St. Rita was putting together the money for a large renovation project. Egan Hall was to get a new roof, windows, and heating and air condition plant. New roof for the Gym Bldg. Chapel Bldg. was an complete overhaul in part 2. A new building was planned for court yard North of the gym, where the statue was, for a swimming pool would have been part 3. I knew the St. Rita Alumni that would have gotten the roofing contract. When Cardinal Cody was raiding stable parishes to support poor parishes, he tried to a strong arm the different teaching orders that ran the High Schools. St. Rita was a loud no thus they had some funds.
So St. Rita was already putting together a war chest for the project when Quigley went up for sale. While Leo has a very loyal and generous alumni, St. Rita was a bigger school with a lot more alumni. The two bids were not close. The best comment after the sale was from Ray Konrath the AD from St. Laurence who stated that ""unfortunately the busses on 79th Street also run East as well as West."" Ray was my track coach at St. Rita for a year before he moved to the Vikings.
St. Rita has allowed Leo to use St. Rita for their home football games, along with De LaSalle while they were doing their football Field renovations. St. Ignatius used St. Rita for a while before moving to the U of C for a couple of years before their new facility was built. I guess a couple of kids who went to see Ignatius at St. Rita just decided to St. Rita instead.