Love, friendship, and 'Nova: 'It's one of those schools'

Jim and Patty Esposito met at Villanova University, sent all three of their children to school there, and have been Wildcats season-ticket holders since they graduated.

They have a "Villanova room" in their Morristown, N.J., home, complete with a glass table that holds the ticket stubs from every game they have attended through the decades.

They'll be in Houston on Saturday to watch their team take on Oklahoma in the Final Four, cheering along with two of their best friends, another quintessential Villanova couple, Patrick Higgins and Julianne Bigelli. Higgins and Bigelli, of Far Hills, N.J., are former classmates of the Espositos', and introduced them to each other.

"Villanova has it, whatever it is. It has it," said Jim Esposito, 59. "It's one of those schools, it runs through you."

The couples are among 118,000 alumni of the Catholic university and certainly among the top revelers in the team's success this year. Alumni include Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, who received a master's degree from Villanova; Ed Rendell, who earned a law degree there; and Madeline M. Bell, president and chief operating officer of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; and actress Maria Bello, who received their undergraduate degrees from the school.

"It's a big family," said Patty Esposito, 57, adding that they also are friends with star player Ryan Arcidiacono's parents, both alums. "You don't go to Villanova for four years. You go for a lifetime."

Michael O'Neill, senior vice president for university advancement, said the alumni gatherings at the games had been thunderous because of avid fans like the Espositos, Higgins, and Bigelli. He said he would never forget what it felt like when 700 people had gathered at a hotel in Louisville last weekend and the players and the band moved through the crowd.

"It was like Moses parting the Red Sea through this throng of people," he said. "It was almost like this physical capture of what the Villanova community is feeling."

For the Espositos, Higgins, and Bigelli, that feeling is rooted in a relationship that goes back decades.

Higgins and Bigelli were dating first. They took Higgins' roommate and friend, Jim Esposito, to Minella's Diner and persuaded him to ask Patty out. She was a sophomore, and he was a junior. Soon the four were making snow angels all over campus together when a major snowstorm shut the university for days.

They attended basketball games regularly, Patty as a cheerleader. When they graduated - the men in 1979 and the women in 1980 - both couples became season-ticket holders and have been taking in games together ever since, through snowstorms, through heartbreaking defeats, through the 1985 tournament, which culminated in the university's first national championship.

They figure they've been around the world twice if they add up all the trips to and from their Jersey homes to Villanova, Higgins said.

Patty Esposito wore the same outfit every day of the tournament in 1985 - jeans, a white, puffy shirt with a Peter Pan collar, and a vest.

She has the same ritual this time, donning jeans and a long-sleeved Villanova shirt with a ball sailing through a hoop, over top of a white Oxford shirt. Even in 80-degree Houston, she isn't deviating.

"I'm really superstitious," she said.

When it came time for their children to choose a college, the decision was fairly easy.

"They grew up with it. They were fans," Patty said.

Connor was the first to enroll at Villanova. A 2010 grad and a soccer player, he now works in finance in New York City. Then came Emily, a 2013 grad who is an associate merchandiser in New York, and Reilly, a senior sociology and communications major.

"It really does make for a fun family bonding," Patty said.

Connor is the only one not going to the Final Four game. He had a wedding but will join the clan for Monday night's championship game if the Wildcats make it.

The Espositos are involved in the university in other ways. Patty Esposito, an insurance broker, is on the alumni board, and her husband, senior vice president of a company that manufactures roofing materials, is on the president's advisory council. The Higgins are in similar roles.

Both families have donated generously to the university. The Higgins and Bigelli names are on the university's soccer complex, and the Espositos have endowed a soccer scholarship.

Higgins, 59, an executive at Arbutus Biopharma of Doylestown, said his wife, 57, a retired banker, wanted to help the university financially in the hope that it would spur others to give.

Higgins and Bigelli's son, Colin, is a 2015 Villanova graduate and an aspiring lawyer. Their daughter, Morgan, is the only exception among the two families. She went to James Madison University.

"Villanova wasn't big enough for her," Higgins said.

Though it's not her alma mater, Morgan is flying in from San Diego to attend the game with her family, he said.

"She says when she has kids, she's going to send them to Villanova," Higgins said.

ssnyder@phillynews.com

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