It was a crisp fall day on the Main Line, and the sun was beaming down on the parking lot of Villanova Stadium. Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman” blasted out of a speaker from the Villanova Football Club tailgate.
It was Villanova’s Homecoming Weekend. Villanova football was set to take on Albany. However, without a man named Andy Talley and a group of men, Villanova football might not exist today.
In 1985, Villanova football was revived after a five-year hiatus, following the program’s dissolution due to financial struggles at the major college (now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision) level. This past Homecoming Weekend, members of the 1985 Villanova football team were reunited for its 40th anniversary.
Art Condodina (‘89) was one of them, a former starting running back and now a managing director at the Odeon Capital Group.
“It makes me think back to the day we were graduating,” Condodina said. “Our quarterback was Kurk Schulz. It was an emotional day for everybody because we’d spent so much time and so much blood, sweat and tears together. We were sitting in my dorm room, and I can remember him saying, ‘We might not see each other for 10 years, but it doesn’t matter because we’ll pick up just like it was yesterday.’”
And they did it with ease, even 40 years after they went to school together.
“There are a number of guys there that we don’t get to see because of geographical reasons for maybe five years at a time,” Condodina said. “But as soon as you see them, you pick it up and rekindle those friendships.”
The 1985 Villanova football team was special in its own way. Commonly, a freshman class is made up of eight or nine recruits. However, in 1985, Villanova had 30 new guys all playing with each other.
“When you go to college and you play a sport, usually your first couple of years, you’ve got to earn that playing time,” Dave Pacitti (‘89), a former Villanova offensive lineman, said. “We all played together for four years, which is rare. It wasn’t just a bond of eight or nine incoming freshmen. It was 30-some guys that were close. We were at each other’s weddings. When kids were born. We had such a strong bond. We did everything together.”
Pacitti, now CEO of Avanos Medical, was Talley’s first-ever Villanova football recruit. He originally committed to Duke University and played football there his freshman season. After the resignation of Duke’s head coach, Steve Sloan, Pacitti considered his options.
“I reached out to my high school coach, and he said, ‘Dave, if you decide you want to leave, there’s a great guy that’s taking over at Villanova and they’re rebuilding the program,” Pacitti said. “So I’d love to go meet them.”
So during Christmas break, Pacitti headed to the Main Line, the alma mater of his father and 66 other family members.
“I went to go see Andy Talley,” Pacitti said. “And, I mean, the guy was just bigger than life. He’s not a tall man, right? He’s not a big man by stature. But the way he told a story, you would think it was bigger than life. The way he talked about where the program was going and how special it was going to be. Everything that he said absolutely happened.”
Other Wildcats from the class of 1989 also gave up Division I football offers to join Talley and the vision he has for the Villanova football program. Talley’s vision was crafted so well, it was worth joining a team that would face Division III competition in its first season.
“I think pretty much everybody in that class had offers to go play division one football at some point,” Condodina said. “Every one of them turned that down for the opportunity to participate in building a program. And to me, that takes a different mentality, if you want to tackle that challenge and want to be a part of building something and taking ownership of it. We were 17-, 18-year-old kids making these decisions. And for whatever reason, that appealed to us. We knew we were building something bigger than what we just went there for.”
Villanova football quickly went from playing Iona to kick off the 1985 season to hosting Wake Forrest in 1989. The group believed in Talley’s goals and in each other.
“[Talley] was a great mentor,” Pacitti said. “He was like a father figure. We bought into everything he said, and we didn’t think anyone could beat us, even though we obviously lost, too. But we were so committed to the program. Everyone had each other’s back. I don’t think I ever saw a team quite like that.”
Villanova has the gift of having two head coaches who have spent 30-plus years with the program. In 1987, Mark Ferrante entered the program as a linebacker coach. Ferrante is now the head coach of the Villanova football program and has been since 2017.
Currently, 12 FBS schools alone have a head coach opening. At Villanova, that has not been an issue. And, according to the men who brought the program back, it won’t be in the future.
“Villanova had football for a long time, and there was a little hiatus there,” Ferrante said. “These guys brought it back with Coach Talley. I brought them into the locker room pregame. They’re one of the main pillars of this new era of Villanova football. So to have them here today and in the locker room before the game was pretty awesome. We talk about playing for each other, but we talk about all those who came before us as well.”
