It’s been a great season for Jesuit basketball.  No fewer than eight Jesuit schools will be represented in the NCAA men’s tournament, which starts this week.  Four of the five teams that made the tournament last year are back: Gonzaga, Georgetown, Xavier, and Marquette.  This year Creighton, Loyola (Maryland), St. Louis, and Detroit join the dance.

The highest-rated teams are Georgetown and Marquette, number 3 seeds in their divisions.

Image by markartsf under Creative Commons license.

Monday night, the LSU Tigers play in the National Championship Game. Those who know me know that I am an avid LSU fan. Those who do not know me, trust me when I tell you, “I bleed purple and gold.” There was no doubt that when Chris and I became parents that we would pass our love for the LSU Tigers onto our children. As infants, they were given gifts by our family and friends, also strong members of the LSU community, such as LSU sippy cups, pacifiers, blankets, and clothes. Chris and I have taught them our cheers, our pre-game rituals, and our traditions. Our children understand what purple and gold stands for. They see a tiger, and they say, “Geaux Tigers,” before even thinking of saying “roar.” They have experienced the community of Louisiana State University fans that occurs instantly when two LSU fans see each other. In essence, my children have been fully immersed in this way of being.

As parents, it is our responsibility to be the primary educators of our children’s faith also. This means that Chris and I are charged, as parents, to share our faith with our kids with the same passion that we share our love for LSU. Why does it feel easier sometimes to share our love of a team rather than to share our love of our faith? We, too, as Catholics have rituals and traditions. We, too, have a Catholic community that extends far beyond where we live and creates camaraderie between people instantly.

I think it feels easier sometimes because sharing my love of a team does not require sharing deep matters of my heart. With passing on the understanding of God to my children, I am asked to attempt to put words to something that matters deeply to me, an understanding that has evolved and deepened over time. It is hard for me to describe what I know within.

Thankfully, our Church captures the depth of our hearts in outward expressions of love and of grace. I realize I do not have to lean only on my words, but on the rituals, sacraments, and traditions that also express God, who ultimately transcends all words.

So while we will continue to expose our kids to all things LSU, we will remain focused on fully immersing our children in our faith, to expose them to our sacraments, to our rituals, and our traditions, and to introduce them to men and women living authentic, sacred lives. Our hope is that one day they will be as passionate about their faith as they are about their favorite team!

The Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. play each other dozens of times on the basketball court this season. Full schedule here. The Jesuit Basketball Spotlight program takes these games as a opportunity for a soft promotion of Jesuit education and mission.  Some version of this announcement will be read at most if not all of these games:

Tonight’s matchup between X and X is just one of more than 90 games this season  between teams from the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities across the United States. Each  of the 28 is dedicated to strong academics and teaching women and men to serve others  and live a faith that does justice.

Grounded in a 500-year tradition, Jesuit, Catholic higher education creates bright futures  for its more than 200,000 students in the United States.

Alumni at the game tonight are just some of the more than 1.7 million Jesuit graduates  in America who are leaders locally, nationally and internationally. [Name of institution]  and its fellow Jesuit institutions thank you for your attendance tonight, and for believing  in the Jesuit mission.

With powerful programs such as Georgetown, Gonzaga, Xavier, Creighton, and Marquette, Jesuit basketball is surely the strongest among religious-affiliated Division I schools.  Or is it?

The Wall Street Journal classified schools by religious tradition and looked at the winning percentages of their basketball teams.  The Jesuits finished behind six traditions, including (gasp!) the Dominicans.  But many of these traditions are represented by only a few schools.  The Jesuits have dozens.

In America, Jesuit schools are famous for their basketball teams.  In Europe, it’s soccer.  In Rome this week the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University defeated the Dominicans of the Angelicum 3-1 to win the Clericus Cup, the trophy in a soccer league involving 16 Roman colleges that train priests and seminarians.

Clericus players and fans take their soccer seriously.  Last year local authorities, reacting to neighbors’ complaints, banned the use of tambourines, drums, and loudspeakers during league games played in the morning.  Here is a video about the tournament from 2010.  (Click here if you can’t see it.)

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament starts today, and the Society of Jesus is well-represented by five teams.  The most surprising is my alma mater, St. Peter’s in Jersey City, which last made the Big Dance in 1995.  The Peacocks made the tournament by winning the Metro Atlantic Conference tournament (ousting Fairfield along the way.)  St. Peter’s is a big underdog to Purdue tomorrow in Chicago.

Two Jesuit schools, Xavier and Marquette, play each other in Cleveland in the first round tomorrow.  Xavier, a six seed,  is the favorite.  Georgetown, another six seed, plays either USC or Virginia Commonwealth tomorrow in Chicago.  (A Georgetown-St. Peter’s matchup in the second round is a possibility.)  Gonzaga, the fifth Jesuit school, plays St. John’s today in Denver.

Image by markartsf under Creative Commons license.

Jesuit colleges played five basketball games against each other this past weekend — four men’s games and one women’s.   The marquee game was Georgetown vs. Marquette, with the Hoyas winning 69-60.

Jesuit schools play each other nearly 100 times this season.  The Jesuit Basketball Spotlight program draws attention to these games as a way of promoting awareness of the Jesuit mission in higher education.  Here is a schedule of the games.  Here is an interview with William Kelly, SJ, chaplain of the Marquette men’s team.

2010 Boston marathon, from downtown Natick, Massachusetts

I just came from watching the 114th Boston Marathon.  An awesome sight!  It got me thinking about the ten best reasons why a marathon is a metaphor for life.  My votes follow– what are yours?

1. It’s about the goal, not the suffering along the way.

2. One can do great things if you do them out of love.  (There are two options: love of self, or love of others.  And both can be to God’s greater glory, though love of self can more easily become selfishness.  Most of the marathoners I saw were doing it for love of others–raising money for cancer research, or a loved one, or in the case of the young man in yellow toward the right of the picture, kids with severe disabilities at the Boston College Campus School.)

3. We surmount struggle with the support of others.  (People cheered everyone even hours into the race, and you could see how much it meant to them.)

4. Some goals in life are more noble than others, more worthy of the great dignity that human beings can manifest.

5. Winning a race is great, but it is made meaningful to everyone because others are willing to risk losing.

6. Pace, don’t sprint.  The race is long.

7. The most glorious finish is only for those who have struggled over and over and over again.

8. There are no shortcuts.

9. The great stories are not only about those who win, but about those who have overcome great difficulties with whatever situations life has brought them.  (One example is the Achilles Freedom Team.)

10. We are all greater when people show us that it is possible to be great.

Sports columnist Joe Posnanski on West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins:

And then there’s his belief that the worst thing a player can do is try to do too much. Watch Huggins on the sideline — it’s this that sets him off more than anything. If a player lunges for a steal and doesn’t get there — he leaves his team facing five on four. If a player jumps too early to block a shot, he sets himself up for a foul or to be out of position, again leaving his team at a disadvantage. If a player tries to take on two defenders, he is betraying his four teammates and particularly the one who is open. And so on.

“Why is that the worst thing?” I asked him.

“Because it’s selfish,” he said.

“It’s selfish to try too hard?” I asked.

“You don’t get it,” he said, and he shook his head because for decades now he has been thinking about this. “People who try to do too much are taking the easy way out.”

Baseball is God’s game, in my opinion.  I love the game and I especially like the Detroit Tigers (who are currently barely hanging on to a one-game lead in the American League Central Division).  So you can imagine how excited I was to read about a future Jesuit who played briefly for the Tigers.  It was back in 1912, the dead ball era, and the circumstances were very unusual, but Joe Travers really did play.

Is he the only Jesuit ever to have played big-league baseball?  Jesuits have done almost everything, but I’ve never heard of another Jesuit who made it to The Show.  There are plenty of Jesuit-educated big leaguers.  Two that come to mind are David Cone (Rockhurst High School) and Pat Burrell (Bellarmine College Prep).