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 NCAA national championship tournaments, died Thursday. She was 106.

Her death was announced by the university, which did not say where she died.

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 BVM, Sister Jean, as she preferred to be known, was retiring from her job as a student adviser at Loyola in 1994 when the Rev. John Piderit, Loyola’s president at the time, asked if she would remain on campus to help athletes maintain good grades. She agreed

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