CHICAGO — For months, as Loyola University-Chicago’s men’s basketball team made an emphatic march toward its first N.C.A.A. tournament berth since 2018, the program’s most famous supporter, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, sat mostly sequestered in her downtown apartment, left to rely on modern technology to keep her connected with her beloved Ramblers.
Sister Jean, 101, the team chaplain who became a worldwide celebrity during Loyola’s unexpected Final Four run in 2018, watched from afar this season while taking repeated coronavirus tests — 30 in all — as the Ramblers again stated their case as one of the nation’s premier midmajor programs.