{"id":1460445,"date":"2022-05-02T13:15:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T17:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1460445"},"modified":"2022-05-02T13:15:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T17:15:09","slug":"super-bowl-champ-on-founding-a-catholic-school-plan-to-tweak-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/super-bowl-champ-on-founding-a-catholic-school-plan-to-tweak-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Bowl Champ On Founding A Catholic School, Plan To \u2018Tweak\u2019 Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsuper-bowl-champ-on-founding-a-catholic-school-plan-to-tweak-education%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1460445&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Readers-Pass-Morgan-Super-Bowl-Champion-On-Founding-A-Catholic-School-%25E2%2580%2598Tweaking-Education_216x9-scaled.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>With a Super Bowl ring, six Pro Bowl appearances, and a degree from Harvard, Matt Birk had racked up a lifetime of laurels before opening a high school three years ago. Now he has his sights set on politics.<\/p>\n<p><span>Birk, who spent 15 years as a center battling in the NFL trenches before retiring in 2012,<\/span><span>\u00a0opened Unity High School in Burnsville, Minnesota, with his wife, Adrianna, in 2019. He founded the Catholic high school, which currently fields students in grades 9-11, to \u201ctweak\u201d the way kids are educated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201c<\/span><span>I think the education system still is heavily predicated on memorization, a regurgitation of facts of information,\u201d Birk, 45, told The Daily Wire. \u201cBut today, everybody\u2019s got a supercomputer in their pocket so you can figure out what the capital of Argentina is real quick. So that, and then just how kids live today and being digital creatures, really focusing and cultivating some of these social and emotional intelligence skills.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Birk, who is running for lieutenant governor alongside gubernatorial candidate Scott Jenson on the Republican ticket, said his leadership experience more than makes up for the fact that he is a political novice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that\u2019s the biggest thing with that position and I think that\u2019s what\u2019s lacking right now in the state of Minnesota is leadership,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/matt-birk-we-need-to-get-past-trump-and-the-election\/ar-AAUQidq\">WCCO radio<\/a> in an interview last month. \u201cLeadership is invisible until it isn\u2019t and anybody can lead when things are good, when things are fine, but we\u2019ve had some things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Birk hopes to put his stamp on Minnesota through elected office, he\u00a0becomes animated when he talks about his faith and hands-on effort to improve education through his school\u2019s unique approach to blending scholarship and life skills.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cOur model, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, we do all the traditional academic classes, but then on Wednesdays, we don\u2019t do any of that,\u201d Birk said. \u201cWe do character, leadership, life entrepreneurship. Our principal happens to be a licensed contractor, so kids are swinging hammers or we\u2019ll do real-world math, talk about mortgages and stocks. We had somebody show up, a mechanic, and show the kids how to change a tire and change the oil in a car. Different types of learning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Birk\u2019s desire to give back is rooted in his own experience, going from standout football, basketball and track athlete and scholar at St. Paul\u2019s Cretin-Derham Hall High School to the Ivy League and then on to an illustrious gridiron career capped by a Super Bowl championship with the Baltimore Ravens in his final season.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cFor me, going to Catholic school, I was taught who made me, what He did for me, and what He expected of me,\u201d Birk said. \u201cI was taught that He had a plan for my life. Just having that foundation, I felt loved, there was a purpose, and I always knew that when bad things happen \u2014 which they\u2019re going to happen to everybody \u2014 it\u2019s a fact of life, there\u2019s going to be adversity and suffering. I knew there was a reason for that. It was just incredibly valuable for me as a kid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Birk worries that kids growing up today must deal with distractions that weren\u2019t part of his own childhood, but believes the key to getting through remains the same: Faith.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cYou look at kids today, and the secularization\u00a0<\/span><span>of our culture \u2026 all the things they\u2019re dealing with on social media, no wonder that their mental health has never been worse,\u201d Birk said. \u201cBut also, if young people ever needed to know about God, ever needed to be soaked in the gospel, this is the time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Birk, who entered the NFL as a sixth-round draft choice of the hometown Minnesota Vikings, said his faith was never out of place in the locker room during his career. It was common for players to lean on their religious beliefs to get through the grueling schedule, injuries, and emotions of the NFL, he said.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe locker room is a very spiritual place,\u201d Birk said. \u201cJust about everybody had a Bible in their locker room, every team I played on had a team chaplain. There were a bunch of Bible studies every week, three of the four head coaches I played for were Catholic, so we had Catholic mass. It\u2019s really probably one of the few workplaces where you\u2019re actually encouraged to grow in your faith while you\u2019re at work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Without faith to lean on, the fast money and rollercoaster ride of professional sports can destroy lives, noted Birk, who received\u00a0the 2011 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe NFL, none of it\u2019s real,\u201d he said. \u201cThe money\u2019s not real, the fame. It\u2019s super intense, it\u2019s super competitive, it\u2019s dangerous, and you have these high highs and these low lows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cSo, my faith was never a problem because most guys there were just like me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to figure it out, they\u2019re trying to walk closer to God, trying to balance the temptations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to sports@dailywire.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a Super Bowl ring, six Pro Bowl appearances, and a degree from Harvard, Matt Birk had racked up a lifetime of laurels before opening a high school three years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":1890173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1460445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1460445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1460445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1460445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}