Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the Loyola Chicago team chaplain who rose to fame during the Ramblers’ 2018 Final Four run, died Thursday. She was 106.

Sister Jean, as she was known around the Rogers Park campus and later internationally, became an iconic sports figure as the adored then-98-year-old nun who sat in a wheelchair wearing a gold and maroon scarf draped around her neck as she cheered for the Ramblers while they knocked off team after team as a No. 11 seed en route to the Final Four. Fans of every NCAA Tournament team and celebrity sports figures like Charles Barkley and Bill Walton requested selfies with her, and her media session at the Final Four was so packed that coach Porter Moser joked he thought Tom Brady was conducting an interview.

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Although she was new to many college basketball fans, Sister Jean had been a beloved part of the campus community for decades — a fixture at sporting events, a resident in a student dormitory for years, an active campus ministry leader and a friend whose office door in the student center was almost always left open as an invitation for visitors.

Sister Jean began serving as the team chaplain in 1994. She provided the Ramblers with prayer, comfort and scouting reports.

Loyola University Chicago is greatly saddened to confirm the death of Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM.

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