When lacrosse player John Price ’01 passed away suddenly during his junior year in 2000, it was the late Rev. Anthony Kuzniewski, S.J. — in his role as team chaplain — who helped Price’s teammates process their grief.
Together with then-coach Mike McCaffrey, Fr. K encouraged the team to honor Price’s devotion to service in the Worcester community by establishing a partnership with Worcester’s Big Brothers Big Sisters that still exists today.
“Since then, every member of the team and their coaches has been paired with a boy at the Canterbury Street School,” Fr. K wrote in his blog on the Holy Cross website in 2010. “In that time, the blessing associated with remembering John has flowed both to the boys and to their ‘big brothers.’”
As the team’s athletics chaplain, Fr. K not only led Mass and prayers, he also offered guidance for the team off the field as the players confronted their unexpected loss.
“Fr. K was an instrumental part of supporting the men’s lacrosse team, particularly through the tragic passing of our teammate,” remembers Nick Washburn ’02, a player on the team at that time, who wrote to HCM after Fr. K’s death in December 2016.
It’s just one example of how the chaplains at Holy Cross reach out to students wherever they are — on the field, in the classroom or in the residence hall — to accompany them, both literally and spiritually, on their faith journeys.
The chaplains at Holy Cross are trained campus ministers, both Jesuit priests and lay people, who have studied theology and ministry and work to integrate the spiritual and academic experiences on campus.