Fr. Connor’s involvement has spanned more than a decade
By Jay Sorgi
for the Register
Father Brian Connor’s talent on the tennis court encompasses maybe a fingernail of the gift given to current world No. 1 male tennis player, Jannik Sinner of Italy. But he’s got some hardware—and powerful memories of priestly brotherhood from his latest journey in his favorite game.
The gold medal the pastor of St. Mary Church in David City co-earned from sharing in the doubles title at the International Priests Tennis Tournament in Krakow, Poland hangs in front of a calendar on his wall. Yet his greatest treasures from his fifth appearance in the early September tournament come from the kind of memories that show up when God shows up in the sport he’s played most of his life.
“It’s great fraternity, great prayer, [and] a great tournament and competition. Everybody plays hard,” he said.
“It’s not all about the trophies, but it’s about the lifetime of memories and encounters of people we meet, the friends we make.”
That friendship includes one with a priest with experience playing United States Tennis Association tournaments, Father Daniel Valesco from the Diocese of Little Rock, Ark., one who has had a virtual lock on the singles title in recent years.
“Father Daniel beat me in the finals in Kansas City (2025). It wasn’t close. It was 6-1, 6-2. He crunched me, but he’s that much better,” Father Connor said of the priest who earned the 2026 singles title.
This year in Poland, Fathers Connor and Valesco became allies on the doubles court.
“We knew we were going to have two tough matches. These guys are better than myself, but Father Daniel beat them in singles,” Father Connor said. While he said he played well, Father Valesco covered more of the court.
“His friend from Arkansas is funny, a lot of fun. He said, ‘You’ve got two sides of the court. [Father Connor], you’re going to be on the party side and let him be on the work side and you guys will be fine,’” he quipped.
“I kind of kept that in mind because man, he did the work.”
They got to share in earning hardware during a closing ceremony where Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, attended and spoke.
“He’s making reference to the Pope, to Jannik Sinner, to Roger Federer who had his four children baptized by his uncle who is an abbot in a Benedictine monastery,” Father Connor said.
The game of tennis has been part of Father Connor’s life from early on as he grew up in Kansas City.
“I was fortunate to learn from my dad,” he said.
“My folks had five boys in a row and then they had a girl. Dad taught us all [at] about 5, 6 years old, so it’s part and parcel to our family, and we still play.”
He first encountered the tournament in 2012 while at a seminary in New York, meeting two men from Poland at the seminary who drew him to the tournament in Poland.
“I went with another priest from our diocese who loves tennis, and he loved it, too. Then I hoodwinked another friend of mine that is not a real big player to go. This is my fifth time.”
Father Connor has played a part in Lincoln (2019) and Kansas City hosting previous tournaments, but many of them have been held in Poland, where the original tournament began.
That setting gave the priests a chance to encounter countless holy sites in a land rich with evidence of God’s love, particularly the pathway of St. John Paul II.
“We went to where he was ordained. We went to where he had his first Mass. We went to the Divine Mercy Shrine, the JPII Cultural Center, the Divine Mercy Shrine where St. Faustina was, to Our Lady of Czestochowa,” he said.
The priests also experience moments of shared devotion to the Lord and their priestly vocation, sometimes interrupting their tennis with something a lot more important.
“At 3 p.m. in Poland, they pray the Divine Mercy chaplet. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the tiebreak or whatever it is, the bell rings and you walk off the court, and we all pray the chaplet together and then go back to our tennis,” he said.
“We prayed in five different languages. We have Mass together. The competition is fierce, but good sportsmanship.”
In all of this experience, Father Connor saw God’s handprints on and off the red clay courts of Poland.
“You see God just in the goodness of the time there, the beauty of the weather, beauty of the red clay, just the [competitors] that are so intense, and the Polish people that are really gritty,” he said, “the good spirit amongst all the guys [and] a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make this happen.”
Courtesy photos
