In Search of Catholic School Excellence

Thomas Boles: Welcome to In Search of Catholic School Excellence, the show where we spotlight the program's, people, and practices making a real difference in Catholic education today.

If you're a school leader striving to build a community of faith, excellence, and innovation, you've come to the right place.

Each episode brings you ideas that are working, stories that inspire and new possibilities for your school's mission.

Let's explore what's working.

And what's possible.

Welcome.

Today we are joined by riggers of SEIUs High School in San Francisco, California, and the author of the Sports and Spirituality blog.

And so many more things related to that.

We'll get into all of her other adventures as we talk, but I wanna bring her in today to talk about what sports and spirituality can mean and how do we look at something like this differently in, in the lens of our classrooms.

Religion in the classroom can be, it can just feel like a lot of facts can feel like a lot of mm-hmm.

Of things.

But when we talk about faith and when I was teaching in eighth grade morality.

We're talking about living the daily life and kids are playing sports, and there's plenty that can happen in the series of a game, but that doesn't mean that the the spirituality in our faith is not front and present.

So anyway, long story short, let's have Anne.

Thank you Anne for joining us.

I appreciate you being here.

Thanks, Thomas.

Thanks for the intro.

And it's funny as you were talking, so I teach this class, sports and Spirituality.

It's an elective for seniors.

So I teach two sections in the fall, two sections in the spring, but right now I'm teaching a Christology class to sophomores.

I used to teach it.

I love this class.

It's Matthew's Gospel.

It's the life of Christ.

To your point, it is a lot of history.

It's a lot of past information.

And we were just talking just this week about John the Baptist and what a seminal figure in the life of Christ he is.

And I just, I think he's, I'm interested in, I call him JTB.

Mm-hmm.

And it's funny because I'm always trying natural for me to bring sport into anything I do.

So I find a way in Christology, but I've held back because we have a lot of curriculum to get through in there.

But that is an asset and a gem and a gift of sports and spirituality is, it's really about the lived experience.

So my students, many whom are athletes, are reflecting on their own experience of prayer and competition and discipline.

That being said, though.

Thomas, we are also doing the Torch's historical engagement with sport right now.

So we were talking about St. Paul and his writing on a Disciple for Christ.

So regardless, we're gonna get that history in, we're gonna get those facts.

Don't worry about that.

Well, I think that's the best part of it.

I mean, if you can't relate, I mean it doesn't matter what you're teaching.

If you can't relate it to life, then there's really gonna be hard to make those connections, whether that life be 3000 years ago or yesterday.

It helps to make connections.

So before we get too down, too far down that rabbit hole, let's go back to the beginning.

Where did this idea come from?

How did this class start or how did your writing start?

Whichever came first.

Yeah.

The chicken or the egg, huh?

Right.

What would be a sports analogy for chicken or the egg?

I don't know the ball or the court.

At any rate, I came to St. Ignatius now St. Ignatius.

Many people in San Francisco called SI for a certain generation and I'll be using that.

So I'm just gonna clarify si I think of Sports Illustrated, that's not true for young people today.

But I came to SI actually as a rowing coach, I was teaching elsewhere.

So I, if you were to find me, I kind of am sports and spirituality.

Those are my two great loves.

I'm a Catholic.

I've been a Catholic my whole life.

It's my faith is an important part of my identity, my time, my friendships.

Like I share with you and how I lived my life, but also sports have been so formative.

So came to SI to Coach Rowing and then I got hired and in my second year I was asked to teach a class called Inspiring Lives.

It was, it might've been in a required course for seniors.

We'd kind of moved to semester courses and.

It was a great class, kind of biographical theology, how we can learn about God through the lived experience of individuals.

And one of the important individuals in that class is the subject, well, it was just a quote, it was a simple quote from Eric Little, the subject of the movie, chariots A Fire.

Mm-hmm.

And his quote was, I believe God made me for a purpose.

He made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.

And that quote resonated with my experience as a runner.

Or even as a rower, when I'm engaged in something athletically feeling God's pleasure.

Like what a gift to be able to do this.

So it kind of, it was an invitation, like a knock on the door to learn a little bit more about his life.

Mm-hmm.

And he was a man of virtue.

He was a missionary later in his life.

And so this door is then open, right?

Sport and spirituality.

And then I continued teaching that class, and then we added Catholicism by Richard McBrian.

And it's this premise that Catholicism is both, and it's not an either or tradition.

So God can be found in both a church and on the tennis court, both in nature and on retreat.

One is not exclusive of the other.

So.

It just kept kind of unfolding.

And I do coach and I was spending time with kids and in my conversations with kids, I would constantly refer to sport as the way to explain an idea because that's the language I speak.

So that's kind of the root of the course.

But then we moved to an elective program and I just, I decided to jump at it and with another colleague.

I wrote the curriculum for Sports and Spirituality 1.0.

I've been teaching it since 2010, so 15.0 changes every year.

So yeah, 15.0.

Yeah, with, I mean, with sports always changing too.

It's a never ending opportunity to bring it back, and I think that's, I mean, in a high school you have a little bit more flexibility to.

Well create a course right.

To create an elective.

No doubt.

But that idea of bringing in what's happening in the world and in this case sports, what's happening into how we're perceiving everything else, I think is, it's a great opportunity.

And I'm sure the kids are engaged as all can be.

Yeah, and it's so, it is really fun because you do have those new events.

The Unfold Sports is dynamic.

God is dynamic too.

God is always unfolding God's self to us, but just that.

Issues and challenges are abounding and they're unfolding, but I've also seen how history or time can lead a new perspective to something.

So for example.

We were talking about, the chapter is called Kneeling in the End Zone.

Mm-hmm.

And it's on ri routine, ritual and superstition and the history of that.

Or just why athletes, why do athletes have routines?

Why do they, what are rituals?

And then at what point do they become superstitions?

Right.

And all of these are important, like in a life of faith.

Like we have routines in our faith life as a community, a Catholic community.

We have rituals that we participate in.

Well point just become a superstition.

Kneeling in the end zone for a 49 er fan.

The first person that comes to mind is Colin Kaepernick, but he wasn't even the first to kneel like that was Herb Lusk.

It was tailback for the Philadelphia Eagles.

I didn't even know about that till I read the book.

But then you move up to 2018?

2019. Looking at Kaepernick.

I should know the exact date on that.

But his kneeling during the National Anthem and even just six, seven years later.

How we look at that event is different than in the moment.

It was our divisive times.

It wasn't easy then, especially in the Bay Area and for high school coaches and how students were responding.

And it was hard, but it's also was this, he did it as a social activist.

So how we see that now that my point is like there's current events, but in time we gain wisdom and understanding.

Yeah.

And understanding is, I mean that's like, that's the goal of all education, right?

Yeah.

Right.

And what's the truth that emerges?

Right.

So yeah.

And that and the truth that, and that can be a universal truth, but that can also be the truth for how you perceive.

And I think that's.

I think one of the things that's so difficult with theology in general is like trying to make the connection.

Yeah.

And if as kids are growing up, they feel like this is something my parents make me do, or something that maybe my parents don't do at all, and this is something we do at school, it just feels like it's an other, right?

Yeah.

And so at some point that becomes, well, where do I fit in that?

Yeah.

And so being able to wrestle with these concepts with.

Things that they already understand.

Yeah.

And help them bring their personal wisdom, right?

Like, they're like, what does this actually mean to me?

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's huge, and I think that's what you're getting at here.

Yeah.

Well, and one of the resources we use, we talk about the difference between religion and spirituality, both being embodied in the life of faith, but religion is the gift of our parents and our grandparents.

It is passed down.

I mean the word, the gift.

Right?

What a gift.

Mm-hmm.

And what's understood or lived through community, through ritual, through participation in a tradition and.

I'm at a school that has a ton of tradition and our students love that.

They love our traditions.

I mean, we're, you can't make up culture.

That's part of our culture that is a gift in that same way.

So putting it in that kind of framework, I think.

Helps them to see a bigger picture and something that they're part of that's way larger than themselves.

'cause as a young person, really the temptation is the world is my point of view.

Yeah.

We know definitely.

Well, yeah, that's true too.

I mean, if kids can only see as far as their nose, right?

Yeah.

You don't see yourself.

You don't see outside yourself, but making that connection to other people and having the same experience and being able to wrestle with that, to talk about it, to pray about it, right.

Those are all great opportunities for them to step outside of that little box that they live in.

A little perio.

Yes.

Yeah.

Please step outside.

We like it when you do so you started this class a number of years ago, and how has that morphed over the years?

Has it been the same thing?

I mean, aside from the topics, have you, has it kind of fallen in the same, kind of the same path, the same general themes?

Or is it ever chasing whatever's happening in sports now?

Yeah, I would.

So when I created the class with my colleague Chad, we created a reader and yeah, you always have like your kind of essential understandings and
takeaways for a theology of sport and just making a case for how Catholic spirituality allows for this to even be an a legitimate field of study.

Mm-hmm.

So, so this class is actually offered at Seattle U. It's offered at Creighton University, Detroit Mercy.

So there's.

The schema that it goes on a higher level or at a Jesuit high school.

But other high schools are doing this now.

And then I think I always hear from middle school teachers because they're aware that their kids love sport.

How can I put this into my curriculum?

And I think that's important.

So there's the whole spectrum.

But yes, there's the enduring understandings, no doubt.

Like certain concepts that have underscored everything and certain assignments, like in the fall, I do something around.

Around nine 11 and had the central role that baseball played.

Mm-hmm.

In like the collective ritual, tradition, mourning, expression of grief, but also different patriotism or pride through a game of baseball.

And then in the spring, I do a Super Bowl project, but I use a textbook that I. Just for me has made a huge difference on the eighth day, and it's by two professors.

Two of the professors are at Creighton and one is in Canada.

So you do get that hockey stuff in there, the Canadian point of view, and it's made a huge difference because I'm at a college prep and my students are seniors, so I really appreciate the veracity of the.

The theology that they're aiming to do, but also just like the examples that they use are really current and it's good and also just gives me a larger framework.

So that's been, I don't know, like for me.

I feel that much more affirmed I guess, in the class that I'm teaching because I know it's part of something, like I said, the schema that I was on the right track, but it just, it was helpful.

I mean, they are theologians.

I'm not technically a theologian, but I see in young people and some students who really have this ability to do theology and that's what's pretty fun too in the class.

There's a whole range of students that are in there.

I always say to you, if you're not.

Interested in sport.

I'm not worried about you because there's enough in popular culture that we're gonna find.

This is the analog sport is the analog, but we're gonna, we're gonna be doing theology.

So as much as I would love to spend the entire class period, like unpacking the Niners and the rest, where the season's going without Fred Warner and you know, well kid's coming back, I could deal with that.

But we're, of course, we're there to do religious studies, so.

Well, I think that, I mean, like you said, it, it makes it easier to be able to talk about the use, the current event to talk about these concepts and that you have a handful of themes that, that you bring out.

Where do you, what do you find that to be the themes that the kids gravitate towards the most?

Or like you getting these conversations going?

Is there a certain part of that or is the sport the actual thing that they're getting pumped on?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of the above.

Okay.

So part of the theology of sport, like the understanding like two essential questions is like what in heaven's name is going on and what the hell is going on?

And I'm only mentioning that now because, and I think this is important in whatever discipline someone's teaching, we look at sport through a critical lens.

And by critical, I mean I love sport and I mean, I spend my free time, I read about it, I think about it.

I'm still critical of it, and I would say that's true in as a member of the Catholic Church, I love it.

I respect my faith and there's things that I wish could be different or I think could get better.

So that critical, but also that appreciation, like what in Heaven's name going on?

Oh my gosh, this is incredible.

Like these stories of awe and inspiration and dreams, like we really need that.

We really need that.

So that's the fundamental piece from a theology of sport.

But I would say.

One of the chapters that my students really like is on play and the spirit of play.

And this theologically, it's this notion that God is creator, delighted in the creation of humanity.

And that when we are at play, right, we kind of have a freedom and a joy, and that's part of God's nature.

And so what does it mean to play and to lose track of time?

And we talk about chronological time, Kronos, but also tic time or chiros, like God's time.

Mm-hmm.

And it's so interesting because.

Play is universal and fun is you're the arbiter of what's fun.

I can't tell you what's fun, but it's part of like understanding what we know and what we love and what our passions are.

But gosh, haven't we taken the play out of a lot of sports in our society?

If you want me to go critical, I mean it's almost Thomas to this point where like, you know, for thousands of years people couldn't even play.

They didn't even have recreation because they had to work.

Right, right.

And that was their reality.

I mean, it was tough.

And now we have free time for play, but yet we've made it into a job, right, where you're at a volleyball tournament all weekend in Fresno.

I mean, you hope there's joy in it and you wanna keep that perspective, but Yeah.

Many a parent is beholden to their own child's.

Play schedule, and there's a big case for free play or unconstructive free play, and that's where.

You're letting kids figure it out themselves, letting them be creative, be imaginary, and that's good to our Canadian.

Wayne Gretzky's father was the one that allowed his son just, that's why he created something new in the game.

That's why he's great.

Yeah, all the greats had this freedom, and so they're really intrigued by that.

And that also speaks to like kind of maybe in an indirect way, why I have a blog.

Mm-hmm.

Because it's this idea of an autotelic experience or activity, something that you're doing for the love of it, the reward is in itself, it's intrinsically rewarding.

So I'm not doing something because I'm going to get an award, get paid.

I get more fit, more popular, those things might happen, but that's not why I'm doing it.

Right.

So for me, that's like writing a blog is I feel like I, it's a creative outlet for a student.

It might be painting, right?

They may end up selling the painting, but that's not why they're painting, right?

Or skiing is a big one.

A lot of kids, I'm not a skier, I envy skiers.

I think that's incredible, but they just, there's a certain freedom in that sport.

Oh man, there's so much there.

I think it's really essential for folks to remember that we're trying to bring out.

The word education bring out of someone, right?

Yes.

We're trying to bring out the best version of them.

Yes.

Uhhuh.

And they, in so many ways.

I mean, especially when you see like a little baby and then that person like 20 years later, like they're still the same person.

They're just bigger area or whatever, Uhhuh, but they're like typically that same person.

They've just grown to be more themselves.

And if we can bring out that.

We help them bring that out of themselves and find out where do you find joy?

Yeah.

How do you find joy?

What kind of situations bring that about?

How do you learn which ways help you, which ways don't?

I mean, all of those things together, just make them themselves, but like a better version of themselves, right?

Yes.

So ideally when our job is, when they're done with us or we're done with them, either way they're in a better place than when they started, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I think that's, mm-hmm.

That's huge.

And to go back to this idea of playing sports like a job, I think you have a lot of these kids who, they finish off that volleyball tournament in Fresno.

They're doing that for like eight years that they just, they don't want to touch a ball ever again.

And I think that the joy of sport can be that just like music.

Or art or any of these other things, that's a passion for life.

You don't necessarily have to stop my knees, won't let me go out and play basketball every day, but I can still go shoot with my son or play with the kids.

The club.

Yeah.

There's still that part that's joy for me.

I'm gonna have that forever.

So we don't want to kill that joy, and I always come back to the late great Kobe Bryant is talking about how all these kids are getting injured.

He's like, mm-hmm.

You got an ACL tear in like an eighth grader, like how does that happen?

Mm-hmm.

Why?

Because they were playing basketball.

Yeah.

For seven more years than the average person.

He's like, I didn't start playing until I was in high school, like really playing.

So like when he started gonna tournaments, he was only in like year four when he was the man.

I know, right?

Yeah.

Otherwise he was just enjoying playing.

Yeah.

Playing soccer, playing basketball, playing all.

Just playing or Mike Trout.

Roger.

Yeah.

Mike and Roger Federer.

Playing every weekend.

I'd be like, what do you wanna go do this weekend?

And like there's, we're gonna play together and we're gonna play whatever sport's in season.

Great, fine.

It wasn't about, Hey, let's go outside and hit 5,000 baseballs because you're gonna be my ticket to retirement.

And I think we lose the joy of that when it becomes such a big deal.

Yeah.

So it's, it is sad.

Yeah.

We've thankfully not subscribed to the overkill, yeah, that's a, I mean, I would say that's a personal discipline.

I mean, 'cause.

my claim is that part of being a Christian is that you're inherently doing many things that are counter-cultural.

Mm-hmm.

So as a family, you've decided to do something that's fairly counter-cultural, and every family has to make their own decision along that.

Of course.

And they're, I mean, Venus and Trina Williams, they talk about their dad who did unconventional training and different things, but they said they played a lot of tennis, but they loved it.

And so it's like, well, and they, part of I think why they loved it is.

You don't have Venus without Serena and vice versa.

I mean, they were playing together, so they are very close as siblings and like friends, so.

You.

Yeah.

You kind of wonder what if you do love it?

But that's where that spirit of play is what some everybody has to ask for themselves.

Like, is it still fun?

And if it's not, how do we get there?

What can we do to make it fun?

And it's like any relationship.

I mean, I play a lot of golf.

There are times where I'm just like, because it's hard, it's challenging it ask something to me.

Yeah.

So we go through a lot of different phases and steps with it.

But spirit of play.

It's worth of play worth.

Yeah.

Thinking about writing about reading.

Yeah.

That makes sense why the kids get into it, because they can take that and once again, apply that to everything.

Correct.

You know?

Yep.

And it's not just this class, it's not just this moment.

It's how do I find the balance in everything that I'm doing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah, and hopefully having that, the added benefit of, I'm finding the spirit of play right, and taking that one particular concept.

But once again.

Like there is, there's all of the things that are happening in the kid's life, especially in a high school kid's life, which is far more difficult than it should be.

Yeah.

But finding ways to have release to be able to offset the feelings that they might be having elsewhere.

I know personally as a kid, basketball was that thing if I had a bad day.

Or was dealing with something, I could go shoot hoops and solve that problem right?

As I got older, music kind of replaced that.

And, but now I've got two.

Right?

And so you've learned a way to deal with the things that may be going on in your life and to have a, an outlet for it.

And that can be true of so many things, whether that be, I just need to think through something that could be like, I need to deal with anger.

Yeah.

It could be I need to deal with kids rejection or whatever else it might be stress of school.

Yeah, I wanna do well in school, but that's making me crazy.

Having these other things to balance that out and learning how to do that, I think is so huge.

Yeah.

And if they have faith, which I know especially as we go further along in schools, it's much harder to find a ton of kids who are practicing Catholics, who
are going to, yeah, to church and are able to articulate what that means to them and all that, but being able to also open up that part of their world too.

It's a great asset to be balanced, like you said, to have doing many things that are, yeah.

Well, you say counterculture, but just to be, yeah.

To be able to participate in all of these facets, I think allows for a greater opportunity for regulation of emotions and, yeah.

Not to mention all the health, other health benefits of just being able to get out and do something and to not be put down, beat down by your own stress or your own, yeah.

Whatever else is going on.

Yeah, a lot.

Yeah, that's a lot.

Yeah.

I imagine those conversations are what you're having in classrooms too, right?

Yeah.

When I, as you were talking, Thomas said, I was thinking about, you were saying it's a hard time for young people and just having a foundation and like
who you are and what you believe, and I think about my students in my class that do have kind of bear witness to faith, and they have that foundation.

They're aware that religion is the gift of their parents or grandparents, or they talk about the purpose of.

Like specifically prayer as a ritual, but rituals in general help us to align our values.

They actually give us confidence and innate understanding of who we are and kind of define us.

And if we think about it, rituals have been expressed by the humanity for millennia.

So to not have those leaves, us as people who are we?

Where are we going?

What are we doing?

So whether you're getting that from your family or your faith tradition or your sports team, that provides some grounding as you are growing up.

And there's a lot in our society.

That is just always, I don't know, there's a lot of different messages, so mm-hmm.

At least if you have an awareness or that grounding, it's a place to stand.

So, yeah, and that way I find value in sport and spirituality.

Yeah.

Well, I mean that's I think a universal truth, right?

If you do, if you have a foundation that you feel like you can stand on something, yeah, a lot easier, it's a lot easier to be open to the rest of the world to be able to walk confidently in your path, right?

Yeah.

If you're unsure of all those things, then you know, you could be turned around in all different kind of directions and yeah, I think that's where.

The adults in our life help us figure that out.

Right.

And like yeah, whether you're playing a sport or you're in your class with your teacher or you have a mentor at the library or martial arts, whatever it might be.

Yeah.

Like you have these adults that are leading you down that path, but you're Yep.

Building that foundation, hopefully.

Yeah.

So by the time you get presented with bigger issues that you're more able to cope.

Right.

Well, and I'm thinking of like in sport and spirituality, we have people who have figured it out.

In religious life, it's the saints.

These are men and women and they're all different.

They all did different things, but they figured out a path to God to make the world a better place and to be the fullest version of themselves.

And I would argue, I think America is fascinated by coaches.

'cause we wanna know what have they done, like what's their secret sauce that they have made something work.

And so yeah, we talk about coaches, their household names in that same way.

So.

I mean, honestly, I'm as fired up about John the Baptist as I am about Kyle Shanahan for the nighters.

I mean, I'm serious.

I mean I, when I teach about John the Baptist, I'm like, this person in Jesus' life is fascinating.

If we can get somebody there, but you know.

In his own way.

Kyle Shanahan in the system he's running, it's fascinating like yeah, the coaching tree that he is part of, but some are better.

Even the coaching tree is working.

For those who don't know this, there's like kind of these coaches that they've all worked together and they learn a certain way of running an offense, but it's like anything, some people can implement it better and why is that possible?

What do they do?

So I think it helps all of us as we navigate anything to look to those exemplars, to role models, people who've figured it out.

I'd love, I mean, I was telling my friend this week, I'm working too much and she's figured it out.

So I gotta talk to her more and be like, what am I doing wrong?

Well, yeah.

Well, that's so true.

Well, I think the, you mentioned Saints.

Saints and coaches, but.

The Saints have obviously laid down a path, but the coaches are easier to understand, right?

'cause they seem more human to us, right?

Yeah.

And any, anybody who's even a few steps ahead of us, we can learn from.

And so I think that's, it's valuable to bring up all of those situations.

I think a lot of times you see, if you think about like what's on Facebook or other social media, you get like the best version of people, but.

Even in those examples, it could be nobody.

They could literally mean nobody to the rest of the world.

But there's some great story there and some lesson for us to be learned and we can learn from the people around us.

In much case, the same way you'd sit down with your grandparents and talk to 'em about whatever, there's gonna be those moments, your neighbor, there's gonna be moments where you're pulling out some life lesson that you wouldn't otherwise have.

And the more conversations we have about these folks, and with these folks.

The better we are.

Yeah.

Able to navigate our own little situations, so yeah.

Yeah.

It's fun to think about all of those people and you know, Shanahan makes the same rosters.

He's just, he didn't the Super Bowl, it's not gonna be this year audience.

Okay.

But yeah, hoping down the road.

Sister Jean, she's such an icon.

Oh yeah.

So she is a sports and spiritu and you're saying maybe the Saints are.

Coaches are more accessible, no doubt, but she might be somebody that you know at 106, she just died.

She was this team chaplain for University of Loyola Chicago.

The Ramblers made this great run to the.

Final four in?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

2018. And she loved basketball and she would just pray for them, but also be a witness to Christ and God's love and her goodness and her joy,
like we talked about that word, but also would give a little bit of advice and maybe they allegedly listened to her 'cause she was watching them.

And my mom was like, she might be the most famous.

American sister and I was like, interesting, huh?

And we kind of went, I was like, I mean she definitely was somebody the media loved and she was celebrated on social media and we mourned her death.

But my students got to meet her.

We were on an immersion trip in Chicago and we were talking about sitting with grandparents and stories my students loved hearing that she walked across the Golden Gate Bridge on the day it opened.

Like they just.

For some reason that just tickled them.

Yeah.

I, all the things that she said, that story, they were like telling other people, like she walked across the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

So yeah, those stories, they just stayed with us.

Well, I think, and all those things you just mentioned, and I know her book is very popular.

I was thinking that, yeah, your wife run it with her mom.

Mm-hmm.

All of those things that you mentioned are once again, universal, but they get packaged by this little old lady who's given her life.

Right.

The service, and it becomes instantly easier for us to.

Ingest.

I mean like you imagine you got a bunch of like 18 to 21-year-old boys on a basketball team and like what can you possibly tell them that they don't think they already know and yet she's able to get through?

Right.

And I think that's, yeah, I mean that's the power of coaches.

That's the power of the adults in our life.

They can get through to us.

Yeah, that's true.

Maybe our parents can't.

Yeah, and it's interesting you say that because I was just talking about this in class.

I'm friends with the chaplain of the University of Notre Dame football team.

His name is Father Nate Wills.

He has a book out, so that might be worth the audience reading.

But Nate, father, Nate told me his biggest role in the team is convincing his, the football players, that they're more than what they accomplish on the field.

And it's like.

What?

Like that's really, and he is like, no.

In a sport at that level where you are defined by what you accomplish and just reminding them you're a child of God, you're a teammate, you are a friend.

Right?

I mean, it is so important to be a good teammate.

I, I. A coach I coach this season, I cannot underscore that enough.

What you do, yeah.

As a wide receiver, as a center, as a guard is important, but also just being supportive, being trustworthy.

Being coachable.

That's really important too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not transactional.

Even though it feel, I mean, there's a lot that's pulling in that direction with the amount of money, but that's his role as chaplain.

That's what he told me.

Yeah, well, it makes a lot of sense because at that level they are there.

There's definitely money being exchanged on behalf of, and now I guess with NIL in favor of the players, but there's so much riding on that performance, right?

Where I'm sure the players at some point feel like, am I even.

Really part of this, right?

Like, yeah, if what happens when I'm done, am I no longer worth anything?

Right?

Yeah.

And I think that's such a, that's a valuable thing because we identify ourselves, especially at somebody at that level who their entire life has probably been told, you are amazing.

You're gonna be so good at this.

You're the best.

You're playing for Notre Dame, like one of the greatest colleges ever.

Right?

But they've been told that they're this great thing and all of a sudden it comes to an end.

Or they have a poor performance.

And they feel like maybe I don't have a whole lot of worth, that there is something more to that, right?

That you are a friend, you're going to, you're a brother, you're a son, you're a daughter, you're a whatever, and a list goes on.

And like your impact can be bigger beyond that.

And I think that's, you know, that's a huge thing too.

And that can be instilled.

Team format too, right?

Yep.

Fact, the chaplains this in is huge, but you know that you represent something that's so important, but that you are also individually making that thing great.

Not just your performance, but the person.

Yeah.

I think it's Bill Walsh's book.

I think I'm looking over, I think it's the score takes care of itself.

Was his philosophy that Yeah.

What everything you were saying, all of those things add up and like success.

Yeah.

I mean, Notre Dame didn't win the national championship.

There's not one alum that would not say last year fan, that would not say last year was a co. It was a complete success.

Yeah, it was.

It was great.

What a success.

So, and it's because of those.

The role that those players, it collectively ca Yeah.

Yeah.

And then hopefully their influence on their communities going forward.

Right.

I think that's exactly one of the prideful things that any school, any team has is that we are a collection of people who are working towards
this goal, but we are, a worthy group of people and that like we're our impression that we're leaving on everybody else is a positive one.

And of course, yeah, sure you can be the number one team in the country or whatever.

You can win a gazillion things.

But ultimately we have this conversation with my son, but like, oh, that kid's amazing.

And the thing out of his mouth next is like, oh, he's a great guy.

And it's like, oh, that's cool.

Like it doesn't seem like it 'cause he just ran over a bunch of people.

But to find out that he's an awesome kid too, that's awesome.

Right?

Like that will last longer than anything you're gonna do on the field.

Especially when it's so fleeting.

I mean, football players, even professionally, you don't play longer than eight years.

Three years is the average.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're gonna make a, an impression.

Sport and that's gonna be short lived.

But you have the, all of these other things that you're building, hopefully as a team, as a community that are just gonna be rolling forever.

Waves just continually crashing and getting out there going, I'm going off on my metaphor here.

Yeah, I know.

You go well, before we get too long, you have like 5,000 other things that you do and I don't wanna like miss the opportunity to talk about them because you started with this class.

And then the blog was something that you got going along the way because that brought you joy and was a way for you to also, I imagine, to like think about these
concepts and to play with them, kind of work it through to a point where you're like, I think this is what I'm getting out of this, or this is what I'm seeing.

Yeah.

And so you've got that, but then you've taken that in a couple other directions too, like you've actually gone in, you've worked with coaches and helped them try to Yeah.

Yeah.

Have that piece better with their faith.

Faith train, as I call it.

Yeah.

Faith train.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Faith train resources.

Yeah.

You've done stuff like that.

You've got your own podcast, right?

Yeah.

Not anymore.

It was great.

Faith fondue.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gosh, that was also sport and spirituality with a swimmer from Notre Dame.

A woman in here had of me, Haley Scott DeMaria.

Just, it was such a gift.

It was great.

It was every other week.

It was a melting pot of topics like our faith and there was a lot of sport and yeah, we just, we took a break.

This is a lot of work that you do, Thomas, you yourself have.

Probably 50,000 things going on, but you know, in some way they're all related.

So with the blog, it's not required reading for my class, I never, I would never ask them to read it.

I, I. I infrequently if there's like a historical one, but no, but they are the subject of many of the posts just because it's, we keep saying this, like the lived experience.

A lot of times what I write comes out of the conversations from class.

From what I'm hearing, it helps me make sense of things.

I probably have like eight things I wanna write about right now.

For example, I wanna write about referees.

There's a shortage of 'em, like there's a shortage of priests, I mean.

We, the ref is invaluable and we are super critical of them.

Why would you wanna be a ref today?

Yeah, why would you wanna be a priest?

I mean, there's a call to service and there's a lot of great things.

So something like that.

I wanna talk about the pressure that coaches feel.

I wanna talk about praying for your coach, encouraging people to pray and praying for your teachers and teachers, praying for your students.

So there's so many things that cook and they all kind of come together.

So.

In many ways, that's been a blessing, whether it's the podcast or talking to you now or visiting schools in the past, I used to do that with athletic programs.

I would speak to their coaches and even if they just have like a certain inkling or interest in praying with their team or maybe leaving community building activities rooted in faith, I mean, we're so idealistic in terms of what we wanna do, and I love it.

And then the brass tacks of the season.

It gets really busy.

So it just, it's the mustard seed.

A little can go a long way.

So anyone that's open to it, there are so many things to do, but it's also it's a lot.

I, we had a golf match yesterday.

It was down, we're in a Catholic league and we had to drive home.

And I was going to my car and the football coach was just leaving.

And he is like, Hey, long day, huh?

And I was like, yep.

And I was like thinking to myself, this guy does this every day.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So there it's.

There's a lot, but maybe that's all the more reason you need prayer and yeah, for sure.

Well, that, I mean, reflection for those coaches, that's hopefully part of that guiding light, right?

Yeah.

You want to impact youth in a positive way.

Obviously you love the sport that you're in, but there's you hopefully that they have the development of the kids in every way in mind, and also that they have Yeah, their own faith that to like, Hey, this is a hard deal, but it's so worth it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You're asking yourself that question.

I mean, I was thinking about coaching and I'm not a parent, but I am sure from all of you who are, nothing exposes you to the areas that you are not good at more than coaching.

And I'm sure that's so true as a parent.

So being a coach, there's certain things you do really well, but you're just so acutely aware of what you're not good at.

And so in many scenarios, thank God there's two parents.

Yeah.

But, and I have a co-coach.

I was joking.

He and I split the job and I said, it's, yeah, one of us is the good parent.

One's the bad parent.

We are in separate houses because we don't coach on the same days.

So they get mixed messages from their coaches, but we have the same values.

So yeah, we're doing our best.

We're all, we're doing it all together, right?

Yeah.

As we near kind of the end of our time here, I got a couple more questions.

One, you just mentioned all the things that you have been doing and it's all sports and spirituality related.

What's next for you and where do you see like maybe the class growing or the theme growing?

Yeah, no, great question.

I'm open to suggestions if people wanna call in and give a suggestion.

I'm trying to go to the Super Bowl.

I know that much in the Bay Area here.

I. So it's interesting.

I wrote a book during COVID on pilgrimage, so it's not about sport and spirituality, and it's like I'm really feeling good about where it's at.

That being said, it is a little bit strange for me because it's not in this topic area, and so I have this.

Project in this area of my life that I am super excited about, but it is outside of sport and spirituality.

So that would be a great thing to kind of talk to my spiritual director about, I would think, like how does it all fit together?

So there's that.

But then with my blog, because I've written, I mean I've written since 2009, so I have so many blog posts and I've kind of collected themes, but it's.

I mean, writing a book is like having another child like you really, it takes a ton of effort, that much more effort and preparation and you gotta really wanna, this is something I would have to really commit to.

So I would like to do something with those blog posts.

I don't really know what that looks like.

So, and then.

I don't know that there's a place for this, but my dream would be to be on the sidelines and be Aaron Andrews.

But I think that ship sailed, so

there's always a place for that.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Yeah.

Knows.

Well, I mean, it sounds like you've already got the one book and you're working on number two, and it sounds like number two's done.

It just needs production value.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got like number three potentially with the blog post.

Yeah.

So mm-hmm.

Pretty amazing everything you've done and so grateful that you're sharing that and we're able to talk about it.

Now, if anybody is out there listening to this, and if we once again go to that 30,000 foot view, how do I talk about, or how do I bring in.

Something more relevant into my classroom, and especially as we're talking.

Sports and spirituality into our religion classes.

Most of the folks on here are gonna be in the K eight world.

Yeah.

So they can't go and start a whole new elective necessarily, but they can apply some of these ideas that you've had of being able to bring in the different topics.

What would be like the first step that you would give somebody who was kind of at that zero point where you were when you were developing all this, that they could enhance their class or connect with the kids more?

By bringing in topics such as this.

Yeah.

Well, I would say to use the analog of the class that I picked up, the eight week class teachers know their students.

Right?

The shepherd knows the sheep.

So you know your kids.

So in light of that, you know what's gonna work for your students is gonna work for your kids and Right.

What they're excited about.

That's.

What sports and spirituality is finding a way of making the live reality of religious studies, and I'm applying it to this now.

I've always thought I could do this class and do spirituality and rock and roll.

I think that would be super cool.

I would love to teach that I would really have to do a deep dive, but I just, my knowledge base for sport is so extensive.

So that's kind of my area.

But you know, if there's something that you're excited about, like whatever it is you are excited about.

It might not even need to be sports and spirituality.

Maybe you're really excited about gardening, gardening, and spirituality.

Like allow yourself like to be creative and then find, I could share even like essential themes that run in sports and spirituality that anyone could apply to, like something that they're.

Interested in or that young people are interested in?

Like say it was spirituality and cooking.

I mean, that could work, but give yourself the freedom to do that.

I mean, God finds a way.

I really believe that.

Like there's a quote, God speaks to every element in the language it can understand.

That's Ron Roll Heiser.

He's a Canadian oblate priest.

Again, God speaks to every element in the language it can understand.

So allow yourself the freedom to use religious studies.

To Right.

Be expressed in something that you love, because that's gonna make it meaningful, that's gonna make it memorable.

There should not be a class that we're just checking the box off on, make it fun.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, in that way, I get to say to myself every day, Hey, I mean, I have to read Yahoo Sports Report.

I get to listen to pardon the interruption.

It makes me more viable and mm-hmm.

And it's something you get better at.

Like, I didn't arrive.

At this class and figure it out.

It's only getting better.

So that's what's fun too.

Well, yeah, there's a bunch of points in there.

Yeah.

The, if you're, whatever you're passionate about, if you can bring that into the classroom, you're gonna actually gonna make connections and be able to pull metaphors that will help kids understand things.

But like also just the fact that you're talking about something you love so much, it makes it so much easier to.

To be able to translate those concepts and to be very literal of this idea.

When I was teaching middle school I taught religion and we would be talking about whatever.

And as a musician to me it was like, let's go pull that song out of the songbook that talks about, like, this verse is from this part of the Bible.

Here's like the most popular song about that.

Let's rock that out.

And like that was a fun thing for me is like I get to play guitar every day like in class.

This is amazing.

Yeah.

So to be able to bring those connections in and talk about those things and to be able to share the joy of what it is that we're talking about, I think is a great way to look at it.

And when you're ready, do the rock and roll one.

I am so your co-author.

So I'm friends with these two principals of Jesuit high schools and we are on a thread.

And it's all about music and it's pretty fun.

But I've like honestly said, if I had to live without sport or music, I don't think I could live without music.

Yeah, I don't think I could.

I think I could live without sport.

It would be hard, but I think music, I don't know.

So Yeah.

Well that's the thing.

It's like the music singing inside of you, right?

Yeah.

Competitive spirit.

Yeah.

Again, that's where also knowing about our faith, the Catholic faith, the way that it allows for this is really invitational because of the both and not the either or proposition.

So many ways to God.

Many ways to God.

I like that.

We'll leave it there.

Thank you, Anne for hanging out and to talking about sports and spirituality.

They can find you@sportsandspirituality.net and.

The blog is if they go to that website, they can get to the blog.

But the blog, is it Sports and Spirituality dot Sports and Spirituality, one word.

Do blog spot do com.

So hopefully they'll check that out.

Check it out.

Yeah, follow in.

It may be a new, yeah, there's gonna be a new post pretty soon.

It's one of these things where I'm sure our listeners can relate to this.

You have to have an interesting balance between busy and not too busy.

Mm-hmm.

When you're too busy, then you know, you can't, you just don't have the right, but if you have like total free time, then it's also hard to do.

So it's this interesting dynamic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you're definitely busy, so all these things that you're doing is pretty amazing.

thank you for taking the time out to, to chit chat with us.

Yeah.

And share your love.

Thanks for inviting me for the conversation, and I look forward to people reaching out.

Feel free to reach out, ask ideas, read the blog, let me know what you think.

All right, we'll see you next time.

Thomas Boles: Thanks for joining us on In Search of Catholic School Excellence.

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