{"id":102,"date":"2009-10-11T16:01:26","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T16:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/know-when-to-hold-em-meet-the-poker-playing-priest.html"},"modified":"2009-10-11T16:01:26","modified_gmt":"2009-10-11T16:01:26","slug":"know-when-to-hold-em-meet-the-poker-playing-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/know-when-to-hold-em-meet-the-poker-playing-priest.html","title":{"rendered":"Know when to hold ’em: meet the poker-playing priest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought you’d seen it all…along comes this<\/a>: <\/p>\n

A South Carolina priest made headlines this week when he starred in a new poker competition on US television this week.<\/p>\n

Father Andrew Trapp, an assistant pastor at Garden City Beach’s St. Michael Catholic Church, has so far won $25,000 in Fox TV’s Million Dollar Challenge, which was set to air for the first time on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Trapp, who reportedly also goes by the nickname “Father Rambo” for his paintball skills, says the funds will go toward helping build a new church for his congregation.
He is competing against such celebrities as American football champion Jerome Bettis, NBA champion John Salley and four-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu for the $1 million prize, which will no doubt give a substantial boost to St Michael\u00c2\u00b4s rebuilding plans.<\/p>\n

Trapp said his participation in the tournament would be positive because “Even if I didn’t win any money, it would be an opportunity for people across the country to see that there are still young men choosing to be priests, and that one can be joy-filled and have fun as one serves God.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can watch the good padre’s audition video below.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought you’d seen it all…along comes this: A South Carolina priest made headlines this week when he starred in a new poker competition on US television this week. Father Andrew Trapp, an assistant pastor at Garden City Beach’s St. Michael Catholic Church, has so far won $25,000 in Fox TV’s Million Dollar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-this-that","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nKnow when to hold 'em: meet the poker-playing priest - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/know-when-to-hold-em-meet-the-poker-playing-priest.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Know when to hold 'em: meet the poker-playing priest - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just when you thought you’d seen it all…along comes this: A South Carolina priest made headlines this week when he starred in a new poker competition on US television this week. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}