Even to Sister Jean Delores-Schmidt, the lovable nonagenarian nun and team chaplain who became a star during Loyola University Chicago’s stunning run to the Final Four two years ago, this is new territory: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought big chunks of the world to a near standstill.
“This is very different,” said Sister Jean, who turns 101 this year. “Spanish flu was just about over in 1919 when I was born and so I only know about that through hearsay and what my family told me... I’ve lived through the Depression, I’ve lived through World War II and all these other things that have happened within the last 20 years — but nothing like this.”
“It’s a totally whole new thing,” she added. “It’s sort of like a futuristic movie, where things just happen when everything is foggy and people aren’t alert.”
Photo: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY
Although there are no games, Sister Jean has been staying busy.
She is still working. She has been undergoing physical therapy — lately only in her room — at the downtown rehab facility where she has lived ever since she broke a hip about two years ago. The treatment has been to strengthen her right leg following a bout of shingles.
Loyola released a video this week with her wearing a maroon and gold scarf, urging others to stay home and practice social distancing.
Photo: AFP
She calls it “a team effort” and encourages people to pray for healthcare workers and store employees, who are “making sacrifices for us.”
Sister Jean said that she has been calling basketball players to see how they are doing and to make sure that they are keeping up with their schoolwork with the campus basically shut down.
All members of the team are also required to complete an essay — “Desires of the Heart” — detailing their goals.
Sister Jean was hoping that Loyola would get back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since their magical Final Four run, but a loss to Valparaiso in the Missouri Valley quarter-finals basically dashed those hopes for her Ramblers, who finished this season 21-11.
Had there been an NCAA Final Four tournament this year, she knows who she would have picked to win.
“I was thinking Kentucky would win it this year,” Sister Jean said.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS