I liked to call Sister Jean on my way to the gym. It’s an eight-minute ride, perfect for a loving, lovely conversation that always made me feel happy, grateful and inspired for my workout. I planned to call her the morning of Saturday, Sept. 27. As I was walking out of the house, my phone rang. 312 area code.
“I was just about to call you!” I said as I answered. She laughed and said she was glad to hear that, while bragging she got to me first. I came back inside the house and put her on speaker so my wife Melissa could talk to her, too. Sister Jean spoke slowly and her words were a little slurred, but she was 100 percent mentally sharp. Loyola Chicago had announced that week that she was retiring because she was physically unable to go to work, but she assured me that she would still get to the Ramblers games this season. She sparkled, she teased, she laughed, just like always. As we ended the call she said, “God bless you both.”
Physically, I knew that Sister Jean wasn’t in great shape. She had taken a fall in her room last spring. (She insisted I call it a “little side,” not a fall. She was very particular with words.) She told me she did her best to get out of bed and move around a little, and she was disappointed she couldn’t participate in graduation ceremonies and be around those students every day. Those kids gave her joy and energy. They gave her life. They gave her purpose.
But even as her body failed her, Sister Jean maintained her mental acuity. So when I learned Thursday evening that she had passed away at the age of 106, it obviously did not come as a shock. But I have to say I was a little surprised. The math was the math, but somehow, some way, I believed she would defy the odds and get herself to those games.
The world lost an icon on Thursday. The university lost a force of nature and a world-renowned ambassador. The team lost a chaplain and volunteer assistant coach who pored over scouting reports before each game so she could bless them properly. (“May God bless us and keep us healthy and strong. And remember to box out number 42 because he’s their rest rebounder.) And I lost a friend. Life will go on, but it will never be the same.
Like many of you, I had never heard of Sister Jean before the Ramblers made their Cinderella run to the 2018 Final Four. It took her 98 years to become an overnight sensation. (There’s a lesson in that, kids.) She was overjoyed, grateful and humble —but not that humble. She knew she was a big celebrity and loved every minute of it.
I finally got to meet Sister Jean at the Final Four before the Ramblers took the court. She was sitting courtside and my CBS colleague Greg Gumbel and I went to say hello. Greg grew up in Chicago and his sister, Rhonda, was a student at Mundelein College, the women’s university where Sister Jean taught before it merged with Loyola. This was many decades before, so Greg didn’t expect Sister Jean to know this. But when he mentioned it to her, she shouted above the din, “I know! Every time I see you on TV, I think of her!”
Greg’s jaw just about hit the floor.
As an author, I tend to have lots more ideas for books than time to write them, but as I watched the Sister Jean story blow up, I frequently thought to myself that she must have a great story to tell. I didn’t do anything about it until the summer of 2021, when I ran into Porter Moser during an AAU tournament in Georgia. Moser was Loyola’s coach during that Final Four run and had since moved on to Oklahoma. Like everyone else who talks to Porter, I asked how Sister Jean was doing. He told me that when he took the Oklahoma job, a big package arrived at his new office. It was from Sister Jean, and it contained printouts of all the emails she had sent Porter during his time in Loyola. There were hundreds of them.
I asked Porter to put us in touch. A week later, I called Sister Jean in her office at Loyola. She listened politely and seemed to be interested in the idea — that is, until I told her it would require several dozen hours of her time. “Well, why don’t you just write the book?” she said.
I suggested that we start off having a couple of conversations so I could craft a proposal. There was no guarantee a publisher would buy the book anyway. She agreed. Once we started talking, she found she enjoyed reprocessing her amazing, expansive life, recalling episodes such as the time she and her mom paid 10 cents to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge on the day it opened. “My gosh, I haven’t thought about these things in 90 years,” she marveled.
When I mentioned the idea to my agent, David Black, he said he had an editor in mind. He contacted Matt Baugher at HarperCollins who, as it turned out, has a daughter who went to Loyola and attended some of the Ramblers’ games during the NCAA Tournament. (As Albert Einstein often said, coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.) Matt had approached Sister Jean during the tournament about writing a book, but she brushed him off. Matt was thrilled that I was able to break through, and soon Sister Jean and I got down to business.
Sister Jean was a collaborator’s dream. She was communicative, dependable and full of amazing stories. She was also technologically savvy for a centenarian. Every Sunday she would email me her schedule for the week with her available windows. We would set our appointments, and if I didn’t call her exactly on time, my phone would ring a few minutes later. I took a couple of trips to Chicago so we could work in person. Her memory was prodigious, her energy limitless. Our conversations typically lasted about 90-120 minutes. By the end I was tuckered out, but she could have kept talking for hours.
“She made us smile, gave us hope, and reminded us to wake up every day with a sense of purpose.”
Once I was ready to send her manuscript pages, Sister Jean was a meticulous editor. As a lifelong school teacher, she loved nothing more than to sit with a pile of pages and a pen in her hand, correcting spelling and grammar. My favorite edit was in reference to the epic press conference she had at the Final Four. I wrote that one of the public relations officials told her that the number of reporters in the room was as many as Tom Brady had for the Super Bowl. She changed “as many” to “more than.” Hey, it ain’t bragging if it’s true.
All that work bore fruit in late February 2023, timed for the start of the NCAA Tournament. Our book was titled Wake Up with Purpose! What I’ve Learned During My First Hundred Years. On the morning the book was published, it was ranked No. 4 for all books on Amazon. This, of course, had nothing to do with me, since no one had read my words yet. I thought the book might do well, but I drastically underestimated the degree to which the public was craving Sister Jean’s message. It ended up spending four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. She personally signed several hundred copies.
Sister Jean’s book was my fourth collaboration, and I am currently working on a fifth. There is always a beautiful bond between my subjects and me because we have so many long and meaningful conversations. But I’ve never known anyone who was so intentional about maintaining a friendship. As far as Sister Jean was concerned, just because our book had been published didn’t mean the conversation was over. She continued to call me, email me and send me gifts. She had her students make up special medallions for me and my family in honor of a Jewish holiday. When my youngest son, who loves baseball, was bar mitzvahed, she sent him a handwritten note and enclosed a signed card showing her tossing out the first pitch of a Cubs game. Six months after our book came out, I received a large box from her. It contained three three-ring binders with laminated copies of letters she received about the book, including several handwritten ones from school children. “They are yours as well as mine since we worked together,” she wrote in her typed letter. “Enjoy reading them. God bless you. Go Ramblers!”
If Sister Jean called me and I was unable to answer, she would leave long voicemails. “Hi, Seth. Sister Jean,” they began, followed by updates on the weather in Chicago, the team, her job, and anything else that was on her mind. She still went to work every day during the school year. Her office was on the first floor of the student union, just a few paces from the cafeteria. Students stopped in all the time to chat and say hello. She knew they wanted to take a picture with her, so if they were too reluctant to ask, she did it for them.
Whenever I was in town, I tried to visit. We’d sit in her office and chat for a while, then go to the cafeteria for lunch, which she never let me pay for. Seeing her joy amidst all those fresh faces made me feel young, too, though not quite as young as her. Last winter, I went to her residence in Chicago and sat with her for two hours. As I said goodbye, she told me she was “honored” that I had set aside so much time for her. That’s the word she used. Honored. She was truly one of a kind.
When Sister Jean turned 106 in August, she was unable to take part in celebrations outside her residence, but she still spent the day on the phone with friends and family and enjoying a party at home. It wasn’t ideal, but when I spoke to her that day there was no sadness or regret in her voice. The woman lived 106 years and never had a bad day. We should all be so lucky.
Right before our book was published, I flew to Chicago to interview her for a trailer that was going to be used to promote it. We sat in the gym (of course) and talked on camera for an hour. Towards the end she said, “I hope that I will be remembered for my kindness, for my love of sports, for my love of my community, Loyola, for my love of teaching, that whatever I do, I really enjoy doing. And that’s been that way all the time.”
Sister Jean is gone now, but her words will live on through all those letters, speeches, interviews, and of course our book. They will also live on in her voicemails to me. I saved several dozen of them, knowing that someday they would give her the opportunity to speak to me from Heaven. The last one she left me was on Sept. 13. It lasted 54 seconds:
Good morning, Seth. This is Sister Jean. Thought I’d be lucky enough to get you today. I hope you’re having a great one. I hope you’re having a great day. Weather here is pretty good. Sun is out, very cold outside they tell me. I hope all is going well with you. Me, well, up and down. I guess that’s to be expected at this age. Anyhow, my best to you and the boys, Melissa and the boys. God bless all of you. You take care of yourselves. Bye.”
Sister Jean was a reminder to all of us not only about what’s good in this world, but what’s possible. She made us smile, gave us hope, and reminded us to wake up every day with a sense of purpose. The best way to honor her death is to emulate the way she lived. She accomplished so many amazing things, but in the end all she really wanted to be remembered for was her kindness. She lived 106 years, and yet it still feels like she is gone too soon.
