Many often wonder…where are they now?
Well, Ameritime Sports, Resource One® and all associated companies within Ameritime’s Integrated Financial Network® are pleased to provide that information to our readers with a series of verbal portraits featuring some of the most iconic local sports figures in the area. Our next installment highlights Father Larry Huber, who is known for his football prowess, faith and strides in the church and community… but there is more to this enticing story.
Fr. Huber, 58, has always been a part of a team, whether that be playing football, playing for God, or in building the Community of Transcendent Men.
Huber grew up in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri, a “simple, Catholic town [that] revolved around the church and the schools.” While attending Valle Catholic High School, Huber found himself drawn to football.
“We had a lot of good athletes and a lot of big athletes for a school our size,” Huber said.
“I was an average athlete and a late bloomer, so I was always catching up with people. I tried to accentuate every ounce of my athletic ability that I could, and I did it through hustling; they gave me the ‘Mister Hustle’ award.”
Huber’s hard work paid off, earning himself a starting position as Tight End on the State Championship team in 1981. Valle went on to tie Kansas City’s St. Pius X in the finals, having gone 12–0–1 in their regular season.
“Winning football helps you enjoy the game a lot more,” Huber said. “But [ultimately], you play the game for others. You play as a unit; these are the people you’re going into battle with. It’s all about team play and sacrificing yourself and your body for a bigger, much bigger entity than yourself.”
Following his time playing football at Valle, Huber found himself faced with a new calling: priesthood.
“It was plain all throughout that God wanted me to become a priest, and I had no doubt about that,” Huber said. “I had to make a decision right before I got ordained as a deacon, which is that last transition before you get ordained as a priest, and I had to make a decision whether I wanted to do it or not. I knew what God wanted me to do: it was plain to me then at 25 and it still is now that I’m 58.”
Huber believes that his time playing football at Valle carried over into his priestly duties, teaching him the importance of “competing for a bigger cause” and helping him be a better servant to God.
“[Football] taught me how to compete, and it’s a lesson that keeps giving,” Huber said.
“The best way to compete is by lifting yourself up with a good team, and that’s what I’ve done even 40 years after the fact—we’re competing with the right people on our team, only [this time], we’re competing for a bigger cause, and there’s no other bigger cause than Jesus now.”
For Huber, outside of the sacramental life at church, the most inspiring aspect of priesthood is being with his team, or “being with other people who have devoted themselves to Jesus and this church.”
“That’s the most impactful thing, knowing that there are other people that God has called not as a priest but as laypeople and married people to try to build up God’s church and lead other people to the sacramental joys of God’s church,” Huber said. “That’s the most impactful thing, the spiritual life of other people that I’ve been blessed to be a part of in parish life.”
Huber answered God’s calling enthusiastically, albeit unwillingly, sacrificing his own aspirations of getting married and starting a family as a man of God.
“When you’re a man and you grow up seeing your father, your uncles, and your coaches raising their families, it’s just something you want to do,” Huber said. “I always tell people, you have to make decisions in life that will really, truly give you peace and joy. As a Catholic, you want to do what God wants you to do first. I took a trip over to the Holy Land where Jesus was crucified to solidify my vocation, and I was like, ‘Okay, if you can do what you did, then I guess I can sacrifice and accept your calling to priesthood.’”
Choosing not to get married and start a family himself, Huber took to examining the nature of married men from his position in the church. Huber had known that many Catholic men took their wives for granted, but it became much more pronounced that they did not “respect their beautiful daughters of God.”
In response to his findings, Huber decided that the best course of action would be to build the Community of Transcendent Men (CTM), an organization that would allow men to encourage each other to be better husbands, or if they are not married, to be better men for their future wives.
“For some reason, the Holy Spirit was calling me to help men become more appreciative of our women,” Huber said. “The CTM is meant to help develop a community and mentor for our awesome women that they deserve better from us [as masculine presences]. We men can be better men through hanging out with [others] who are trying to be better Christian men.”
“This whole process has helped me become a better priest. All of these men will tell you that they’re better husbands and that they’re better fathers, and they’re better spiritual leaders for their respective communities, whether that be work or church or whatever. We have a saying within the CTM, and that is that it takes masculinity to raise a boy into a man, and then it takes even more masculinity to raise a man into a better man. The community part of the CTM is built to help bring guys together to make that happen.”
The CTM began as a small group of people at various parishes in Jefferson county, extending to Our Lady Parish in Festus. Huber brought his idea to longtime friend Mark Benson, CEO of Ameritime and Resource One, member of Our Lady, and Huber’s former football coach at Valle in the 80s. Huber explained the need “to build a community of men where if his daughter wanted to marry one of them, [he’d] be ecstatic.”
With that, Benson was all in.
Huber and Benson wanted to ensure that men would commit to their organization as a means to create a safe environment for men to work on becoming better men, husbands and fathers. They emphasized the message that there was no need to be afraid if they did not know what they were doing, because in reality, “nobody really does.”
“We didn’t know what we were doing with CTM, and we were fumbling and bumbling throughout the process, but we had the courage to commit,” Huber said. “We have another saying that comes from the business world from [Benson], and it’s that, ‘You just commit and the capabilities and the confidence will come later.’”
Starting with monthly meetings in which the attendees would listen to a speaker and break off into smaller groups to share what they had learned guided by three discussion questions, CTM shifted to semesterly men’s cross trainings where there are nine sessions in both spring and fall semesters. Within these sessions—officially called MCTs—the guys come for an hour and listen to a witness talk and later have an opportunity to participate in a discussion of questions, they have a call to action, and then they go home to practice in their masculine familial duties and return whenever they can.
“This coming spring semester, we’re going to have [MCTs] in four different places: Saint Francis County, Jefferson County, Saint Louis County, and Perry County,” Huber said. “The following fall semester, we’re going to keep said locations, but we’re [also] going to move up north and keep building on this. We’re basically giving guys an opportunity to listen to a man talk about how Jesus is in his life.”
Father Huber hopes to continue expanding CTM’s reach, tossing around ideas like building a boarding school for boys or partnering with groups such as Wounded Warriors.
“The Holy Spirit pulled us into this process; [we just] kept in mind that there’s a lot of men out there that want to make a positive change in this world,” Huber said. “They want to change the world with Jesus, but they just don’t know how. Many times they try to do it on their own; now, we’re giving them a forum where they can do it alongside other men. That’s what CTM is trying to do: we’re trying to form teams so that people of faith can have a shot at being effective, evangelizing for Jesus and bringing that love and mercy to all parts of our world.”
When asked to describe his journey thus far, from high school football at Valle to his experiences in the church and with CTM, Huber instead chose two words: “Holy Spirit.”
“It’s truly the Holy Spirit that has brought me where I am. Brought me where I was. That one who brought me in contact with a football team, that one who brought me in contact with Mark Benson and Ameritime, gave me the greatest parents that I can ever imagine other than Mary and Saint Joseph and brought me in contact with all these wonderful people throughout my priesthood. It’s all the Holy Spirit.”
These beliefs and the purest of faith introduced Huber to so many of the meaningful connections in his life, including Ameritime and all of its additional arms and legs. And we are all better for it.
Learn more about the overall joy and stability that Fr. Huber has experienced through Ameritime and the Control Option® by visiting any of the helpful sites regarding the services we provide at:
Sports is an incredible journey, but life doesn’t end there. Reach out to those who know.
