What looks like a simple game of flag football is about much more.
Our team includes two brothers, three single men, two married guys with kids and a priest. This is young adult ministry at its finest. We’ve found it out here: on the field, in the huddle and during pregame prayer.
All of us have different strengths that we bring to the team, and we compete hard each week to win. But when the final whistle blows, all eight of us are brothers in Christ. I have found time and time again that the casual adventure of a sport is more than an outlet or a hobby, it’s an instant bonding mechanism. Men need friends to walk through life with, and we’re happy to have found it here.
Every season is special and fun, but this season has meant a little more to me because of what each teammate means to me personally. I had the privilege of coaching JP and Mike McLaughlin in their high school years, and now we share the field as fellow young adults. Their athletic ability has far surpassed mine as they’ve grown up. Jacob Arteaga and I have been in a small men’s group together and share a mutual love for good coffee.
Dom Mattson and Bobby Case coach middle school flag football with me for our parish, St. Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax, and serve in youth ministry several nights a week. I look up to and admire Michael Pryor as a fellow husband and father; we’ve shared both the stage at Upper Room Theatre Ministry and the football field. From 2012 to 2015, Father Jordan Evans, parochial vicar of Nativity Catholic Church in Burke, and I went to Virginia Tech where we played three years of flag football together and became close friends. Back in those days I called him “dude.” Now I’m saying, “Hey Father. Go deep.”
I am immensely grateful for all the roles these men actively play in my life. My biggest motivation as a young adult ministry director is for men to be surrounded by other men who are with them on their journey toward heaven. I have needed that my entire life and I want every young adult to have that in their life. For me, flag football has been the starting point for almost all my Catholic male friendships. I have seen firsthand how God can use sports to unify men in their walks with him.
Rosato is the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax.
