Posted on 10/10/2025 10:55:26 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt gained national attention during the men's team run to the 2018 Final Four
Dolores Bertha Schmidt, who became known across the country as Sister Jean, the beloved and enthusiastic chaplain of Loyola Chicago basketball, died Thursday at 106 years old.
"Loyola University Chicago is greatly saddened to confirm the death of Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM," the university announced. "This is a tremendous loss of someone who touched the lives of so many people. We appreciate everyone's thoughts & prayers during this difficult time."
Sister Jean served Loyola's students for more than six decades, retiring just last month.
She became the first prominent nonagenarian basketball fan in American sports history when 11th-seeded Loyola Chicago made its historic run to the 2018 Final Four. Her presence and prominence became nearly as big of a story as the Ramblers' program, if not bigger. The day before Loyola Chicago played Michigan in the national semifinals, Sister Jean was wheeled into the Alamodome for her own Final Four press conference due to the overwhelming demand to hear her speak on Loyola Chicago's Cinderella stroll to San Antonio.
To see the throng of media assembled, one might have mistaken the scene for the arrival of an internationally famous movie star, a pop icon, perhaps even an American president.
"Even in the morning, I wake up and I say, 'Is this real or is it a dream?' and I say, 'No, it's really for real,'" she said that afternoon in 2018.
Sister Jean's star turn was another example of how sports can create feel-good stories and uplifting narratives in unexpected ways. The Ramblers again made NCAA Tournament appearances in 2021 and 2022, and despite COVID-19 protocols, she made her way to all of those games as well, re-familiarizing herself with American sports fans in the process.
"In many roles at Loyola over the course of more than 60 years, Sister Jean was an invaluable source of wisdom and grace for generations of students, faculty, and staff," Loyola president Mark C. Reed said in a statement. "While we feel grief and a sense of loss, there is great joy in her legacy. Her presence was a profound blessing for our entire community and her spirit abides in thousands of lives. In her honor, we can aspire to share with others the love and compassion Sister Jean shared with us."
Sister Jean was born Dolores Bertha Schmidt in San Francisco on August 21, 1919. When she was 18, she left San Francisco for Iowa, where she would be accepted into the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in 1937. It was then and there she put on her nun's habit and took the name Sister Jean Dolores. Her permanent move happened in 1961, when she went to Chicago. Sister Jean was the dean at Mundelein College from 1970-1984. In 1991, she began her work with Loyola Chicago when Mundelein merged with Loyola University Chicago.
In 1994 — 24 years before her star turn — Sister Jean took on the role of academic advisor for Loyola Chicago's basketball teams. Two years later, she was officially designated team chaplain for Ramblers men's basketball. In January 2017, Schmidt was honored permanently in the Loyola Chicago community when she was inducted into the school's sports hall of fame.
Thirteen months later, in 2018 and at the tender age of 98, she became a national sports icon. Sister Jean's story was first spread nationwide amid LUC's Missouri Valley championship run under then-coach Porter Moser. As March Madness hit, Loyola Chicago embodied the underdog spirit of the tourney, proceeding to pull off one of the 20 biggest college basketball stories of this century. The Ramblers dramatically upset No. 6 seed Miami, No. 3 Tennessee, 7-seed Nevada and No. 9 Kansas State before finally falling to third-seeded Michigan in the Final Four. As the Ramblers rumbled their way through the NCAA Tournament, television cameras found Sister Jean often. She became the adored focus on national newscasts and features from media networks spanning the United States. Donning a trademark maroon-and-gold scarf, she fervently cheered on the Ramblers. In doing so, Sister Jean was transformed into a viable celebrity — and for a brief time she became the most popular and beloved sports fan in America.
Her story and the ascent of Loyola Chicago's men's basketball program continued in 2021 when the Ramblers returned to the NCAA Tournament. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, March Madness was held in a single location (Indianapolis) for the first time in its history. A vaccinated, 101-year-old Sister Jean insisted on going. So, there she was again, seen not on the sidelines or near the team bench, but higher up in the stands.
While Sister Jean will be remembered by sports fans for her work with the basketball team, she was much, much more than that. She was a common sight around campus, not just at basketball games. She had an office near the basketball facility and close to the student union. Sister Jean offered spiritual support for students at the university, held weekly prayer groups for students and started a program called SMILE (Students Moving Into the Lives of the Elderly). This project helped Loyola students reach out to an assisted living community named The Clare, and aimed to "form intergenerational — and meaningful — relationships."
"That's being a person for others by just being yourself," Sister Jean once said. "That's the way I am. I have to be myself. I tell students that — you'll see people that you admire, you can do some of the things they do, but you have to be yourself. God made you the person who you are."
College sports teams are normally represented by the young men and women who compete and the coaches who lead them, but Sister Jean came to represent something that transcended the typical college success story. The Ramblers' 2018 Final Four run was one of the most shocking in the history of college basketball, and thanks to Sister Jean's presence, the story had a touch of divinity to it that had no match before or since.
Talk about a long, blessed life.
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