Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who became a sports-world celebrity as the chaplain, No. 1 fan and informal scout for Loyola University Chicago basketball teams that played in a pair of N.C.A.A. national championship tournaments, died on Thursday. She was 106.
Her death was announced by the university.
Amid the hoopla accompanying March Madness, the story of a nun and her support for players some 80 years her junior made for an uplifting tale.
A member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or B.V.M., Sister Jean, as she preferred to be known, was retiring from her job as a student adviser at Loyola in 1994 when Father John Piderit, Loyola’s president at the time, asked if she would remain on campus to help athletes maintain good grades.