Rosary Rally: A way of teaching athletes to pray

One of the initiatives that SportsLeader conducts in the United States to educate and evangelize is the Rosary Rally. We asked Lou Judd from SportsLeader to explain it for us.

SportsLeader was founded in 2004 by Paul Passafiume and Joe Lukens. Our hope was always to transform the culture of sports through virtue. Our four pillars are: virtue, mentoring, ceremony and Catholic Identity.

The SportsLeader Rosary Rally fits under our Catholic Identity pillar and our hope is that the event can help coaches, athletes and their families to grow in their Catholic faith through prayer. Last year we did 1 Rosary Rally and this year it has multiplied to at least 19 so the response has been wonderful. Also there’s a number of cities that have expressed interest to participate as well. We hope to see the event expand to every diocese across the country and hopefully the world. Our hope is that Catholic colleges and universities will consider hosting SportsLeader Rosary Rallies for all of their student athletes as a way to kick off the school-sports year, encouraging the entire student body to attend as well to pray for one another.

The event is open to everyone. At the moment we have been targeting Catholic High School football teams. We’ve been wanting to crawl before we run. Since many Catholic HS football teams and programs can be quite large, the event can grow to 400 young men very quickly and easily. We encourage all football players Freshmen-Senior to come with their parents. We have been reaching out to the Principals, Athletic Directors and Head football coaches and inviting them to participate.

During the rally which has 2 hours duration approximately, they start with the distribution of free rosaries and St Sebastian prayer cards and an opening talk to explain the purpose of the event, the beauty of prayer, we try to inspire the young people to make prayer a habit. Finally we explain how to pray the rosary. Then with the help of the team chaplain or the Bishop who accompanies us in some occasions we have the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and then we pray the rosary out loud all together. At the end we have the Benediction and a final group photo.

It is important for athletes to pray the Rosary. For them, the importance comes with the perspective that many young athletes are not familiar with the rosary, so introducing them to it while they are praying it for the first time with all of their peer athletes can be a very positive and powerful experience to see that it is accepted, promoted and practiced by their coaches and fellow athletes.

To know more about the Rosary Rally and the dates of the Rosary Rallies: