Irish Illustrated insider subscribers. This is Drew Mentock, and I'm here to bring you the third

episode from our new bi-weekly podcast series in the feed, Irish Illustrated interviews.

Today, we're sharing my interview with Father Nate Wills, the Nerding football team's chaplain since

2018. He's also an associate professor who serves on the faculty

of the Marianne Remick Leadership Program within the Alliance for Catholic Education at the

university. The most public-facing aspect of Father Nate's job as a team chaplain comes

on home game days during the season. Just before kickoff, he kneels with the entire football

team inside the locker room and leads to Our Father, which a production crew also broadcasts on the Nerium

Stadium's video board. Then he cries, Our Lady Queen of Victory! And the entire locker room

and stadium shout back, pray for us. Of course, there's much more to be in the team chaplain

than leading prayer in front of more than 70,000 people.

In this episode, we discuss his numerous responsibilities and how he got the gig in the first

place.

We also dive into the more than 100-year tradition of presenting the players with prayer

medals before each game and some of his favorite memories from the last seven years.

Much of this is also covered in his new book, Pray Like a Champion Today, where he offers

behind-the-scenes stories and personal anecdotes from his time as a nerding football team chaplain.

We also chat about the book, which comes up today, Friday, August 22nd.

Full disclosure, my wife and father Nate are members of the board of directors at Avi Maria Press, the publisher of Pray Like a Champion Today. Here's my interview with Father Nate. Father Nate Wills, thank you so much for joining me here today. Yeah, glad to be with you, Drew. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So, as fans just heard,, they've probably seen you on the sidelines plenty of times.

You're the team chaplain for the Notre Dame football team, among many other responsibilities.

But I kind of wanted to start back.

Do you remember your first encounter with Nordium and how you kind of first got familiar with the university?

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