Sports Reveal Your Teen's Character

Do good guys and girls always finish last? Not according to JSerra Athletic Director Chris Ledyard. Chris shares with parents the secrets of raising great kids through the medium of sports and shares his strategy for teaching young people how to achieve excellence in mind, heart, and spirit without sacrificing excellence on the field.

In his short tenure as JSerra Catholic High School's Athletic Director, Chris Ledyard has created a culture of transformational coaching that forms student-athletes in Christian character without sacrificing wins. In today's podcast, Chris explains how virtue-based athletics is the key to unlocking young people's God-given potential — the potential not only to excel physically, but to overcome adversity, respond to life's greatest challenges, and ultimately to love their neighbors as themselves.

Chris Ledyard spent more than twenty years at the helm of the athletic program at Franciscan University in Steubenville before joining JSerra in October 2016. During his tenure at Franciscan, he built their athletic programs from the ground up and led the school through the process of receiving full accreditation in NCAA Division III.

He was named the 2015 Athletic Director of the Year by Sports Faith International and Coach of the Year for soccer by the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference in 2006, 2007, and 2008. He coached in high school and state championship tournaments in Ohio and West Virginia in track and field, soccer, and wrestling (1990, 1993-95, 2006-2011, 2013) and was a college athlete himself, having wrestled at Ithaca College in New York.

Chris and his wife, Lisa, have six children, all of whom are athletes and musicians.