Take a moment to think of a time when you have felt devastated. When some dream, hope or goal that you have poured all your hard work, energy and belief into has come to a crashing end.

Then ask yourself this question: How did I immediately react to that feeling of devastation?

Take a long moment to let that feeling and that question settle into your thoughts.

Now consider what Riley Leonard did and said almost immediately after his University of Notre Dame football team lost in the national championship game against Ohio State on Jan. 20.

As Notre Dame’s star quarterback took his seat at a press conference just moments after the game—alongside his head coach Marcus Freeman and his tearful teammate Jack Kiser—Leonard had the look of someone who was physically and emotionally drained, the emotional pain noticeable in his reddened eyes.

The journey of his past year was one filled with surgeries, a painful early season loss and even some boos, and also one filled with growth, cheers and his stellar play in three amazing playoff wins, victories in which he began every post-game interview by giving glory to God. Now the remarkable season was over, ending in as much devastation and heartbreak as sports can bring.

For the first few minutes of the press conference, Leonard listened as an equally devastated Freeman answered questions with grace. Then came the first question directed to Leonard.

He leaned forward and said to the reporter, “Before I answer your question, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving me the opportunity to play in this game.” Then for the next minute, he mentioned how, before the game, he had written on his hand the verse of Proverbs 27:17—“As iron sharpens iron, so should one man sharpen another.” He then praised Ohio State before adding a thought that connected to the way he had thanked God first after the three playoff wins.

“I’m happy to see godly men come out on top, no matter what the circumstances. I’m very happy to praise Jesus in the lowest of lows as well.”

He then turned his thoughts to his teammates and coaches, praising them for how much they have helped him grow in the past year as a person, a player and a man of faith—while also expressing that he felt he should have done more to help them win the national championship game.

The depth of his commitment to his faith, his teammates and his coaches had also surfaced in a reporter’s interview with Leonard earlier in the season—when he talked about the influence of Notre Dame’s only other loss this season, in the second game against the team from Northern Illinois University (NIU).

“I do share my faith publicly, and I think it’s important to know that, like, I’m not completed at all in my faith,” he said. “And I’m striving to be a better Christian every single day. And I know that there are things maybe in my past that—you don’t know what you don’t know. And I think I’ve grown a lot.

“This team has helped me grow a lot. I think after NIU, I was walking in the locker room with my head down and things like that. And I had younger guys come up to me and be like, ‘Dude, you say it’s faith, family, football, but a football game two days ago is completely affecting your family and your faith. Now, tell me how that works.’

“And that kind of just shook me up a little bit and made me realize, like, ‘Dude, that’s hypocritical of me to be emotionally so connected to football that it affects my relationship with Christ.’ And that’s one lesson that I’ve learned.

“And hopefully, I’m just a reflection of him everywhere I go. I try to just do my best to ask myself, what would he be doing in certain circumstances, and hopefully my teammates can see that, and maybe learn a thing or two. But like I said, I’m just as broken as anybody.”

Just as he does in moments of complete joy, Leonard’s first reaction in his times of brokenness and devastation is to do something that has always challenged me—and maybe you—in such moments.

He turns to God and thanks him.
 

(John Shaughnessy is the assistant editor of The Criterion.) †