Sister Jean returns to college hoops scene

College basketball season has begun, and everyone’s rooting for America’s favorite team chaplain, “Sister Jean.”

She is officially listed in the Loyola University Chicago program as Jean Dolores Schmidt, age 99, a sister in the religious order of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) for 81 years and “a beloved member of the greater Loyola community.”

Aaron Cooper, a communications officer at Loyola-Chicago, said: “Since becoming chaplain of the men's basketball team in 1994, Sister Jean has shown her dedication to Loyola’s student-athletes above and beyond just their spiritual health. She believes athletics affords valuable lessons for young people about how to deal with adversity in life.

“At home games, she can be seen working the crowd, encouraging school spirit and friendly competition and leading the players in prayer before each game.” She also scurries about on campus, getting to know the students and “bringing happiness and joy into their lives,” Cooper wrote.

In the 2018 NCAA tournament, Loyola-Chicago made it all the way to the Final Four, thrusting the coach, chaplain, players and campus into the national spotlight. It was the classic Cinderella story for sports fans the world over.

Brian Rauf, who covers college basketball for the Busting Brackets fan-based website, said Loyola’s run in the tournament was incredible – Loyola Chicago was “just the fourth No. 11 seed ever to make it that far” – to the semi-final game.

Sister Jean was there on the sidelines with her maroon and gold Loyola “lucky scarf” wrapped around her neck. (She also has her own special line of senior silver sneakers with Velcro snaps.)

Sister Jean gave Cooper the inside story about her basketball prayers. She said: “I begin with, ‘Good and gracious God…today we hope to win this game; we ask you for courage – we already have the confidence, we’re focused, we know we want to work hard. At the end of the game, we want to be sure that when the buzzer goes off that the numbers indicate that we get the big W.’”

Dr. Carol Scheidenhelm, a university administrator, told the Chicago Sun-Times: “Whether Loyola wins or loses, we have embraced the lessons of the importance of working together, the power of prayer and the goodness of others that Sister Jean exemplifies. In this era when incivility runs rampant and politics are contentious, these lessons may be the most positive thing that comes from the ‘Madness’ of 2018.”

What will Loyola-Chicago do for an encore in the 2018-19 season?

Opponents should be wary for two reasons. First, Sister Jean revealed to Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated: “I have a new bobblehead. I had one before, but they updated it to make me grayer.”

Second, in a pep rally environment at an annual campus function in September, Loyola-Chicago honored Sister Jean by presenting to her the “Sword of Loyola,” the university’s highest award.

Sister Jean said: “This was a team effort; I accepted it in the name of our students. What I did was just serendipitous. It was really those young men who got us to the Final Four; they brought such honor to Loyola and really put us on the map.”

“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do with a sword,’” she said. ‘I know, I’ll raise it high for the students. So, that’s what I did. I took it and raised it high for the students.’”

Loyola-Chicago is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, and head coach Porter Moser’s squad returns four of its top seven scorers from last season, including the league’s reigning Player of the Year Clayton Custer of Overland Park, Kan. Coach is hoping for a breakout year from shooting guard Bruno Skokna of Zagreb, Croatia.

Bracketology 101: Loyola University Chicago, a private university founded in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, is one of the nation’s largest Jesuit, Catholic universities, with an enrollment of more than 17,000 students.

Its athletic teams were first known as the Maroon and Gold, but became the Ramblers in 1926. Because the football team played most of its game on the road, sports reporters dubbed the team “the Ramblers,” because it rambled hither and yon about the country. Ramblers stuck.

The first mascot arrived on the scene in 1980. Bo Rambler was his name, and “he looked like a hobo with a big, giant head,” said Jim Collins, who manages Loyola’s campus television station.

Bo was eventually replaced in 2000 by “LU,” a wolf. The character has evolved into an overstuffed, loveable guy; a big hugger.

The idea for the wolf reportedly came from the heraldic shield of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1541.

Legend has it that the family, living in northern Spain near the Bay of Biscay, was so generous that after feeding all the humans who came by, they would then put out a pot to feed wild animals including wolves.

The image of two wolves and a cauldron adorns the family coat of arms and has also been adopted by many Jesuit universities, colleges and high schools across the country.

Go you mighty Ramblers; beat the Southern Illinois Salukis.