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Sister James Marie, left, and Sister Mary Stephen, with foam finger, cheer for Siena during the closing minutes of the Saints’ victory over Fairfield University in the\u00a0MAAC championship game at Times Union Center in Albany on March 8, 2010. (Will Waldron \/ Times Union)<\/p>\n
WILL WALDRON\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Siena fan Sister Mary Stephen cheers on the Saints during the\u00a0CBI final basketball game against Fresno State on April 5, 2014, at the Alumni Recreation Center in\u00a0Loudonville. Sister Mary Stephen died last week at 83. (Cindy Schultz \/ Times Union)<\/p>\n
Cindy Schultz<\/p>\n
Sister Mary Stephen Vamosy, of Watervliet, cheers on Siena during the Saints’ game against Fairfield in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament semifinal in Albany on March 8, 2009. (AP Photo\/Mike\u00a0Groll)<\/p>\n
Mike Groll\/AP<\/p>\n
Dressed in her habit, Sister Mary Stephen Vamosy also wore a giant foam finger or waved a green-and-gold\u00a0pompom from her seat at MVP Arena.<\/p>\n
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It was her way of showing people that nuns can enjoy themselves, too.<\/p>\n
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Vamosy, who died peacefully in her sleep this past week\u00a0in Watervliet at 83 years old, was one of the two \u201cRally Nuns\u201d\u00a0who supported the Siena University men\u2019s basketball team. Their appearances on the video scoreboard at home games drove Saints fans wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this day and age, people aren\u2019t used to seeing sisters in a habit,\u201d said Sister James Marie Carras, the other \u201cRally Nun\u201d who started attending games with Vamosy in 2003. \u201cI always felt we were at our vocation mission. People could see that religious (people) had fun. They were normal people and had good times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vamosy and Carras were friends for 62 years, ever since they met in the convent at St.\u00a0Colman\u2019s Home in Watervliet. Vamosy was two years ahead of Carras in the novitiate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the same likes,\u201d Carras said. \u201cWe just hit it off together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Vamosy decided to become a nun after seeing photographs of poor children in Maryknoll Magazine, a Catholic publication, according to Carras. Vamosy visited the Sisters of St. Joseph, who directed her to St. Colman\u2019s after finding out she wanted to work with children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere God wants you, you\u2019ll go,\u201d a sister told Vamosy, who later taught kindergartners at St. Ambrose School in Latham.<\/p>\n
Their families became close.\u00a0Carras, who is from Troy, visited the farm where Vamosy was raised in Stamford, Delaware County.<\/p>\n
A love of Siena basketball also kept them inseparable. Their \u201cRally Nun\u201d celebrity began when Siena fan Craig Allen, owner of All Star Wine & Spirits in Latham, noticed them on the scoreboard at a game of the former Albany River Rats of the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou know, we\u2019ve got to put some more oomph in the game,\u201d Allen told season-ticket holder Patricia Bayly at a meeting of the advisory council for Saints Alive!, the Siena athletic booster club. \u201cEverybody\u2019s sitting on their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen gave Vamosy and Carras his floor seats, and they attended a National Invitation Tournament game between Siena and Western Michigan on March 23, 2003. The Saints won the first-round game 68-62, and a sensation was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bayly, who jokingly describes herself as the sisters’ agent,\u00a0bought them Siena caps they wore over their wimples.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cameras focused on us, and it just took off,\u201d Carras recalled. \u201cWe were just naturally cheering everybody on. Oh my God, the kids, they went crazy when they saw us in our seats and the cameras focused on us. They all cheered.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Rev. Kevin Mackin, the former Siena president who died last year, was the first to call them the \u201cRally Nuns\u201d at Siena\u2019s annual ice cream social event. Siena gave them season tickets.<\/p>\n
Vamosy and Carras didn\u2019t have a direct attachment to Siena.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur sisters used to go to school at Siena years ago, so we had a tie with them, and the Siena priests say Mass for us, so we\u2019re all Siena,\u201d Carras said.<\/p>\n
As the Rally Nuns followed the team, the Saints became a Metro Conference powerhouse that went to three straight NCAA Tournaments from 2008 to 2010.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe team, the crowds, they were just great,\u201d Carras said. \u201cWe just had a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Certainly, Siena had a fine coach in Fran McCaffery and star players. However, the sisters might have provided divine intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hoped we did,\u201d Carras said. \u201cWe were praying. The people would say, ‘Oh, we\u2019re going to win tonight. The Rally Nuns are here.’\u201d<\/p>\n
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While Carras still attended games during Siena\u2019s run to the Metro title last season, Vamosy was unable to make it because of her health.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s always with me, and she\u2019s with the community,\u201d Carras said. \u201cShe was my best friend, but she was everybody\u2019s best friend. She would go in and light up a room. Her joy and presence just radiated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sister James Marie, left, and Sister Mary Stephen, with foam finger, cheer for Siena during the closing minutes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[91777,7,98184,217,91776,98185,91779,71,66],"class_list":["post-825459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-alco","tag-basketball","tag-catskills","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-siena","tag-delco","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117195288537715825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}