Bishop O’Connell is proud to partner with the University of Notre Dame’s Play Like a Champion Today Character Education Through Sports program. This partnership is part of Play Like a Champion’s national initiative to support schools and sports organizations in making sports more safe, fun, and developmentally enriching. Athletic Director Joe Wootten of Bishop O’Connell welcomed the opportunity to work with Play Like a Champion, saying: “Play Like a Championemphasizes presenting sport as a form of youth ministry and challenges us to view sports as a means of developing the whole person: physically, mentally and spiritually.”
The Play Like a Champion program is designed to provide children and adolescents with the highest quality sports experience possible. Drawing on the expertise of members of the Notre Dame coaching staff and the research of developmental, moral, and sport psychologists, Play Like a Champion aims to renew youth and high school sports by educating coaches and parents to nurture children’s personal and spiritual development as whole persons along with athletic excellence.
By partnering with Play Like a Champion, Bishop O’Connell brings both coach and parent clinics to their community. University of Notre Dame Play Like a Champion Program Director Kristin Sheehan will join Athletic Director Wootten and O’Connell leadership on December 7th and 8th to conduct the clinics. O’Connell is the first area school to partner with Play Like a Champion in elevating their sports culture.
Play Like a Champion Today workshops are nationally accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Coaching Education (NCACE.) Play Like a Champion has partners in over forty cities across the United States and Canada, and has educated over 30,000 coaches and 20,000 parents who in turn have impacted the lives of over a million athletes.
Pope Francis recently spoke in his Vatican Radio address about “the importance of sport in moral education, since the sporting spirit is one that teaches the need for discipline, effort and sacrifice to succeed and achieve excellence – becoming a constant reminder of the sacrifices necessary to grow in the virtues that build the character of a person.” Play Like a Champion works to instill these virtues in young athletes, their parents, and coaches across the country. “If Catholic-sponsored sports programs are going to achieve their full-potential as envisioned by Pope Francis, Catholic schools and dioceses must invest in preparing coaches and sport parents to understand sports as a vehicle to teach gospel values. When sport programs partner with Play Like a Champion, they run a program in sync with our Christian community and effectively develop young people to become disciples of our Church.” says Kristin Sheehan, Play Like a Champion Program Director.
Find out more about our school's program at www.bishopoconnell.org/playlikeachampion.