Happy 105th Birthday To Sister Jean!
Happy 105th Birthday to the most famous nun since Mother Theresa, Loyola Chicago's own Sister Jean.
This article appeared 2 years ago on her 103rd birthday, but it's one of my favorite's so I'm citing it again.
Chicago Sun Times - Tossing out the first pitch at a Cubs home game. A new bobblehead in her honor. The unveiling of a plaque with her name on it at the Loyola University “L” stop — a day when thunderstorms are forecast. “Maybe that will be the orchestra from heaven doing some banging around up there,” says the focus of all the attention, a tiny woman with a cherubic face. Or as her father used to tell his jittery children, “the angels rolling the barrels of beer around.”
Forgive Sister Jean Dolores Bertha Schmidt, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary — or Sister Jean, as she’s better known to legions of Ramblers basketball fans — if she doesn’t quite remember all that’s planned in the days surrounding her 103rd birthday, which is Sunday.
But don’t ask her how she’s going to manage it. “Hmmm? ... Oh, I sleep well,” she says, a flicker of surprise or perhaps irritation at the question. And she’ll rise at 5 a.m., as she does every day, for a morning meditation, the Eucharist, a breakfast of bacon, pork sausage or perhaps a pastry. “At this age, what difference does it make what I eat?” she says.
105 years is a long freaking time to live man. And Sister brings up a great point- when you've made it that long, who cares what you eat every day? Right? If she Sister Jean wants breakfast meats every damn morning then she'll have breakfast meats every morning. You can tell your doctor friends and all their cholesterol mumbo jumbo to shove it.
But what's the age you can start living like that and not caring about anything other than doing and eating what you like and not being concerned with how you look or your health? If you work for Barstool, I think that age is around 20. But for the rest of the world, what's the age where you can say "I made it, I'm playing with house money at this point, I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want"?
60? 70? 75?
We got sidetracked but hearing Sister Jean's outlook on things makes me like her even more. She knows she's lived a hell of a life and she's still squeezing every drop out of it every day she's here.
Make no mistake, she is still very active.
And she's also very involved up in Rogers Park, assisting Coach Drew too.
She sends emails to players after regular-season games with suggestions about how to tweak certain parts of their game. And she’ll be there in her wheelchair to lead the team in prayer before each home game — and to offer a scouting report on the opponents.
Can you imagine getting an email sitting in your inbox the morning after a game from Sister Jean telling you that you need to work on your footwork and that your switches on defense stink? How do you even respond to that?
The answer is you can't. You can't question the expertise of a hoops maniac like Sister Jean. She's forgotten more about basketball than you'll ever even know. She was around back when they were playing with peach baskets after all.
Loyola is unique in that it has a literal walking saint as the face of its program. Here's hoping we get one more Final Four run in the mix for Sister this year as they make their mark in the A10.
Happy Birthday Sister.
p.s. - never forget
p.p.s. - never forget when our brilliant company had the guy who did not go to Loyola Chicago, (or school near Chicago), meet and interview Sister Jean last year. No I'm not bitter at all. Dave crushed this.