March is a big month on the American Jesuit calendar because it’s the biggest month for men’s and women’s college basketball. The March Madness tournaments are the most purely fun and chaotic sporting events on the planet. Nothing beats massive single elimination tournaments if you’re looking for surprises and drama. And these tournaments are often big showcases for our Jesuit colleges and universities, many of which have rich basketball histories. In recent decades, no Jesuit program has been more successful than the Gonzaga University Bulldogs men’s team, led since 1999 by head coach Mark Few.

And one person you might notice on the end of the bench if you watch a Gonzaga men’s or women’s game this March is a rather short guy wearing a red Gonzaga sweater over black clerical attire. This is Father Bryan Pham, SJ, a Jesuit priest and the chaplain for both Bulldog hoops teams. You might think someone with this job would be a huge basketball fan. Not so in Fr. Bryan’s case, who was quick to tell host Mike Jordan Laskey that he rarely understands what he’s watching on the court. Fr. Bryan is a huge fan of the athletes themselves, though, and he sees his role as one of availability and spiritual support. We wanted to find out what the work of a Jesuit basketball chaplain entails and what March Madness looks like through his eyes.

Fr. Bryan also shared reflections about his many other roles at the university. He’s a lawyer by training and serves as a professor and chaplain at the law school, runs legal clinics and appears in court with his student interns, and lives in a freshman dorm on campus. We know you’ll love getting to know this thoughtful, funny, impossibly busy Jesuit. Go Bulldogs. And go Bluejays, Golden Eagles, Musketeers and Stags.

Fr. Bryan Pham, SJ: https://www.gonzaga.edu/about/our-mission-jesuit-values/university-ministry/meet-our-team/fr-bryan-pham-sj

2025 Jesuit March Madness: https://www.jesuits.org/stories/jesuit-march-madness-trivia/

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

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