Athletics chaplain provides spiritual guidance
Before a basketball game, fans can see the team huddling up one last time as “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses plays before they head onto the court. What fans may not know is that this huddle consists of a prayer, led by William Rickle, S.J.
Rickle serves as a chaplain to the athletic department as well as student life. His position was created at St. Joe’s just over a year ago when he was hired in January 2017 by university president Mark C. Reed, Ph.D.
As a chaplain, Rickle’s job is to serve as spiritual and personal support to the student athletes and coaches on campus, which is made convenient with an office on “coaches row” in Hagan Arena. He works under Campus Ministry even though his office is located among athletics.
“One way of describing campus ministry is creative and intentional loitering,” Rickle said. “I hang out and I’m available to people.”
Chaplains are traditionally priests or other members of the clergy, but they could just be a lay person who accompanies an institution in a spiritual manner. This is Rickle’s role with all of the division I teams, but he travels with the men’s basketball team and attends the women’s basketball team’s home games.
According to Rickle, men’s basketball head coach Phil Martelli and athletic director Don DiJulia asked that he pay special attention to the basketball team once he was hired last January. The demands placed on student athletes are high in general, but they are especially high for the men’s basketball team, one of the school’s flagship teams.
During basketball games, Rickle is always on the sidelines and joins the team huddle during timeouts.
“[My role on the sideline is] just to be a presence,” Rickle said. “The ministry of presence is important. When the visiting teams come in and see a Jesuit in uniform, it speaks to something of the Catholic identity of the university.”
His presence is felt daily by Martelli, who is in his 23rd season as head basketball coach. According to Martelli, when the stress gets to him, Rickle is always the first to notice. He also acts as an adult who is not concerned about the players’ game like their coaches are.
“He [Rickle] brings another set of eyes, another set of ears and he brings a non-threatening persona,” Martelli said. “Sometimes, players with coaches feel that their value is placed on their playing ability or their statistics. With Fr. Rickle being around, players know he is clearly interested in the person that they are, not the statistics that they are.”
Having an office in close proximity to all of the coaches gives Rickle the opportunity to build relationships with them and address their needs. He participates in meetings with them as well as Student Advisory Council (SAC) meetings. However, most of his work is done with student athletes.
Rickle also organizes retreats with the school’s sports teams to let student athletes spend time away from the game. One of Rickle’s favorite retreats was one he accompanied the women’s lacrosse team on last year because of the initiative taken by the coaches and students during their time there.
“If I’m able to accompany and be a resource without having to do the leadership, that means the leadership is already there,” Rickle said. “I’m there to facilitate, which is one of the great things about athletics; there’s lots of leadership here.”
Women’s lacrosse senior Kate Payne was on the retreat and is familiar with Rickle’s work.
“It was nice to get another perspective,” Payne said. “He talked about finding a purpose as a team and as an individual, which is important, because we’re usually focused on practices and games.”
Aside from retreats, Rickle is involved in a club called Developing Everyday Champions, in which student athletes meet throughout each semester to talk about their experiences.
According to Payne, it is beneficial for athletes to see that even though they are on different teams, they are all going through the same struggles.
In the future, Rickle would like to see St. Joe’s have the resources to assign a chaplain to each sports team as some other universities do. For now, he’ll continue to provide spiritual support to some of Hawk Hill’s busiest students.
