2025 Catholic Schools Week Supplement
Faith is at the heart of Bishop Chatard High School’s athletic program
Anni Felts, a senior at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis, swings at a pitch as a member of her school’s softball team. The school seeks to put faith at the heart of its 28 boys’ and girls’ athletic teams, in which some 75% of its students participate. (Submitted photo)
By Sean Gallagher
Anni Felts’ nerves start to rise as she steps into the batter’s box as an outfielder for the softball team of Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis.
Just 43 feet away from her stands a pitcher on the opposing team poised to throw a softball toward the plate at up to 65 miles per hour.
As she awaits that first pitch to come blazing her way, Anni turns her heart and mind to God.
“I tell myself to try my best and that God only wants my best,” she explains. “That usually helps calm my nerves.”
But even with her nerves calmed, she knows that mistakes will still happen.
“Softball is a sport where you’re always going to make a mistake,” says Anni, a senior at Bishop Chatard and a member of St. Simon the Apostle Parish in Indianapolis.
Her faith and the faith of her teammates, though, help them to put those mistakes in the rear-view mirror.
“It’s special to have that focus on faith, not just personally, but also as a team,” Anni says. “We can always come together. And if any of my teammates makes a mistake, we can always pick each other up and move on.”
During the past four years, Bishop Chatard’s softball team and its 27 other boys’ and girls’ athletic squads have taken intentional steps to form the faith of their student athletes in a faith formation program tailored to their needs.
In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 75% of Bishop Chatard’s 732 students were members of the school’s extracurricular sports teams.
Putting faith at the heart of its athletic program is a key way for Bishop Chatard to help its students apply what they learn about the faith in the classroom to life in the broader world and to grow in holiness.
‘More than just a sport’
Kerry Lynch, the head coach of Bishop Chatard’s softball team, knows the impact that fostering the faith of her players can have in their lives, leading them to take on important student leadership roles in the school community.
“That’s not something that we make them do,” Lynch said. “It’s because we have given them the opportunity to make their faith a priority and encouraged them to do it. The more that we encourage them to apply what they’re learning about their faith in the classroom, they’ll see that it’s OK to do.”
She also knows in a personal way how athletics and faith can be closely interwoven.
Lynch played softball as a student at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis. So did her younger sister Katie, who died of cancer in 2011 at 17 while a student at Roncalli.
Though rivals on the field, the softball teams at Bishop Chatard and Roncalli now gather annually with others for a fundraising walk for a foundation established in Katie’s honor that supports scholarships and gives help to families with hospitalized children.
“Every girl, from freshmen to seniors and those who have graduated, and parents—they all know about Katie,” Lynch said. “The whole team shows up and they make her a priority because it’s bigger than a game, a sectional championship or a state championship. It’s doing the right thing for other people.”
“It shows that it’s more than just a sport or competition,” said Bishop Chatard senior Anna Caskey, a starting pitcher on its softball team and a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis. “Everybody is there to benefit the common good, grow together and care for the people we love. You take the competitiveness out of it.”
‘It’s who we are’
Dan Wagner has been a leader in one way or another of Bishop Chatard’s girls’ basketball team for 30 years. In his fourth year as its head varsity coach, Wagner knows from his long experience the importance of keeping faith at the forefront of his players’ hearts and minds.
“It’s who we are,” he said. “Everything we do is tied in with our faith.”
Making faith a priority in the life of his team has allowed Wagner to be a witness of his faith to his players. This has led a couple of them to ask him to be a confirmation sponsor for them.
“I take it as a high honor when a kid asks me to do that,” Wagner said. “It’s a great opportunity to speak further to that individual about what’s important to her with her faith.”
But while he wants to be a good example of faith to his players, Wagner is especially gratified to see them lead each other in faith.
At the end of a practice, he’ll gather the team to talk about what went well and what they need to improve.
“Then we’ll grab pinky fingers, and I’ll say, ‘Who’s got this?’ And, invariably, one of the girls will step up and will offer an extemporaneous prayer,” Wagner explains. “It’s relevant to what we just went through or what we’re in the process of going through. They’re not just making things up.
“Just the way that they bring the activity we’re doing to the prayer that they’re making for guidance and help is very impactful. It’s a joy to see.”
Whatever the team members might ask God for in prayer, Wagner said that they never ask for a win in their next game.
“The only thing that we pray for is that we do our best and have no regrets,” he said. “We are looking for guidance, help and to do our best.”
‘It’s opened my eyes to faith in everything that I do’
Brian Shaughnessy, a theology teacher at Bishop Chatard and a former head coach of its boys’ varsity basketball team, oversees the school’s athletic faith formation program.
“We’re always trying to make connections to the kids’ journeys of faith that we’re doing here at school,” Shaughnessy said. “It strikes me that, as a Chatard grad myself, the thing that I was often looking forward to most in my day at Chatard was the extracurriculars and the athletics.
“So, if you can make some connections between the students’ faith and the things that they love to do, that could really bring their faith to life.”
What he also knows from having been a coach and closely observing teams at Bishop Chatard is that “there’s a special kind of close” when a team fosters the faith of its members and practice it together as a team.
“ ‘Close’ matters in high-intensity games,” Shaughnessy said. “Close teams have an advantage.”
More important for Shaughnessy, though, is recognizing that the closeness of teammates who are bonded in a shared faith is that it mirrors what those student athletes are called to be as members of the Church.
“It’s what we’re meant to be as the body of Christ,” he said. “This should be getting us closer to a sensibility that we are one body in Christ. If they can see that in microcosm on their team, that’s an awesome thing.”
Anna Caskey, a senior and starting center on Bishop Chatard’s girls’ varsity basketball team, in addition to being on its softball team, says that, during her nearly four years at the school, faith has become the foundation of everything she does athletically—and in the rest of her life.
“Right now, I couldn’t really imagine basketball and softball without that faith aspect,” she said. “It’s opened my eyes to faith in everything that I do, whether it’s school, sports, hanging out with my friends, activities with my family. All of that can involve faith and help me to grow closer to God.
“Learning how important it is to have God in my athletics shows me how important it is to have him in every aspect of my life.” †
