Baseball Player Hears A Calling

Interesting story in the past week about Grant Desme, a top prospect in the Oakland A’s organization who is quitting baseball to begin studying for the priesthood. And it reminded me of a local athlete I wrote about a couple years ago.

I caught an interview of Desme on Dan Patrick’s show, and one thing struck me: He said that despite all his baseball success, he felt unfulfilled. That sounded a lot like Sharon Heidland, a volleyball player from Woodland who went on to play at the University of Nevada. By the time I wrote about Heidland, she was Sister Miriam James Heidland, a Roman Catholic nun.

But as Heidland neared her college graduation five years ago, she realized that she didn’t have the world by the tail. Rather, it had her, filling her life with the kind of secular pleasures that are so celebrated in our society yet left Heidland feeling so empty.

“I had a boyfriend who was on the football team, and I partied all the time,” she said. “I was miserable and I couldn’t figure out why. Over a three-year period, I had this intense yearning, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. What I was yearning for was God himself. I really realized that God was calling me.”

Here’s a link to the column.