Episodes

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.)

Andy Sonnier

He recently directed a Catholic men’s conference in Texas and is currently studying for candidacy for a Permanent Diaconate program in his Diocese.  On the sports side, he spent many years in athletic training, both with college teams as well as the then NFL Houston Oilers.

Notable guest quotes:

“I met my wife in 2014.  She was from here in Orange (Texas), and just through God’s Will and different things that happened in our lives, we ended up here in Orange.  After we got married, we lived in Louisiana for a few years, but then we eventually moved here last year.”

“The earliest memories I have was weekday Mass with my dad before the crack of dawn… When we’d walk out of Mass sometimes it was still dark.”

“As a kid I was very in tune with my faith.  Ya’ know, we grew up in church.  I went to Catholic school for a couple years, middle school, and it was there where I had an experience… I went to a seminary retreat and I really felt Jesus speak to me on a personal level.  And I really felt the calling to the priesthood at the time.”

“God’s got a plan for all of us, and I think He’s got other things still in store for me in the future.”

“I didn’t really have the opportunity to play a lot of sports as a kid because helping out on the farm was more important.  But I did have my share of time to play a little bit of pee wee football, Little League baseball, things like that.”

“I owe God all credit in the world for getting me through that year because without Him I don’t know where I’d be today.”

“God’s opened a lot of doors for me.  And I give credit to Him for everything that’s happened in my life.  God’s Will is a funny ride.  It can really be quite a journey.”

“We have to really spend time with God and let Him show us our paths in life.”

“None of my bad decisions in life was ever preceded by prayer.”

Related link:

Annual men’s conference

Jason Jones

He fought (Kyokushinkai) (Japanese karate) in the Tokyo Dome in Japan in 1995, representing USA, and continues to compete to this day. He had also played football in high school.  He is a movie producer and — among numerous other projects he has done — was the Executive Producer of a TV documentary called, “Mother Marianne: Portrait of a Saint.”  He is also the founder of Movie To Movement, which promotes the incomparable dignity and beauty of the human person through the power of film.  They just released a documentary that longtime NFL tight end Benjamin Watson is the executive producer of.

Notable guest quotes:

“As a boy I think I was lonely a lot, and I longed for companionship.  I also longed for a mentor.  And, that’s something you get from sports, right?  You get companions.  You get cohorts.  You also get coaches who are mentors.”

“There’s a sacramental nature of sports… It’s a secular sacrament in that when you’re competing, it’s a sign in a little moment of your life how you’re going to live the rest of your life.”

“For me, what sports taught me was honesty and sincerity.  You can’t fake it.”

“Here I was a black belt, a guy that fought in the world tournament… and an MMA fighter came from England and … said… that I was kind of a letdown.  But I’m so glad that happened… My buddy said, ‘This is part of your vocation’.”

“I love this little small type of media, ’cause we’re a tribe.  We’re guys who are Catholic guys, right?  This is like the locker room at your local Catholic high school, but now we’re old dudes but we love our sports.”

“All of us who are Catholics, when we go to whatever it is our sport is, we’re bringing Jesus Christ into our tribe.”

“I think the tribal aspect of sports is a great opportunity to share the gospel too.”

“When I read the New Testament, what really startled me was just this idea of God becoming man.”

“Saint Maximilian Kolbe was someone I discovered… that to me seemed to be the model of the type of person I wanted to be.  I wanted to be somebody that would risk all and give all for the vulnerable.”

“The Catholic moment isn’t when there are huge conferences and bishops are there selling box sets of DVD box sets.  The Catholic moment is when people are scattered, people are alone.”

Related link:

Movie To Movement website

(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)

Joe Reich

He is in his 20th season as the head football coach at Wingate University, where he is the program’s all-time winningest coach.  Previously he was an assistant coach at the University of Buffalo, and before that he was an assistant coach at Gettysburg College and a graduate assistant coach at Georgia Tech.  As a student-athlete, he had played offensive line at Gettysburg College after having played football (and two other sports) in high school as well.

Notable guest quotes:

“I’m very fortunate in that I have two great parents that raised me up in the Catholic church… I was very, very fortunate that I had a parish priest… from the time I was little, that we had such a strong leader in the faith… all the way through high school.  I was an altar server all the way through high school.”

“My dad used to joke around with me and all the time he was, ‘You’re going to become a priest,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to become a priest.  I’m going to have my own ministry, though.’ … And he’d say, ‘Look, you can have just as good a ministry by, you don’t have to become a priest to be a minister.  You can minister to a lot of people in the avenue that you want to go’.”

“I was pretty heavily involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (at Gettysburg College)… so it was nice to be able to grasp onto… the Fellowship of Christian Athletes… that kind of kept me centered, kind of kept me really involved in my faith a lot more… I was the vice president of FCA.”

“We actually had a Bible study that we started… and we got to the point where we would read one line and we would spend the next twenty minutes dissecting that line.”

“You’re always striving for something.  Like, God has kind of always put it on me, I’m going to strive to get better.  I’m going to strive to accomplish something.  I’m going to strive to help people.”

“Whatever doors the Lord opens up for us down the road, I’m open to going through ’em.”

“I tell our team all the time, the comparison game is a game you can never win.”

“Every Friday night we do a chapel service.”

“How you carry yourself, the type of language you use, the way you treat people with respect, and then in the private conversations … I hope that that comes about in those conversations and in the program that we run overall.”

Related link:

Joe’s full bio (Wingate U. football)

(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.)

Dominique Dawes

She spent ten years with the U.S. national team in gymnastics. Over the three Summer Olympic Games of 1992, 1996, and 2000 she won four medals, including gold at the Games in Atlanta and bronze at all three.  In world championship competition she had won three silver medals and a bronze.  In 2010 President Barack Obama named her as Co-Chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. And, earlier this year she opened a gymnastics academy in Clarksburg, Maryland.

Notable guest quotes:

“I would say my greatest achievements in life have really been, and continue to be, a mom of four little ones… My athletic achievements, though they were great and I made history, being a mom everyday, even during those tough moments, they beat standing on top of a podium any day of the week.”

“As a mom of four kids… and now a gym owner, I know the kind of environment that I want my kids to flourish in, and it’s one that’s going to be focused on compassion, positivity, and – in a healthy manner – helping kids face those mental blocks and face those fears, knowing that it’s coming from a place of love.”

“Throughout my career, at times I felt as if I was alone, whenever I was going through a dark period in the sport of gymnastics.  However, when I would take the time to go back to my Christian roots, I would realize that I was not alone.”

“Many times, when I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up, I was too tired or frustrated, I would lean on Him and realize that He was going to help me through.”

“I came into the Catholic faith initially in my late twenties.  I felt very called to go to a church in the Rockville (Maryland) area… And I don’t know what led me initially, but, I would go into the Catholic church and I would not go to Mass necessarily, but I would… walk in and really just sit in silence and connect with Christ, get to know Mother Mary a little bit more, sometimes pray, sometimes have a conversation, and really just sometimes sit in silence.”

“I really do feel as if I was led to the Catholic faith at that time because I really was feeling a little lost in the world and even a little lost in my Christian faith, just feeling a little incomplete and not feeling as if I was being led by Him.”

“When I felt led into the Catholic faith and going to RCIA, I chose Saint Kateri Tekakwitha as my saint of choice for my grandmother.”

“There’s so many great parts of the Catholic faith, but I love the connection with Mother Mary because I’ve never had a very strong healthy and deep relationship with a mother figure.  And so I’ve really leaned on her for guidance or leaned on her to kind of lead my way through Christ in my walk today.”

“They asked who would I want to sit down and have dinner with and (I said) Mother Angelica… And just having a great deal of admiration for Mother Angelica and her ministry and the great impact that she’s made globally on millions and millions of people and leading them to the faith and strengthening their faith.  So, just really admiring her heart and her pursuit and really her will in listening to Christ.”

“Christ… is with me and He is guiding me.   I just have to choose to shut off the noise of this world and listen to where it is that He’s leading me to be.”

“Even through hardships in life, it’s where He wants me to be and it’s where I’m going to be strengthened and where my character will truly be at its best.”

“We make it very clear that every kid that walks through our doors, they’re something special, they’re God’s gift, they’re unique, and they’re to be appreciated and valued.”

Related link:

Dominique’s Gymnastics Academy

(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)

Bob Ladouceur

He coached for 35 years and, at De La Salle High School, a private, Roman Catholic school for boys in California, finished with a 399-25-3 record, including a national record 151 consecutive victories, which became the subject of a major motion picture. A number of his players went on to play and/or coach in the NFL.  He had played college football himself as a running back at the University of Utah and then San Jose State, and he is the author of a book called, “Chasing Perfection: The Principles Behind Winning Football the De La Salle Way.”  He also is a speaker who gives talks to parents, teachers, students, and even corporations.

Notable guest quotes:

“I went back to school.  I wanted to study religion, just out of interest.  And this was after I went on a Cursillo retreat when I was a sophomore in college.”

“Everybody loves to win.  That’s a given… And I thought that the power of ‘team’ supersedes anything you can do to try to get that success in terms of wins and losses.  And I really didn’t – I never talked about winning.  Never.”

“I never talked about winning.  I always talked about doing your job, being a good teammate, being a good student, being respectful, just, growing as a young adult.”

“I had wonderful coaches, dedicated Christian Catholic coaches too that understood the whole point of it, is that what we’re working for is community.  What we’re working for is improving ourselves.  And we did all the things that we needed to do in order to foster that.  We had a prayer service every Thursday right after school in our chapel.”

“We would select three kids from the team… and they had to come in with a song.  They had to come in with a gospel reading.  They had to come in with a complimentary inspirational story… It was a great team builder.”

“It was a focus not on winning, it was a focus on them becoming better people, and in the process, we become a better team.”

“We’re all mortal, and you can’t take life for granted… and you’ve gotta live it to the fullest.”

“It’s just one of the best things our school ever has done.  These kids come back really inspired and transformed.”

“She had quite a prayer line going in her favor, and I would not underestimate that power.”

Related link:

Bob’s book: Chasing Perfection: The Principles Behind Winning Football the De La Salle Way

(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.)