Seminarian Musings
by Hansel Tomaneng
Sports are an influential institute in our society. Playing on a team and learning the discipline of practice and working with others are essential lessons in developing community. As a young child
growing up in the Serramonte district of Daly City, many hours were spent at Gellert Park honing my skills in baseball. I fondly recall the practices with my classmates fielding and hitting balls as the sun went down. We were coached by a generous businessman who volunteered after work. His name was Herm Alcalde.
Coach Herm was the first of many coaches that would model mentoring, teaching, and a sense of fatherhood that would be the manner in which I would be called to answer my vocation to priesthood. At Westborough Junior High School, I was recruited by Coach Doug Moyer to play football at El Camino High School in South San Francisco. The mere fact that I was identified as having ability to play football gave me a sense of dignity and worth to a teenager who was trying to find himself. Once at El Camino, I observed how Coach Moyer gathered us daily for instruction on plays on the chalk board as well as how to lift weights to prepare us for games.
In my sophomore year, I transferred to Saint Ignatius College Preparatory in the Sunset, where I would meet Coach Kevin Quattrin. Coach Quattrin was also my math teacher. He taught me his genuine passion for football. Under his guidance, I learned patience and how to use our intellect in a sport that appears only to use brute force. More importantly, he used each weekly mass to help the players remember that faith was essential in our sports endeavors. In my later years at Saint Ignatius, I would work with Coach Ray Calcagno, who would teach me humility as he explained to me that I did not have the fully developed skills to make the varsity team as a junior. This allowed me to play with my younger brother, Joel, on the legendary field at Kezar Stadium as a member of the junior varsity team.
I was fortunate to attend UCLA. At UCLA, I had the opportunity to meet Coach John Wooden moments before basketball games. Reading his books and having the opportunity to discuss lessons he wrote about a philosophy based on Christian values was invaluable in God calling me to be one of his coaches as a future priest. In college, I was able to walk the sidelines with Coach Bill Walsh as he coached the Stanford Cardinal football team in a victory over my UCLA Bruins.
Being in the presence of these coaches help me realize that sports have had a great influence in my life and mostly likely in the lives of many of the parishioners I come in contact with as a seminarian. I wanted to take this opportunity to show how these various coaches impacted my life to say yes to Jesus’ appeal to “Come, follow me”. Undoubtedly, there are many families who have seen the importance of sports in developing the character, discipline and formation of their children. However, the main coach that has been providing the guidance to me in my development through these coaches has always been God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Interwoven between the practices, games, and post game potlucks, were attendance to mass, retreats, and catechism classes. It was essential to my parents that my faith development not be compromised by my participation in sports.
The next time you participate in sports whether it be bringing your children to a practice or a game or cheering on the Giants, 49ers, A’s, Sharks, Bears, Cardinals, Warriors, or (insert your team here,) please remember the importance of prayer and give thanksgiving to the Lord for giving us this type of recreation in our lives. Please pray for the coaches who in most cases do not do it for the financial compensation. They coach primarily to give back to the youth a precious gift of teamwork and preparing long hours to achieve a victory but to be gracious in defeat and in doing so build character with a Christian foundation.
For more information on Seminarian Hansel, click here.
