Rob Krueger ’92

When he arrived at Franciscan University as a freshman, Robert Krueger ’92 acknowledges that spirituality might not have been front and center in his life.

In fact, it was his passion for baseball that had led him to choose Franciscan because it had a team. But he says, “Being there definitely woke me up to what the Church offers, and I think I came away with a very pragmatic way of living the faith.”

That has served him well as a Christian Ethics teacher and Spiritual Development coordinator at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a private Catholic high school in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where the father of five also coaches baseball.

Notre Dame is one of Canada’s more famous hockey schools. More than 215 of its alumni have played, coached, or been drafted into the NHL, including Jon Cooper, who recently coached Canada to victory in the 4 Nations Face-Off. As is true at many such schools, hockey dominates the lives of Robert’s students, and so he has made it his mission to convey the fundamentals of the faith to them.

“Parents often say that once their kids are deep into hockey, they stop going to church because of all the weekend tournaments and games. So, when I’m teaching, I might not get into all the nuances of faith that you would at a traditional Catholic school, but it is fantastic when I’m looking at the eyes of the students and I get to explain basic truths in a way that erases the fairy tales they’ve heard … In that moment, I can see a spark.”

The son of two teachers, Robert had no intention of becoming a teacher when he enrolled at Franciscan. He began his studies in business and majored in history, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree. On returning home without a concrete plan, his mother handed him an acceptance letter from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan for an after-degree program that would enable him to earn a bachelor of education degree in two years. She had applied to the school for him.

Robert got his education degree and subsequently taught in Alberta for five years and in Japan for a year before going to Notre Dame, where he has been for 25 years and where his wife, Elena, also teaches.

“I found out I loved teaching,” he says, “and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 31 years.”