Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
While at Blanchet High School in Seattle, my friends and I wanted nothing more than to repeat as the undefeated state champions. Our coach, Leo Genest, “G-man,” had led his teams to the last three out of four state championships in cross country. He was ultracompetitive, and so were we.
Every summer, my family would make a highly anticipated weekly trip to the local public library to check in on our progress for the summer reading program. The librarians would open a treasure box of prizes to reward us for the hours we spent reading the previous week, always leading up to end-of-summer prizes like free ice cream or tickets to the local minor league baseball team.