If you’re a college basketball fan, you’ve probably heard of Sister Jean. She gets more air time during televised Loyola Ramblers games than Taylor Swift does during Kansas City Chiefs games. (No shade intended.)1 Sister Jean is chaplain of Loyola’s mens basketball team. She started receiving national and international attention during the 2018 basketball season when Loyola made it to the Final Four.
I almost purchased a physical copy of Sister Jean’s memoir last summer in Chicago when I stopped in to browse at Loyola’s campus bookstore. I was traveling light, so decided not to get it then, but it stayed on my mind. Listening to the audiobook was probably a better option for me. Sister Jean reads the prologue and the rest of the book is narrated by Devon O’Day.
Sister Jean was born in 1919
The first part of the book was interesting and sometimes mind-blowing. Sister Jean was born in 1919 and grew up in San Francisco. She watched the Golden Gate Bridge being built and walked over it with her mom on opening day in 1937. During World War II she taught in California. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, students wore dog tags. They were told to walk the same way to and from school each day so if there was a bombing, others would know where to look for them. These are details of life during that time and in that place that I’ve never heard about before.
A funny anecdote was about the new standards the Sisters faced after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. A big change was that they no longer had to wear habits in public. Sister Jean didn’t mind wearing a habit, but she thought she’d be less intimidating to students if she didn’t wear it. One of the challenges for the sisters was learning what kind of clothes to purchase. They were a bunch of fashion misfits until they got the hang of it.
One of the most interesting parts for me was Mundelein College history and its merger with Loyola University in 1991. I was a student a Loyola when this happened, but it would have been big news in my family regardless. My mom was the supervisor of Loyola’s credit union and one of my aunts was a Mundelein alum.
Basketball & Racial Justice
I enjoyed learning about all aspects of Sister Jean’s life — from her childhood, to becoming a nun, working as a teacher in California, her time at Mundelein College, and then Loyola. Toward the end, however, basketball becomes the main focus of the book, which did not interest me. Had I been reading a physical copy I may have been tempted to DNF2 it or at least skim over the basketball parts. I realize it is Loyola basketball that made Sister Jean famous, so it makes sense that she gets deep into the program’s history and various seasons.
Basketball fans will enjoy reading about the coaches and players. It was okay to listen to as I commuted to and from work. The only other basketball related book I recall reading is Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season, about his senior year playing basketball for The Citadel during the 1966-67 season. As the saying goes, I could read Pat Conroy writing about paint drying, so it was not basketball that drew me to that memoir.
Conroy regularly wrote about racial injustice in his novels, memoirs, and essays. (His novel, The Lords of Discipline, is excellent.) Sister Jean writes about the famous 1963 NCAA game when Loyola’s starting lineup included four black players. The unwritten rule at the time was that a team could only have two black players on the court. The governor of Mississippi had prevented Mississippi State University from playing against integrated teams. In 1963, the coach and players defied him and showed up for the game against Loyola. MSU lost the game, but helped score a win for social justice.
Faith, service, and basketball
Sister Jean is now 104 and is still actively involved with students and serving as chaplain of the basketball team. She also writes scouting reports for the coaches and incorporates strategy into some of her pre-game prayers with the team. Helping others gives her a sense of purpose and each morning she’s grateful for another day. Faith, service, and basketball are her jam. Sister Jean might have some self-proclaimed old fashioned views on a couple of issues, but overall she’s pretty hip.
Also of note: Sister Jean is a big Chicago Bears fan and threw the opening pitch at a Cubs game. I read elsewhere that she threw the first pitch at Wrigley Field for both her 103rd and 104th birthdays. There’s no mention of that other Chicago baseball team, unless I blocked it out.
Left me wanting more (in a good way)
Overall, I enjoyed this book and was left wanting to know more about Sister Jean’s life. Readers interested in the lives of nuns, living with open-hearted faith, or college basketball will enjoy this book.
Wake Up With Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years by Jean Dolores Schmidt with Seth Davis. Harper Select, 2023.
Below is a short segment on Sister Jean from Good Morning America. One of the presenters comments that Sister Jean may be the oldest person to publish a book.
- I have no idea if this is true, but I did think about the connection between these two women. Some people complained about the few seconds Taylor Swift was show during games. Critics have noted that some of the complaints are due to some men’s fear of women taking up space and having power. Do people complain about the attention Sister Jean gets or is she not a threat because she’s old? The rampant ageism in our culture is becoming much more apparent to me as I age.
- DNF = Did Not Finish.
Related post: A visit to Loyola’s Cudahy Library