Football has often been called the ultimate team sport. It’s a game of strategy, sacrifice, and perseverance. At the end of the day, it’s just a game, but what if the lessons learned on the gridiron could help us grow in faith? Sister Lisa Maurer of the Saint Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota, believes that they can. She and Head Coach Matt Bremer joined John Morales on Morning Air this week to discuss.
A lifelong sports enthusiast and now an assistant coach for the College of Saint Scholastica Saints football team, Sister Lisa has found a unique way to blend faith and athletics. “I wanted a way that I could bring football together with our values — to talk about football, talk about Jesus, and talk about being a good person,” she explains.
Sister Lisa grew up surrounded by both faith and football in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, where her father was a coach. “I spent a lot of time with my dad on the football field,” she recalls. “I especially learned how to mow the lines and paint the stripes.” When she answered God’s call to religious life, she worried that sports would have no place in her vocation. But God had other plans.
Today, Sister Lisa brings energy, joy, and spiritual wisdom to the sidelines. Her presence, says Coach Bremmer, changes everything: “She provides level-headedness when I’m upset about something. She reminds me and our players that there are bigger things in life, that football is a gift that teaches us lessons about the kind of people we’re called to become.”
Those lessons are at the heart of Sister Lisa’s “spiritual playbook,” a set of four guiding values she shares with her players: hospitality, stewardship, respect, and justice. “In football, you need to be hospitable in how you welcome new guys to the team,” she says. “You need to be respectful — of your opponents, of the officials, of the game itself — and be good stewards of the gifts you’ve been given. And justice comes through how you treat others, especially those who are different from you.”
Coach Bremmer sees those same virtues reflected in the discipline of the sport. “Resilience,” he says, “is one of the most important lessons football teaches — not just on the field, but in life. When things don’t go our way, whether that’s a bad play or a tough situation at home or work, we need the fortitude to stand back up, work it out, and keep going.”
Faith, Sister Lisa reminds her players, is the foundation that gives purpose to every game and every challenge. “God is using football to help these young men become who and how He is dreaming them to be,” she says. “The lessons they learn on the field — teamwork, discipline, humility, and perseverance — are the same lessons that shape them into men of God.”
At Saint Scholastica, faith and football go hand in hand, teaching that the greatest victories are not measured on the scoreboard, but in the strength of the soul.
The best way to listen to the Best of the Week is on our #1 Free Catholic App. It’s free, and always will be! To get and share the Relevant Radio app, check it out here.