How Sister Jean, Loyola Chicago’s Men’s Basketball Chaplain, Became A Best-Selling Bobblehead


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As Phil Sklar and Brad Novak watched the opening rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament three years ago, they kept hearing one unexpected name mentioned over and over: Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt.

Sklar and Novak are longtime college basketball fans and the co-founders of the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which has a museum in Milwaukee and produces and sells bobbleheads. But until that week in 2018, they knew nothing about Sister Jean, a then-98-year-old nun and chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago team since 1994. Still, like so many others tuning into the event, they became enamored with the personable Sister Jean.

Shortly after Loyola upset Tennessee, 63-62, on a game-winning jumper with 3.6 seconds remaining in a second round game, Novak was scrolling through his Facebook feed when he read about Sister Jean once having a bobblehead that had been handed out for free at a Loyola game in 2011 and was selling for $300 on eBay. That day, Novak sent an email to Tom Sorboro, Loyola’s senior associate athletic director of external operations. He asked Sorboro if the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum could make another Sister Jean bobblehead. Sorboro quickly said yes, with the nun’s blessing.

Within 48 hours, about 5,000 people had pre-ordered the Sister Jean bobblehead, making it the company’s best-selling item ever. Eventually, after the Ramblers advanced all the way to the Final Four, the Hall of Fame sold all 18,980 Sister Jean bobbleheads it produced, generating sales from all 50 states.

Now, the company has introduced another version of the Sister Jean bobblehead, coinciding with Loyola’s appearance in this year’s NCAA tournament. It began selling the items last week before the event began and so far has sold more than 2,000 bobbleheads.

Sklar and Novak expect to sell many more in the next few days and weeks as Sister Jean is once again in the national spotlight thanks to the No. 8 seed Ramblers having made another unlikely tournament run.  They knocked off No. 1 seed Illinois, 71-58, last weekend in the second round to advance to Saturday’s Sweet 16, where they face No. 12 seed Oregon State.

The 2018 bobblehead featured Sister Jean standing up with a big smile on her face wearing a maroon and gold scarf around her neck and holding a basketball. This year’s version originally had Sister Jean sitting in a wheelchair with the same scarf and a Loyola jacket. Sklar and Novak then sent a prototype to Sorboro and asked for Sister Jean’s comments on the design.

“She said, ‘Where’s the basketball?,’” Sklar said, laughing.

They quickly added the basketball and finalized the product, which is selling for $25 apiece, the same price as the one from three years ago. It takes about three months to produce a bobblehead so fans won’t get it until June or July. Sklar has not decided how many bobbleheads the company will produce, but it will be a limited edition.

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which has produced nearly 2,000 unique bobbleheads since its founding in 2013, has a licensing agreement to use Sister Jean’s name and image on the bobblehead. But she has refused to get paid for doing so. Instead, a portion of the sales will go to Loyola’s athletics department as well as the Sisters of the Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or BVM, which is Sister Jean’s religious institute.

Loyola has a similar arrangement with makers of Sister Jean apparel such as Fanatics Inc., a licensed sports merchandising company that is selling Loyola t-shirts with Sister Jean’s image and her motto “Worship, Work and Win!” A Fanatics spokesman noted that sales of Loyola apparel following the first two rounds of this year’s tournament are 40 percent higher than after the first two rounds of the 2018 tournament.

“When we broached the subject of her receiving some kind of compensation, she said, ‘No, I don’t want to receive anything,’” Sorboro said. “She’s an amazingly generous woman. She loves people and she loves helping people. She saw this as an opportunity to do that for two organizations she’s very passionate about. She loves Loyola athletics and she loves the BVMs.”

Sister Jean’s 2018 bobblehead remains the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum’s best-selling sports item. But it was surpassed last year by a Dr. Anthony Fauci bobblehead, which has sold nearly 50,000 items, and this year by a Bernie Sanders bobblehead, which has sold nearly 30,000 items. 

Sklar could not predict how many of this year’s Sister Jean bobbleheads will sell. But he anticipates the CBS
VIAC
announcers will mention Sister Jean’s name several times in Saturday’s broadcast, which should help sales.

“It’s not just local interest in Chicago or the Loyola community,” Sklar said. “She’s somebody who continues to captivate the nation every time she’s in the news. Every time they show her on TV, we see a spike in sales.”

During a normal season, Sister Jean always attends the Loyola games, sits courtside and delivers a pre-game prayer to the team, but this season she was holed up at her home due to the coronavirus pandemic and didn’t go to any regular season games. But after receiving two doses of the coronavirus vaccine and getting the University’s blessing to travel, she attended the Ramblers’ first two NCAA tournament games last weekend in Indiana.

Sorboro noted that Sister Jean, who turned 101 in August, would be in attendance again on Saturday, rooting on Loyola, to the delight of fans and viewers everywhere.

“Everybody seems to love Sister Jean,” Sklar said. “She has such a positive attitude. Now more than ever, with the pandemic and everything going on in the world, people need that positivity and somebody who has that smile and puts a smile on your face. Sister Jean happens to be the person that pops up at the right time in March.”

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