Saturday March 7, 2015

Past Conference Speakers

Kevin Reilly

   KEVIN REILLY is a former NFL player drafted in the 7th round by the
   undefeated World Champion, Miami Dolphins in 1973.  Later that year,
   he returned home to join the Philadelphia Eagles serving as
   captain of the special teams for two seasons before ending his NFL
   career with the New England Patriots in 1976, when a tragic chain of
   events almost ended his life. 

   He was diagnosed with a rare cancerous scar tissue tumor that
   resulted in his left arm and shoulder being amputated. The amputation
   ended his career, but through determination and rehabilitation he was
   able to overcome the limitations the experts said he would have.  
 
While cancer changed his life, Reilly holds no bitterness about all it took from him.  As a professional athlete, he channeled what he learned in sports to overcome adversity with faith and persistence.  Once recovered, he became a senior executive in sales and marketing at the Xerox Corporation for over 30 years.  

Kevin's story isn't merely about survival, it is a tale about Faith, resilience of the human spirit and rising from the ashes. Kevin reveals his experience with finding strength when your greatest adversary is yourself. Continuing on and winning small victories day-by-day without a stadium full of fans to cheer you on, but only the faintest whisper from above telling you that sometimes you have to fall to fly.
 
Kevin's talk emphasizes his key to winning in life, the 4 F's: Faith, Family, Friends, and Fortitude. In this day and age, we are quickly becoming a nation of victims, allowing adversities and challenges to overwhelm the skills and blessings that God has given us to handle the crosses we face.  Reilly speaks from the heart and uses his own life as a lesson on how all of us can prevail from bad situations, adversity and pain to find the very best in ourselves.

Today Kevin is a radio broadcaster for the Philadelphia Eagles Network and a highly sought motivational and inspirational Catholic speaker.  He is an avid runner and golfer, two of the many things people told him would be impossible after his surgery. In addition, Kevin is a board member with Easter Seals and is a qualified peer visitor at the Walter Reed National Army Medical Center in Washington, DC where he provides counseling to amputee soldiers and provides motivation to aide their recovery.

www.kreilly.com


Tim Staples

  TIM STAPLES is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization at Catholic
  Answers, but he was not always Catholic.  Tim was raised a Southern
  Baptist.  Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came
  back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of
  Christian televangelists.  Soon after, Tim joined the Marine Corps.
 
  During his four-year tour, he became involved in ministry with various
  Assemblies of God communities.  Immediately after his tour of duty, Tim
  enrolled in Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and became a youth minister
  in an Assembly of God community. During his final year in the Marines,
  however, Tim met a Marine who really knew his faith and challenged 
  Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources.  That encounter sparked a two-year search for the truth.  Tim was determined to prove Catholicism wrong, but he ended up studying his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up: the Catholic Church!
 
He converted to Catholicism in 1988 and spent the following six years in formation for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Sorromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania.  He then studied theology on a graduate level at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for two years.  Realizing that his calling was not to the priesthood, Tim left the seminary in 1994 and has been working in Catholic apologetics and evangelization ever since.

www.catholic.com


Darrell Miller

  DARRELL MILLER is a former Major League baseball player of the
  California Angels (1984-1988) and a dynamic speaker who loves to
  share his testimony and faith around the world at Catholic conferences
  and adult retreats. 

  Darrell was raised Baptist but as an adult, he converted to the Catholic
  faith and is especially mindful of the depth and truth of the Catholic
  faith after studying the history of the church and the writings of the
  Early Church Fathers on the Eucharist and Papal authority.

  Today he serves as the Director of Major League Baseball’s Urban
  Youth Academy, which provides free year-round instruction in
baseball and softball to urban youth.  He also serves as an official speaker for Catholic Athletes for Christ an organization designed to provide “an integrated network of sports-oriented clergy and lay people to serve Catholic athletes, coaches and staff in the practice of their faith and to utilize the unique platform given to them to reach the world for Jesus Christ and His Church.” 

Darrell was invited to the Vatican to participate in the first-ever Council on Church and Sports in 2005. He also was recently honored with the 2014 Catholic Athletes for Christ “Courage Award” for being a tremendous advocate for faith in athletics, both on and off the playing field; recognizing his eagerness to speak about his Catholic faith and his shining example of the ‘new evangelization’ in the world of sports.”

He is a member of one of the most successful sports families in history. His brother, former Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller, was a standout player in the NBA and his sister Cheryl Miller was a part of the 1984 United States Olympic gold medal-winning women’s basketball team and regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time.

Darrell has been married to his wife Kelly for 18 years and they have three children: Darrell Jr., Nicole and Cameron.  Kelly and Darrell also led a very successful young adult ministry for 14 years at St Angela Merici in Brea, California.

http://mlb.mlb.com/community/uya.jsp?id=program&loc=compton

www.catholicathletesforchrist.org