Fiercely Faith-Filled
A gifted athlete, Tracy Guerrette of St. Agatha says she has loved competing in sports since she was a child. She was a three-sport, All-State athlete in high school and played basketball and later coached at the University of Maine in Orono. More recently, she began running, and often winning, marathons, including the Maine Marathon in 2017.
As much as sports mean to Tracy, however, there is something that she is even more passionate about, and that is her faith.
“I always had just the love of God. It says in the Catechism that God is always pursuing our hearts. He desires us to know Him and to love Him. So, at a young age, I just always had a love for anything of faith,” she says.
Tracy attributes her deep faith to her upbringing.
“Both my grandparents are devout. I remember going to daily Mass with my grandmother as a young child, and my maternal grandfather, as a farmer, would stop and pray the Angelus. He would sing the Latin hymns in the field,” she says.
Tracy says her parents’ home looks very much like a shrine, and even before she was born, her mother consecrated her future daughter’s vocation to the Blessed Mother.
“She prayed for my purity, the protection of my purity, and then prayed that I would have a faith greater than her own,” she says.
Tracy says no matter how many points she scored as a high school basketball standout, her parents always made it clear to her what was most important.
“My parents were more focused on me being a woman of good character. I could score 40 points in a game in high school, which I did, but if I was disrespectful to my coach or my teammate or the referee, if I wasn’t living a virtuous life, they would ground me,” she says. “They also really instilled in me the values of work ethic, determination, and dedication, which helped me become a better athlete.”
Not being from a sports-minded family, Tracy believes her athleticism is truly God-given and that it has a purpose behind it.
“I believe one of the only reasons why God gave me this gift is as a tool for my conversion,” she says. “I’m drawn deeper into my relationship with Christ through sport.”
She says she found that to be true at the University of Maine and now as a runner.
“I was just really, really blessed. I played basketball at the University of Maine, and I grew in faith through sport, but then I graduated into running, and for me, running is very contemplative. My heart is connected to heaven when I run. I truly experience the Lord and His pleasure when I run,” she says.
Tracy says it was at UMaine where her faith truly became her own. Although she says there was not a vibrant Newman Center at the university at the time, she participated in a non-denominational sports ministry called Athletes in Action.
“I had a teammate who was going to these Bible studies, and my parents did such a great job with the development of faith in my life and in developing my conscience and everything that even though I was at this secular school, I had a desire for God,” she says. “I was on fire for the Lord.”
She says her best friends at UMaine were those who were Christian.
“So while some of my teammates and my other friends were going out and doing things on the weekends, I never had the desire to do it. I honestly attribute that to the hand of Mary in my life, just her protection,” she says.
As an athlete, however, Tracy says she understands how easy it is for someone’s self-worth to get tied to sport, rather than where it should be. She remembers it happening to her in high school, despite her parents’ positive influence.
“Your identity gets wrapped up into sport, which is not good because it gets put in a place higher than God, so I’m getting my satisfaction and my self-worth and everything from my performance, from my sport, from what my coach says, from how many points I score in a game,” she says.
Knowing the prominent place that sports hold in our culture as well as the influence that they can have on young people’s lives led Tracy to help a friend, Samantha Kelley, to establish a new ministry called FIERCE Athlete. FIERCE is dedicated to helping female athletes on college and high school campuses across the country come to discover their true identities in Christ.
“I think sport should be used not as winning or losing, but it should be used for the growth and the holistic development of these young people, these young athletes, helping them achieve grace through virtue,” says Tracy. “We truly believe that if we could change the culture of athletics — think of how big sport is — if we could transform this culture of sports, we’re going to transform culture for the good. It’s a platform for us to make a difference in the world.”
FIERCE is an acronym that stands for femininity, identity, embodiment, receptivity, Catholic, and evangelize.
“I am so passionate about upholding authentic femininity,” says Tracy. “What does it mean to be a woman, especially in today’s culture and society? And so, femininity and identity, helping these young women understand their true worth and their identity as children of God, as daughters of the Father. My worth is not from my performance or from anything else external. I have a dignity and worth because I am made in the image and likeness of God.”
FIERCE was founded in 2016, and although she had a role early on in helping to shape the program, Tracy joined the team officially in January 2023, when a new branch of the ministry was formed — FIERCE Coach.
“Samantha mentors athletes, does clinics, retreats, all kinds of different things with student athletes, both high school and college, and the coaches at these high schools and colleges were kind of desiring to have something for themselves. It was like, ‘What about us? We also want to be mentored, and we want to grow in our faith,’” says Tracy.
While they often partner with Catholic colleges, they also work through Dominican priests, FOCUS missionaries, and Newman Centers to connect with secular ones. For instance, they recently visited the University of Virginia.
Tracy describes her role as coaching the coaches. She travels to meet with them and looks to build community among them, helping them to make peer-to-peer connections.
“We’re helping the coaches to see the platform of sport and coaching as a vocation,” she says. “It’s like the New Evangelization. There is this gift and talent you have. You’re a coach at this school. How can I encourage and support you so that you can be the light of Christ where He has put you?”
Tracy describes some coaches as being “transactional,” where it’s all about winning and losing because their jobs depend on it. But, she says there are many coaches who truly desire to make a positive difference in the lives of the student athletes.
“They’re creating a culture on their team where it’s almost like they’re a spiritual mother to these kids,” she says. “I see coaching as a spiritual motherhood because you are really preparing them for their vocations in life.”
Tracy says what coaches often struggle with is finding the balance of holding the women to a higher standard of virtue without having them lose their competitive edge.
“My answer to them is that it’s hard. This is challenging because it’s not going to happen right away. But, if you can get these athletes to buy into more of the process and not dwell on winning and losing and being selfish, if these athletes could be selfless and applaud their teammates, if they’re not put under so much pressure to perform but play in freedom because they know I am loved and worthy despite my performance, then you create an environment where athletes actually play better, and you’re going to do better,” she says.
Tracy says she knows from personal experience that it works.
“When I was a college athlete, when I understood that I am chosen, I am loved, I am worthy, then it freed me up to just do my best. I wasn’t worried about what my coach said. I wasn’t worried about how many points I scored or how I did in practice. I was playing to glorify God through the gifts and talents that He’s given me, and it just freed me up, and I played better. My coaches were like, ‘What’s wrong with you? How come you’re playing so well?’”
Tracy says sports should be about joy, and there is a lesson there not only for coaches and athletes but for parents, which is why they’re considering further branching out and establishing FIERCE Parent.
“It’s to talk with parents about how it might not be the best thing to have your child specialize in a sport at seven years old. As a former college Division I coach, I would tell the parents to have your child play. Just go and play outside. Be a child. Experience many things. Play all sports. The child will be a better athlete because of it: mentally, emotionally, and physically,” Tracy says. “Imagination, play, they lead to contemplation, wonder, which leads to liturgy.”
Tracy acknowledges that it’s hard to change culture, and she says she and Samantha continue to look for ways to bring FIERCE’s message to as many people as possible. She believes it can improve their lives.
“When they’re trying to satisfy themselves with the world, whether it’s success or money or popularity or winning gold medals, there is still something missing,” she says. “As St. Augustine said, our hearts are made for God, and they will not rest until they rest in Him.”
Along with her work and travels for FIERCE, Tracy coaches at Wisdom High School in St. Agatha and helps with baptism preparation and with the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) program at the St. John of the Cross parishes of Our Lady of the Valley, Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, and St. Peter Chanel in the St. John River Valley.
In addition to coaching basketball at the University of Maine at Presque Isle and serving as an assistant coach at the University of Maine’s flagship campus in Orono, she formerly taught at Saint Dominic Academy in Auburn, and prior to that, she served as faith formation director of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Bangor for four years. She holds a master’s degree in theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.
For more information
If you would like to learn more about FIERCE Athlete or to support the ministry, which is a nonprofit, visit www.fierceathlete.org.
