At 103 Years Young, Loyola's Sister Jean, Bobblehead Remain A Hot Item

CHICAGO — Tom Sorboro is among the first to acknowledge that Loyola University Chicago is not in the bobblehead business.

But when one of the school’s most recognizable figures — the newly minted 103-year-old basketball chaplain and beloved nun Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt — has had her familiar face and likeness transformed into popular figurines and onto T-shirts and other merchandise, it’s easy to say that the private Jesuit institution is all business when it comes to Sister Jean.

Sister Jean celebrated her 103rd birthday on Sunday, two days after the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame released a new car dashboard mini bobblehead and a bobblehead holiday ornament that will likely grace the Christmas trees of the Loyola faithful this holiday season. But four years after Sister Jean became an international celebrity when Loyola’s men’s basketball team made a Cinderella run to the Final Four in 2018, Sister Jean merchandise remains as popular as ever.

That’s where Sorboro, Loyola’s associate athletic director for external operations, enters the playbook. Sorboro oversees all of the school’s licensing agreements, including those on Sister Jean merchandise, which became popular when she and the Ramblers made their way onto a big stage in the NCAA Tournament.

Since then, items bearing the nun’s image and likeness have become a staple — not only for the school’s maroon and gold-wearing fanbase — but for fans of the popular chaplain who keeps getting top billing wherever she travels. But because school officials have always maintained that Sister Jean has difficulty turning down opportunities for interviews, photos, and yes — even requests to turn her likeness into any number of trinkets — the school sometimes has to say no for her.

Sorboro and other members of Loyola’s athletic department now manage all of the requests to produce Sister Jean merchandise. In addition to the bobbleheads and T-shirts, companies have produced Sister Jean socks and Harry Potter look-a-like scarves that Sister Jean has been seen wearing on national TV during Loyola basketball games along with wall signs bearing the words "Work, Worship, Win" —a phrase Sister Jean has made popular among Loyola's basketball teams.

Loyola partners with a licensing company, which works with the school to certify merchandise bearing Sister Jean’s likeness in an effort to protect the university's intellectual property. Merchandise companies are required to apply for a Loyola license and then submit artwork that is then approved by the university — and in some cases, Sister Jean herself— before products are mass-produced, Sorboro said this week.

Loyola then receives a royalty fee for any merchandise that is then produced and sold. Sorboro, who declined to provide financial details of the royalty deals, said that Sister Jean’s order, the Sisters of Charity of The Blessed Virgin Mary, also receives a portion of the proceeds from Sister Jean's merchandise.

The enterprise has gone much farther than Sorboro could have ever imagined.

“It’s one of those things where you kind of catch lightning in a bottle,” Sorboro told Patch this week. “(2018) was a unique moment in time and a unique set of circumstances. She was obviously a unique figure and amazingly popular. We weren’t surprised that people gravitated toward her and there was as much interest as there was given the spotlight that the (basketball) program and she were in, but the fact there are still people making Sister Jean T-shirts to this day — it has had a little bit of a longer run than I thought that it might.”

Bobblehead Hall of Fame founder Phil Sklar said that Sister Jean’s bobblehead remains the second-highest selling bobblehead in company history. Sister Jean held the top spot until 2021 when a bobblehead bearing the likeness of Dr. Anthony Fauci took over the top spot.

Before that time, however, the bobbleheads set a sales record for the Wisconsin-based company and sold more than 100 bobbleheads per hour with a total of 5,000 figurines sold shortly after being released. The Hall of Fame said at the time that 63 percent of the sales were coming from outside of Illinois and had taken place in all 50 states and in Canada.

To date, Sklar says the Hall of Fame has sold nearly 22,000 Sister Jean bobbleheads heading into Friday when the new merchandise was released.

The idea of producing a Sister Jean bobblehead came about after Sklar read a story saying that the popular bobbleheads Loyola had produced even before the school's Final Four run were selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

But Sklar said that Sister Jean’s bobblehead continues to produce amazing sales and he anticipates that the dashboard bobblehead and bobblehead ornament will be just as popular as they are released.

Like all people the Hall of Fame works with, Sister Jean was provided with sketches and prototypes of the bobblehead to approve before the item was mass produced. Sklar said that working with perhaps the country’s most popular nun presented a unique opportunity given her age and popularity.

“Having 100th, 101st, 102nd, and 103rd birthdays keeps people talking about Sister Jean on an annual basis,” Sklar told Patch in an email. “The fact that she’s still working and interacting with the Loyola community on a daily basis is remarkable. She has been a celebrity on Loyola’s campus for a long time, but it just took a while for the world to fall in love with her.”

Sister Jean remains a popular figure on Loyola’s campus, where she routinely engages with students and adults alike. She maintains an office in the school’s student center and is always a popular photo subject with many of the people she comes into contact with on a regular basis.

On Tuesday, she will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Wrigley Field ahead of the Cubs-Cardinals game in celebration of her latest birthday.

Yet, her popularity remains one of the reasons why school officials feel the need to protect her name and likeness. After 2018, Loyola added between 15-20 new retail partners that were not carrying Loyola merchandise before Sister Jean’s popularity skyrocketed which put the school on a larger platform than it had been before.

A lot of that interest, Sorboro said, can be attributed to Sister Jean. But the nun’s retail presence also led to some counterfeit items that people produced without getting them licensed. Sorboro said that a handful of cease-and-desist letters have been sent out as a way of protecting the university and Sister Jean.

“She really enjoys this part of it, and she would probably authorize every single item that came through the door and do every single interview if she could,” Sorboro said.

He added: “But I think everyone at the institution looks out for her. She is a beloved figure and I think from the top of the university’s administration all the way down to the students, everyone loves her and looks out for her.”

Her Sisters back at her home order in Iowa appreciate the care that Loyola has shown to Sister Jean as her popularity around the world has grown.

“As for all our sisters, the well-being and care of Sister Jean is very important to us," Blessed Virgin Mary President LaDonna Manternach said in an emailed statement to Patch. "We have worked closely with Loyola University and trust that they are acting on her best behalf when it comes to her personal needs, appearance, and marketing of her image.

"We are blessed to have other sisters in Chicago that Sister Jean can rely on to take care of any additional needs."

Even with the added notoriety that has come since she was just 98, Sister Jean has enjoyed the spotlight that has been placed not only on her but on Loyola. Sorboro said new products often bring a smile to Sister Jean’s face, which lights up every time she sees a new product that she would have never guessed would have ever included her name or likeness.

And at a time when college athletes are now able to capitalize financially off of their name, image, and likeness, Sorboro jokes that the school’s unofficial mascot had a NIL deal in place before they became a reality.

For her part, Sister Jean takes everything in stride as another birthday comes and goes. She says her interaction with students keeps her feeling young while the items bearing her likeness continue to make her a celebrity beyond Loyola’s Chicago campus.

At her core, though, Sister Jean swears she remains true to herself. Bobbleheads and all.

I’m still the same Sister Jean I was before all this popped up,” Sister Jean said earlier this year before Loyola faced Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament. “People said to me, “Is this going to your head? No, it’s not going to my head. I have just tried all the time to try to make people happy, to be happy myself. If I make people happy and it’s good for my congregation what I do, it’s good for Loyola for what I do, then I’ll do it.

“I have a lot of fun doing what I do, and that’s part of what makes me happy.”