Leavenworth ? Sister Madonna Fink isn’t likely to ever hear her name on ESPN, but when it blared over the loudspeakers this weekend at a University of St. Mary basketball game, the 72-year-old nun got the kind of standing ovation usually reserved for the athletic elite.

The university’s basketball court was named Saturday after the woman who waits by the team bus to hand out bags of cookies before a road trip. She hasn’t missed more than a few home athletic events since the small liberal arts college in Leavenworth started varsity sports 17 years ago.

Hundreds of students knew before Saturday’s game the court was to be dubbed the Sister Madonna Fink Court, but they kept it a secret.

“Good grief, I can’t believe this,” she said as she received a standing ovation on both sides of the court.

Sister Madonna joined the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth in 1952 and has worked as a reference librarian at the university for more than 27 years. Along the way, she has touched hundreds of athletes who played at the school.

It’s not unusual for her to stop a student and ask about a test nobody else even knew he or she had taken. She clips newspaper articles so parents in other states and foreign countries can see what their children have accomplished.

And she has written and read a unique prayer before each soccer, football, basketball, baseball, volleyball and softball home game. She knows all 150 or so St. Mary athletes and prays for them daily.

Sister Madonna doesn’t remember any home games that she has missed, although she admits there might have been one or two because of other priorities.

“There are wakes and funerals,” she said.