When Nuns Meet Sports

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When Nuns Meet Sports
by Jason Plautz

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jason-northwestern.jpg /

Still, I've found that nuns have surprisingly strong ties to athletics. Many hometown nuns cheer on their favorite sports teams, but here are four more ways sisters and sports meet. And I promise I won't use the "nun/none" pun once.

Running Triathlons

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sister madonna.jpg /

Providing Super Bowl Lodging

With tickets costing upwards of a thousand dollars, Super Bowl spectators this year didn't have much extra cash to spend on lodging. Enter the Our Lady of Guadalupe monastery, which offered ten rooms at a mere $250 a night with an additional $50 for each extra guest. The sisters hosted both Patriots and Giants fans and offered rather plush accommodations. The monastery was tricked out with a flat-screen TV, a kitchen and a fridge stocked with snacks and sodas. Drinking and smoking wasn't allowed (natch), but the sisters said the location was ideal because it was only three miles away from the University of Phoenix Stadium, but tucked away in a residential neighborhood that allowed guests to stay out of the hubbub surrounding the big game.

Prognosticating

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sister-jean-kenny.jpg /

, aka Sister Super Bowl, must have some kind of divine help when it comes to her NFL picks. The Chicago native correctly picked the Bears to win the 1986 Super Bowl and since then has picked 17 of 22 Super Bowl winners. But she doesn't just have a good track record, she also adds a touch of class to the picks by writing poems about each projected winner (read her poem about the 2007 Patriots

here

). She's been off the last three years, wrongly choosing the Seahawks, Bears and Patriots, but she still sticks by her picks.

Managing Race Horses

Back in 2005, the nuns of New York's Little Sisters of the Poor order received a six-month-old horse as a donation. Rather than raising it, they decided to auction the filly, which they christened Poor Little Sister, off. The auction was a success, but when bidding stalled at $5,000, one of the nuns started upping the bids to make sure they'd net a good amount of money. The horse ended up going for $8,000 and the nuns received 20 percent of the horse's winnings.

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