From Courtroom to Courtside: Gonzaga Law prof also serves as chaplain for basketball team
Gonzaga University School of Law professor Father Bryan Pham will have a great seat on Thursday as the Gonzaga Bulldogs face off against the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Pham has been the men's basketball team’s chaplain since 2019. (Photo by Zack Berlat/Gonzaga University)
On Thursday, the Gonzaga Bulldogs will begin their quest to win the NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball tournament. The team from the Spokane, Washington, Jesuit university will tip off against the University of Georgia Bulldogs at the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
Gonzaga University School of Law assistant professor Father Bryan Pham will be in attendance. He’ll have a great seat—on the Zags bench. Pham has been the team’s chaplain since 2019.
His is a high-profile position. Despite having just over 5,000 undergraduate students, the school’s basketball program is elite. The Bulldogs have appeared in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament every year since 1999—the second longest streak in the country behind Michigan State University. The team has played in two national championship games—coming up short in 2017 and 2021.
In a Zoom interview, the day before Pham was to head out to Wichita, I went one-on-one with the Jesuit priest who goes to court during the day and sits courtside at night. These things aren’t so unrelated, I soon learned.
From preaching to teaching
“I preach on Sunday at mass,” Pham, 49, says. “I prepare my sermons how I prepare opening and closing statements. I have an audience and I have to convey a message. … I have to capture their attention. I have to tug at the heartstrings. I have to be logical. I have to do it in less than five minutes. I can’t lose their attention.”
But there is one important difference between a sermon and an opening statement, Pham says, good-naturedly: “In the courtroom, there is one judge. On a typical Sunday, at a Catholic mass, there may be 300 judges.”
Pham also draws parallels between the importance language plays for both priests and lawyers. “People go to church, and they hear priests preach. The priest may be using convoluted language that doesn’t necessarily connect to the people.” For a courtroom lawyer to be effective, Pham says, they must connect to the jury. That requires care in the selection of language.
In addition to teaching legal methods and jurisprudence, Pham is the supervising attorney for the law school’s General Public Practice and Indian Law Clinic. The clinic offers future lawyers the opportunity to represent members of the Kalispel Tribe and residents of Spokane County in civil and misdemeanor criminal matters.
Heading up a student clinic, Pham says, is not unlike being a coach. “I’m in the locker room with [the players]. I’m with them when the coaches are giving them advice. When they’re going over the game plan,” he says. “It’s so much what I do with my interns when we prepare to go to court. It’s all about that preparation, research, doing your homework, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates and the opposing team.”
Gonzaga University School of Law professor Father Bryan Pham aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in San Diego on Nov. 11, 2022, when the Gonzaga University men’s basketball team took on Michigan State University. (Photo by Darin Davidson)
Pham says that “one of the ways in which a Jesuit approaches his work is the idea of accompaniment. As priests, we accompany people through their lives.” Pham explains that this goes hand-in-hand with being an attorney. “I accompany my clients on their journey,” he says. Whether they’re good or bad. “Whether they’re on the wrong side of the law or the right side of the law.”
The seed for Pham to pursue a career in law was planted at a very early age. In the early 1980s, he came to the United States from Vietnam. He recounts being 6 or 7 years old, in a refugee camp with his father, who was being interviewed as part of the asylum process.
While Pham didn’t understand English, he says he still knew that “the two people sitting across from us, talking to us, had the ability to help us make our life better.” Pham found out later that they were attorneys working for a nonprofit. “That’s what I wanted to do.”
Pham, with an undergraduate degree from Gonzaga, was ordained as a priest in 2004 and began teaching high school in Seattle. While doing so, he attended the Seattle University School of Law. Upon completing his studies, the newly minted lawyer headed to Rome, where he received a licentiate in canon law at Pontifical Gregorian University. Pham also has a bachelor of sacred theology from Regis College in Toronto, a master of divinity from the University of Toronto, a doctorate in canon law from Université Saint Paul in Ottawa and a PhD from the University of Ottawa.
Going courtside with the players
Several schools bring spirituality to the hardwood. Basketball team chaplains can also be found at St. John’s University, Marquette University, University of Notre Dame, Villanova University, Providence College and others.
There is no formal job description for chaplain of Gonzaga’s men’s basketball team. It involves many things, Pham says. But, most importantly, “let the players approach you.” He adds that his job is “not to impose religion on them.
“It is about availability,” Pham tells me. “And whenever they come to you, it’s usually when you least expect it. That’s when they need you most. That’s when you need to be available to them.”
Pham explains that there is a clear understanding of his role and the coaches’ role. “This is something that is important. When players come and talk to me, they are not speaking to a coach.”
For example, Pham shares that a player may be feeling insecure or had a bad week of practice but be unwilling to discuss that with a coach, as it could impact their playing time. “They know that what they tell me stays between me and them,” he says.
“People see me sitting on the bench—whether in person or on TV—and they think, ‘That’s what I do as chaplain.’ I would say that 90% of my work as chaplain for the teams happens between games.”
Pham—also chaplain for the women’s basketball team—attends every home game and tries to get to as many away games as possible. He works to schedule trials and hearings around the basketball teams’ schedules.
Sports fans pray for their team to win or a player to make a clutch free throw shot. Does that really help?, I ask Pham. Doesn’t God have more important things to worry about?
“God doesn’t care if we win or lose,” Pham says. But “it’s human nature” to pray.
“I say a prayer all the time. I care about these players. I want them to win. I want them to have a good time. Nobody wants to leave the floor unhappy. So I pray that they win. I’m praying that the shot will go through.”
But “win or lose,” Pham says, “the sun will come out tomorrow. Things are going to be OK.”
Randy Maniloff is an attorney at White and Williams in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law. He runs the website CoverageOpinions.info.
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