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| Players on the Sacred Heart Major Seminary basketball team in Detroit, Mich., include Clint Olson (#16) and four other seminarians from the Diocese of Madison. (Contributed photo) |
DETROIT, Mich. — While Wisconsin fans look forward to the Badger basketball team competing in the Final Four in the NCAA’s March Madness, a basketball team from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit with five players from the Diocese of Madison has already won two tournament championships.
Playing on the Sacred Heart team from the Diocese of Madison are: Stephen Brunner, first year pre-theology; Jared Holzhuter, first year theology; Deacon Scott Jablonski, fourth year theology; and Drew Olson and Clint Olson, both in second year pre-theology.
The Sacred Heart basketball team competed from October through February. They played against a variety of teams, including Catholic high schools, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Sacred Heart security guards.
In competition against other seminary teams, they won a tournament held at Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Ill., in January and won another tournament held at the
Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, in February.
At the tournament in Mundelein, Jared Holzhuter made the game-winning free throw in the championship game.
Clint Olson was named the Most Valuable Player in the Josephinum tournament.
Deacon Scott Jablonski also won a three-point shooting contest.
Besides the basketball players, Madison seminarian Andy Teeter, who is in his first year of theology studies, plays in the pep band at Sacred Hearts.
Enjoy playing
The Madison seminarians have enjoyed playing on the basketball team.
Drew Olson said, “I enjoy the competition, the energy rush, and the fraternity. It really tests your mental fortitude and challenges you to keep cool under pressure, which is something I anticipated that I’ll experience as a priest in the real world.
“My favorite memory from the season was cheering on the team at the Mundelein tournament using our big gong to cheer our time to victory in the championship.”
Clint Olson said his favorite part of playing on the team was “growing in virtue and sharing a physical and spiritual challenge” with his brother seminarians.
His favorite memory was “overcoming my frustration and keeping a positive attitude during the Josephinum tournament.”
He also said he enjoyed sharing his vocation story with members of the high school teams they played against during the season.
Clint Olson said he sees a connection between playing basketball and team sports and being a seminarian and future priest. These include learning to deal with adversity and learning to lead, follow, and work together with others.
“Learning to be balanced and healthy and learning how to have fun” are also important, said Olson, who was a medical doctor before he entered the seminary.
He also said the team members learned “to bring God into everything you do.”
Vocations director comments
When asked to comment about the seminarian basketball players, Diocese of Madison Vocations Director Fr. Gregory Ihm quoted Blessed John Paul II who said:
“Christian life, therefore, is like a rather demanding sport, combining all a person’s energies to direct them towards the perfection of character, towards a goal which realizes in our humanity ‘the measure of Christ’s gift’ (Eph 4:7).”
Father Ihm said, “Many of the seminarians from the Diocese of Madison use athletics as an important part of their formation. Athletics played within a seminary program puts sports into a healthy context rather than making it a source of vanity and an end in itself.
“Sports among seminarians is very competitive; it is often times a healthy competition wherein the goal is victory but it is victory in human virtue.
“The result of sports is obviously exercise, which is important for a man’s health, but it also helps in building a healthy community,” said the vocations director.
Pillars of formation
Traditionally, the four “pillars” of seminary formation include attending to the seminarians’ human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation in an integral and integrated way in the heart of the Church.
The basketball program at Sacred Hearts Major Seminary helps fulfill the pillar of human formation while providing the seminarians with an opportunity for getting exercise and helping maintain their physical fitness.
As Fr. Mark Ivany, a pastor in Washington, D.C., said in a Catholic News Service article on the importance of exercise for priests, “The healthier I am, the longer I can be a priest in service here on this earth.”