Player details unseen power of faith in O’G football

This paid piece is sponsored by Bishop O’Gorman Catholic School.

By Dylan Majeres, O’Gorman High School senior

My name is Dylan Majeres, and I’m a senior at O’Gorman High School. I’m left guard and middle linebacker on the football team, and I’m also a part of Campus Ministry at O’G. When people hear the phrase “O’Gorman football,” maybe they think of Coach Kueter and all the success he had in the past. Maybe some people think of the 2019 state championship team or even the deep playoff runs in recent years. What most people don’t have in their minds is faith.

Staying on the narrow path

Once you’ve been around the O’Gorman football program, you start to realize how much faith is integrated in the football team.

To start the season, the team takes a trip up to Fargo for a football camp. At Fargo, head coach Jayson Poppinga gets up in front of the whole team, reads a Bible passage and relates it to the season. He connects the ups and downs of football, the ups and downs of life, the ups and downs of becoming a man and, most importantly, the ups and downs of faith. This year’s philosophy is about staying on the narrow path. This talk doesn’t just stay in Fargo. Coaches reference it throughout the season, and players remind each other to stay on the narrow path, even when it’s hard. The mindset of the team and how we plan to progress as a football team throughout the season all stemmed from a Bible passage that was read at the beginning of June.

Game time

Before every football game, Coach Poppinga takes time out of his offensive meetings and reads Scripture. We’ve spent hours preparing for a football game: hours of practice, time spent watching film and studying the offensive and defensive game plans for the week. It is all about to culminate in less than an hour, and yet here we are in the locker room hearing Scripture. Before we take the field for warmups, Coach Olson, our line coach, leads us in prayer — beginning every prayer with this: “We don’t pray to win, we play to win. We pray for clear minds, good health and wings on our feet.”

All eyes on us

Right before the game, myself and a group of players who are considered leaders on the team take our helmets off, circle up, hold hands, bow our heads and say a little prayer.

This prayer is special to me because it’s moments before the opening kickoff happens and all eyes are about to be on us. Yet the prayer that one of us says almost always is a reminder that all eyes are ultimately on God. Other team members noticed us starting to do this and were drawn to it. A simple minute-long prayer had team members intrigued and choosing to join in.

It’s the little things where faith is integrated that make a big impact. I feel that O’Gorman is the only place where you get to experience this. These are just the little things that I mentioned. I didn’t even include the big things that are more well-known such as team Mass before every game, the service projects that the team does throughout the summer and even going to Mass together as a team on weekends. So next time you hear someone talk about O’G football, hopefully something that crosses your mind is faith.

From the coach

By Jayson Poppinga, head O’Gorman varsity football coach 

The football program strives to use football as a way to practice skills that will produce great young men of faith who live out character traits of discipline, focus, mental toughness and dependability. 

We emphasize that character needs to be in all aspects of our lives. Our priority is always faith, family, then everything else, and we focus on living those priorities in everything we do in the program.

Serving others in the community through our partnership with The Banquet and Project S.O.S, serving our teammates through encouragement and how we treat others at practice and in the community, and serving in our school by choosing to do the little things in the halls and classrooms that make a difference.

The coaching staff continually focuses on how football is a proving ground for life. The team’s weekly pregame Scripture reading focuses on how the passage applies to what we are dealing with in our team and how we can live it out in our lives. The coaching staff wants players to see that Scripture and faith isn’t just for Sundays and Mass but matters every day on and off the field.

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