Youth sports

Coach Carol's calling: Carol O'Reilly drives discipleship by leading our youth through sports

BY ELISHA VALLADARES-CORMIER

Any given weekend, someone walking into the gym at Our Lady of Consolation School (OLC) in Carey is bound to encounter Carol O’Reilly. It’s almost impossible to miss her. Sporting her blue OLC quarter-zip sweater, Carol dashes around the facility. She greets players and parents, almost always by name, as they march in to prepare for the day’s competition. The next moment, she sidles up to the bleacher crowd to see how everyone’s week has been. By the time you blink your eyes, she’s back at the concession stand, serving up hot dogs and other fare like nobody’s business. As kids yell, spectators cheer, and whistles blow, make no mistake about it...This is CYO Sports at OLC. This is Carol O’Reilly’s world.

Carol O’Reilly is at home at Our Lady of Consolation Basilica and School in Carey, Ohio, or OLC as she affectionately refers to the campus. It’s the church she was baptized and married in, the grade school she attended and has taught at since 1972. While a 48-year tenure as a school teacher is more than enough to become as beloved as Carol is by the OLC community, she’s most known for her involvement in the school’s CYO program, where she’s held several positions since 1973.

At 70 years old, it’s been decades since her youngest child played CYO sports, but Carol, the school’s CYO director since 1990, hasn’t given a thought to leaving. “My husband tells me, ‘Now, Carol, when you die, we’ll put your real nice OLC shirt on you.’ And that would make me very happy. Very happy.”

Carol O'Reilly is surrounded by the Our Lady of Consolation girls' basketball team. She has been involved in the CYO program in Carey for 48 years.

Growing up, Carol began what would be a life-long love affair with sports, playing hit-pin dodgeball, tackle football and other sports. Her uncle coached the very first OLC basketball team and her aunts came up with the now-famous “Trojan Biscuit Donuts” synonymous with CYO in Carey.

When she returned to OLC in 1972 as a teacher, it wasn’t long before she became involved with CYO sports, which at the time consisted of a single boys’ basketball team. Beginning as the cheerleading advisor, she soon began to do more behindthe-scenes and fundraising work. “(Getting involved with CYO) seemed the right thing to do,” she said. “I just loved working with the students, and I thought maybe I have something to offer."

Having married her husband Michael in 1977, Carol soon welcomed CYO became a full-on family affair. Michael helped start OLC’s track program and both children went through the program. Kate began scorekeeping as a seventh grader in 1992 and continues that role today, while also joining her mother in the teaching ranks at OLC. “CYO Sports has been a part of my life since the day I was born,” Kate says, with noted enthusiasm and pride. “It’s not just a sport, it’s not just a game. It’s a family."

It's a family. For Carol, this rings true for the entire CYO program. As important as competition is, the true fruit is borne through the formation of CYO athletes into joyful Christian disciples.

“I can be a very competitive person, and CYO just gets that competitiveness out there,” she says. “(But) it’s not always about the sport. We’re teaching them life skills: How do you deal with failure? How do you win graciously?”

Every single game begins with the CYO Team Prayer, in which players, coaches, spectators and officials thank God for “the opportunity to put our faith into action today” through athletics. Even more than that, Carol hopes that through CYO, “(athletes) will continue to live their faith in a very strong way, to show other people they’re Christians and not be afraid of it.”

Many things come full-circle in Carey. One of the boys who played on the first OLC basketball team, which was coached by Carol’s uncle, now has a grandson in Carol’s seventhgrade class. Students she coached some 30 years ago are returning with their own children and Carol welcomes them back by name. All this and more make the 48 years of CYO dedication worth it for Carol.

The kids are number one,” she says. “We want the sports, but sports are not the end all. Sports are a vehicle to get them to that next step in life [of joyful disciplehood].”