The Salesian Sisters have become perhaps the Spurs’ most recognizable fans.
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The Sisters stood inside the tunnel, waiting for the Spurs players to emerge from the locker room. They looked up in awe, as 7-foot-4 San Antonio superstar Victor Wembanyama began to walk toward them.
It was a crucial Game 6 at home, a chance to even the series and force a Game 7 — and yet, Wembanyama didn’t rush out to go warm up. He walked slowly toward the women, the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco, West Province, known formally as the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. They’re arguably the most visible Spurs fans of the team’s playoff run, having gone viral for praying over players and cheering on San Antonio courtside.
Wembanyama didn’t give a quick wave or nod, or shout a kind word or two as he passed through the tunnel. Instead, he took his time to shake hands with all nine Sisters, pausing and cupping his large hands over theirs, a beat longer than any of them expected.
“In a way, he was saying, ‘Thank you,’” Sister Bernadette Mota said. “He didn’t say ‘Thank you’ out loud, but he grabbed our hands. … You could see the focus in his eyes, and also his sense of gratitude for the prayers that we were giving the team.
“Without saying a word, he said a lot.”
These Sisters don’t just love basketball; they love these Spurs. They check the team’s scores regularly. They love the work ethic and core values of the organization, including its “loyalty, and unity,” Mota said. “These are great values and virtues for society today because there’s a lot of division in our world out there.”
The Sisters have become celebrities during the Spurs’ playoff run. Unlike the New York Knicks, who have a star-studded roster of A-listers courtside, such as Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, Chuck D and Ben Stiller, the Spurs take pride in their Sisters as perhaps the organization’s most famous fans. They don’t have a specific Spurs prayer, other than: “We pray that they can play well, show a lot of virtue and be good leaders for our society,” Mota said.
The Sisters aren’t just watching, though; they can hoop, too. Once in a while, they play pick up outside with each other, but mostly they play with the young people they serve. Some Sisters have basketball backgrounds, such as Mota, who played in high school. She’s a 5-foot-1 firecracker. She has handles and can shoot from deep. “I have a lot of endurance, so I don’t get tired at the end of the game,” she said, thanks to lettering in cross country and track for two years during college. She even coached high-school basketball before devoting herself to the convent in 2005 at age 25.
Then there’s her much taller teammate, Sister Sydney Moss, who often wears a Wembanyama jersey. She can shoot. “She’s our center,” Mota said. “She can’t run as fast but she can sure move inside. My job is to get her the ball.”
Other Sisters have played in high school or junior high. One of the novice Sisters was a collegiate volleyball player. All of them share one really important skill, Mota said: “We’re just good at cheerleading.”
The Sisters’ fandom goes back nearly two decades, as a few of the elder Sisters, who now live in the St. Bosco retirement community, would never miss a Spurs game. “They would actually get a little bit irritated when we’d have to turn the TV off at nighttime because we can’t stay up to watch all the games because they go quite late, and, convent hours, you know, you’ve got to go to bed earlier and wake up early for prayers,” said Mota, who has a Manu Ginóbili jersey hanging in her office.
One elder Sister, who has since died, often wrote to former Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. He not only responded to the letters, but also visited the Sisters at the convent with his late wife. They felt a special kinship with him.
The relationship continued over the years, quietly but meaningfully. When Mota arrived in 2019 to be the Director of Mission Advancement for their province, she had been looking to strengthen ties in the community. She found Popovich’s assistant’s number in the St. Bosco database and reached out to ask for Spurs tickets. “They graciously gave us 30 tickets, so we can bring Sisters and our employees to the game,” Mota said. “We’re on the west side of San Antonio, so we’re in a very poor area. So, to bring our employees who are earning minimum wage would have been a great gift for the employees.”
The Sisters greet a young fan at a Spurs game. Photo courtesy of Sister Bernadette Mota
The Sisters greet a young fan at a Spurs game. They are recognized like celebrities.Photo courtesy of Sister Bernadette Mota
The game was canceled because of the pandemic, and the NBA shut down the remainder of the season. Mota has kept the tickets, storing them in a drawer in her office. It is a reminder of the power of kindness and connection, values that have bonded her and her Sisters with this year’s team.
In Mota’s office is a modest cart where she stores the Sisters’ Spurs jerseys that they wear to the game (all their Spurs jerseys and shirts are via donation; they’ve never purchased one). She wears a Tim Duncan jersey, a nod to one of her favorite all-time players. One elder Sister, who is a Spurs fan and came to all the watch parties this season, is 93. And her actual sister — also a Spurs fan — is currently in hospice care. She doesn’t always remember things clearly. But when Mota brought her a small Spurs doll, she lit up with excitement. “Spurs!!!!” she said, beaming. Mota asked if she wanted her to put the doll on the shelf, but the Sister refused. “I’m going to keep it here,” she said. A good luck charm, perhaps.
The Sisters, who receive the tickets as gifts (including four seats for the NBA Finals from a car dealership), are recognized not just on social media, but also all over San Antonio. Mota can’t go anywhere in the city without being recognized. She and some of the other Sisters were asked for a selfie in the bathroom at a recent Spurs playoff game. Before the Sisters became an internet sensation, she would occasionally be recognized in the San Antonio community by locals who knew her, who might ask her to pray for a sick parent right then and there in a grocery store, for example. But now she has thousands of fans online asking for the Sisters to pray for a Spurs victory.
Mota laughs, acknowledging that there is no special prayer. “We don’t have a Spurs routine” on a game day, either, she said. She and her Sisters live a regimented lifestyle, beginning at chapel at 6:30 a.m. whether the Spurs win or lose the night before. There is a half hour of prayer and meditation. Then Mass. Then Liturgy of the Hours. Then breakfast as a group. Then doing ministry for the day, and a midday Blessed Sacrament of prayer, before lunch as a group. Finally, rosary in the evening, spiritual reading and, finally, evening prayers.
The Sisters’ relationship with the Spurs and former coach Gregg Popovich goes back almost two decades. Photo courtesy of Sister Bernadette Mota
And, if the Spurs are playing, hopefully the night ends with a W.
They hope to inspire young people. “That’s the reason why we’re into sports,” Mota said. “To really be able to engage the young people where they’re at, you have to love what they love.” It is a principle originating from their founder, St. John Bosco. The Sisters feel that sports are an ideal way to reach young people and to get to know them and help them in their faith journey.
The nuns’ fame wasn’t expected, let alone planned. They hadn’t even known they were going to get courtside tickets.
“None of that was staged or posed,” Mota said.
Neither was her pregame blessing of reserve Spurs center Luke Kornet, who is a devout Catholic and open about his values. Mota didn’t realize there were cameras around. She and the Sisters were just watching him warm up, and after he finished his pregame shooting, he came over and shook their hands. Mota then asked him: “Can I pray a blessing over you?” Kornet, the 7-foot-1 backup to Wembanyama, bowed. “He really had to bow down because I’m only 5-1,” Mota said, laughing. “I just said a prayer over him, really invoking the Holy Spirit and the help of our Blessed Mother to really help him to just play strong, and to not have injury, and to be a leader out there. It was a spontaneous prayer that we said over him.”
There have been other moments behind the scenes that the Sisters have cherished, such as the moment with Wembanyama in the tunnel, or when Dylan Harper’s mother, Maria, came up to them.
“Sisters, thank you for everything,” Maria said to them. She then mentioned that Dylan was an alum of a Salesian school, as was she. It was a wonderful moment of connection that reminded Mota of the way faith, and sports, can bring people closer.
That is her hope for the finals, not just for their beloved Spurs but for the Knicks, too; that everyone is imbued with a sense of deeper purpose and community.
“Whether or not (the Spurs) are going to win the championship, I have no idea. The Knicks are a great team, too,” Mota said. “We’re just praying that everybody can play good, honest basketball out there. That there’s not gonna be any type of negative rivalry or anything like that. Good rivalry is good.
“We’re hoping that they can play clean, honest basketball, and then — may the best team win.”
She and her Sisters are trying to stay present in the moment.
“It’s been beautiful,” Mota said. “Society is seeing that, you know what? Faith and sports can go hand in hand.”
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Mirin Fader is a senior writer for The Athletic, writing long-form features, primarily on the NBA. Mirin is also the New York Times best-selling author of GIANNIS: The Improbable Rise of an NBA Champion and DREAM: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon. She has told compelling human-interest features on some of our most complex, most dominant heroes from the NBA, NFL, WNBA and NCAA, most recently at The Ringer. Her work has been featured in the Best American Sports Writing books. She lives in Los Angeles. You can follow Mirin on X @MirinFader.
