“In the world of sport, believers are called to be credible witnesses of Christ, showing by their conduct that faith is capable of giving full meaning to every human activity.”
Pope John Paul II said those words to Italian athletes decades ago. I saw them lived out on December 14, 2025.
That’s when Franciscan University’s men’s rugby team won the National Collegiate Rugby Division III National Championship in Houston. It was the first national championship of any varsity program at Franciscan since Hank Kuzma’s storied 1958 men’s basketball team.
Our Barons competed in multiple grueling tournaments to get to Houston, beating the likes of Duke University and Virginia Military Institute along the way. So, their championship win reflects hard work, discipline, sacrifice, and teamwork—qualities that will make them better husbands, priests, teachers, entrepreneurs—or whatever God calls them to be and to do.
But what stayed with me most from that championship weekend was not the final score (29-17) or the trophy (which I may have sipped from). It was how our team gave witness to something, Someone, greater than themselves. I’m not the only one who noticed.
After the game, as I awaited a ride to the airport, a man greeted me with “Congratulations, Father, on your team winning the championship.”
He was the coach of the team Franciscan had beaten to get into the finals. What I thought might be an awkward encounter proved to be profoundly encouraging.
The coach spoke with genuine admiration. He said, “Your guys play tough— really tough—but they’re classy gentlemen. They compete hard, and they carry themselves well. They treated each other and us with great respect. We don’t usually root for the team that beats us, but we were all rooting for Franciscan in the championship.”
That comment meant more to me than he probably realized. He wasn’t talking about an individual play or mere talent. He was talking about character. He was talking about witness. And he was talking about something that cannot be coached in a game plan alone.
When our athletes work hard, treat opponents with respect, speak with integrity, and respond to both success and failure with humility, they become light in the world. When they fail—and we all do—they’re called to learn and grow. That, too, is witness.
After the championship game, our boys invited the team they had just defeated to pray. It was a striking image: two teams that had just battled with intensity now united in prayer, arms interlocked. Victory and defeat placed, for a moment, in proper perspective. I remember thinking, This is what it looks like when competition and faith are held together rightly. Both teams kneeled down, and I led them in the Our Father. It was a beautiful witness to all.
That moment did not happen by accident. It flowed from a Franciscan culture that has been cultivated over time by coaches who understand their role as formators, by student-athletes who take their faith seriously, and by a University community that believes athletics is not separate from formation, but part of it.
So, this is not only a story about rugby. It is a story about who we are. Athletics at Franciscan University is not simply about performance, though we pursue excellence. It is about forming men and women as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is about encounter, conversion, and community lived out in visible, demanding circumstances.
I am grateful for our men’s rugby team, not only for what they achieved, but also for how they achieved it. They remind us that faith is not meant to be hidden, that excellence and holiness are not opposed, and that when we live intentionally, even the most competitive spaces can become places of grace.
That day in Houston, kneeling on a rugby field, praying the Our Father with them, I caught a glimpse of what it looks like when young men choose to be light in the world. It was a championship moment in every sense of the word.
Peace, Father Dave, TOR
