Episodes

Joe Mesi

A former heavyweight boxer who finished with a 36-0 won-lost record (29 KOs), getting to No. 1 in the world where he would’ve fought for the heavyweight title but suffered a serious head injury (brain bleed).  Last year he was inducted into both the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.  He had also been a 1996 U.S. Olympic alternate.  Joe started a foundation called Champs Against Bullying and there is also the Baby Joe Mesi Fight for Organ Donors.  Listen to the end to hear what his “holy box” is.

Guest Quotes:

“You want to say boxing in my life was an accident.  It was almost like I stumbled upon it.  But yet in life there are no accidents, right?  It’s the path God bestowed upon me.”

“God gave me this path for a reason.  And as I look back and now, I’m an adult and I have a family, I’m able to clearly see that boxing was just the tool that God gave me.  The goal was to give back.”

“We know boxing is a dangerous sport and I’d say a prayer before every fight and I’d go into my opponent’s (locker) room too and try to say one with them.”

“I struggled with depression for a few years… I struggled with ‘Why me? Why God? Why this? Why now?’  But… it became clearer and clearer each day ‘Why me? Why now?’ … Through my church goings and talking to my priest… I was taught and I learned.”

“I was supposed to be heavyweight champion.  But I once read, ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.’  Because, this was His plan and I can’t argue that.  Because He had a great plan and He protected me.”

“Here I am asking God for such silly little things in prayers and these people have lost their children.”

“And I’m thinking… did God put me here to box all my life just to receive this one letter because someone’s walking around now with a healthy organ?  Because it all makes sense to me.”

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

Chris Ledyard

Inducted into the Sports Faith Hall of Fame in 2015, the next year he became the Athletic Director at JSerra Catholic High School after more than 20 years at the helm of the athletic program at Franciscan University. Before that he was a Catholic high school vice principal. Married with six children, he was a college athlete (wrestler at Ithaca College) and has coached track and field, soccer, and wrestling.

Guest Quotes:

“I was at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, and I really felt the call from the Lord to go there after being a high school vice principal for six years.”

“I was the token Christian dude on the wrestling team.  And I really didn’t know how to act.  It was very difficult to stay in the faith, keep the faith, amongst people who thought my faith was silly and that it was kind of a joke.”

“I know that that was the Lord… preparing my heart for the reason that I wanted to begin talking to the administration at Franciscan about, ‘Hey, we should bring sports in, so when there’s a kid coming out of high school who really wants to be surrounded by people of like sports in the faith and still have a strong athletic experience in college, we should create a home for that person’.”

“(my brother) said, ‘If you don’t know your Creator, you don’t have anything’… A few days later I literally was in a room by myself and I started to seek Christ again.”

“I had a very deep personal experience at that particular point where it literally felt as if God was pouring water over my head.  I didn’t know that I was dirty and I certainly didn’t know why I was crying.  But, I knew that something cleansing was happening to me… God made Himself real to me.”

“The tough times were driven by the fact that I knew that God was real and that I needed to continue to move forward.”

“When you talk about… the integration of sports and faith… I can’t separate them.”

“When I hire new coaches, I literally say to those coaches, ‘I’m looking for coaches I can comfortably pray with’.”

“For 18 weeks I’ve been in a Bible study with coaches where we’re going through Acts together and we’re literally praying daily that the Holy Spirit guides us in our relationships with these athletes.”

Related link:

JSerra Catholic High School Athletics

(This episode contains a prayer from the South Bend Indiana Inner-City Catholic League, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport)

Jimmy Osting

He’s a cradle Catholic, having attended Catholic grammar and high schools, his kids are altar servers, and oh, he just happens to have pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres (drafted by the Atlanta Braves) and recently was a guest instructor at San Francisco Giants spring training. Listen to how he is teaching more than just baseball techniques to kids at his academy.

Guest Quotes:

“For younger kids that I deal with on a daily basis… there are options out there – to do what they want to do and be where they need to be.”

“You have to kind of find your path and make what works for you you.”

“At those times of adversity, that’s when you find out what your faith is really about.”

“I was very blessed with a family background of being grounded and keeping both feet firmly on the ground and working hard and understanding that your faith comes first.  Without God, nothing else is possible.  And, you know that your talents come from Him… Without (God) you don’t have anything.”

“The longer I do what I do, I think the more I am a teacher of becoming a man through hard work and dedication, for love of life and becoming a leader in the communities that these kids live (in).”

“I know a lot of people kind of shy away from wanting to be that role model.  But, it goes beyond the game.  It goes beyond baseball.  I want kids… to know, to build that confidence… that they can get past a struggle.”

“You make mistakes and things happen, but it’s how you accept that and how you bounce back from that.  God loves you unconditionally and those are the things that, we’re all human, we all make mistakes, we all battle through those mistakes.  But at the end of the day when you lay your head on the pillow and you say your prayers, you have to know that (God) has unconditional love for you.”

Related link:

Jimmy’s baseball academy

(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)

Jim Sweeney

Featured in an ESPN “30 for 30” called “Playing for the Mob,” he stood strong during the Boston College (basketball) point-shaving scandal, sticking to his moral roots and not taking a bribe. He is still involved with the sport today as the Head of USA on the international board for FIMBA – the worldwide governing body for masters basketball (with federations in 47 countries).  Within the past two years he has not only recruited American senior players and organized USA teams, but, he has also played in FIMBA tournaments in Brazil, Costa Rica, Italy, Japan, and Serbia.

Guest Quotes:

“I… went to the Church of the Holy Cross for my first eight years of schooling… I’m still in touch with Sister Barbara Ann, who was my seventh grade teacher… I hear from her every year.”

“As far as I’m concerned, 40 years later after this happened, life has not been good, life has been great!”

(press conference excerpt) “I think it’s only fitting that I… thank God for basketball, not just for the points I’ve scored or the games that I’ve won, but the people that I have met.”

“I wanted to give thanks to God and thanks to all the people that helped me get to the point in my life where at age 61 I’m still playing basketball and I’m playing basketball at a tournament on the same day that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving.

“I have a relationship with God. I mean, every day, I spend time talking to Him, I know that He talks to me. I might not hear an audible voice, but I know the Word of God when I hear it, whether it’s in my spirit or audibly. Some people call it prayer, some people call it meditation, I call it just communicating with my Father.”

“When I go for a walk by myself, that’s when I spend one-on-one time with God and I think that’s… absolutely necessary.”

Related links:

ESPN “30 for 30” “Playing for the Mob”

FIMBA 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)

Joe DeLamielleure

A Pro Football Hall of Famer (Buffalo Bills, 1973-79, 1985 and Cleveland Browns, 1980-84) who is also being inducted into a Catholic hall of fame.  He also is on the Board for an orphanage in Mexico, for which he helped raise funding by riding his bike there all the way from Michigan!  He also obtains Super Bowl tickets every year to help in raising money, along with a NFL Legends Golf Outing, for that orphanage.

Guest Quotes:

“They asked (my wife) when I got in the Hall of Fame, ‘When did you meet your husband,’ and she said, ‘When do you meet your brother?’ … We’ve just always known each other.  God has blessed us.”

“The biggest deal my mum and dad would always say is, ‘You’re going to church.  No matter what, you’re going to church.’  And, it just sunk in to all the kids.  And I go to Mass every day now.  I always have.”

“We adopted two Korean boys… Then I started coaching high school football after I retired from the NFL and we ended up raising three other boys, so we actually ended up with nine (kids) by accident.”

“Now we have twelve grandchildren – six boys, six girls – so, God has blessed my family, beyond belief.”

“We moved to South Carolina… The biggest problem we thought we’d have, it’s not finding a house, it’s finding a good church to go to.  And God has blessed us.  We found a really good church and the people are great.  Sometimes you don’t get the church that appeals to you and you’ve got to kind of search around, like shopping doctors, sometimes there’s better parishes for you and your family, what you want, and we found a really great one.”

“That was the reason I went to Michigan State because (coach) Duffy Daugherty is Catholic.  I got recruited to Notre Dame and (Ara) Parseghian was the coach and my dad said, ‘You can’t go there, he’s a phony, he’s a Protestant coaching at Notre Dame.  You go to Michigan State ’cause Duffy’s Catholic’.”

“Nothing is as good as or as bad as you ever think it is.  Ever.”

“I go to Mass every day because I think when you bring Christ into your body that you’re respons–, I feel very responsible that Christ is in me and I’m not going to embarrass myself… If people see me go to church, they don’t want to see some phony outside of church.”

“I devote my life to God and to Christ and my family.”

“What I always prayed was… for no one to get hurt seriously and to honor God with our play.”

Related links:

Orphanage website

Joe DeLamielleure Pro Football Hall of Fame page

(Book) Tales from the Buffalo Bills Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Bills Stories Ever Told (by Joe DeLamielleure and Michael Benson)

(Book) Joe DeLamielleure’s Tales from the Buffalo Bills (by Joe DeLamielleure and Michael Benson)

(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)

Mike Candrea

Coached Team USA to the Olympic gold medal in 2004 in Athens and the silver medal in 2008 in Beijing in women’s softball, but, ten days before the 2004 Games he lost his wife unexpectedly to a brain aneurysm. Now entering his 34th season as the head softball coach (women’s softball) at the University of Arizona, he is also the Division I wins leader in NCAA softball history and has been inducted into numerous Halls of Fame. He talks about his faith journey, including his involvement with the Knights of Columbus, his priority on getting to Mass despite softball games and tournaments being scheduled on the weekend, and more.

Guest Quotes:

“I think anytime you’re trying to strive for excellence the toughest part is to try to find that balance; balance between your family, your profession, and then for me it was my faith.”

“My faith is very important to me.  It was something that, at times I was missing because unfortunately in our game we play a lot of games on Sundays, which I’ve always kind of been confused about because what are we teaching young people?  We’re telling them how important balance is yet we’re at a softball game at 8:00 on a Sunday morning.”

“My journey of late has been to bring that story to young coaches, to try to get them to understand the pitfalls of the coaching profession and how important it is to make sure that you keep that balance in your life.”

“It has never been any bigger for me than when I lost my wife in 2004 to a brain aneurysm. And, I’m sitting there with two kids and don’t know the color of my checkbook and don’t know what they really need every day.  There was really a void there… It was definitely a life changer, to say the least, but if it wasn’t for my faith, and my faith in God, and the involvement that I had with the Knights of Columbus, and St. Thomas the Apostle Church… that’s an important part.”

“I used to think I coached kids for four years and they would leave me but I really coach them for a lifetime.  So, my commitment to them is to prepare them for life after softball.  And when you look at the game that way, I think there’s a blessing each and every day.”

“I always told young coaches I wish I could give them a national championship and make them realize that it really doesn’t change their life.  What changes your life is how you live it each and every day.”

“I always tell people it’s not a matter of whether you’re going to need God, it’s when.  And so you better prepare yourself for that each and every day.  And I tell them the story about how much happier I am when I have that balance.”

“I’m their father away from home.  And so I feel like I have an obligation to make sure that they understand that you think that hitting a curve ball on the field is tough, wait until the curve ball comes in life.”

[This episode contains a prayer by Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception (Oldenburg, IN) Athletic Director Tim Boyle, as seen in Play Like A Champion Today’s prayerbook for sports, God, Be In My Sport]

Rebecca Dussault

She skied in the Winter Olympics in 2006 in Torino (Italy) and is a world champion, being a multi-sport athlete. She discusses peer pressure she had to stay away from in her late teens relative to partying, the deeper she moved into her skiing pursuits and faith commitment.  She is also a mother of five children with her sixth on the way.  She mentions having recently moved to Idaho and a 55-acre site where they hope to host Catholic families to be renewed in recreation and faith (“learn to pray and play again”).

Guest Quotes:

“I’ll be skiing ’til the grave.  That I do know.”

“One of the most defining moments was cross country skiing with our priest… and he celebrated the Mass for us while we stood on cross country skis and received the eucharist on our skis… And so I thought that, for me, was a convergence of the gift of sport, the school of moral excellence that sport is, and tasting the faith at the deepest level.”

“You’re either going to stick with your moral high ground and enjoy sport at some level or you’re really kind of a slave to the system of elite athletics.”

“As much as many of us look for mission territory abroad and elsewhere and in poor and underdeveloped places, sport is poor, it is underdeveloped.  These are athletes who very much feel entitled and who have things gifted to them all the time by sponsors… but spiritually bankrupt and absolutely mission territory.”

“Here I am trying to win junior world championships or something and all I can think about is how, I am not listening to my conviction from the Lord.”

“I just had to say, Okay I’m either going to miss Mass and sit here with the team and have a meal or I can get myself to the little market down the street and buy some hard rolls and meat and cheese and oranges and that’s going to be dinner and it’s going to be very sufficient for fueling myself that way and making it to the real meal, to the Mass.  It is about picking priorities and setting boundaries.”

“We have time for whatever we make time for.”

“It’s just waking up every day and revisiting my Why.  My spiritual core asking the Lord, ‘Why? How today do I make saints? How do I become a saint? And how do You use everything around me and about me to do that?’  Because there’s going to be triumph, there’s going to be trials.”

“When you crack open your life and you let the Lord in, He shows you what beautiful stewardship is there, for body, for soul – what does that look like.”

“Nobody is outside the call to steward their body and soul into a place of health and wholeness, all for the end goal of holiness.”

Related links:

www.RebeccaDussault.com
www.FitCatholicMom.com

(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)