CSR 171 Mike Flood

He was active playing baseball as a youngster, and then added swimming to his list of sports when he got to junior high. As he got into high school, he stuck with swimming but dropped baseball, only to find out in the future that he was being scouted at the time. Later in life he taught at a Catholic school where he was also the softball coach and took a group of girls who never won a game prior to him coaching to being division champs. He would also coach baseball for the city parks and rec league, plus he coached for a couple of years in the Catholic Youth Organization.

She is a trailblazing sports broadcaster, TV personality, author, and philanthropist. She is the first and only female NBA scout, holding the front office executive position with the Los Angeles Lakers. A former ballet dancer, she is the first woman to dance at a professional level for three teams in two sports: the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. She is the first woman to be awarded six championship rings in two professional sports, earning a Super Bowl ring and five NBA championship rings. In addition, she has competed in barrel racing and created her own rodeo drill and flag team. She is also the author of a brand-new book, called, “In a League of Her Own: Celebrating Female Firsts in Sports.”

He has written a book on coaching youth sports, which just came out at the start of this month and is titled, "Beyond the Skills and Drills: The Keys to Successfully Coaching Youth Sports." He has been involved with both high school and youth sports for 47 years. In addition, his nationwide coaching and parenting seminars have been attended or watched by nearly one hundred thousand participants.  He was previously a guest on this show more than three-and-a-half years ago, back on Episode 78, and since then has had two impactful developments in his family that are part of the very emotional testimony he shares here.

He played hockey from a very early age, starting off as a center before switching to goaltender, playing for his high school, and then going on to become a goalie coach and ultimately head coach. He then spent approximately two decades as a referee for the Michigan Hockey Association of United States. He has also written multiple books, including, "Terror Strikes: Coming Soon to a City Near You," which was a Number 1 Amazon bestseller and is a Christian book with a baseball sub-thread. He also hosts his own show, called, "Christi-Tutionalist Politics," which has a sub-heading of 'Christian and U.S. Constitution.' He also talks about being both a cancer survivor and a suicide survivor.

He played baseball in college and has coached over thirty youth sports teams across baseball, soccer, and basketball.  In addition, back in 1994 he started Phillies Fan Central, bringing fans of the MLB team together toward a common goal of enhanced communication with the organization.  This will mark thirty years of providing services to Phillies fans.  Meanwhile, he is an award-winning author and therapist, who says that everything he does is designed to bring people closer to the Lord, and to help them understand how to move from the worldly distractions that cause so much pain and into a more spiritual way to live.

She is a sports content creator who has more than 1.6 million followers between TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter combined. She is also an NFL and college football correspondent, and has extensive sports broadcasting experience, including having been a sports reporter at the local news station in her hometown and having done sideline reporting for the NBA affiliate team from her hometown as well.  As a student-athlete she had competed in softball, basketball, and cross country, and later started into doing triathlons. On the faith side, she has powerful testimonies of perseverance, which she shares during this interview.

She just retired a year-and-a-half ago after having been a pro soccer player, although she has now started a new semi-pro women's indoor soccer team. Her pro playing career had seen her with a team in Turkey, which was preceded by playing for a team in Finland. Before that she played for two different teams here in the States in the National Women's Soccer League, and before that played for a team in Colombia that became champions of the first year *of* the women's pro soccer league in that country. That came one year after having played in Sweden. As a student-athlete she had played Division I women's soccer at the University of Louisville after having been her high school's all-time leading scorer.

He is in the middle of completing three ultramarathons in 30 days. The last one will be at the end of this month and is being called an Adoration Ultra, which will start in Mass, then Adoration, and then running to other Catholic churches and spending time in Adoration at those. He currently owns one course record for most miles ran in 24 hours (103.5). In his days as a student-athlete he competed in JV football, JV soccer, varsity wrestling, and ran cross country.  In the case of the latter, he was team captain and the team finished third in the state and he got scouted by some smaller colleges.

He is closing in on 21 years since his ordination to the priesthood. He is Vicar Provincial and Vocation Director for the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. He is also a well-known conference speaker AND leads pilgrimages to Catholic shrines around the world. He is the author of 18 books and has a radical conversion story that he tells here. On the sports side, he has been surfing since he was eight years old and has surfed all around the world.

He is a competitive Masters Athlete for Olympic weightlifting and strongman competitions, AND he works as a referee, plus he is on the Board for USA Olympic Weightlifting. He has won bronze and gold medals at local and Texas state meets and even did a strongman competition in late 2019 and finished in third place for the master’s group and qualified for Nationals. He also dabbled in “Vintage Baseball” – baseball played by the original 1860’s baseball rules – and he played on such a team for about three years. On the faith side, he is managing partner of Virtuous Leadership LLC, working with bestselling author Alexandre Havard. He is also a Legatus member, serves as a national board member for Young Catholic Professionals, served on the Board of Catholic Charities Dallas, and was a member of Regnum Christi for eight years.