For 42 years, Mark Quigley helped keep the lights on at the Palestra. The community he found there changed his life.

When Mark Quigley was 17, his grandfather gave him a mandate. It was 1982, and Charlie Quigley had just retired from his job at the University of Pennsylvania. He’d been there for 46 years, starting in the laundry room in the 1930s, and ending in the athletic department, where he’d served as the head grounds foreman.

A groundskeeping role had just opened up at the school. Charlie decided that his grandson would apply.

“You’re not going to college,” he told him. “And you’re not going to be a bum. You need to go for it.”

Mark didn’t have many prospects. He’d struggled with alcohol and drug addiction since he was 12. He was much more interested in finding a party than he was in finding a career. The closest he’d come was working as a short-order cook at a Perkins Restaurant in Springfield.

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The Penn job paid substantially better than that — $5.14 an hour, compared to $3 working in the kitchen — so Mark chose to heed his grandfather’s advice, assuming it would only be a temporary stop.

“I didn’t think it was going to be my entire life,” he said.

Quigley, 60, stayed at Penn for 42 years, until he retired on Jan. 6. He climbed his way from the bottom to the top, ending in a similar position to his grandfather: lead electrician for the athletic department. He spent most of his days at Franklin Field and the Palestra.

It was fulfilling, intuitive work, which allowed him to bear witness to some of the greatest moments in Philadelphia sports history. But he said his job had a far more profound impact than that.

Quigley’s colleagues helped him through some of the most difficult periods of his life. The university got him into a rehab program in 1986, and he’s remained sober ever since.

For almost a decade, Penn Athletics provided him with not just a salary, but unconditional love. And his life has changed because of it. He believes his grandfather knew this would happen when he told him to apply in 1982.

“I wound up being right where I needed to be,” Quigley said.

Quigley has always been a fixer. His father, John, was a helicopter mechanic in the military and taught his son how to work with his hands. They’d break car stereos and put them back together. He could look at a blueprint and understand where it led.

Penn was a huge part of his life from an early age. His grandfather would bring Quigley to games at the Palestra. He’d let him ride the back of the sweeper while he cleaned Franklin Field.

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Instead of afterschool programs, Quigley would go to the Penn Relays, Eagles preseason games, and Big 5 doubleheaders, sitting high up in the stands. Instead of a doormat, his family had a piece of Astroturf from the football stadium in front of their Briarcliffe home in Delaware County.

Even as a young kid, Quigley could tell that people respected his grandfather. Current and former athletes remembered his name. Their family got a Christmas card from Eagles and Penn legend Chuck Bednarik every winter.

When Quigley started his job at Penn in 1982, he was known to all as “Charlie’s grandson.” It was a big name to live up to, and for awhile, he said, he had a “chip on his shoulder” because of it.

But the grandson quickly proved that his name was worth remembering. After graduating from Cardinal O’Hara High School in 1982, Quigley worked as a groundskeeper for the university and athletic department for three years.

He asked a lot of questions, showed a strong work ethic, and was promoted in 1985 to a job as a helper in the mason shop. In 1986, he became an apprentice electrician.

Quigley took night classes at Dobbins Tech twice a week, while working from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day. It didn’t take him long to realize that he had a unique opportunity.

“My teacher, Tony Capuano, said something that stuck with me,” Quigley said. “He said, ‘Everything you’re learning, you can put your hands on it. High potting a transformer. Putting an outlet in. Control wiring. You can see it all.’”

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The student took advantage of it and was promoted again, in 1990, to journeyman electrician. By 1995, he’d reached the top of his trade: lead electrician for facilities in the athletic department. He was in charge of everything, from making sure the clocks were ticking, to painting the “P” on the football helmets.

Each day presented a different challenge — especially in the 98-year-old Palestra, which Quigley affectionately called “the old girl.” He never knew when a bank of lights would suddenly shut off, or the video board would stop working.

“During the A-10 tournament, we’d have five to six games a day,” Quigley said. “And we would just sit and watch the boards, waiting for them to malfunction.”

The technology changed over the years, but fires — literally and figuratively — would still pop up. Keith Maurer, Penn’s assistant athletic director of facilities, remembers a time in 2018 when the shot clock over the basket stopped working mid-game.

“It was the Ivy League men’s basketball tournament,” Maurer said. “The number on the clock was gone.”

Quigley swapped out the clock at halftime, replacing it with a spare he had in the server room. The game was back on in a matter of minutes. The electrician stayed at the Palestra until 2 a.m., fixing the broken clock. He returned to work four hours later.

“Mark was like our safety blanket,” Maurer said.

In the 1990s, there were a few games when the Palestra unexpectedly went dark. It had old 2400-volt feeders in the building, which became overloaded if too much power was being used in the gym.

“It would go black,” Quigley said. “The only thing that would be on would be those emergency lights up there.”

He had his reputation. He had his relationships. And then I grew up, and realized, I need to leave my own legacy.

Whenever this happened, Quigley would run with his big metal flashlight in hand to the basement to reset the switch gear. But even that was a process. It had to be done one switch at a time.

“If you turn it all on at once, it exceeds the capacity of the circuits,” Quigley said. “It’ll shut right off. So, you have to turn off all the loads, and bring it up slowly. We had some archaic electrical systems back in the day.”

This was the kind of institutional knowledge that only Quigley had, which led to a unique viewing experience during games. He would often stand in the northwest corner of the Palestra, but wouldn’t be focused on the players.

He’d look at the clock, the scoreboards, the lights — anything that was at risk of breaking.

It was busy, and chaotic, but Quigley managed to find small moments to take it all in.

He witnessed Kobe Bryant drop 29 points for Lower Merion in the 1996 PIAA semifinal. He watched some of the greatest Catholic League games in the city’s history, and saw Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt run at the Penn Relays.

For years, he’d arrive at the gym at 6 a.m., to find John Chaney in the midst of a workout with his Temple basketball team. He became friendly with Chaney and other local college coaches who practiced at the Palestra.

Quigley gradually began to build his own legacy. He was no longer just Charlie’s grandson.

“He had his reputation,” Quigley said of his grandfather. “He had his relationships. And then I grew up, and realized, I need to leave my own legacy. And the way I can do that is by honoring him. Do the job. Be respectful. Be honest. Be the best guy I can be.”

Quigley’s addiction was the one thing he could not fix. When he started at Penn, he was functional. He could still work at his apprenticeship, and take care of his son, Joshua. But coworkers noticed that he was struggling.

When Quigley was 25, he hit a breaking point. He felt trapped inside of a cycle of shame, remorse, and guilt. One morning, he said, he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person looking back at him.

“It was not what my parents had taught me, my grandfather,” Quigley said. “I was becoming someone I didn’t want to be. I had lost total control. I had lost the power to do anything about it. And I needed to admit that and find myself.”

If I had kept going down that path, I don’t think I’d be here today.

He went to his shop steward, Jimmy Holland, who worked in the Franklin Building.

“I need help,” Quigley told him. “I don’t know what to do. I’m either going to kill myself or wind up hurting someone else.”

Holland contacted Penn’s employee-assistance program, which put him in rehab for 30 days. He’s been sober since, and continues to attend Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Quigley has met some of his best friends through those communities. He believes that the 12 steps have made him not just a better man, but a better electrician.

And it was Penn that put him on that path, 35 years ago.

“I was young, but it was ugly,” Quigley said. “There’s a thing we often say — jails, institutions, and death. And that was coming. If I had kept going down that path, I don’t think I’d be here today. But thank god that didn’t happen.”

Quigley knows he’s lucky, and has tried to pay it forward. He is always on the lookout for anyone who needs help, whether it is friends, family, or coworkers.

“I’m a firm believer that you don’t get to keep what you have unless you give it away,” he said.

He’s still helping, even though he has officially retired. When he left, Quigley gave his cell phone number to the two electricians who replaced him. He’s gotten quite a few calls already, and will likely get more.

Penn has found it difficult to replace the role he filled for 42 years.

“Mark was our No. 1, go-to person for decades,” Maurer said. “There are good guys that are here that will jump in and learn, but it takes time. He’s definitely missed, even after a few weeks.”

On Feb. 1, Quigley was honored by the school in a surprise ceremony before a men’s basketball game against Yale. He was presented with a jersey and a plaque. His son, Joshua, and his daughters, Devynn and Farren, were there. So was his wife, Suzie, whom he met through coworkers and married last year.

Penn showed him on the video board that he used to climb to fix a blown fuse.

“I was so humbled to be recognized,” he said. “Especially to share it with my wife and family.”

For now, the electrician has been doing the things he never had time to do: watching television shows and planning a summer vacation with Suzie down the Shore. But he still misses that gym.

Maybe one day Quigley will go back and sit high up in the stands, just as he did as a 7-year-old kid. He’ll look around at the lights, the clocks, and the boards and realize that even though he wasn’t a player or a coach, he still played a big part in making this whole thing work.