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Sister John returns to March Madness.
Loyola-Chicago confirmed Tuesday that Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the 101-year-old chaplain for the school’s basketball team, will be in attendance on Friday when the Ramblers open the NCAA tournament against Georgia Tech in Indianapolis. The Ramblers have won the Missouri Valley Conference Championship and are the eighth seed in the Midwest region.
Sister Jean, who became an international celebrity during the Loyola-Chicago race to the Final Four in 2018, has not attended games since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. She has been offering pre-game prayers most of the season, but has stayed in a self-catering senior’s apartment in downtown Chicago.
Sister John will attend Friday’s game at Hinkle Fieldhouse but will have no direct contact with the team in person. She noted that if the players’ parents can’t interact with them, neither should she. Sister John will have a nurse with her and security who will help escort her from a downtown Indianapolis hotel to the game. She said there is “no danger” for her to attend the game, but that she will follow all instructions.
“What they wanted to do was make sure all the safety factors were taken into account,” Sister Jean said on a video conference with reporters on Tuesday. “Sometimes people who haven’t been to the games or NCAA or even March Madness, don’t know exactly what’s going on there. Sometimes they think it’s like a teenage gig, where everyone will surround me and maybe not have a space to breathe.
“If I’m not supposed to go to the field, I’m not going to go. And I’m not going to cause a disturbance.”
Sister John wanted to attend the tournament for weeks and lobbied until she got permission from the school.
“I’ve had other offers from people at the university,” she says. “An elder wrote and told me that her husband was ready to bring me down. Another person told me they were going to kick me out of college, and another couple said they would like to kidnap me and Loyola should look for me. . “
Sister John has already filled a fork, but said she could still change it before the start of the tournament. She noted that several familiar teams are not included – “I don’t see Kentucky anywhere” – while acknowledging the new teams that made the 68 field.
She’s not a fan of Loyola’s draw, especially a possible second-round game with seeded Illinois.
“I am amazed that they put two Illinois schools together to oppose rather than support each other,” she said.
Despite the difficult road, Sister Jean hangs Loyola-Chicago to reach the Elite Eight. In 2016, she advanced the Ramblers to Sweet 16. She didn’t expect to attend another NCAA tournament to see the Ramblers.
Sister John has not been to the Loyola campus since March 11, 2020, when the pandemic struck. She kept in close contact with Coach Porter Moser and the players via phone and email, but said it was “very difficult” to watch from her apartment.
“These young people keep me young, even though I’m 101, I consider myself young at heart,” she said.
Sister John also added: “In 2018 Loyola entered the map and everyone was happy. We also made people happy. I received letters from Germany and France, from different types of people, saying, “You have brought great joy to our country. “Now we need something to make us happy even more than in 2018.”
Born August 21, 1919, Sister John joined the Sisters of Charity of the Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Iowa after graduating from high school. She joined the Loyola-Chicago staff in 1991 and has been chaplain to the basketball team since 1994.
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