Scottie Scheffler has his priorities straight. The world’s top-ranked golfer reinforced this point after winning his second major championship of the year, the British Open.
In the press conference after his dominant victory, Scheffler stated, “I would say my greatest priorities are my faith and my family. Those come first for me. Golf is third in that order.”
The fact that Scheffler’s comments produced many headlines demonstrates that far too few people share Scottie’s worldview.
NFL coach Vince Lombardi was a childhood hero of mine. Enamored of football, I was mesmerized by the Green Bay Packers of the mid-1960s. Although a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I had to root for the Packers in the playoffs, especially when they met the dreaded Dallas Cowboys. As head coach, Lombardi never seemed to lose, especially the big games. One of the first sports books I owned and read was Lombardi’s Run to Daylight.
Lombardi is in the NFL Hall of Fame and is immortalized by his home state of New Jersey by having a rest stop named after him on the turnpike (believe me, this is a big honor — it’s a Jersey thing!). He has appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, and the Super Bowl trophy bears his name.
Lombardi, like many football coaches, was a devout Catholic. A daily communicant, Lombardi was well ahead of his contemporaries in overcoming the racial prejudices that haunted professional football into the 1960s. Many believe this contributed to his success as a coach.
Many famous quotations are attributed to Lombardi, including:
“You don’t do things right once in a while … you do them right all the time”;
“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit”; and
“The only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Perhaps the best-known quote Lombardi popularized is: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”
While I understand where Lombardi was coming from when he said this, I cannot fully agree. In sports as in life, winning is not the only thing. (And to be fair to Lombardi, he did also say that “Winning is not everything — but making the effort to win is.” Some of his quotations can be found at NFL.com.)
The attitude that winning is everything has led to all sorts of problems in sports. Cheating on a large scale has affected almost every sport, from chess to bicycling to baseball to tennis to football and everything in between. Even the Olympics (especially the Olympics!), supposedly dedicated to “the true spirit of sportsmanship,” is rife with a myriad of doping and cheating scandals.
If winning isn’t the only thing in sports, then what is the true meaning and purpose of competitive play? One answer is given by the philosophers: Play, skillful performance and work are aspects of a basic human good in that participation in them fulfills and enriches those who do them. In other words, play is a good in and of itself — an aspect of human flourishing. And because, as Gaudium et Spes teaches, “all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise” will be found again in the Kingdom “but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured” (39), play and skillful performance will be part of the glory of heaven.
A Catholic Vision of Sports
While play, properly ordered, is a good in and of itself, it can also be a useful aid in the growth of holiness. Despite all that was going on in Europe at the end of World War II, Venerable Pius XII took time to address this aspect of sport and the growth in virtue:
“Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a man courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole man, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth and helps man to achieve that end to which all others must be subservient, the service and praise of his Creator” (“Sport at the Service of the Spirit,” July 29, 1945).
Thus, sports should never compete but rather serve our life and our full and active participation in the Sunday celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Of course, the Scriptures, especially the letters of St. Paul, make frequent use of sports as a metaphor for the spiritual life. For example, 1 Corinthians 9:27 says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it!”
Here is how St. John Paul II, himself an accomplished athlete, interprets this Pauline teaching:
“In Corinth, where Paul had brought the message of the Gospel, there was a very important stadium where the ‘Isthmian Games’ were held. It was appropriate, then, for Paul to refer to athletic contests in order to spur the Christians of that city to push themselves to the utmost in the ‘race’ of life. In the stadium races, he says, everyone runs, even if only one is the winner: [Y]ou too run. … With this metaphor of healthy athletic competition, he highlights the value of life, comparing it to a race not only for an earthly, passing goal, but for an eternal one. A race in which not just one person, but everyone can be a winner” (“Jubilee of Sports People: Homily of John Paul II,” Oct. 29, 2000).
Elsewhere, St. Paul urges St. Timothy to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12).
Sports are also an important aspect of building community. For example, in the Olympic year of 2024, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of sports in building solidarity and fraternal relations among peoples:
“Sport is a means to express one’s talents, but also to build society. Sport teaches us the value of fraternity. We are not islands: [O]n the pitch, it does not matter where a person comes from, what language or culture they speak. What counts is the commitment and the common goal. This unity in sport is a powerful metaphor for our lives. It reminds us that despite our differences, we are all members of the same human family. Sport has the power to unite people, regardless of their physical, economic or social abilities. It is an instrument of inclusion that breaks down barriers and celebrates diversity. Even the Second Vatican Council emphasized that can help ‘to establish fraternal relations among men of all conditions, nations and races’” (Audience with the “Athletica Vaticana” Sports Association, Jan. 13, 2024).
Pope Francis also quoted Venerable Pius XII when he reminded us, “Sport is a school of loyalty, courage, endurance, resolve, universal brotherhood, all the natural virtues, but which provide a solid foundation to the supernatural virtues” (“To Italian Sportspeople,” May 25, 1945).
Pope Leo XIV on Sports
In his short time as pope, Leo XIV, an avid tennis player himself, made front-page news around the world in May when he met with the world’s most famous Sinner, Italian Jannik Sinner, the world’s No. 1-ranked tennis player. Sinner went on to win his first Wimbledon title in July.
Between these events, Pope Leo XIV celebrated the Jubilee of Sport on Trinity Sunday at the Vatican on June 15. Speaking straightforwardly of what some may think of as a contradiction — the celebration of the Most Holy Trinity and sports — Leo XIV taught:
“While we are celebrating today the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we are also marking the Jubilee of Sport. This combination of Trinity and Sport is somewhat unusual, yet the juxtaposition is not inappropriate. Every good and worthwhile human activity is in some way a reflection of God’s infinite beauty, and sport is certainly one of these. For God is not immobile and closed in on himself, but activity, communion, a dynamic relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which opens up to humanity and to the world.”
The Pope went on to speak, like the Church Fathers, of a God who “dances” and “plays”:
“Theologians speak of perichoresis: the life of God is a kind of ‘dance’: a dance of mutual love.
“This dynamism of God’s inner life gives birth to life. We were created by a God who finds joy in giving existence to his creatures, who ‘delights’ in our world, as … we heard in the first reading (Proverbs 8:30-31). Some Fathers of the Church go so far as to speak of a Deus ludens, a God who ‘plays’ (cf. St. Salonius of Geneva, In Parabolas Salomonis Expositio Mystica; St. Gregory Nazianzen, Carmina, I, 2, 589). Sport can thus help us to encounter the Triune God, because it challenges us to relate to others and with others, not only outwardly but also, and above all, interiorly. Otherwise, sport becomes nothing more than an empty competition of inflated egos.”
Leo XIV concluded his homily by referring to the way that sport had helped form many of the saints, including Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, one of the patron saints of sports, whom Leo will canonize on Sept. 7.
The Athlete as Model
In the Jubilee of 2000, Pope St. John Paul II also celebrated a Jubilee for Sports. During this celebration, he prayed for athletes to be friends with Christ and witnesses to God’s love for all:
“Even the greatest champion finds himself defenseless before the fundamental questions of life and needs your light to overcome the demanding challenges that a human being is called to face.
“Lord Jesus Christ, help these athletes to be your friends and witnesses to your love. Help them to put the same effort into personal asceticism that they do into sports; help them to achieve a harmonious and cohesive unity of body and soul.
“May they be sound models to imitate for all who admire them. Help them always to be athletes of the spirit, to win your inestimable prize: an imperishable crown that lasts forever. Amen!”
We hope and pray with Pope St. John Paul II that athletes everywhere may win the prize of heaven and be outstanding models of holiness and faith.