Sister Marguerite doesn’t like sports. But with tutoring — and prayer — she keeps Neumann University athletes eligible.

Sister Marguerite O’Beirne can’t tell you the difference between an offensive or defensive rebound. She wouldn’t be able to pick out a balk on the baseball field, or a power play on the ice.

But the 80-year-old nun, who works as an academic tutor for student athletes at Neumann University, attends more of the school’s home games than anyone.

And she knows enough to know what to pray for.

“I pray that in lacrosse, they get the ball into the net,” she said. “In baseball, that they catch the ball. In basketball, that they make the shot.”

The sister is not hard to spot. At Neumann’s Mirenda Center, O’Beirne usually sits on the same perch — at the top of Section J, across from the home bench — wearing her signature red blazer, often with a rosary in her pocket.

During pivotal moments, she’ll close her eyes, cross her fingers, and politely ask for divine intervention. Nearby students are given specific instructions.

“If he makes the shot, tap me,” she says. “If he doesn’t, I don’t want to see it.”

For the last 30 years, Sister Marguerite has been a mainstay at the Catholic university’s Aston campus. But since 2022, she has worked exclusively with Neumann’s athletes, helping them raise their GPAs so they can remain eligible.

The school’s requirement is a 2.0, but the sister aims higher. When senior forward Donte Dupriest first visited her, in 2025, she told him he wouldn’t just get his degree — he’d get it with honors.

Dupriest had never been a strong student. The idea of him getting any sort of academic accolade seemed far-fetched. But since he began working with O’Beirne, his GPA has jumped to a 3.30.

“It motivated me to be better,” Dupriest said. “Because I’ve got somebody that doesn’t even know me, and she’s raising the bar for me. I ain’t never had anybody believe in me, academic-wise.”

The standout basketball player is just one of many students O’Beirne has helped. She has provided not just academic guidance, but unwavering emotional support, which is why she goes to every game she can.

To the sister, it’s a way of showing she cares.

“[Sports] has transformed their lives,” she said. “Coming from Ireland, I never had a great opportunity for basketball. I never played. But I thought, ‘Wow … this can achieve a lot.’"

O’Beirne grew up in Cloonloo, County Sligo, a small farming community not far from Ireland’s north coast bordering Donegal Bay. She first became acquainted with the Sisters of St. Francis as a teenager, and realized she wanted to be a part of the congregation.

By 16, the order had taken her across the Atlantic Ocean to join the Franciscan nuns in Philadelphia. By 19, she had her first teaching job, working with second graders at Corpus Christi School in Willingboro.

Over the next few decades, she bounced around local schools, from St. Anthony in Trenton to Holy Trinity in Columbia, Pa., to a six-year stint as coordinator of education for the Sisters of St. Francis.

In 1983, she was hired as principal of McCorristin Catholic High School in Trenton, which has since closed. O’Beirne found that her students there hadn’t always received the academic support they needed.

She wanted to connect with them on a deeper level, and discovered that something as simple as attending their sporting events could be a way to do so.

“I would never turn on the TV and watch a game,” she said. “But I recognized that they were so excited when they saw you at a game. The principal was there. It meant something to them.”

She brought this lesson with her to Neumann in 1996, when she was hired as a vice president for mission and ministry. While O’Beirne didn’t work with athletes directly, she would always attend their games as a show of support.

Sister Marguerite also volunteered to be team chaplain for the women’s field hockey and ice hockey teams (she has since swapped field hockey for lacrosse).

O’Beirne retired in 2022 but continued to live at the ministry house, which is only 30-40 yards from the entrance to the basketball gym. She found that she couldn’t stay away, and offered to tutor athletes, one-on-one, as a volunteer.

Her first student was a basketball player, Jalen Vaughns, who is now competing overseas in Albania.

Vaughns, a native of Tobyhanna, Pa., had transferred from Lackawanna College.

“I went to her office, and found out she was a nun,” Vaughns said. “And she gave me the talk. ‘I know you’ve probably never met a nun before.’

“She was just a small, really nice lady. She was smiling, she gave me a hug the first time I met her.”

The 6-foot-7 forward quickly learned that beneath this sweet demeanor was a stern disciplinarian. O’Beirne stayed on top of all of Vaughns’ assignments. She knew all of his instructors.

There was no getting out of homework, even if he was sick.

“One time, I wasn’t feeling well,” Vaughns said, “and she herself walked to get my work and walked to [my dorm] to deliver it to me. At 80 years old. That’s the type of lady she is.”

Vaughns’ grades improved almost immediately. He said Sister Marguerite “got me through” his classes — especially English and literature — and became a constant presence in his daily life.

In 2021-22, the Knights won their first conference championship in five years. The clinching game was against Marymount, in Virginia, and the team returned to campus at about 1 a.m.

When the bus pulled up, Sister Marguerite was there, waiting in the parking lot.

“She’s outside in the freezing cold in February,” Vaughns said, “clapping her hands, waving at us, cheering us on.”

O’Beirne saw a transformation in Vaughns throughout his three years at Neumann, and it wasn’t just in his GPA. She says he became more confident and socially engaged. He wasn’t as glued to his phone.

This only reaffirmed her decision to become a tutor in the first place. She began taking on more student athletes in the hopes of transforming more lives.

Sarah Kiraly, a sophomore lacrosse player, failed two classes last year and became ineligible for the team. The sister helped dig her out of it. They worked together all winter.

“I wouldn’t be playing lacrosse right now if it wasn’t for her,” Kiraly said. “She was there through every essay.”

When Dupriest arrived at Neumann in 2025, it was the first time he’d stepped on a college campus in four years. He’d been playing basketball at Cochise College in Arizona but missed his family back in Philadelphia and dropped out.

Instead of enrolling somewhere else, he picked up a job at the Christian Street YMCA. He continued to play in rec leagues, which is how Neumann’s coaching staff found him.

It took a while for the forward to commit. Dupriest’s mother had died when he was 14, and his father had moved south to Alabama. He was supporting his siblings and his girlfriend, Dylisha, and in 2023, their house went into foreclosure.

Dupriest needed to find them a place to stay before he could even think about returning to school. Once he did, he reached back out to head coach Jim Rullo.

The basketball player was scared of failing. He was scared of living in a new environment, and not being physically close to his loved ones.

But Sister Marguerite put him at ease.

“When I first got here, I cried, because I was so stressed out,” Dupriest said. “I was just doubting myself. I felt like I wasn’t playing good.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. It’s becoming a lot. I want to go home.’”

O’Beirne gave him a hug and a pep talk. His worries melted away.

“You know my grandmama gives the best hugs,” he said. “That’s what she calls herself. My grandmama.”

Sister Marguerite hasn’t lived in Ireland in decades, but her homegrown mannerisms still come out. The nun is known to make herself a cup of “proper tea.” She talks with a thick Irish brogue, and on occasion, will treat the sports teams to a little jig.

“I think they’re amused sometimes by my expressions,” O’Beirne said. “When I say, ‘I’m going to be like a banshee if you don’t get this work done.’ They look at me, like, ‘What’s a banshee?’”

Her profile has been elevated of late, much to the nun’s chagrin. In February, Neumann‘s athletic department unveiled a bobblehead of O’Beirne as a fundraiser. She agreed, but only with “hesitancy.”

“I did not want it,” she said. “[But] I did say, ‘If it brings money in to support the athletes, then I will say yes to the bobblehead.’”

The students who’ve worked with O’Beirne are happy she’s getting some recognition. Many say they wouldn’t have been able to graduate without her.

Vaughns still stays in touch with the sister at least once a month. Dupriest invited O’Beirne to join him and his relatives for Senior Day in February.

“I told her she was going to walk with me, no matter what,” he said. “Because she was the one who started with me, and that’s who I wanted to end it with.”

O’Beirne cherishes these relationships, and has no intention of curtailing them anytime soon. She’ll keep attending games, and ballparks, and hockey rinks, in the sweltering heat and the freezing cold.

Just don’t ask her to keep score.

“I know the gist,” she said, with a smile.