The 2009 – 2010 school year was one to remember for the girls’ soccer team at St. Dominic Regional High School in Auburn, now St. Dominic Academy. After a disappointing season the year before, the team went undefeated and fell just short of taking home the championship.

The difference, according to the team’s co-captains, wasn’t better goaltending or crisper passes but a new approach to the game, one in which the focus wasn’t on the final score.

“Winning was really not important, but we won anyway, because of the philosophy that you don’t need to win all the time. It’s more important being a teammate, being a team player, respecting one another, keeping God at the center,” says Ali Desjardin, age 18, soccer and girls' hockey captain.

“It’s everyone doing their best and being their best. Even if you’re not playing as well as someone else, if you’re doing your best you can that day, then that’s the most important thing, and that’s what we focused on,” says Alex Landry, age 17, soccer, girls' hockey and softball captain.

Beginning last fall, St. Dominic’s adopted the “Play Like a Champion Today Educational Series,” developed at the University of Notre Dame by a team of educators, sports psychologists and youth ministers. The program, as described by the University, is “designed to help youth and high school sports programs reflect Gospel values and promote the moral and character development of young athletes.”

Michael Murphy, a St. Dom’s coach, parent of two St. Dom’s students, and a Notre Dame alumnus, was instrumental in bringing the program to the high school. He says he was driven by a desire to confront a disturbing trend he has seen in sports.

“I had been coaching grade school sports and high school sports now for probably 10, 12 years, and I love athletics. I love sports. I attend college games. I attend professional games. And I have found myself more and more frustrated watching the way people handle themselves at these events. When you go to a professional game, too many people feel that it’s a license to be able to swear, to be able to ridicule, to be able to scream at opponents, to scream at officials,” he says. “And that has seeped into the high schools in a small degree and into the grades schools to a small degree. And we’ve seen the stories around the country – parents fighting at games and children crying because their parents are expecting too much of them.”

Believing the program could be a good fit for St. Dom’s, Murphy traveled to Notre Dame to learn more about it. He came back convinced, but at first, athletic director Lee Hixon wasn’t as sure. After all, being a diocesan high school, didn’t St. Dom’s already promote similar values? “I thought, here’s another program, and I really wasn’t excited about it,” says Hixon.

But, after reading more about it and traveling with Murphy to Notre Dame for a training session, doubt turned into determination. “I remember coming back on the plane with Mike saying, ‘This is it. This is the program we need. You’re right.' We do have all these values in place already, but it’s like anything else, sometimes you just forget, and it’s good to have reminder.’”

Hixon and Murphy say what most impressed them was the positive message of the program; it wasn’t about what you were doing wrong. Instead, the program stressed qualities such as integrity, leadership, and teamwork and offered guidelines on how to turn those principles into practice.

“It’s a more concrete way of presenting the ideals we have for our kids,” says Donald Fournier, principal. “It’s more of an augmenting and supplementing what we already do.”

They introduced the program to the students during a captains meeting in the fall. The students admit they were less than enthusiastic at first. Ali recalls, “It was going to be from 8 in the morning to 12 in the afternoon, and we were all, like, four hours!”

But she says came away from the meeting with a much different feeling.

“It’s really putting a name and a title to what we should all believe,” she says. “As Christians, we know we’re supposed to be good, moral people with good character and good ways of living, but how are you supposed to do that? This program gives you instructions and guidelines.”

The students say the program gave them a new perspective and a new understanding of their roles as captains.

“You’re the most influential person on your team and other people look up to you a lot, so you need to think about what type of message you want to give them,” says Alex. “It really hit home.”

“It really sets the basis for how to act. It teaches how to be a captain, and how to serve, and that being a captain is being the ultimate servant, not being an arrogant person who thinks they can be the boss of the team,” says Nathan Poulin, age 18, basketball and cross-country captain.

“I found out from the conference that being a captain meant that you have to lead others, lead the ones younger than you to try to do their best. Just being a role model isn’t enough. You have to go over and beyond in trying to do everything you can to connect with them so they feel the same comfort that you do as a senior or as captain of the team” says Christopher Bryant, captain of the golf, basketball, and baseball teams.

Still, Chris says he wasn’t too sure about the program’s veracity until the first games of golf. “I noticed during golf season, especially, that the way I acted was also the way the kids who were freshmen or sophomore acted, so I realized, from the conference, that I needed to be the best that I could every day, which is the motto of the program, so that they would do the same thing.”

The approach was different for each sport, depending on the players and personalities, but the message was always the same.

“It’s playing like a champion, and champion isn’t winning. It’s having the best attitude and trying your best and giving it your all without being obnoxious when you’re on the field or on the ice or on the tennis courts,” says Alex.

Alex and Ali says they started the girls’ soccer season by having the entire team sit down in a circle and share some of their fears heading into the season. It turned out that more often than not those fears had little to do with soccer. “People shared stuff about themselves that we never knew that they felt. Once those walls were broken down, thanks to this program and getting to know each other better, we’ve never played so well as a team” says Ali.

”One of the assets of the program is to teach people that every child is a child of God and matters, and what Ali is talking about is that realization by the team that every person on that team was important, every fear, every issue. But what consequently happened was the individualism disappeared and they became a better team,” says Murphy.

To reinforce that message, the soccer team began a new pre-game ritual. “We would run over and hit the play like a champion sign so every kid, whether you’re on the bench or going onto the field, remembered what we were doing. Even if you’re not in the game, you’re supporting your teams. If you’re in the game, you’re supporting your teammates,” says Ali.

Chris says there was a similar result on the boys’ basketball team. “We had our ups and downs, but we knew we always had each others’ backs,” he says. “When you know the person next to you is going to support you no matter what, that is the best feeling in the world.”

Chris says the players were reminded to play like champions in pre-game huddles and in bubbles written on a board in the locker room. “They said, ‘Play with class.’ ‘Do your best.’ We always had them up there so we were able to focus in on those, and when we had, maybe, not our best performance or some kids made mistakes they don’t usually make, we were able to lift them up the next day.”

The captains say it not only changed the way they behaved toward each other, but also toward their competitors.

“It’s always positive chatter and not negative chatter toward the other team,” says Chris.”You don’t want to beat the other team, but you want to do your best every single day.”

“I would say the bond we shared made us more competitive but not in a mean, competitive way. There was no ill will towards the other team,” says Ali.

And if someone stepped out of line? Ali says the program gave you the confidence to speak up. “If you see your teammate straying from that path, like if you see them yelling at a ref or yelling at another teammate, it’s o.k. now to step out. And I think that’s part of Jesus’ message, taking that initiative and saying no, that’s not o.k. to hurt someone like that.”

Ali says playing like champions resulted in a different feeling on the team this year. She says the players have never been as relaxed or as close. “This was my favorite season, not just because of the soccer, the way we played, but because of the energy that the team had,” she says. “Everyone felt, at least that’s what I’ve heard as a reaction, everyone felt included.”

That bond continued after the season. “We’re still all really close friends, and I never experienced that before,” she says. “We would see each other in the hallway, high five, say hi to the freshmen.”

Chris says he has found that to be true as well. “In years before, there were groups. A lot of the time, if you were on the bench you didn’t communicate with the stars, and the stars didn’t communicate with the kids on the bench, but this year I felt there was more a family atmosphere. Everyone seems to get along really well,” he says. “We’re a lot better friends off the court or off the field, whichever sport you’re playing, than in years before.”

That is the goal – to keep the program going and growing beyond the gym and playing fields. In addition to coaches and captains’ sessions, there have been “teach like a champion” meetings for faculty. They’ve also introduced the program to parents.

“I am thrilled at how quickly it’s been embraced,” says Murphy.

“I see a change to the whole school year this year with accepting other people, like Christian values, the way it spread throughout the school and not just in sports,” says Ali.

Some of the captains even did a presentation to other, non-Catholic schools in the Mountain Valley Conference.

Hixon, Murphy, and the students say they don’t think the program will fade away once the novelty wears off.

“You’re going to get different kids. You’re going to get different ideas,” says Chris. “This program is really based on hitting home with everybody on a personal level, and if we can really do that, then that is something that will keep it going.”

“Our school’s mottos have always been integrity, community, and excellence, but before this, those were just words,” says Ali. “This puts meaning behind those words, and that’s why I know this will continue to be successful.”

Ali says she knows firsthand how powerful that can be. “I’ve never wanted to be Christian so bad and wanted to spread the message, and play like God was behind me before. It was a change for me. It really was.”