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#110. The Substandard on the Final Four and Nuns!
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Dudes Chatting — Final Four and Sister Jean: A micro-episode reacting to the NCAA Final Four field: Kansas, Villanova, Michigan, and Loyola Chicago — whose 98-year-old team chaplain Sister Jean has become the tournament's media darling. JVL is delighted by Duke's overtime loss, which he attributes to Grayson Allen taking a selfish, unnecessary shot that sealed the defeat; he considers Allen's exit poetic justice. Sonny refuses to root for Loyola on principle — he resists underdog narratives and finds the Sister Jean story cloying — while JVL and Vic are charmed by it.
Dudes Chatting — Nuns and Catholic discipline: The Final Four conversation pivots into a reminiscence about Catholic school nuns. Vic and JVL compare notes on the physical and psychological discipline administered by nuns in their respective educations — the ruler, the public shaming, the psychological precision of a nun who knows exactly where to hurt you. JVL contrasts this with his Quaker school experience, which relied entirely on shame and peer disappointment rather than physical punishment, and argues the Quaker model was in its own way more psychologically crushing.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Hello and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, brought to you by Wink.
Vic00:00:22With online ordering, quick shipping, and personalized recommendations, the only way Wink could make discovering wine you love easier is if they drink it for you. Because Wink's wine experts select wines matched to your taste, personalized for you, shipped right to your door, and starting at just $13 a bottle. Just go to trywink.com slash substandard. You'll get $20 off your first shipment. That's T-R-Y-W-I-N-C dot com slash substandard for $20 off. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder. Full episodes of The Substandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. Gentlemen, how are we? The final four is now set with Kansas, Villanova, Michigan, and my new favorite team, Loyola, Chicago, and its chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who is 98. Final four thoughts, JVL.
JVL00:01:19Well, there's no one in America who didn't go to one of the other three schools who isn't rooting for Loyola. Loyola, Chicago. That's right. What? What, Sonny?
Sonny00:01:32You're all in on Villanova? No. Well, I wanted Duke to win, but now that Duke's out, I guess who are the two one-seats that are playing? So why did you want Duke to win? Kansas and Villanova are the one-seats. Just because of me? No, because Duke are the good guys. Oh, right, right, right.
Vic00:01:47Because they win.
Sonny00:01:48They're winning. I don't understand that. They do play the right way. They play the right way. They play the right way. They win. Mike Krzyzewski is an American hero, so. It's a good guy.
?00:01:56It's a good guy. It's a good guy.
Sonny00:01:56He's a great man.
JVL00:01:57I hope he runs for Senate in North Carolina eventually. That'd be great.
Vic00:02:01And the thing is, they weren't that far off from getting to the Final Four. I think they were only down by four.
JVL00:02:05So this is why. No, no. No, no. Did you watch the game? No, I did not. Did you, Sonny? Minor League Sport. Let us in. Let us in. I don't watch Minor League Sports. Tell us about, was it a comeback at the end? Look, this Duke team is not especially hateable. On the continuum of Duke teams, where, like, number one is the Christian Leighton or Bobby Hurley Duke team.
Sonny00:02:26Isn't Ted Cruz on this team?
JVL00:02:28Well, he is the one. Right. So Grayson Allen is the most hateable college. And I should stipulate, I'm sure he's a perfectly nice kid. He's, like, 22 years old. Unlikely. This is not personal. This is just as a, from a fan perspective, is he combines, as I said in another podcast a half hour ago, he combines the smug dickishness of Christian Leighton or with the talent level of Steve Wojciechowski.
Vic00:02:55Oh, that's good.
JVL00:02:56And so they are at the end of regulation. Tie ball game. 14 seconds left. Duke ball. Duke has been thoroughly dominant on the inside. They've scored on, like, six consecutive positions down in the paint. They're just unstoppable. Kansas' center had fouled out. Duke was scoring at will from, like, three feet away from the basket. And as the ball comes across the line, Grayson Allen gets it at the top of the key. And you can see that this little runt has decided he's going to be the one to score the game-winning shot and go down in Duke history. I'm going to be—I'm just as good as Christian Laettner.
Vic00:03:37I'm just as good as Bobby Hurley.
JVL00:03:40And he passes up three open looks to far superior players who all have future NBA careers awaiting them six weeks from now. Passed up three looks to them so that he could take the shot all by himself in traffic.
Sonny00:03:53And it went up and over and clanged. And then rolled.
JVL00:03:57And then tipped out. And then they lost in overtime. Because every once in a while—Vic, what do I always say to you? You say a lot of things to me. If you wait long enough, eventually you get to see bad things happen to bad people. And there's nothing better.
Vic00:04:14Rewind for a second here. How many seconds were left when it was tied? It was like 13 seconds.
JVL00:04:20They had time to come down and run an offensive set. Yeah.
Vic00:04:23No, this isn't Christian Laettner. What was Christian's point for? No. What was Christian's point for? Was it Christian Laettner? Point four, something like that? It was— Point four. Or point six, something like that. The Grant Hill pass.
JVL00:04:30The Grant Hill pass against Kentucky in the regional final. That was like the Jamal Mashburn Kentucky team. Yeah, this was this— No, they had plenty of time. This was this rat-faced kid who thought, I am going to—I may look like Ted Cruz, but as God is my witness, I am going to be the one who goes into Duke lore with a shot that is replayed for generations. Grayson— Enjoy Chinese basketball. You're headed to the China leagues.
Vic00:05:02Or, you know, in some cases—
JVL00:05:03Is he even good enough to play there?
Sonny00:05:04Is he even good enough to play in a Chinese league?
Vic00:05:05No, I mean, in some cases, you end up in Iran, right? Turkey. I think Turkey is the big leagues.
Sonny00:05:10He's going to go work for Goldman Sachs.
Vic00:05:12A lot of them do. Did Grayson have a stomping or hitting moment in his career? He's a tripper. He's a tripper. No, he's a tripper. He was suspended by the coach last season for tripping.
JVL00:05:26Tripping opposing players so often. Do you know how much it takes to get suspended from Duke basketball? I mean, I understand that they're winners. They play the right way.
Sonny00:05:35No matter what you do, if you do something wrong for Coach K, you're on the bench for at least minutes. He plays the right way. He plays the right way.
JVL00:05:43Are there any Duke players from previous years who you don't hate? J.J. Redick. Just kidding. Trajan Langford. Grant Hill? Was he? Grant Hill is Grant Hill. I would say Grant Hill is so great, it is impossible to hate him. Impossible to hate him. Impossible to hate him. He's amazing. How about Shane Vanier? I thought you were asking about Shane Vanier. Impossible not to hate him. So there are, this is what I'm saying. It's like with the Yankees. Christian Leitner. Careful. There are years when the Dukeys are like really hard to hate. And the truth is, this year's team, aside from Little Cruz.
Vic00:06:15But that's a big aside, actually.
JVL00:06:17Yeah, he is a big aside. The captain.
Vic00:06:18Made it worth it.
JVL00:06:19Anyway, it was great watching my son, the scales fall from his eyes, and then immediately fall in the game. And he was FaceTiming with his grandfather.
Vic00:06:27Oh, because they're both fellow Blue Devils.
JVL00:06:30Fellow Blue Devil fans. And I said to my father-in-law, I said, hey, Pop Pop, wow, selfish basketball there. I can't believe you passed up those good looks. And he said, well, you know, I mean, he's a senior leader. He takes a lot of things on himself. He put a lot of pressure on himself there. And, you know, he probably should have let himself off the hook a little bit. I said, well, you people, this is why everyone in America hates you. You can't even get it up to say, yeah, okay, that little. That little runt really screwed us.
Vic00:06:58They could do no wrong. They could do no wrong. So we're all rooting for Loyola Chicago, essentially.
Sonny00:07:02I'm not. I'm not. Heathen. Terrible. The obsession with cheering for the underdogs in the NCAA tournament is probably the least appealing thing about it. Oh, for goodness sakes. Underdogs are trash. That's why they're underdogs. I cheer for excellence. This is why I like Duke. I don't cheer against Mike Krzyzewski. Duke, the Chili's of college basketball. They have more locations. They're really more like the McDonald's, frankly. The best. So many locations. The best. So good. Or the Subway. The Subway.
Vic00:07:30The Subway.
Sonny00:07:31Coach K is the Jared of college basketball.
JVL00:07:37I think.
Vic00:07:39No. It's more of a Penn State. I think. I think. Wow. Wow. No, I think it's great. And Sister Jean, I think that's very exciting. You know, I went to, you know, and everyone loves her, right? I've read these profiles. Why? Why does everyone love this? She's adorable. Crazy old woman. She's adorable. 98. And she's together.
JVL00:07:58Have you noticed this in the interviews with her? Yeah, no, yeah. She's not, you know.
Vic00:08:00There are people who are 20 years younger who are not together. And she's together, and she prays, and she scouts, and she does the whole thing. She sends the emails telling them what they can do better. She played basketball herself in the 1930s. Back when the forwards weren't allowed to cross half court.
JVL00:08:15What was that? The women's basketball used to have different rules, where only the guards could go the full length of court, and everybody else had to wait at half court.
Sonny00:08:23Could you imagine being a legitimate... minor league athlete, and getting an email from this crazy old woman being like, you need to play better? You are. I would just... I would lose my... I would transfer the next day.
JVL00:08:35I would just get out of Dodge. Would you tell her off first, though? I would hope that first you would go to her little cloistered room. Hey, woman. And say, crazy, crazy old woman. Just give her a piece of your mind.
Sonny00:08:45I didn't come here for you and your nutso nun factory. Whatever. Leave me alone. Let me play the game the right way. You're not Mike Krzyzewski. You don't tell me what to do.
Vic00:08:57Talk about nonsense. Okay. So anyway, really quickly, I think we still have a little bit of time. Mary Feeney? I hope... Is that where you're going? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, my God. No, no. Fenland. Is that a deep Fenland? Oh, Fenland, sorry. And I know who you're talking about at all. Deep Pole, right? Yeah, and I have other sources, but I'm not going to reveal them. I don't understand. It's okay. Are these Catholic? It's almost like I went to Georgetown. It's almost like I went. I could pass. Almost like I could pass as having gone. I mean, she seems so adorable. Everybody loves her. Wonderful. But, I mean, I went to school, grade school and high school, with nuns, and they were brutal. And I wonder if she was in her age. Yeah. In the 80s, I remember my classmate's sister got a black eye from Sister Lorraine, a.k.a. Sister Lorraine the Pain, who finally was forced into retirement, they said, after a kid fell down the stairs. But, you know, she physically... Walked into a wall. She physically manhandled students, throwing them over. My friend Steve Rushford threw them over a desk. You know, she would grab me by the hair. How old was Rushford at that? Fifth grade.
JVL00:09:56So, he was already, like, 195.
Vic00:09:58He was big. He was a big guy. And I heard the scuffle, and then I looked at him, and I saw what happened. And then, you know, I mean, they were really very, very tough. And I can't imagine... What strange is that?
JVL00:10:11You all had secret affection for them?
Vic00:10:13No, I know, I know. We lived in fear of them. And it's funny that our parents didn't care, because you could not do any of this now. You can't come home and say, oh, teacher gave me a black eye today, and that would be fine. But I think it's because their parents had gone to... ...Catholic schools at the 90s.
JVL00:10:25In the 1950s. Oh, this is going to happen. Yeah, this is...
Vic00:10:28So, you know, if a teacher roughs you up...
JVL00:10:30Back then, you go to the Iron Maiden for a half hour.
Vic00:10:32No, I know. There was... We had to stand in line for hours if we were being punished outside. And then I remember a kid in my class, Dave Shank, who had a... He had, like, a lollipop in his mouth, and she just came up to him with her keys and gouged his cheek, like, you think that's funny? You know, but you know what?
JVL00:10:49We had good penmanship. So different from my Quaker school. Did I ever tell you what discipline was at Quaker school? No, please. This is amazing. So discipline at Quaker school was based entirely on shame. Entirely on shame. Like Game of Thrones shame? Shame. There are only three punishments available at Quaker school. The first was the red bench. The red bench was a bench, the color red, that was in the middle of the school, and if you were in trouble, you were sent to the red bench, and you just sat there, and all the other classes, as they would march, like, to art class or gym class, whatever, would walk past you and be like, oh, jeez, Joey got sent to the red bench again, and you would just sit there. If you were really bad, you got sent to the red bench. If you were really bad, you got sent to the black bench. The black bench was a special bench that was black and outside the headmaster's office. But if you were really, really bad, you had to go into the headmaster's office after being on the black bench, and there were two giant ancient books there. There was, like, the Book of Good Things. I don't know, these things didn't really have a name, and then there was the black book. And so if you did something exceptional, like were elected president of the student council, like I was, you would be sent to the black bench. I was in sixth grade. You got to write your name in the Book of the Good Things. But if you did something really bad, you had to come in and write your name in the black
Sonny00:12:06book. Now, I can't- Like in Vegas. Did they actually say? Was it like JBL punched a nun in the face?
JVL00:12:15Nothing. Nothing. It was just signing your name in a book that was, so far as I can tell, never actually looked at or seen by anyone. But the act of having to, like, write your name- Write your name in this book that is only full of the names of other horrible people who had done terrible things, like, I don't know, like throwing a soft pretzel at somebody during cafeteria time. Murder.
Vic00:12:36It messed us up. Really. Because let me tell you what happened. When my sister was in fifth grade, she got hit in the head by a lunchbox because a boy threw it in the air and just wanted to see where it landed. Well, it landed on my sister's head. So the two of them end up going to Sister Juliana, the principal's office, and she's like, would you like it if you got hit in the face or hit in the head? And the kid says no. And so she told my sister, go ahead, hit him. And my sister gave him this light slap. She goes, that's nothing. And then Sister Juliana gave him the slap across the face. But I'm sure he turned out just fine.
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