Episodes

Fr. Dale Grubba

He has run 63 marathons and hand cycled an additional twenty. He had coached Cross Country at Holy Name Seminary in Madison, Wisconsin, for ten years, including winning a state championship. He was also head coach of the Holy Name Seminary track team for eight years, also winning a state championship. In 2000 he was inducted into the Wisconsin Cross Country Association’s Hall of Fame.  He has also been an auto racing photographer and journalist, and has written seven books.  He has been a parish priest since 1966, including St. John’s in Princeton, Wisconsin, where he has been for 35 years, and St. James in Neshkoro, Wisconsin, where he has been for 20 years.

Notable guest quotes:

“I can’t tell you how blessed I’ve been.  I could never have picked a better vocation just simply because the Holy Spirit has always been with me to push me to new boundaries and to new adventures.”

“My choice was really to go and to be with people.  And I’ve loved doing that in my parish life and I’ve loved it also in my racing life.  I consider the auto racing part of my life a third parish that I have.”

“I always thought of those sports – like whether it was running marathons or whether it was coaching, but especially in the field of auto racing – I always thought that those were my way of connecting with people, and especially with people that might not be going to church.”

“So he was lying there in his coma and I said, ‘Bobby’ – ’cause I flew with him in his private plane quite often – I said, ‘Bobby, let’s do what you do when you take off in your airplane,’ ’cause he would always invite everybody, Catholic or non-Catholic, to make the Sign of the Cross.  And so I said, ‘Bobby, let’s make the Sign of the Cross.’  And he made the Sign of the Cross!  And that was his first coordinated movement after being in that coma for a long, long time.”

“What Kurt (Busch) wanted me to do was to say Mass for him in the morning, but then stand right by his car and give him a blessing before the start of the race.  And I was to be the last person that left his car.”

“For the millennium, I was in New Zealand running the first marathon of the new era.  But not only that, I got up at midnight – and I don’t think there are many Catholics in New Zealand – so I got up at midnight and said Mass.  And I thought to myself, ‘I’m the first priest to say Mass in the new millennium’.”

Related links:

Books Fr. Grubba has published

Jesse Romero

He was a three-time World Police Olympics boxing champion and is a former USA middleweight kickboxing champion and he is a member of the Sports Faith International Hall of Fame. He has a Master’s Degree in Catholic Theology and is an author, radio host, and evangelist. He is also a retired veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Notable guest quotes:

“I always had a sense of, I wanted to be on the side of good… Even since I was a kid, I’ve always had an understanding of good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies, vice and virtue.”

“I remember as a Catholic school boy just hearing that gospel, the Sermon on the Mount, over and over again, ‘Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called the Children of God,’ Matthew 5:9.  That stood with me ever since I was a little kid – peace maker, peace maker, peace maker.”

“I learned how to box, how to do martial arts.  Why?  Not to hurt people, not to be a bully.  So, I could be a peace maker.”

“I think America’s, uh, we’re suffering from truth decay and that’s why I felt called to be a sheepdog in the world of speaking and promoting the absolute truth of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Catholic church.”

“I think all the training I did in martial arts and in boxing, all that did was strengthen my resolve to realize that life is a battle; politically, intellectually, in our faith walk, it’s adversity, it’s climbing uphill.  And I think boxing and karate, it prepared me for the adversity of life.”

“I think it’s very Catholic to work out because our body affects our mind directly.  So, it’s our responsibility as Catholics to keep our bodies healthy.”

“I think what exercise is to the body, prayer is to the soul.”

“I was saying, ‘Wow, you can be a man of faith and a man of God, and also an athlete and also an effective police officer and a sheep dog.’  And so, those three, they’re not mutually exclusive.”

“I just had this explosion in my heart where I just said, like, ‘Wow, Jesus is amazing.  I LOVE Him!’  A switch just flipped in my heart… where I just said, ‘Man, I LOVE Jesus.  I want to follow Him’.”

Related link:

Jesse’s “Catholics Wake Up: Be A Spiritual Warrior” book

Jesse’s website

(This episode contains a prayer adapted from one by an unknown Confederate Soldier, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Humpy Wheeler

The former president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway, having served in that role for 35 years. He has long been known as one of the foremost promoters of NASCAR auto racing and was inducted into 14 halls of fame. Back in his days as a student athlete he played college football at the University of South Carolina. His athletic career also included time as an outstanding boxer, posting a 40-2 won-lost record. He co-authored a book called, “Growing Up NASCAR: Racing’s Most Outrageous Promoter Tells All.”

Notable guest quotes:

“Today, there’s a tremendous Catholic population in the south, particularly in the big cities because of the migration from the north.”

“We went to Mass in the bay of a filling station!  And it was common to go in theaters on Sundays.  The blue laws, you couldn’t show movies on Sunday in a lot of places in the south, so, they loaned the priest the movie theater for the day and so we would go there.”

“I would line fields and cut grass and he even taught me how to tape ankles and all that kind of stuff.  So, I was around the monks.  There’s a Benedictine monastery there.  I was around them all the time.  And it made me feel extremely comfortable, even to this day, with priests.  And I have a lot of dear friends that are priests who I talk with regularly.”

“I’ve been very fortunate to have spent over 50 years in the auto racing business and doing the thing that I really love to do the most, and also the ability maybe to serve a – what I call it – an underground ministry.  You don’t wear a collar.  You just be a good Catholic and you try to minister to those around you in a subtle way.”

“There’s a great deal of Christianity and Catholicism in helping other people handle grief.”

“All kinds of moral things come up race week.  Something happens to somebody… and having Fr. Grubba there was wonderful, ’cause I could ask him anything.”

“One of my ministries, my own personal ministries, I don’t raise money for it or anything else, but… One of my ministries is to try to help young black kids who have grown up without a father.”

“The Benedictine monks set a great example for me, having been around them as a kid all the time; work, pray, and pray.”

“I have a wonderful relationship with the Blessed Virgin.  She has helped me so many times when I’ve been at the bottom of the barrel.”

“We have kept the faith as strong as you can as the real anchor to our marriage.”

Related link:

Book – Growing Up NASCAR: Racing’s Most Outrageous Promoter Tells All

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

Colleen Day

The Associate Head Coach for the women’s basketball team at the University of Akron. She previously was an assistant coach at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, after having spent ten seasons as an assistant coach at Miami (Ohio) University, where she had competed as a student-athlete, being a four-time letter winner there and three-time team captain.  She has since been inducted into the Miami University Hall of Fame for her success on the court.

Notable guest quotes:

“I grew up in northeast Ohio… going to St. Columbkille for… first through eighth grade.  I have five siblings, a traditional Irish Catholic family.”

“We had a really active campus ministry (in high school)… They really allowed us to run a lot of things, whether it was just prayer group, Bible study.  They always held Masses on Sunday where the student body could just attend, which was really neat ’cause our chaplain was able to really direct his homily and conversation around things that really mattered to us.”

(at college) “We had… right in town… a church… and I was able to get involved with that right away, lectored and also was a Eucharistic Minister there… It was great for me because I knew Sundays we usually had basketball off so I could still get there… I felt like it really kept me grounded… to be able to make sure I was going to Mass and kinda able to reset myself for the week.”

(she and her husband) “we’re both so centered in Jesus through our ministry through coaching… I definitely think both of us see it as a ministry… but we try to keep our players and our service to them at the forefront of it.  So, we’re able to remind each other a lot what’s important and not get caught up in the things that we shouldn’t.”

“There are a lot of athletes who have strong faiths, so that alone sometimes can just be a connection with them.”

“We can get so caught up in winning as college coaches.  And yes, we do get paid to win, but we also get paid to serve our student-athletes.  And, again, between myself and my husband, we try to keep that at the forefront of what we do and not get caught up in the egos that a lot of times can overtake this profession.”

“Yes, I love getting a defensive stop or drawing up the play to win a game or something like that, that’s all fun, but, the day-to-day, I love the relationships with the players and I love some of the things that we’re able to do with the community.”

Related link:

Colleen’s U. of Akron bio

(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.)

Evvere Anthony

Originally from Antigua, and now living in Arizona, as a young child her dream was to be a Catholic nun.  She is a Benedictine Oblate and has also made her Cursillo weekend.  She also served in the U.S. military for 12 years.  The list of sports she has competed in is quite lengthy, and she even won a Presidential Award for Athletics.  Nowadays she is a coach with the North Phoenix Christian Soccer Club and also hopes to one day compete in wheelchair basketball as part of the Paralympics.

Notable guest quotes:

“My home was right next to the Catholic school… so my mother enrolled me over there.  And, as I entered the rooms where the nuns were, I saw a picture of Jesus on the cross, which I had never seen before… and I just wanted to know more about Jesus after that.”

“I was lucky enough to grasp the Bible so that I could teach Sunday school to the little ones.”

“I went to Rome… and I prayed with the Pope, John Paul II, and even though I was kind of going to church I wasn’t in the church like I was before, and he said ‘Catholics come home’ … so I decided I needed to get back involved more fully than just going.”

“I went to the Mass and that’s when I met Monsignor O’Grady … he invited me to come back the next Sunday, and I never stopped going… I was able to become Minister of the Word there… I became an Assistant Sacristan.  I was also a Eucharistic Minister.”

“They needed a Catholic chaplain assistant to join up with the different groups that were there… Your premise is, for the Catholic faith, you’re going to fill in as a Minister of the Word because there’s not a priest there every Sunday, so we still tried to have something.  So, every Sunday in Iraq we would have Minister of the Word.”

“I was lucky enough where I started talking to the aviators that we need to schedule the priest to come every week and not every month.”

“The Ugandan guards were so amazed because they knew me as the lady that does the ministry, who’s a soldier who does Ministry of the Word in the Catholic church, and from that point on they were like, ‘You’re a nun with a gun’!”

“I get to work with young men and women, mostly the female team that I have… and we’re able to assist them with the Christian faith.”

“The Lord is foremost in what we’re doing in terms of training because we don’t want them to have an attitude of, ‘I’m winning, I’m playing to win and I don’t care about anything else.’  Teaching them that if you put the Lord first, everything else will fall into place.”

“People think you have to win all the time, it’s all about winning.  There’s lessons to be learned in losing.”

“Your faith is… a team sport in the sense that we’re all trying to get to heaven but we’re all going in a different direction, but we’re working together.  That’s the church, the bride of Christ.  So if we’re working together we should be respecting each other whether we’re on the field or whether we’re in our normal lives.”

Sam Harris

Currently an offensive lineman at Minnesota State University Moorhead.  Prior to that he was a two-time all-state and two-time all-conference selection with St. Mary’s Central High School in Bismarck, North Dakota, a private, Roman Catholic co-ed school where he also competed in boys’ varsity wrestling.

Notable guest quotes:

“I decided that football my whole life was my identity, and this last year I realized that my identity isn’t in football.”

“I was a cradle Catholic and I was blessed to go to twelve years of Catholic education.  So, it’s kind of just always been a part of my life.”

“I think the most radical thing you can do as a college student, the most counter-cultural thing you can do as a college student, is live out your faith.  And so, there’s always hope that, if you want to be a rebel, you gotta live your faith in college.”

“I was worried that I wouldn’t be surrounded by like-minded people.  I wouldn’t be surrounded by solid Catholics.  But I kind of looked at that as an opportunity to grow, as an opportunity to cement my faith.”

“My senior year of high school, freshman year of college, I wasn’t sure – I was either going to go with the way of the world or I was going to use what I learned and I was going to become even stronger in my faith, and luckily the latter happened.”

“The perspective of the human from the Catholic perspective is we’re a whole person, so we should be striving for excellence in all areas of our life.  And so that’s something I’ve tried to carry over from my faith to football and also to academics.”

“I realized that if I want to really live a life that isn’t just being known as a Catholic but has an identity as a Catholic, I had to grow close to the Eucharist.”

“It was no longer an intellectual understanding of the Eucharist.  It was no longer, ‘I know that that’s the body of Christ,’ it was, ‘I believe that that’s the body of Christ.  I can feel in my heart that that’s Jesus Christ on the altar.”

“It switched from desiring to be the guy that’s known as a Catholic, to desiring to be the guy whose identity is Catholicism.”

“When you grow close to the Eucharist and when you try to build a devotion to the Eucharist, God does not disappoint.  He continues to give you gifts in that effort.”

“I continued to pray, ‘Help me be comfortable feeling uncomfortable’.”

Related link:

Sam’s player bio page, MSUM football

(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)

Steve Steele

He grew up playing hockey and football, including competing in the latter sport for four years at William Penn University in Iowa, where he helped his team win a conference championship and broke the NAIA national rushing record.  He went on to coach the offensive line at Dakota State University before going on to his current position as head football coach of Pierre TF Riggs High School.  PLUS he is Head Coach of the Oahe Capitals High School Hockey team.

Notable guest quotes:

“I was a cradle Catholic, really brought up well in the faith.  I’m very blessed to have the parents that I do have, and not just their teachings but their example.”

“I think that was really one of the first moments that I can clearly remember that we were – or at least personally – I was stepping aside and saying, ‘Okay, this is what I’m feeling God wants me to do, so I’m going to do it even though in all reality I don’t know that I’m overly comfortable with it yet, but I’ve gotta trust Him and do what I think He’s wanting me to do’.”

“Our Catholic high school, we put a very large premium on doing community service and being involved in the community and in your own parishes.”

“Obviously I took so much from my parents, but, learning a lot more and going even further in-depth at the school really just kept me wanting more and then being able to teach Religious Ed to the elementary school kids helped me be able to pass that on and then hopefully build that excitement in that generation as well.”

“We were able to get it going and start doing some service projects and meeting every week. It was a lot of fun, again, just to continue to hopefully build that excitement, build the passion for not just sports, not just school, but ultimately for the Lord.”

“Life’s about what you can do for others and how you can express love to others.”

“We all have families and that’s gotta be our primary job and we’re all big boys, we can find a way to still be prepared for football on Monday even if we don’t come in (to work) all weekend.”

“You’ve gotta look back to Jesus to realize that people weren’t all that happy with his decisions that he made too and he obviously, he’s the one that we need to be following in terms of making decisions and if we were to just go for the popular decision then chances are we’re not doing what he wants us to do.”

“I do think that the most important way that we can minister is by setting a great example.”

“I’ve tried to really focus on waking up at five or a little before and doing both – meaning, running or working out in some fashion and then saying a rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet every morning.”

“Be courageous.  It’s a tough thing and it’s a really hard world, I think, that we’re living in right now, but I don’t think it’s harder than the world Jesus was in.”

Related links:

Coach Steele’s “Offense In A Box”

Pierre TF Riggs Football

Oahe Capitals Hockey

(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.)