Mula sa Palakasan sa Olympics, ngayo'y Pari!

From Olympic Athlete to Diocesan Priest
Source: National Catholic Register

New York native Father Joe Fitzgerald now recruits others to serve at the altar.


BY TRENT BEATTIE 08/05/2016

New York native Father Joe Fitzgerald now recruits others to serve at the altar.

It’s not often that someone can say his local priest was also an Olympic athlete. However, this can be done in the case of Father Joe Fitzgerald, who competed in the 1996 games in Atlanta. He was on the U.S. handball team with his brother, Thomas. They had traveled to dozens of countries for competitions and were back home playing on the biggest athletic stage in the world.

Participating in the Olympics was a great thrill for Father Fitzgerald, but it pales in comparison to serving as a minster of God. Now, as vocations director for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., he works daily to find other men who will share in the joy of his ministry.

Father Joe Fitzgerald spoke with Register correspondent Trent Beattie leading up to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

What exactly is handball?

Handball — not to be confused with American handball, which is like racquetball — developed into its modern-day form largely through early 20th-century European soccer coaches who wanted their players to learn how to use their hands in recreation. It is now played indoors with teams (of seven competitors each) trying to score goals on each other. Maybe the simplest way to describe it is that it’s like water polo without the water and played in a gym.

How did you get started in handball?

I would tag along with my brother, Thomas, who is five and a half years older than I am, to his sports practices. I loved being around older kids doing things I wanted to do. I looked up to them and couldn’t wait to get out and run around like they were. Little did I know that in 1996 I would be playing on the U.S. Olympic handball team with my brother.

As I grew older and did play on my own teams, a P.E. teacher at North Babylon High School and the school’s principal came up with handball as a way for getting all kinds of different kids to play on the same team. We enjoyed it a lot, and we became quite good at it; and it never seemed to interfere with the schedules of my other sports of football, basketball and baseball.

I got to play football at Ithaca College, a Division III school. I was the backup quarterback on their national championship team in 1991. Curiously, I was one of the team’s leading rushers as the backup QB — that shows how much I liked to run the ball — and the next year, as a senior starter, we went 9-1, but did not make it back to the national championship game.

Like most college players, I didn’t go to the NFL, but I did start playing handball more intensely, traveling to approximately 50 countries for competitions. The biggest highlight was playing on the U.S. Olympic team with my brother in 1996. So much dedication went into making that team, and the overall experience at the games was so amazing that I don’t feel bad about not winning a medal. That would have been nice, but as the Olympic Oath states, it is about the opportunity to compete more than to win.

Did you always know you’d be a priest?

As a kid I was not certain I’d be a priest, but I was open to the possibility. I thought maybe I’d get married or be a priest, so either vocation was in play. My brother, two sisters and I were encouraged by our parents to pursue whatever vocation we might have, and my uncle was a priest, so that made priesthood more visible to me.

I lived in the Atlanta area from 1994 to 2000 and got acquainted with Life Teen. It was at one of their retreats I helped to lead that the Lord really got my attention. It was during a Eucharistic adoration prayer service when it became so clear that it wasn’t enough for me to talk about being a follower of Christ; I had to actually do more following of Christ myself.

I had made some really dumb decisions and was not really living on a level pleasing to God. I understood that being lukewarm was not an option and that I had a choice between heaven and hell. God wanted me to belong entirely to him, but I was just talking the talk and walking the walk only when it was convenient for me.