Faith, Formation, and Sport: How Diocesan Athletic Associations Articulate Catholic Mission

As Catholic schools navigate declining enrollment, expanding school choice policies, and increasing specialization in youth athletics, diocesan Catholic youth athletic associations represent an understudied site of mission articulation and identity formation within Catholic education. This study examines the organizational composition of diocesan athletic associations in the United States and analyzes how these organizations construct and communicate mission and Catholic identity through governing documents. Using structural topic modeling, the study analyzes 81 mission-oriented statements drawn from publicly available handbooks, bylaws, and policy manuals of 51 diocesan athletic associations. Results indicate that mission-oriented language across organizations reflects a consistent set of value-based and structural emphases that position athletics as a formative extension of Catholic education rather than a purely extracurricular activity. While mission language was largely uniform across organizations, organizational orientation emerged as the only characteristic associated with meaningful variation, with school-based associations placing greater emphasis on interscholastic athletic structures and parish-based associations emphasizing explicitly Catholic language. Exploratory descriptive analyses further examined the relationship between mission language and the presence of playing time and talent distribution policies, revealing limited alignment between stated mission emphases and formal policy frameworks. By extending Catholic identity and mission statement research beyond schools to diocesan athletic systems, this study highlights youth athletics as a meaningful organizational context for Catholic formation and provides a descriptive foundation for future research on values-based athletic governance.