.”

“As a coach you have time to think, ‘Okay, Lord, what do you want me to do here?  What do you want me to say?  How do I get through this problem?  How do I get through this mess?’  You had time to prepare a response and act accordingly.”

“When I was coaching everybody knew that I was a follower of Jesus Christ and I wasn’t afraid to tell people that and show people that and, ‘You’re gonna go to church on a Sunday morning… and then you’re gonna act differently in public’?”

“I was asked to kind of just come and speak at the men’s conference and give my own testimony and I’d never done that before.  I was scared to death.  My wife would say, ‘Well just tell your story, tell your story!’  And I’d look at her and I’d go, ‘I don’t have a story’!”

Related link:

Playing career from NHL.com

(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)

Chase Morlock

He was a running back for four years at North Dakota State University, capped off by a senior season in which he was named All-Missouri Valley Football Conference first team as a fullback.  In high school he had been an all-state running back and was even named to the 2012 Minnesota Vikings all-state team and Associated Press all-state second team.  In addition, he was an outstanding wrestler in high school, winning the 2012 state championship.  Along the way he, unfortunately, went through a major event in his family.  Nowadays he is the co-founder of and head trainer at Rise Training & Fitness in Minnesota.

Notable guest quotes:

“At the end of the day, really what mattered was just coming down to the sacrament of marriage, and getting to marry my wife, Heidi, was the best day of my life and… celebrate that amazing sacrament.”

“I was so plugged in at my church and just getting to know priests so well was just, it was just special.”

“(I) was raised Catholic, baptized Catholic… We went every Sunday… I grew up altar serving and I grew up doing all the Confirmation classes.”

“I think… there’s three big questions that I think almost everyone asks themselves at some point… Where do you find meaning, where do you find value, and where do you find purpose?”

“I think it’s just super special and cool how God kind of works and can prep you for getting your heart and mind ready for crazy things that are about to happen.”

“My quarterback in college, one of ’em, was Carson Wentz… I was having lunch with him one day and he’s the person that really stirred my heart… He just came out with a really bold question… He just said, ‘Hey Chase, how are you doing spiritually,’ just kind of out of the blue.  And nothing crazy happened in that moment, but it just got my wheels spinning.”

“We have a team priest at NDSU, his name is Father Jim Meyer.  I’d known him, I had attended a lot of Masses in college.  We do pre-game Mass before games, and I was always going to those… Father Meyer was by my side… and he still is to this day.”

“I was going to… for a long time… Fellowship of Christian Athletes… and then we had a guy come in and invited us to go to this Ultimate Training Camp and this is basically a non-denominational, just, Christian camp… and there’s athletes that come from all over the country.”

“Jesus was a real person and we can have a real connection to him… He sacrificed himself to suffer for what I did wrong.”

“I was reading books.  I was talking to pastors.  I was talking to different priests, just to, like, pick their brains. I just put a ton of research into studying.”

“I think a big piece of the Catholic faith that I really, really love… is just all about loving, serving, caring, and just doing these amazing works.”

Related link:

Rise Training & Fitness

(This episode contains a prayer originally from prayers-and-poetry.blogspot.com, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Kerry Fraser

An amazing conversion story filled with a series of mystical events – not to mention a serious medical diagnosis – from a man who officiated over 1,900 regular season games, the most in NHL history, plus an additional 261 Stanley Cup playoff games and even two NHL All-Star Games and one Winter Olympics.  “Referee” magazine selected him as one of the top ten officials of the century in any sport.  Following his retirement, he stayed involved in the game by participating in a blog for TSN called, “C’mon Ref!” and by serving as an analyst on TSN’s hockey highlight show.

Notable guest quotes:

“I went to Sunday school in the early years, probably to age six.”

“This is Holy Spirit talk.  When I was in Grade Two… in my public school… We used to be able to, back then you could say a morning prayer, and we would do the Our Father… And I can vividly recall sitting in my little desk and saying the word ‘God’ and … my body chilled, the little hairs on my arm stood up.  In hindsight, as I look back on that, He was touching me, He was calling me… He, through my baptism, was with me and in me and wanted me to do certain things.”

“(Refereeing) is not something for the faint of heart, shall we say.  But boy I’ll tell ya’, it was a great career.  I came in with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier and those guys, and I left with Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin – saw all the stars of the game in between.  But along that path… I learned a lot more about myself than I knew about the game of hockey.”

“I didn’t have the courage to back away from walking down the aisle… I knew I was making a mistake… In any event, three beautiful young boys were born of that 13-year marriage.  They were my life.”

“At the end of that 13-year… marriage, I was morally bankrupt.  I had a hole in my heart and I just didn’t know how to fill it.”

“Where there’s light, as we know, there’s darkness.  And some of the darkness (as an NHL referee) was on the personal attacks directed at me, on the ice, or, they were directed at other players, that I had to adjudicate.”

“(my wife) got on her knees in front of the little statue — and (she’s) a cradle Catholic — she got on her knees in front of the statue of her Blessed Mother that she had from childhood, she was sobbing and pleading to the Blessed Mother, ‘Please help this family.  I love my husband.  I love my child.  Please help us.  You’re a mother.  You’re our mother.  Help us’.”

“He talked about St. James over at Medjugorje and the mystical experience that everyone — the appearance, apparitions of the Blessed Mother.  And it was just so fascinating… I wanted to tape this beautiful message that he talks about.”

“She laid a… rosary in my hand… and a charge went through me and I said, ‘This is it’.”

“Things happened very quickly.  And my heart transformed.  It was me… that needed the help… And it absolutely changed my heart.”

“That start of the season, in early October, I had my first mystical experience on the drive to Pittsburgh.  That was my road to Damascus.  And I’ll tell you, it was so powerful, God revealed things to me in a miracle of the sun that appeared for at least 15 minutes while I was in rush hour traffic driving to Pittsburgh for the opening of the season.”

“The Holy Spirit was utilizing me and the opportunities of travel that I had.  I started going to daily Mass.  Every day, no matter where I was, I went to morning Mass.”

“God was touching me with His hand.  He loves me that much, a sinner that didn’t deserve it.  And He loved me that much that He would touch me.”

Related link:

Kerry’s book “The Final Call: Hockey Stories from a Legend in Stripes“

Barry Dean

The President and Executive Director of the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association for more than 20 years, AND he is the President of the Association of Catholic Coaches and Athletes, which he formed ten years ago. He played, coached, and umpired baseball at the collegiate level and at one point even traveled to England, Germany, Brazil, and Nicaragua as a Major League Baseball International Envoy (Diplomat) Coach to teach and promote baseball.  During this interview he also mentions having a brother who is a priest.

Notable guest quotes:

“I remember being a bat boy on St. Bede’s — St. Bede’s Catholic Church where I attend now — I was a bat boy for (my dad’s) team, and my two older brothers played on it.  And that was, one of the fondest pictures I have on my wall, is my dad and my two older brothers and myself in our uniforms.”

“I asked… ‘Can we have Mass celebrated, and I’ll get the priest, just get me the room in the hotel’ … They got me the room, I got the priest… and the wheels started spinning of having, forming an association.”

“I’ve woven a lot more ministry into the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association.”

“I’m blessed to live in Sweet Home Alabama.  That is more a faith — it’s obviously kind of the center of the Bible belt, kind of the buckle of the Bible belt, as they say.”

“I say… it’s for your future success that I’m more worried about, not as baseball players but as husbands and fathers.”

“I pray before our events.  I pray before our board meeting.  And I will do other things around the country and I hope and pray that I would not back down if I was getting pushback.”

“It makes you want to go to confession instead of… running from confession.”

“The Holy Spirit was just absolutely working me overtime.”

“It’s not the church… it’s not the priests, it’s the Eucharist, it’s the sacraments, wherever you are, wherever we are, and that’s the blessing we have as Catholics.”

Related link:

Association of Catholic Coaches and Athletes

[This episode contains a prayer from the Play Like A Champion Today Coaches Manual (University of Notre Dame), as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport]

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki

The Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. He has run 24 marathons in 17 cities, three of those in Europe. He is nicknamed “the holy goalie” for — to this day — continuing to play that position in hockey.  In 2013 he was inducted into the Sports Faith International Hall of Fame.  He has just put out a brand-new book called, “Running for a Higher Purpose: 8 Steps to Spiritual and Physical Fitness,” which follows a book he had previously written called, “Holy Goals for Body & Soul: 8 Steps to Connect Sports with God and Faith.”

Notable guest quotes:

“I’m from a large family.  I’m the third of nine children.  There are seven boys in my family and so we sort of had our own built-in sports teams.  There was always someone to play with.”

“It seemed a lot of my early life was centered around sports and faith, and that’s kind of interesting how that’s panned out later with the books I’ve written about the connection between sports and faith.”

“I was only about four years old, my mother said I was starting to talk about wanting to be a priest.”

“There were about five thousand of us runners and we gathered in St. Peter’s Square.  And the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, gave the Noon Angelus, as he usually did from his apartment window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.  And then he gave a blessing… for all the marathon runners and then he said… ‘Have a good marathon’.”

“We should treat our bodies with respect, and we should take care of them because this is a gift to us from God’s creation.”

“When I’m running, I have a little finger rosary with ten beads on each string, and I’m saying the rosary while I’m running.”

“We might think, ‘Well, saints are holy people that you read about in books.’  I’ve actually met a couple saints, so it’s very personal for me.  I had the good fortune of meeting Saint John Paul II several times… Then also had the opportunity while I was living in Rome to meet Mother Teresa.  I used to say Mass for her community, the Missionaries of Charity, at their convent, San Gregorio, behind the Colosseum in Rome.”

“Those good habits in both our physical and spiritual lives are what lead us then to this sense of seeking oneness or unity with God.”

“I think we have to take a longer view of things, that when we’re confronted with something that’s not going right or that we’re discouraged with it, to have trust in God and to just believe that we should, again, be consistent and we should stick to it.  That we have to be confident that God will see us through this, and His goodness and His grace will overcome all of these evils in the end.”

Related link:

Bishop Paprocki’s two books

Stacie Tovar

An eight-time CrossFit Games competitor. In college she had been a volleyball player at the University of Nebraska Omaha, following a high school career that saw her compete in both volleyball and track.  Today she is the owner of both CrossFit Omaha and Go Far Fitness.

Notable guest quotes:

“I went to a Catholic school and the school, because of the size of the community, it’s (kindergarten) through (twelfth grade).”

“I played nearly every other weekend, either the organ or the piano, funerals, I played in weekly Masses or when it was Saints’ Day or just a special circumstance I played for the school.”

“I loved (altar) serving.  Actually, in the eighth grade I was (Altar) Server of the Year and I was so proud of that accomplishment.”

“One of my favorite Biblical verses is ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’.  And that’s something that I’ve carried with me, I guess, through childhood and even into my adult life as a competitive athlete.”

“My heart has always told me, ‘You love to serve.  You love health.  You love wellness.  You love quality of life.  You love fitness.  You love to be physically active.  You love sports.  You love Christ.  Help people’!”

“I knew that this was what the Lord wanted me to do.  And, I trusted in Him, that He was gonna get the job done for me.  And, turns out, I ended up landing on so many sponsorships and wonderful partnerships that led me to where I am today.”

“You start to doubt in your faith and second guess ‘What are you doing,’ and, turned out to be, of course, of course it was, the Lord blessed me with the best year of my life.”

“I… talked to God many times in the middle of the afternoon after my training sessions.  I would just walk into church and sit down on the bench and, ya’ know, ‘God, thanks, ya’ know.  Thanks for everything you’re doing for me.  And, I love you!’  And, He blessed me beyond measure.”

“God called me back to truly find my passion and led me to this moment, and it would be a disservice of me, it would be super selfish of me, not to share everything that I’ve learned and continue to help.”

“I felt the Lord’s presence in that moment, just like, ‘Oh my gosh, thank you, Lord, for bringing me here.  Thank you for giving me the breath of life to do this trail, for giving me the ability to run this trail, and for all these kids’.”

Related link:

Stacie’s official website

(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)