Some of Marty Raines’ earliest memories of sports include times when her father took her to games as a child. Those early days of watching games with her dad developed into a love of sports that ultimately blossomed into a 43-year career with the Diocese of Columbus, which concluded Oct. 31 this year.
Raines retired after spending 16 years as the director of the Diocesan Recreation Association. She previously served for 22 years as a history, physical education and religion teacher at Mount Vernon St. Vincent de Paul School and was a principal for six years at New Lexington St. Rose of Lima School. During her tenure with the diocese, 35 of her 40+ years involved sports, including coaching softball, boys and girls volleyball, girls basketball and track and field.
As a teacher at St. Vincent de Paul, Raines coached and served as the school’s athletic director. She started a boys volleyball team at the school in the late 1980s, about which she notes, “I’m very excited to say that since I started the program, they have always had a team.”
While she did not coach as principal at St. Rose of Lima, she remained involved with sports during her time there.
“The funny thing, at St. Rose, I walked into the gym for the first volleyball game, and their athletic director said, ‘We need somebody to run the clock. You don’t happen to know how to do that, do you?’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, I can run the clock.’”
Raines, who is a parishioner at Lancaster St. Bernadette Church, describes herself as a “product of our Catholic schools.” She attended Lancaster St. Mary of the Assumption School and Lancaster Fisher Catholic High School. She subsequently earned a degree in history and physical education from Ohio Dominican University and a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Dayton.
Raines said she planned to spend her career with the diocese, but she did not expect to retire as director of the Diocesan Recreation Association (DRA). “I figured I would retire as a teacher, so it took a different path than I had anticipated.”
For the past 16 years, as director of the DRA, Raines visited three or four school gyms a day. On weekends, she often put more than 100 miles on her car, she said, traveling to diocesan sporting events.
Twenty-four parishes constitute the DRA, with most of them within the Columbus I-270 Outerbelt. St. Vincent de Paul, Delaware St. Mary and London St. Patrick also participate, as well as Somerset Holy Trinity for basketball and track.
In retirement, she said, it will be an adjustment not visiting school gyms and watching diocesan games every day. “Once I retire, I’m going to have to break that habit of just coming up and bebopping around to all the different gyms because I’ve done it for … 30-some years,” she said. “So, I keep telling people, ‘I don’t think I’m going to disappear off the face of the earth.’”
As director, Raines’ responsibilities included creating diocesan game schedules, managing finances, collaborating with the various DRA sport commissioners and troubleshooting.
“It takes teamwork (to run the association),” she said. Raines worked closely with the signers and commissioners, who help to run the different parish sports programs in the diocese. She said they met between three and five times last year “to make sure that we’re not all in the same gym at the same time” and to work through parish- and school-related conflicts.
Among her greatest accomplishments during her years as director, Raines said, she is most proud of bringing the Play Like A Champion Today program to the diocese.
“It’s a resource-based discussion on coaching as ministry,” she said. “(Coaches) spend a lot of time on that. They probably don’t realize that it’s a calling, and it is a ministry, and that’s something that I think takes them by surprise when I approach it that way.
“We also talk about the ‘grow approach,’ which are some fundamental things that they can use in their coaching: setting goals, how to develop relationships, how to let the kids take ownership. (If) they do all of those things, then they end up with winning, and winning can be more than just wins and losses. It can be winning the right way or losing the right way.”
In the DRA, head coaches of parish-based sports programs for students in grades four-eight are required to complete the Play Like A Champion Today training. Nearly 3,000 coaches have completed the training.
The program is a three-hour training, which also covers safety. There is a parent version of the training, known as Parent Like A Champion Today, which, she said, she asked parents to participate in.
Raines will continue to lead Play Like A Champion Today training in retirement.
“During the course of Play Like A Champion, I give them a lot of different ideas of ways in which they can share their faith, be it praying at the beginning of practice or at the end of practice, doing service work,” she said.
“Some of them go to Mass as a team, go to Eucharistic Adoration as a team. Through Play Like A Champion, there’s a rosary for sports practices where they could do a decade of the rosary, and it has a sports twist to it that they could do … when they’re doing warm-ups in their practices. There’s also a Stations of the Cross that’s very similar to that.
“Really, it’s just letting the kids know that this is a life experience, and that they can share their faith. The coaches are able to share their faith. We can pray.”
The ability for opposing teams to unite in prayer before a game, such as for an official who died or a player experiencing medical issues, is what makes diocesan sports unique. Raines was impacted by seeing the intersection of the Catholic faith and sports, especially through children’s eyes.
“My faith has gotten stronger because I can see the kids learning and growing, and that makes me feel so happy inside that we’re able to share this with these youngsters,” she said.
Witnessing the Catholic faith become more central to sports is one of the ways, Raines said, she has seen diocesan athletics evolve during her career.
“I think that the biggest change that I’ve seen, … I think it has a lot to do with bringing our faith into it,” she said. “You know, when we first started, yeah, I probably did a prayer at the beginning of practice. I don’t remember, but I probably did. But now, it’s more a part of the program.”
Raines said she observed numerous “feel good” stories during her time in diocesan sports that demonstrated the Catholic faith in action.
“When somebody’s running , and they’re losing, and somebody comes back and runs with them – we’ve seen that,” she said. Raines also witnessed opposing teams support players who are experiencing medical issues. She recalled a volleyball team that wore T-shirts to support an opposing player who was battling cancer. The team also made T-shirts for the young woman’s team.
“The official said, ‘We have something in the diocese called a “Blue Card” for outstanding sportsmanship,’ and I was tearing up just watching it, and he goes, ‘I don’t even have to say anything else. You just witnessed it.’”
Reflecting on these moments and ways that students embody their Catholic faith on the field or on the court is something that Raines will take into retirement.
She recalled witnessing students learn and grow as players, and “the biggest highlight is seeing the joy that the kids have when they’re playing these games,” she said. “That’s the big thing.”
On Nov. 1, Ryan Aiello assumed the role of director. “He’s energetic, he’s enthusiastic, and he’s got a lot of good ideas,” Raines said of Aiello. “So, (we’re) definitely in good hands.”
