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SPEAKER 1: You would be hard pressed to find many places as dominated by men as a football field, right? Yet when the College of St. Scholastica takes the field tomorrow for its final regular season game, Lisa Maurer will be on the sidelines coaching kickers and punters. Not only is she just a handful of women to coach college football, Sister Lisa Maurer is likely the first nun in such a role. As Dan Krocker tells us, she sees it as part of her calling.

[BELL RINGING]

DAN KRAKER: At 5:10, the bell tower at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth calls 70 Benedictine nuns to prayer. All except Sister Lisa Maurer. She's busy at football practice.

SPEAKER 2: One-on-one, ready?

LISA MAURER: Hurry up to line. Get going, get going.

DAN KRAKER: The 5 foot 2 Maurer weaves in and out of players who tower over her. She dispenses fist bumps, hugs, and constant encouragement.

LISA MAURER: All right, again. Blue, again.

Is it cool that I'm coaching, of course, it is. But in honesty, I look at it more as an extension of my ministry as a sister, that whole idea of helping these young men to be who and how God is calling them to be, how they can be great citizens, how they can grow in to be great people. So I get to use football to do that.

DAN KRAKER: The 45-year-old Maurer was raised a self-described sports nut in the town of Sleepy Eye in Southern Minnesota. Her dad coached football, and she also became a coach.

LISA MAURER: I was living the dream. I mean, I thought I had achieved everything I wanted. I was back in my hometown. And I was coaching volleyball, basketball, and softball. And we were successful. We had taken a few teams to the state tournament.

DAN KRAKER: And yet in the midst of all that, Maurer felt something missing. She knew she wanted to devote her life to God, but she figured that would mean giving up coaching.

LISA MAURER: And so I was OK with not being married, OK with not having my own children, but I was not OK with that idea that I wouldn't have that thrill of competition and in just that anticipation of game day.

DAN KRAKER: Still she decided to trade one passion for another, and in 2007, joined the Benedictine monastery at St. Scholastica, the year before the Division III school launched its football program. The practice field goal posts were visible from her monastery bedroom, and slowly Maurer was lured by the blare of whistles.

LISA MAURER: I would find in my afternoon sneak out to football practice, and because it's just maybe go for a walk, or say my rosary, or just sit in the stands and watch the game, maybe read a book just because I liked being around it.

DAN KRAKER: Then last year St. Scholastica hired a new coach. Maurer invited him to dinner, and Kurt Ramler says he was immediately impressed.

KURT RAMLER: I talked a little bit about the offense, and she actually asked what we were going to run, and on defense, et cetera. And I was like, that's a rather inquisitive question from somebody named Sister Lisa.

DAN KRAKER: A few days later, Ramler asked her to join his staff as a volunteer kicking and punting coach.

LISA MAURER: I was like, I don't know anything about kicking and punting. I've never coached football before. But he says, Yeah, but you're a coach, and you obviously love the guys and you love Scholastica.

KURT RAMLER: And really to me, it was just, Wow, here's a passionate, intelligent person that wants to be involved with the program. How can I best utilize her energies and her skills.

DAN KRAKER: So she studied up on kicking and reached out to other coaches for advice. She also leads team prayers and counsels players about off the field issues. And Ramler says despite a few raised eyebrows at first, the move has been seamless.

KURT RAMLER: She's tremendous. She's able to wear her habit, go out there and yell at our guys when they're not toeing the line. And I just can take a step back and go, I'm over here being a figurehead letting Sister Lisa do her thing.

LISA MAURER: On the numbers, having a day 60.

DAN KRAKER: Sister Lisa welcomed freshman kicker Donovan Blatz off the field last Saturday and the team's final home game, of the season. Blatz said it was a little shocking to learn a nun would be his position coach but he and other players like Mike Mensing, a senior quarterback from Blaine, say she offers something other coaches don't.

SPEAKER 3: I feel there's definitely the sister part of her job. So you can go to her with maybe a little bit more personal level than other coaches. She asked me how my family's doing, how my girlfriend's doing, so it's nice to have a coach like that as well.

LISA MAURER: Here we go, next time, guys. Next play, next play.

DAN KRAKER: On Saturday St. Scholastica trounced Westminster College of Missouri to clinch its fifth consecutive conference championship, and a berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs, led by talented players and enthusiastic coaches, including one who just might bring a little divine intervention. Dan Kraker, Minnesota Public Radio news, Duluth.