Faith, family and friendship: The many roles of Roughriders Chaplain Jared LaCoste

The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ football-operations area at Mosaic Stadium includes the office designations one would expect — work areas for the general manager and coaches, along with meeting rooms for the players.

Valuable space is also allocated to someone who plays an integral, if often unheralded, role in the CFL team’s day-to-day existence and culture.

That would be Jared LaCoste — the Roughriders’ full-time Chaplain since 2016.

“He’s one of the most important key pieces to this organization,” veteran linebacker Derrick Moncrief says. “He keeps everything together behind the scenes. He doesn’t like to get the credit, but I give Jared LaCoste so much credit.

“Plus, he introduced me to my wife and he married us in our living room.”

Aside from playing the unofficial but much-appreciated role of matchmaker on occasion, LaCoste contributes to the Roughriders in myriad ways.

There is, of course, spiritual care and development. LaCoste works closely with the players during Bible study sessions, game-day chapels and general prayers.

“There is also the life-coaching space,” he says. “You’re going to be a dad or you’re going to be a husband. What is the basic life skill?

“A lot of these guys come in as 20-something-year-old men who don’t know how to do this or don’t know how to do that. You’re on your own now as a professional.”

Moreover, LaCoste provides support as a friend, a listener and, if necessary, a dispenser of advice.

“That’s where I would say that, day to day, the bulk of my time is spent — pulling up a chair or sitting down beside a locker of a guy who I know is struggling maybe on the field or with some aspect of his life,” he says.

“Maybe through a relationship or a conversation with someone else, someone will say to me, ‘You might want to check in with him. Stuff’s going on back home.’

“There are so many things that I don’t think people necessarily understand. These guys are humans as much as anybody else. They’re not exempt from any of the difficulties that might come in a day-to-day life as a young adult, but they’re expected to perform or they’re expected to put all of that aside for the sake of being in this profession and being in a role as somewhat of a performer.”

LaCoste began to develop an insight into the life of a professional football player in 2012, when he spent the first of two seasons as the assistant to then-Roughriders Chaplain Barret Kropf.

In 2014 and 2015, LaCoste focused on a local chaplaincy and, in that capacity, worked with the University of Regina Cougars men’s hockey team, the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Notre Dame Hounds and the Prairie Football Conference’s Regina Thunder.

“Then, in 2016, I got a phone call about a week and a half before training camp,” LaCoste says. “I was told that the Roughriders needed a Chaplain, full-time.”

Just like that, he was a Roughrider … again.

It was an easy fit for a lifelong Saskatchewanian who grew up in Estevan.

He moved to Caronport to major in Christian Ministry at Briercrest College and Seminary.

From 2006 to 2010, LaCoste also played hockey for the Briercrest Clippers, who compete in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.

Along the way, LaCoste met his future wife, Courtney, who grew up in Lanigan.

“When we got married, she was at school here in Regina, so that kind of brought us here,” LaCoste says.

“We thought it was a short-term plan and, as it goes, we’re still here and we couldn’t be happier.”

Jared and Courtney are the proud parents of Brodie, 8, Boston, 7, and Owen, 5.

Their extended family includes members of the Roughriders and Regina Pats. LaCoste began working with the Western Hockey League team last year while maintaining close ties to the Green and White.

“I promise the guys every year that I’m going to teach them, I’m going to model what it looks like, and I’m going to love them,” he says.

“When we start off each year, I say, ‘I’ll do my best to teach you and I’ll do my best to actually live it out.’ I also tell them that ‘I’ll love you.’

“It’s always an odd one to start off with but, over time, these are the three components that I really feel called into.

“It takes a lot of effort on our part but, seeing those kinds of transformations take place in those guys’ lives, you couldn’t ask for anything more.”

LaCoste does all this, and so much more, as an employee of Athletes in Action.

“I fundraise my entire role,” he notes. “I fundraise my wage. I fundraise my operation budget.

“I don’t get paid by any of the teams that I work with, so a lot of it is from personal donations by people who know me or people who understand what I’m trying to do.

“I have anywhere between 70 and 80 people who have financially committed to supporting me to do this as a job.

“It was a big risk early on, because I felt like this was where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing.

“I looked at my life and I had a great job — full benefits, good salary and all those things — and I was just like, ‘No, I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing,’ so I just walked away from all that.

“I started at ground zero and said, ‘OK, how much money do I need to raise every year to make this a viable position and career?’ That number has gotten greater as years have gone on.”

That is the case for every Chaplain in the CFL. Athletes in Action is also affiliated with Canadian-based National Hockey League and Major League Soccer teams, along with the National Basketball Association’s Toronto Raptors.

“Every staff member we have with Athletes in Action is in the same situation,” LaCoste notes. “We just feel so passionately about what we do that part of it is raising the funding to do it as a career and to actually be able to make a wage off of it.

“That’s kind of the element that most people don’t understand. It doesn’t necessarily come up in conversation, so it’s always a shock.”

It is also a blessing, from the players’ perspective.

“To be an athlete, you not only have to have your physical self right, but you’ve got to have your mind and your spirit right,” Moncrief says.

“With everything that Jared pours into us, not only on game day but during the week, it is so valuable. You’ve got people who are away from their families and things like that. People are sacrificing things.

“For him to be a shoulder to lean on and an ear to just listen to your problems and to be able to pray with you and things like that, it’s essential for all of us.”

Factor in the introduction of Moncrief to his future wife, Kasia, and the wingspan of LaCoste’s contributions is truly something to behold.

Derrick and Kasia exchanged vows in Regina on Aug. 22, 2022, with LaCoste performing the ceremony.

The Moncriefs welcomed their first child — a daughter, Minnie — on July 1.

“You get to experience these moments with people,” LaCoste says. “They kind of allow you the freedom to have space in their life to experience those things alongside them. That’s the greatest joy I have in my role.

“There’s a lot of things that I love to do, but when you get to watch young men grow up before your eyes and you see them take on new responsibilities and have new moments in life, that is really special.”

At 35, LaCoste is still younger than some of the Roughriders’ players, and is at a point in his life where he is able to relate to all of them.

“I’m a little bit further down the line than them — not too much — but my wife and kids have the ability to build into relationships with players and their significant others and their families,” he says.

“For us to be able to see some of those big moments happen for them, it’s a joy for me to be a part of. At the end of the day, I’m just trying to give these guys the ability to grow.

“When I saw Derrick with his daughter the other night, enjoying being a dad, I said, ‘Five years ago, we were just trying to figure out how to get through the day. Now you’re a husband and a father.’

“Life can change so quickly for a lot of these guys. To be able to be invited into those areas and those spaces, I consider it a privilege.”