Sister Jean has become Loyola’s ‘international celebrity’
On a sunny day between openinground games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in Dallas, Loyola’s 98-year-old team chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, planned to go for a simple lunch down the street.
“We couldn’t do it — everybody knows her,” said Tom Hitcho, the university’s longtime senior associate athletic director for operations, who has been pushing Sister Jean’s wheelchair during the tournament.
They were stopped so frequently by adoring fans on the sidewalk, it was nearly impossible to make it more than a few steps before another one approached. They opted to return to the hotel for lunch.
Even at the hotel, people in town for a convention — not for basketball — knew Sister Jean. She’s in so many selfies, she now prepares to pose.
Ah, the life of a national celebrity. Actually, let Sister Jean correct that.
“International celebrity,” she quipped to a TV news reporter Sunday. She mentioned being the subject of news segments in Mexico and Britain.
Darren Rovell, ESPN’s sports business reporter, said Sister Jean has been tweeted about more than any other person connected with any team during the NCAA Tournament. (Sorry, Donte Ingram and Clayton Custer, the Loyola players who hit game-winning shots in the first and second rounds.)
NBC’s “Access” interviewed the California native Monday and called her the “biggest star of the tournament.”
In an interview via Skype with the entertainment program, she deflected praise and lauded the team: “I think the stardom rests with the coach and with the team. I’m sort of in the background doing the hard pushing. They’re the ones that do the playing and get the credit.”
Sister Jean plans to travel again with the 11th-seeded Ramblers to the Sweet 16 in Atlanta, where they will face No. 7 seed Nevada on Thursday night in a South Region semifinal.
“We picked up so many fans,” she told reporters Sunday at Gentile Arena. “I think they were happy for us.”
Loyola’s popularity during this tournament isn’t due only to dramatic shots and impressive upsets. Sister Jean, the team chaplain since 1994, has had a TV camera trained on her during games and has been mic’d up for her pregame prayers.
A former player and coach, she knows her basketball and provides comforting words and feedback to players after each game. She grew up in San Francisco and joined the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary convent in Iowa after high school. She returned to California, where she taught school and coached basketball for 20 years, before taking a teaching job in 1961 at Mundelein College.
Not long after the women’s school merged with Loyola in 1991, Sister Jean retired from the education department. She was asked to replace the chaplain of the men’s basketball team and has held the post for 24 years.
Loyola has been cognizant of Sister Jean’s health on the trips. After missing nine games this season because of a broken hip, she returned late in the season to watch home games in the tunnel from her wheelchair. She travelled with the team to St. Louis for the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, which the Ramblers won to earn their NCAA Tournament berth. A nurse went with her to St. Louis, and a wellness centre employee travelled with her to Dallas.
She said all the attention is deserved for the team and good for Loyola.
“I think everybody is a celebrity in his and her own way,” she told “Access.” “No matter what we do, if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, then each one of us is a celebrity, each one is bright in the eyes of God.”
And she’ll enjoy the Ramblers’ ride. She had the same thought that likely popped into many Loyola fans’ minds the morning after Custer’s shot with 3.6 seconds left beat Tennessee and sent the Ramblers to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1985.
“Oh,” she said she told herself. “It’s not a dream.”