‘Her engagement with our kids is enduring’
St. Pius X School girl’s varsity basketball coach Katelyn Mitchell (above) used to say, “God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers.” She passed away in 2020 after a courageous battle with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Her family established the Katelyn Mitchell Student Athlete Scholarship Endowment Fund to honor her memory. (Greensboro News and Record File Photo)GREENSBORO — Students at St. Pius X School will be blessed for generations thanks to a new athletic scholarship established in memory of one of its beloved girls’ varsity basketball coaches, Katelyn Mitchell.
The Katelyn Mitchell Student Athlete Scholarship Endowment Fund honors Mitchell, who died in 2020 at the age of 33, after a long battle with cancer.
Her parents, Stephen and Judith Mitchell, set up the endowment to provide tuition assistance for a student athlete at St. Pius X School on an annual basis.
“St. Pius basketball teams meant so much to Katelyn,” Stephen Mitchell said. “We felt this was a great way to honor her.”
He shared that his daughter was a driven young lady who was working full time and studying to earn her MBA even as she battled stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. She lived long enough to accomplish that educational goal.
“Katelyn never lost her sense of humor. She was always smiling,” he fondly recalled. “She was never going to let cancer define her.”
Mitchell says their parish community at St. Pius X Church rallied around them during Katelyn’s illness and passing.
Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor of St. Pius X, knew the family well, as he administered the sacraments to Katelyn and her family over many years and greatly valued her contributions to the parish community.
“Katelyn was a strong, smart, thoughtful, successful, professional person,” Monsignor Marcaccio said. He believes her experience as a student athlete at St. Pius X School and being mentored during her time there greatly affected her Christian outlook.
“Katelyn, in turn, did the same thing for so many of our young girls. Many of our students held her in esteem and as a role model,” he noted.
“Her engagement with our kids is enduring,” he added. “They still remember her with great affection, and we honor her legacy with this endowment. We hope to encourage that same level of engagement in our students.”
Last year the Mitchells personally funded a $2,000 scholarship for a St. Pius X student athlete. At the end of this academic year, the Katelyn Mitchell Student Athlete Scholarship will be funded out of the endowment and awarded when the other school awards are presented. Applicants should be in the sixth or seventh grade.
“The endowment fund will live on when we’re gone. It will be a lasting gift we can provide to the students,” Mitchell said.
“What amazes and touches me deeply is that this family has suffered such a great loss, and they are still thinking of others,” said Jim Kelley, director of development for the Diocese of Charlotte. “Katelyn will have a major impact on students for generations to come – offering them the gift of a Catholic education. That will change those students’ lives.”
Fund an endowment
Interested in setting up an endowment or adding to an existing endowment at your parish or Catholic school? Establish an endowment in the Diocese of Charlotte Foundation by leaving a bequest in a will; a beneficiary designation from a retirement plan; a gift of real estate; a gift of life insurance, cash or securities sufficient to set up an endowment; or a life income arrangement, such as a trust or annuity.
For details, contact Gina Rhodes at 704-370-3364 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter