REV. AL BISCHOFF, S.J. CA MPUS PASTO R
YOU’VE LIKELY SEEN FATHER AL Bischoff—more commonly known as Father B.—around campus or at the Dorothy Day Center for Faith and Justice, where he serves as a campus pastor. But you won’t see him at any basketball games. “I get too worked up,” the 89-yearold says. “I’d say things I shouldn’t say. I decided I’d better clean up my act. I go to church and pray that I’ll calm down,” he continues wryly, “not that they’ll win.” Then after a pause: “I pray that the better team will win.” (Pause.) “But God will know I mean Xavier.” Bischoff says he doesn’t root for the team as much as he’s rooting for the individual players to succeed. “I don’t look at them as athletes. I see them as young men who play basketball,” he says. “I just see them as good people trying to make sense of their lives and trying to grow up with a sense of values.” Bischoff tells the student-athletes the basketball team is their church. People go to church to participate, to sing, to become one with others and one with God, he says. And so it is at a basketball game. “Every game is an opportunity to give their thanks to God and play with heart,” he says. Bischoff wasn’t always a basketball fan. He grew up in Price Hill rooting for the Reds—like everybody else. A St. Xavier grad, he went to Xavier, worked on a master’s at the University of Cincinnati, then returned to Xavier. He’s been at Xavier, off and on, about 25 years—18 years in his present role. Bischoff says he revels in the diversity of campus life—living and working with students of different nationalities and different religions, counseling those in need. “They’re like my family,” he says, lamenting, “but I only have them for four years.” Yet, as Jesus said at the Last Supper, “that we may all be one, Father, it’s a chance that we can all be one for four years.” “Being with them is a grace,” he says.
XavierNationMagazine.com
SPRING 2016
| X AV I E R N AT I O N 3 5