Villanova AD Vince Nicastro accepts new position at the university

IF YOU have been around college sports as long as I have, you meet every imaginable kind of person - some with agendas, others who are in it just for themselves, overmatched incompetents.

You also get to know people like Vince Nicastro, who is everything good about college athletics - honest, fair-minded, reasonable and terrific at his job.

When it was announced yesterday that Nicastro, the Villanova athletics director for 15 years, will be leaving his job sometime soon to become the associate director of the Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at the Villanova School of Law, I felt good for Vince and his family because that is what they want. I felt bad for anybody who has dealt with Vince as the 'Nova AD. He is unique.

Ask an informed question and you would get an answer. If he didn't know the answer, he would endeavor to find it. There were no hidden agendas because there was no agenda at all.

The university put out a nice statement about Nicastro's time as AD. University president Rev. Peter M. Donohue, basketball coach Jay Wright, dean of the law school John Gotanda, and Nicastro himself were all quoted.

The statement was very positive as it should have been. After all, Nicastro oversaw 24 sports with more than 500 athletes in an era of unprecedented change in college athletics. The $18.7 million Davis Center for Athletics & Fitness (also the practice facility for men's and women's basketball) opened in 2007 entirely with donor support. Andy Talley's football team won the 2009 national championship just eight months after Wright's basketball team made the Final Four. Nicastro helped navigate Villanova through the craziness that was the Big East breakup and came out the other side with the dominant program in men's basketball, the league's marquee sport.

Still, some statements are written with agendas. Nicastro said this statement was on point.

"I initiated it," Nicastro assured me. "It is a change of pace for me professionally. I've talked to our president about it for some months now."

I have known Vince and his wife Liz for more than 20 years. When we meet up, we sometimes even talk about college sports.

Case in point: Indianapolis is one of my favorite Final Four cities for many reasons, not least of which is the presence of an off-track-betting facility downtown.

It is a Final Four rite in Indy that on the Saturday afternoon before the semifinals, I will host a Philly basketball-centric crew at the OTB. Some years, like 2010, I am hot, everybody loves me and many $100 bills are dispersed. Some years, like 2015, I have no clue and find out who my true friends are.

Herb Magee and Steve Donahue were there this year. So was Liz Nicastro. Even though I did not give out a winner all day, Liz told me on the way back to the hotels she had a great time because "it was nice not to have to be the AD's wife for a few hours."

Well, she will be the AD's wife until a successor is found for her husband. Vince will stay on while Parker Executive Search gets names for the university's search committee to consider.

"I had the sense that 15 years was a long time in our business," Nicastro said. "I sort of limited myself because I wanted to be at Villanova and not pick the family up and move. I'm grateful that it worked out."

Nicastro worked his way up in the Villanova athletic department from director of ticket operations to assistant and then associate athletic director. When the AD position opened 15 years ago, I remember hoping that Nicastro would get the job because a. he deserved it, b. he would be good at it and c. he would return my phone calls.

The Nicastro twins, Jake and Casey, were born a month before Vince was offered the AD job.

"This will give me a little more flexibility to see the kids' games," Nicastro said. "These jobs are more complex than they've ever been."

During his 15 years, just about everything in college athletics has changed.

"What's happened is the stakes have risen because of the money involved," Nicastro said. "The velocity of the change has really picked up."

It has indeed, but some essentials do not change. Vince Nicastro was good people when he got into the college sports business. He remains good people today.