Faith, Sports, and a Winning Way of Life

University of Alabama associate softball head coach Alyson Habetz sees an energizing connectivity between her faith life and her professional role with the Crimson Tide softball team — and she shares her passion for Christ freely with her young players.

During the June 2016 NCAA Women’s College World Series, Habetz directed the offense of the Crimson Tide as first base coach, Catholic News Service (CNS) and others reported. The Crimson Tide was up against the nation’s other top teams, and the competition was fierce. The Tide ended up losing in extra innings in its opener against Oklahoma, 3-0. The next day, the team lost 6-4 to Louisiana State University.

“Aly is a shining light in my life and will continue to impact so many people with her faith,” said one player.

Did Habetz express words of regret or bitterness? Exactly the opposite — she applied the goodness of God to the loss.

“The Holy Spirit was really at work that night,” Habetz said, in an interview in with SportsUp News.

Habetz is devoted to praying the rosary and attending daily Mass. While in Oklahoma City, she received the Eucharist at St. Joseph Old Cathedral.

“The Eucharist is my fuel. It keeps me going,” she told CNS.

Habetz knows what winning feels like, too — since her tenure began in 1998, Alabama has made nine trips to the World Series, and just four years ago, Alabama took the NCAA crown. Habetz realizes that both faith and a winning team take commitment and work.

“It’s sometimes hard for me to get up early and pray or go to Mass, but I know I have to do it and I know how much it will help me,” she told CNS. “It’s the same in sports. You have to do the drills to perfect your skills.”

Related: Tough Times for Christians at College

Father Michael Sliney, a New York-based priest and chaplain of the Lumen Institute, a business group, knows the benefits of a daily commitment to attend Mass no matter what one’s role in society.

“Daily Mass is truly the ‘short cut’ to holiness and happiness,” he told LifeZette. “My 90-year-old mom has been going to the 6:15 a.m. Mass for over 50 years now, and her face and her life radiate the love and joy of Christ. She recently told me, ‘Michael, how can anything be hard if you love God?’ With Jesus in you, nothing can really be too hard.”

Habetz gets glowing reviews in the role model department from her players.

“Aly is a shining light in my life and will continue to impact so many people with her faith,” Kallie Case, a senior utility player from Alabama, told CNS. “It’s amazing to see that she can stay smiling and happy every single day. She is a godly woman and is a great example of who I strive to be.”

For Habetz, her mission remains clear. “I do what I have to do to grow in holiness,” she said. Just minutes after being defeated by Oklahoma, she applied her faith to the loss. “Christ came to give us all hope in all situations,” she said.

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Habetz grew up in Louisiana in a large, faith-filled family; she attended Mass regularly and received the sacraments. After spending two years fighting in state courts, Habetz became the first female in the state of Louisiana to play high school baseball, garnering all-district honors as a first baseman and pitcher at Notre Dame High School in Crowley, Louisiana. She also earned all-state honors as a basketball player.

She spent her college career at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the early 1990s, where she excelled in basketball and softball, according to CNS. She also made her own trip to the Women’s College World Series in 1993.

One of her assistant coaches was Patrick Murphy, now head softball coach at Alabama. “Alyson is a great role model for our players and future recruits,” Murphy told CNS. “She is one of the most outstanding people I have met.”

“It’s sometimes hard for me to get up early and pray or go to Mass, but I know how much it will help me,” said Habetz.

On Habetz’s biography page, Murphy is quoted as saying, “I think she’s the best assistant coach in the country. She has turned down several head coaching jobs already and she keeps getting better and better each year.”

After college, she got to live out her dream of playing professional baseball, pitching three years for the Silver Bullets, an all-women’s team.

“My fastball was in the 80-ish range, but my curveball was something else,” Habetz recalled.

One father of three in Boston, Massachusetts, said sports and faith have a healthy intersection in some of today’s greatest professional athletes.

“From Tim Tebow to Jake Peavy and Josh Hamilton, many athletes handle the ups and downs of a sports career by leaning on their faith and seeing beyond the present moment,” he said. “Some of the most inspiring real-life sports stories are of God delivering an athlete from addiction or other struggles — then making that person a witness to the fact that God, if we let Him, is a reality in our lives.”