“True victory isn’t measured by points, but by showing up fully, authentically, and wholeheartedly.”
Allie Holmquist, Campus Minister for International Immersion, served as co-chair of this year's Us Here Now Planning Committee.
Looking up at the scoreboard, my heart sank. We had lost narrowly to our rival team whom we were projected to beat. More than just losing a game of volleyball, my girls had lost their confidence, their ability, and the fire they had for the game. They were lost in shame and disappointment that pre-dated my arrival as the freshly minted varsity coach of Arrupe Jesuit High School.
For two seasons, I coached AJHS’s C-Team, girls who were just learning the basics and falling in love with my beloved sport for the first time. I loved coaching in this capacity, and I did so alongside my dear friend, who also happens to be a Jesuit, Dan. Coaching with Dan was almost like having training wheels on, not for teaching the basics of volleyball, but for deeply understanding coaching as a pastoral ministry. As we moved through that season, Dan showed me in words and in action how to cultivate a sacred space of care in the gym. Out of this sacred space, grew confidence, community, and girls that were kind of bad at volleyball but deeply cherished individuals.
When I was asked to coach varsity in my third season, I wanted to say no. I’m not a competitive coach. My deepest calling was to coach the basics and the love of the game. I remember so vividly, the day before Dan was to move away for his next Jesuit assignment, we went to Mass together & then brunch. As we sat at the table chatting about all of this volleyball business he looked at me and said, “Allie, I think you should pray with the verse we heard in the Alleluia today, ‘My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.” I knew, in that moment that no matter how much hesitation I was feeling, I was absolutely going to be a varsity coach, sans training wheels.
As the head coach, I realized that while we were playing more competitively than the C-Team level, my Varsity girls needed just as much, if not more, pastoral coaching and sacred space to fall back in love with the game. I built time to sit in a circle in the middle of our court and reflect into our practices. While being physically held by our court, these reflections surpassed the sport and led into what we loved about ourselves and our teammates, how we have been challenged to show up authentically and wholeheartedly, how we are called to care for each other.
So when we lost to our rivals, it wasn’t our first of the season, and definitely not the last, but it was the most impactful because they had lost confidence in themselves and their abilities before they even lost the game. As their coach and pastoral caregiver, I was heartbroken watching them lose themself in that game, and there was no coaching them out of it in the moment. I kept reminding them of their character, and how we can only control how we show up on the court. At our next practice, we went to our holy space, our circle of love on our court, and we processed together. We went through the emotions of the game, the internal narratives of disappointment and shame we spun, how we can shift these narratives with positive self-talk, and we took time to affirm ourselves and our teammates. In my mind, this was much more important than practicing drills because they needed space to understand, vent, and remember their love for themself and the sport. Where we ended stems from a quote from St. Irenaeus, alá my dear friend Dan, with a sprinkle of Ignatian spirituality: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive in body, mind, and spirit.” When we play volleyball in our fullness of body, mind, and spirit, those are the games we win (maybe not always by points standards) because those are the moments we participate in the great glory of God.
Years later, this phrase still rings true. For me, spirituality is the places, spaces, relationships, activities that make me feel most alive in my body, my mind, and my spirit.