College basketball is sorely missing Sister Jean

College basketball season is about to begin, but fans are deeply saddened by the loss of “America’s favorite team chaplain” – Sister Jean of Loyola University Chicago.

Jean Dolores Schmidt, a member of the religious order of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), died of natural causes on October 9, 2025. She was 106.

She became the chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago Ramblers men’s basketball team in 1994 at age 75 and continued in that capacity until she retired in September 2025, citing health concerns.

Founded in Chicago, Ill., in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, the school was renamed Loyola University in 1909. Today, it is one of the nation’s largest private Jesuit, Catholic universities, with an enrollment of nearly 17,400 students.

The university has posted a series of essays on its official website detailing Sister Jean’s “life of faith, service and basketball. She was a beloved icon of Loyola University Chicago for more than six decades…and celebrated worldwide for her infectious smile, quick wit and basketball acumen.”

“Sister Jean was universally adored and touched the lives of countless people throughout her lengthy tenure at Loyola.”

Indeed, Sister Jean captured the hearts of fans who turned on their televisions to watch the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Unexpectedly, Loyola-Chicago made it all the way to the Final Four, thrusting the coach, chaplain, players and campus into the international spotlight.

It was the classic “Cinderella story”…only better.

Loyola-Chicago, with a 15-3 league record, finished first in the Missouri Valley Conference regular season standings in 2017-18. The Ramblers then won the conference tournament championship to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Loyola-Chicago didn’t get much respect from the selection committee, however. The team was assigned a lowly No. 11 seed in the South Region.

The Ramblers managed to advance, by upsetting four higher-ranked teams – Miami, Tennessee, Nevada and Kansas State, respectively – to move on to the Final Four.

Since the tournament field was expanded to 48 teams in 1980, only six No. 11 seeds have made it to the Final Four.

Sister Jean was there every step of the way, positioned courtside with her maroon and gold Loyola “lucky scarf” wrapped around her neck, usually wearing her LU sweater or a varsity jacket.

She shared with sports reporters a bit about her pregame prayers. “I may begin, ‘Good and gracious God…today we hope to win this game.’”

“I tell God that we will do our part, if He will do His. I pray the referees call the right kind of game, that good sportsmanship prevails, that nobody gets injured.”

Players said Sister Jean would read the scouting reports before the game, and her prayers for the team’s success often included specific instructions disguised as requests to God, such as “we hope to score early and make our opponents nervous.”

Sister Jean said she also prayed for her team to play with courage and to stay focused. “When the buzzer goes off at the end of the game, we want the numbers to indicate that we get the big ‘W.’”

The prayer would often end with a variation of “God bless us. Go Ramblers. Amen.”

While many dignitaries offered heart-felt condolences after Sister Jean’s death, Jeff Link, senior writer within the university’s communications office, went out on campus to interview members of the student body. He wrote that they “expressed a bittersweet mix of grief, nostalgia and fondness for Sister Jean.”

Evie Abderraza, a freshman, summed it up best when she remarked that Sister Jean “really was the soul of our school.”

Alie McDougall, a senior, said she was taken by Sister Jean from Day One. While addressing incoming students at orientation “Sister Jean would tell a story about a caterpillar coming out of its cocoon and becoming a butterfly…leaving parents and students sobbing and wanting to thank her and greet her.”

“It just proved how much of a light she was and how much wisdom she had; people wanted to be a part of that,” McDougall said.

Alex Von Gillern, a recent Loyola graduate and classroom assistant in Information Technology Services, described Sister Jean as “everybody’s smiling grandma, who provided a little blip of positivity for students, especially during stressful periods like finals week.”

“I don’t think it’s too crazy to say that she was almost like a Loyola second mascot,” Von Gillern added.

Freshman William Richter said he first learned about Loyola and Sister Jean during the men’s basketball team’s 2018 March Madness Final Four run when he was 11 years old. “I grew up Catholic. So, seeing her at a nationwide level…it was kind of inspirational how she shared her faith with the world.”

Graduate student Lucas Williamson, a former varsity basketball player, said he developed “an especially close relationship with Sister Jean.”

A little-known fact is that she would send out an email to the team after every game and add a personalized note to each player. “It would be like ‘P.S. Lucas, I think you’re doing a great job leading the team.’”

To commemorate the life and times of Sister Jean, the Loyola-Chicago basketball team will display a patch on their jerseys this season that features a likeness of their beloved former chaplain.

 

Loyola University Chicago 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 was a bum or a hobo with a big, giant head that featured droopy eyes and a shaggy beard. 

He wore a suit jacket rife with patches. A shabby hat with an “L” topped it all off. Bo carried a small suitcase, presumably containing his only belongings.

 

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.

Here are 6 more Toy Hall of Fame nominees:

Today’s column explores six more toys, games and playthings that have a chance to join the National Toy Hall of Fame in November.

Tickle Me Elmo is a furry, plush doll based on the bright red Muppet character Elmo from the “Sesame Street” children’s television show. He shakes, giggles and vibrates when squeezed.

Tickle Me Elmo was introduced in 1996 by Tyco Toys of Woodbury Heights, N.J.

 

“Putting electronics into a plush-type toy had been done before but Tickle Me Elmo took it to the next level and allowed the toy to emulate the experience of being tickled,” reported Chris Bensch of the National Toy Hall of Fame, which is contained within the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y.

“When Elmo was tickled, he laughed, then he laughed some more and shook with glee. Tickle Me Elmo relates to basic play elements – anticipation, surprise and pleasure,” Bensch said.

Furby is also a candidate for induction into the hall of fame. Described as a fuzzy creature with piglet ears, a bird beak and drowsy, blinking eyes, Furby debuted in 1998.

The toy “encourages interactive, imaginative play, and demonstrates the capabilities of sophisticated technology,” Bensch said.

 

The electronic robotic toy was produced by Tiger Electronics, a subsidiary of Hasbro. Created and engineered by Dave Hampton and Caleb Chung, Furby starts out speaking entirely “Furbish” – the unique language that all Furbies speak – but is programmed to start speaking English words and phrases in place of Furbish over time. This process is intended to resemble the process of learning English.

New generations have been introduced over time, adding more complex facial movements and language enhancements. Today’s Furbies have large eyes that blink and move, ears that wiggle and a range of over 600 reactions, including jokes, songs and phrases.

Another contender for the hall of fame is the scooter, which began providing kids with easy, low-tech transportation in the early 1900s, first appearing as a vehicle of two small wheels, a wooden deck or standing platform and handlebars for steering.

 

“Modern scooters made of lightweight materials and innovative technology, such as Razor Scooters, have transformed the mild-mannered, two-wheeler into a vehicle of speed, dexterity and durability suited for a variety of sporting events and competitions,” Bensch commented.

Also in the running to enter the hall of fame is the Star Wars Lightsaber.

“When 20th Century Fox released the first ‘Star Wars’ movie in 1977, no one imagined it would change the toy industry and popular entertainment so dramatically,” Bensch reported.

Kenner Products of Cincinnati, Ohio, released an official Star Wars Lightsaber toy in 1978.

 

“The arsenal of toy lightsabers that followed – with lights and sounds – demonstrates the influence of popular culture on play, our fascination with mystical weapons, and the possibilities of technology,” Bensch said.

Some notable contributors include Jim Swearingen, who was principal conceptual designer for Kenner’s initial Star Wars toy line in the 1970s, and Yair Shilo, a toy inventor who developed the concept for a self-retracting, telescoping blade.

As the creator of “Star Wars,” filmmaker George Lucas conceptualized the lightsaber as a “laser sword” for his “Jedi samurai in space” idea. The original movie prop lightsaber was created by set decorator Roger Christian, who won an Academy Award for his work on the original “Star Wars.”

Spirograph is yet another contender that is knocking on the door of the hall of fame.

Packaged as a set of gears, rings, triangles and straight bars, Spirograph can be used to create intricately patterned geometric drawings. It has entertained and educated kids for 60 years.

 

The toy version was developed by engineer Denys Fisher of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and first sold in 1965. Distribution rights in the United States were acquired by Kenner, and Spirograph was introduced in the U.S. market in 1966 for “ages 5 and up.”

 

Spirograph was marketed as a creative toy for drawing “a million marvelous patterns.”

Completing the field of hall of fame finalists is cornhole, a game that has become enormously popular in America.

 

Competing one-on-one or in teams, players attempt to throw bean bags at a slanted wooden board with a hole in it. They score one point for landing a bag on the board and three points for throwing a bag through the hole. The game is played with many house rules and regional variants. 

Cornhole boards and bean bags are common sights in the backyard or the bar patio…and wherever tailgating occurs.

According to Slick Woody’s Cornhole Company of Richmond, Va., cornhole was invented in Germany in 1325 by a Bavarian woodworker named Matthias Kuepermann for the enjoyment of villagers and their children.

Or, perhaps the game was born in America, on the farm of Jebediah McGillicuddy in rural Kentucky for the amusement of family and friends.

There is some agreement, however, that football fans of the Cincinnati Bengals introduced cornhole to the world of tailgating.

 

The National Toy Hall of Fame judges will consider the following criteria:

Icon status: Is the toy widely recognized, respected and remembered?

Longevity: Is the toy more than a passing fad? Has it enjoyed popularity over multiple generations?

Discovery: Does the toy foster learning, creativity or discovery through play?

Innovation: Has the toy profoundly changed play or toy design.

The National Toy Hall of Fame was established in 1998, and to date, 87 toys have been inducted.

The charter members are indicated in boldface type:

Alphabet blocks, American Girl Doll, Atari 2600 Game System, baby doll, Baby Nancy, ball, Barbie, baseball cards, bicycle, Big Wheel, blanket, bubbles, Cabbage Patch Kids, Candy Land, cardboard box, checkers, chess, Clue, coloring book, Crayola Crayons, dollhouse, dominoes, Duncan Yo-Yo, Dungeons & Dragons, Easy-Bake Oven.

Erector Set, Etch A Sketch, Fisher-Price Corn Popper, Fisher-Price Little People, Frisbee, G.I. Joe, The Game of Life, Hot Wheels, Hula Hoop, jack-in-the-box, jacks, Jenga, jigsaw puzzle, jump rope, kite, LEGO, Lincoln Logs, Lionel Trains, Lite-Brite, little green army men, Magic 8 Ball, Magic: The Gathering, marbles, Masters of the Universe,

 

Matchbox Cars, Monopoly, Mr. Potato Head, My Little Pony, Nerf, Nintendo Game Boy, paper airplane, Phase 10, pinball, Play-Doh, playing cards, puppet, Radio Flyer Wagon, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Risk, rocking horse, roller skates, rubber duck, Rubik’s Cube, sand, Scrabble, sidewalk chalk, Silly Putty, skateboard, Slinky.

Star Wars action figures, stick, Super Soaker, swing, teddy bear, Tinkertoy, Tonka Trucks, top, Transformers, Twister, Uno, View-Master, Wiffle Ball.

It’s almost time to reveal newcomers to Toy Hall of Fame

A strong field of 12 contenders is on the 2025 ballot for induction into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Usually, four toys, games or playthings are selected each year. Judges will announce the winners in November.

Which toys or games are you wagering on to be the most worthy to enter the Hall of Fame?

 

From the “tabletop games grouping,” the finalists include Battleship, Connect Four, Catan and Trivial Pursuit. All are quite popular and have ardent supporters.

Let’s begin by examining the credentials of a pair of games that were designed for two players and head-to-head competition – Battleship and Connect Four.

Battleship originated as a “pencil and paper” game that was played by soldiers during World War I as an amusement. No one knows for sure who actually invented Battleship.

The Milton Bradley Company of Springfield, Mass., introduced the classic game in 1967, using plastic pegboards with plastic ships. The game, which is designed for “ages 7 and up” was among the first board games to be computerized in 1979, and today, countless electronic versions exist.

Each player positions five ships of various sizes on a grid that depicts the ocean surface. The opponents face off to try to identify the location of enemy ships, and it’s a contest to see who can sink the other player’s fleet first. Red pegs are used to designate “hits” and white pegs track “misses.”

 

A separate “tracking grid” (not shown) is included to aid in keeping score. One strategy is to position two or more boats in a cluster, in an attempt to confuse the opponent. The game usually goes fairly quickly, and multiple rounds can be played within an hour’s time.

Connect Four was created in 1974 by Howard Wexler of New York City, an independent toy and game inventor. The game was released by Milton Bradley.

Wexler initially worked as a social worker, schoolteacher and school psychologist. He earned a doctorate degree in educational psychology from Fordham University in the Bronx within New York City.

“All games were played on a horizontal plane (checkers, chess, Parcheesi, etc.). What if I invented a strategy game that was played on a vertical plane?”

 

“Once that thought came into my mind, Connect Four was not far from being realized,” Wexler said.

Connect Four is easy to learn and recommended for “ages 6 and up.” Players take turns dropping red or yellow tokens into a “six-row, seven-column vertically suspended grid.” Each player attempts to form a line of four tokens in his or her color to win the game. The “run” can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal.

The game teaches hand-eye coordination and pattern detection, and it underscores the benefits of thinking ahead. Players learn both offensive and defensive skills. Play usually progresses at a rapid pace.

Catan (known earlier as Settlers of Catan) is one of the first German-style board games to achieve popularity outside of Europe. The basic game is designed for three or four players “ages 10 and up.”

The game was invented by Klaus Wilhelm Heinrich Teuber, who enjoyed board games as a hobby. He started developing Catan in 1991, while operating a family-owned dental laboratory near Darmstadt, a city in southwest Germany not too far from Frankfurt. Catan was inspired by the history of Viking settlers in Iceland.

 

Teuber completed creating his new game in 1995, and it was distributed by Kosmos, a media publishing house based in Stuttgart, Germany.

Catan is a game in which players represent settlers who are intent upon establishing communities on an island and building infrastructure. It requires strategy that involves resource management, trading and bartering. Players gain victory points as their settlements grow, and the first to reach a set number of victory points, typically 10, wins.

 

The commercial success of Catan allowed Teuber to become a full-time game designer in 1998, selling his interest in the dental laboratory to his father.

Trivial Pursuit originated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1979, as a result of brainstorming by a pair of sports journalists, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. They grew “frustrated by missing tiles from a Scrabble game and decided to set out to create their own game.”

Also contributing to the development of Trivial Pursuit were Chris’ brother, John Haney, and Ed Werner, a lawyer. They all partnered to form a company to introduce Trivial Pursuit to the public in 1981. 

Having aged somewhat, here are Trivial Pursuit principals, from left: Scott Abbott, Chris Haney and John Haney.

Rights were licensed in 1982 to Selchow and Righter of Bay Shore, N.Y.

Ownership was transferred in 1988 to Parker Brothers of Salem, Mass. Then, in 2008, Hasbro Inc. of Pawtucket, R.I., stepped in to acquire the full rights to Trivial Pursuit for $80 million.

The standard “family edition” game, recommended for “ages 8 and up” can be played by two to six players, but in a party situation, teams can form to allow multiple participants.

The objective is to be the first player to maneuver around a playing board and successfully answer trivia questions in six categories – Art & Literature, Entertainment, Geography, History, Science & Nature and Sports & Leisure

 

The popularity of the game has been extended through numerous “themed editions” that have been released throughout the years. Various “degrees of difficulty” have also been introduced.

 

Other nominees to make it into the Toy Hall of Fame in 2025 include Slime and snow.

Slime encourages play that is messy and experimental.

The toy product is manufactured by Mattel, Inc., headquartered in El Segundo, Calif. It was introduced in 1976 and consists of a “non-toxic viscous, squishy and oozy green substance.”

 

The main components are the polysaccharide guar gum and sodium tetraborate (formerly known as flubber). Got it?

And snow? Well, why not?

 Sand is already in the Toy Hall of Fame, but there may be a bias toward “cold weather or wintertime” outdoor toys, such as sleds, saucers, tubes, skis and snowboards. None is among the 87 HOF inductees thus far.

Building snow figures, engaging in snowball fights and making snow angels certainly are playful activities…but not all kids get the opportunity to participate because snow is weather-dependent.

 

Next time, we’ll explore the other six finalists that are under consideration for this year’s induction class to join the Toy Hall of Fame: 

Cornhole, Furby, Scooter, Spirograph, Star Wars Lightsaber and Tickle Me Elmo.

1943 copper penny was a ‘mistake’ – value tops $1 million

Returning to the topic of the 1943 U.S. steel pennies that were produced during World War II, it’s noteworthy that up to 40 “regular pennies” may have slipped through the U.S. Mint facilities during the “changeover.”

These “error coins” are highly treasured. Some may be worth up to $1.5 million today, according to Andrew Adamo, founder of Bullion Shark Coin Company of Old Westbury, N.Y.

When the U.S. Congress authorized the use of substitute materials to make pennies, in order to redirect supplies of copper, zinc and tin to support military production, the U.S. Mint started manufacturing pennies out of low-grade steel, while giving each coin a thin zinc coating.

Hence, the new 1943 pennies were silver-colored instead of copper-colored, except for the few “error coins.”

How could this “screw up” happen? 

Adamo explained: “A tiny number” of copper-alloy pennies “were mistakenly struck” in early 1943 on “some copper planchets had been accidently left in the hoppers when the steel cents were being made.”

(“Planchets” are the round metal disks that are ready to be struck as coins, or “blanks.”)

Journalist Susan Headley said another possible explanation is that some of the copper planchets from 1942 may have gotten stuck, wedged into the corners of the large, mobile bins that moved the blank planchets around the mint. These bins had trap doors, and the planchets could have become caught in the crevices.

 

The late Darran Simon, a senior writer with CNN, concluded that the copper planchets “eventually became dislodged and were fed into the coin press, along with the wartime steel blanks. The few resulting copper cents were lost in the flood of millions of steel cents struck in 1943 and escaped detection by quality control measures.”

Adamo says 27 of these 1943 copper pennies are confirmed to exist and have been graded. 

Interestingly, these coins have been traced back to all three U.S. Mint facilities – Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco.

This adds to the mystique that surrounds the story and inspires coin collectors to “keep hunting.”

The first person to discover a copper penny minted in 1943, according to Headley, was Kenneth S. Wing Jr., 14, of Long Beach, Calif.

He collected coins as a hobby, and in 1944, he found a copper penny that was minted in San Francisco “hiding in” one of the rolls of pennies he got from the bank. Wing never sold it.

After he died in 1996, the coin was found in a safety deposit box. Family heirs sold the coin in 2008 for $72,500. It was resold in 2018 for $228,000.

Another teenager also discovered one of the famous copper 1943 pennies. 

He was Don Lutes Jr., 17, of Pittsfield, Mass., who received the “ultra-rare Lincoln penny in 1947 as change when buying lunch at the Pittsfield High School cafeteria,” said Henri Neuendorf, an art dealer in New York City.

After high school, Don Lutes enlisted in the Army and served as a cryptographic specialist with the U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of Korea from 1952-54.

“Lutes knew something was special about the coin: the copper coloring was distinctly different from the silvery steel variety in circulation at the time. So, Lutes decided to hold onto it,” Neuendorf wrote.

 

Henri Neuendorf

After Lutes died in 2018, his penny, which was produced at the Philadelphia mint, was sold at auction for $204,000, with proceeds donated to the Berkshire (County) Athenaeum, the public library in his hometown of Pittsfield.

Sarah Miller of Heritage Auctions in New York City told Neuendorf that the “accidental copper coins from 1943” are considered “the Holy Grail of mint errors.”

“Only a handful of the ‘error coins’ have been discovered,” Neuendorf said, “and it is believed that only 10 to 15 more may still exist.”

Out there, somewhere.

Check those coin jars.