UNIVERSITY NEWS | Does Loyola by any other name still spell as sweet?
The trip by the Loyola Chicago Ramblers to the Final Four of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament inadvertently took Loyola Marymount along for the ride, in addition to the Greyhounds of Loyola Maryland and the Wolf Pack of Loyola New Orleans.
The confusion was bound to happen. As one member of the Twitter-verse put it:
Reports were that web traffic skyrocketed for Loyola Chicago, and, while not as dramatic as the Ramblers’ metrics, LMU’s mentions did rise noticeably. Whether it was a correlation or cause and effect is best left to mathematicians, statisticians or economists. But there is circumstantial, social media evidence that something was going on.
On the strength of several upsets, Loyola Chicago made their way to the Final Four. One savvy basketball fan, aware that sporting glory can live for a long time, offered this thought:
A charming part of the Ramblers’ story, which garnered much media attention, was the story of the team’s chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt. Before the Final Four, ESPN reported that Sister Jean had been mentioned in the media more than 20,000 times, more than Duke’s Coach Krzyzewski and Kansas Coach Self – combined.
Her charismatic qualities are lifelong. “She was a wonderful nun, young and full of energy,” said Father Tom Rausch, S.J., emeritus T. Marie Chilton Professor of Theology at LMU and a member of Sister Jean’s St. Charles School class of 1955. “Great, sharp, with a good sense of humor.”
When the Ramblers entered the NCAA tournament as an 11 seed, they were 250-1 longshots, a good payday if the team went all the way. So you have to feel for the irreverent guy who tweeted:
Kinship was never so kind as the reflected glory of Jesuit victories. Or as one Twitter user put it:
