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Catholic Sports Radio - Fr. Chase Hilgenbrinick

To serve Jesus he walked away from being a pro soccer player, having been with both the Colorado Rapids and then the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer. That followed four years of having played soccer in South America for teams in Chile. In two of his four years there he was selected the league's Most Valuable Player at the fullback position. As a student-athlete he had made the United States Under-17 National Team and was a High School All-American before going on to Clemson University. In college he was a four-year starter and helped the Tigers to an ACC Championship and four NCAA tournament berths, including two Elite Eight appearances. He is the Vocations Director for the Catholic Diocese of Peoria in Illinois. Next week will mark eight years since he was ordained to the priesthood.

Catholic Sports Radio - Mike Flood

He is the Vice President of Community Outreach for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, having now worked for the team for 25 years. He had served in the U.S. Coast Guard for 22 years, retiring as a Commander in 1997. He played football, basketball and baseball through his high school years and during his 22 years in the Coast Guard. He also coached basketball in military and youth leagues, and officiated basketball for 20 years. He serves on the boards of the King County Municipal League, Camp Patriot, and Empower Youth Network.

Catholic Sports Radio - Tom McConnell

He is the head women's basketball coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, with next month marking the nine-year anniversary since he was introduced there to that position. Just over three years ago -- during his sixth season -- he became the program's all-time winningest coach. Under his guidance the Crimson Hawks have won two PSAC tournament titles, and back-to-back Atlantic Region crowns and Elite Eight national semifinal berths. He had come to IUP with more than 25 years of coaching, game management and player development knowledge learned after spending time on the coaching staffs of six colleges. At one point during his professional career, he was the Director of Youth and Campus Ministry for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. In addition, he founded and directed The Word and the Rock Basketball Camp and was the Director of Camp Zacchaeus. As a student-athlete he had played basketball at two different colleges.

 

 

Catholic Sports Radio - Denis Villeneuve

He has been running for almost 49 years and has run over 72,000 miles, which means he has averaged running four miles a day for almost 49 years. Three years ago, he won the State of Washington 6K Cross Country Championship and the Regional Championship. Back in his college days he started at the University of Oregon and participated in multiple intramural sports and ran on his own, including running his first marathon, before transferring to Oregon College for his junior year, running cross country and track there. He had been a wrestler in high school, although did end up doing cross country as well. He has also coached extensively, including getting a job in the fall of 1984 at Redmond High School, where he coached cross country and track and didn't retire until June of last year.

Catholic Sports Radio - Harry Perretta

He served for 42 years at Villanova University as the head women's basketball coach, tied for the most seasons at one school at all divisions in the history of NCAA women's college basketball. A private, Catholic school, Villanova saw their women's basketball team record 783 wins during his time as coach, which started when he was just 22 years old -- the youngest coach to ever head a women's varsity program at Villanova. He played his college basketball at Lycoming and went on to become a student assistant coach and coach of the junior varsity team before starting his four-plus decades career with the Wildcats. He also has a strong spiritual connection with someone considered to be arguably the greatest player he coached and whose faith story came to be told nationally.

Catholic Sports Radio - Mark Wahlberg

He is an award-winning actor whose newest film comes out this Wednesday, April 13th, and is called, "Father Stu," based on a true story. He is a devout Catholic and the youngest of nine children in his family. On the sports side he is very well known for his passion for fitness, having appeared on the cover of countless magazines such as Muscle & Fitness, Men's Health, and Men's Fitness, among others. He has also had numerous roles in films connected to sports. (A video version of this episode is available on the Catholic Sports Radio official YouTube channel.)

 

 

Catholic Sports Radio - Amy Brooks

She was inducted last year into the Athletic Hall of Fame at DeSales University, a Catholic school where she was a standout runner on the women’s cross country and track & field teams. During her time at DeSales she was a part of three Cross Country PAC Championship teams, earning PAC Runner of the Year and All-PAC First Team honors twice each in 1994 and 1996. She was named to the PAC/CSAC 25th Anniversary Cross Country Team and was a member of the 4x800 meter relay team that continues to hold the indoor school record. Before DeSales she had been All-Catholic for the Philadelphia Catholic League every year of high school – in cross country as well as indoor and outdoor track. She had been awarded MVP in her junior and senior year, the latter also seeing her win Female Athlete of the Year, which encompassed all sports at Cardinal Dougherty High School. She has also coached at a high school.

Catholic Sports Radio - Mario Andretti

He is a racing icon, considered by many to be the greatest race car driver in the history of the sport. He had an illustrious career that saw him win in every discipline he entered – midgets, sprint cars, dirt track cars, stock cars, IndyCars, Formula One, Formula 5000 and sports cars. He won the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 and ultimately the Formula One World Championship, an unprecedented trifecta in that no other race car driver has ever won all three titles. He took the checkered flag 111 times during a career that stretched five decades and across six continents. The Associated Press named him Driver of the Century.

Catholic Sports Radio - Dan O’Leary

He was a tight end and long snapper who was drafted by the NFL's Buffalo Bills and went on to play for them, the New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He had played his college football at Notre Dame, where he was captain in his senior year, when the Fighting Irish played in the BCS Fiesta Bowl Game. After college he played in the Hula Bowl, all of which followed a high school football career that saw him play on three state championship teams, two of which were national championships. As a senior he was rated the #1 tight end in the country.

Catholic Sports Radio - Dr. Mark Webber

He is a world champion power lifter. Since 2018 he has broken nine state records in dead lift and bench press, along the way taking first place at the World Championships last year for the World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters for 220-pound 50–54-year-olds. In college he had been a middle linebacker on the football team at the University of San Diego, a Catholic college where he also ran track for them, setting the school shot put and discus records. For approximately 25 years now he has been running a chiropractic sports clinic in the Pacific northwest where for years he has served numerous sports teams and events in roles such as medical director, team doctor, head drug tester, and team chiropractor.

Catholic Sports Radio - John Chick

He played two years for the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and also spent time in the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts organizations. In addition, he played many years in the Canadian Football League and was a two-time Grey Cup champion as a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who won the league title game in both 2007 and 2013. In 2009 he earned the CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award and in 2013 he led the league in sacks. He would also play in the CFL for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Edmonton Eskimos. As a student-athlete he had played college football at Utah State. Nowadays he is all about helping men become on fire, fit, and free.

Catholic Sports Radio - Ed Valaitis

He is what you might call a late bloomer with an amazing story of being far more active in sports now than he was at traditional youth, student, and post graduate ages, due to his upbringing. An adventure traveler, present day he participates in running, biking, hiking, and skiing. His devotion to his Catholic faith can be seen in that two months ago he put out a book that is designed to help business owners determine both when to sell and how to sell their companies, YET, by sharing his *personal* story, he achieved #1 Amazon New Release status in the Catholic Self Help category. (NOTE: This episode contains sensitive and emotional subject matter.)

Catholic Sports Radio - Fr. Craig Vasek

He is the Chaplain for athletics at the University of Mary, a Catholic institution in Bismarck, North Dakota, where he works full-time with 19 athletic teams and around 450 scholar-athletes. Ordained as a priest in 2010 in Minnesota, he is a graduate of the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City. Raised around sports, he began to letter in ninth grade as a multi-sport athlete in football, basketball and track & field, including having been a two-way starter for his high school football team which advanced to a state championship, AND earning a trip to the state track & field championships his senior year. He also hosts various radio shows and has even done a podcast of his own.

Catholic Sports Radio - Mike McQuaid

He has been involved in various sports-related capacities. Most recently is his foray into the sport of triathlon, which has seen him compete in over 20 long-course, Olympic, and Sprint triathlons, including reaching the podium six times in the past two seasons. On April 2nd he will compete in the Ironman Oceanside 70.3 in San Diego, and in preparation for that he will complete a training ride next week in which he will tackle the 10,068-foot, 35-mile climb to the summit of Maui’s Haleakala Volcano dubbed as the “World’s longest paved climb.” He had been an All-Pac 10 and national champion rower in his 20s. As a competitive sailor, he was a member of the winning crew at the 1998 Swiftsure International Yacht Race. Plus, he has held administrative roles in sports with the Seattle Goodwill Games, the Washington State Olympic Committee, the Seattle Sports Commission, USA Canoe/Kayak, and even US Lacrosse, among many others.

 

 

Catholic Sports Radio - Tom Fox

He will be inducted this year into the St. Ignatius Athletics Hall of Fame. For 20 years he has run a basketball camp in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and has coached both basketball and track at two different high schools, plus he also coached AAU basketball. As a student-athlete he had played basketball on a full athletic scholarship at St. Francis College of Pennsylvania, which followed a high school career during which he was a four-year letterman in track and three-year letterman in basketball. Prior to his senior season of basketball, he was selected as one of the top players in Ohio by USA Today. Last year he published a book called, "A Penny's Thoughts: Sometimes All You Need is a Change of Perspective."

Catholic Sports Radio - Joey Crawford

He is a current candidate for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2022. He is the Referee Development Performance Director for NBA Referee Operations, following a career as an NBA official from 1977 to 2016, officiating more than 2,500 regular season games and a record 344 playoff games. Fifty of those playoff games were in the Finals. In the all-time NBA referee rankings, he is first in playoff games, Finals Game 7s, and total games, plus he is tied for first in total seasons officiated. Along the way he also officiated three All-Star Games and even worked the McDonald's Championship in Germany in 1993. He is also in three Halls of Fame.

Catholic Sports Radio - Lauren Sajewich

She has been playing soccer professionally, including with last year's Danish League Champions as well as with the Chicago Red Stars Reserves, who reached the 2019 national quarterfinals and the 2016 national semifinals after having been 2015 WPSL national champions. This all followed a collegiate career that saw her at Texas Christian University where she was a four-year starter, senior captain, two-time Team MVP, and her team reaching one Big 12 Championship Final.

 

 

Catholic Sports Radio - Episode 155 Linda Cimino

She is in her fourth season as the head women's basketball coach at NCAA Division I St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, New York, a Franciscan and Catholic college. She had previously spent four seasons as head coach at Binghamton University. Prior to that she'd spent eight years as the head coach at a Catholic-Dominican school, Caldwell University, where she was also the Associate Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator. She has also held roles as assistant coach at Adelphi University, head girls’ varsity basketball coach at Calhoun High School, and head coach at Queensborough Community College. From 2016 to 2020 she served a four-year term on the NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee. In 2019, she was inducted into the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Hall of Fame. As a student-athlete her name continues to appear in the record books in numerous categories for the Adelphi University women's basketball program. In high school she had been All-State in both basketball and softball.

Catholic Sports Radio - Episode 154 Anna Cummins

She was an Olympic silver and gold medalist at the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics and a three-time world rowing champion. She had won four NCAA national titles while rowing at the University of Washington and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame as well as the National Rowing Hall of Fame. The highlight of her career came at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she was the only American woman to race in two events. In one of those, she and her teammates won gold, which was USA's first in that discipline since 1984 and the first time ever with a race distance of two thousand meters.

 

 

CSR 153 Joe Vaszily

He has been an NCAA women's basketball referee since 2004 and has been officiating since working intramural games in 1994 at the University of Scranton. Along the way he has officiated in a number of conferences and in 2018 worked his first national championship. He has also been a part of eight consecutive Final Fours. As a student-athlete he played basketball, and then in his 20s he ran three marathons.