‘How absurd is that?’: Pope Leo XIV, once just a Villanova student named Bob, is a Wildcats basketball fan

Robert Prevost, now the new pope, probably attended Villanova basketball games in the '70s.

Robert F. Prevost, who is now Pope Leo XIV, pictured in his Villanova University Class of 1977 yearbook.Read moreCourtesy of Villanova University

Published May 18, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

Whitey Rigsby had just landed in Chicago to attend a Villanova function and was still on the plane when his wife, Becky, called after the white smoke rose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.

The pope wasn’t just an American, he was a Villanovan. And Becky, who works at a home for older nuns at Immaculata, held her phone in the air so her husband could hear the nuns, some of whom had attended Villanova, scream and cheer.

Rigsby, who played basketball for Villanova in the 1970s while Bob Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was a student, was wearing a Villanova shirt on the plane and had a few people come up to him in the airport. Later that night, surrounded by a bunch of Villanovans, the group toasted with Champagne in the pope’s honor.

It is quite a remarkable thing to have attended the same school as the pope, but the realization came quickly to Rigsby and the rest of his Wildcats teammates. The pope probably sat in the stands at Jake Nevin Field House and watched Rigsby and the Wildcats play basketball in the nascent stages of the Rollie Massimino era.

Rigsby, who graduated in 1978, one year after Prevost, didn’t know Prevost when they were students.

“Even though we didn’t know him, I guess it sounds cocky, but he knew us,” Rigsby said. “Everybody in those days went to all the games, so I’m sure he was at games watching us play. He’s a sports fan.”

In the days after Prevost was elected to the papacy, evidence of his sports fandom has emerged. The Chicago native was on the television broadcast rooting for his White Sox during the 2005 World Series.

Memes, there have been plenty. Rigsby has a favorite, one with the pope’s face on a No. 14 Villanova jersey. Rigsby wore No. 14 with the Wildcats, and he has used that meme to tell his friends and teammates that the pope was a fan of his.

“But no one is buying that,” said Rigsby, who calls Wildcats basketball games on the radio and works for the school as a gift officer.

Especially not his former teammate, roommate, and longtime friend Joe Rogers, who was in the same class as Prevost at Villanova.

“I wish he prayed for Whitey to play a little bit better, that’s the first thing,” Rogers joked. “We might have won a few more games.”

The Wildcats took their lumps during the first three years of Massimino’s run, but they finally reached the NIT during Rogers and Prevost’s senior year. Rigsby helped lead Villanova to the Elite Eight the following season.

The news came in waves to Rogers. First, the pope was American, which on its own was a big deal. Then he learned he was a Villanova grad. Then, a classmate.

“You talk about different paths of life, right?” Rogers said. “We all go to school, and everybody ends up doing something for a living. To find out one of the guys you went to school with ended up being the pope, that’s pretty unreal.”

‘He was paying attention’

For the last two decades, the Rev. Rob Hagan has sat at the end of the men’s basketball bench as the team chaplain. But before he was a senior associate athletic director overseeing student-athlete welfare, and after the Villanova graduate spent the first part of his professional life as a lawyer, Hagan was an Augustinian novice who spent a year of novitiate in Racine, Wis., in the late 1990s.

At the time, Prevost was assuming a new role: Prior Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine’s Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel, based in Chicago. That’s when Hagan’s path crossed with Prevost’s for the first time.

“You don’t have to be around him very long before you discover he’s really smart,” Hagan said. “He’s a very clear and logical thinker. He communicates with great clarity, speaks multiple languages, and at the same time, he spent the bulk of his life serving in Peru with the poorest of the poor. He has a certain intellectual capacity coupled with a real compassion and empathy.”

Hagan was surprised that Prevost was interested in Hagan’s road to the priesthood. Prevost has a canon law degree and wanted to learn about Hagan’s work in civil law and his work prior to entering the order.

“I found him to be very down to earth, and I think that people are going to experience him the same way,” Hagan said. “With all the pomp and circumstance that goes with that office, I think people are going to experience him as relatable and easy to understand.

“He’s very much in solidarity with the worker. He’s in solidarity with the laborer. He’s in solidarity with the poor. I think people are going to experience him that way, even though he has this big leadership position. I think he’s going to very much be a person among the people.

“As [Pope] Francis said, a shepherd should smell like the sheep.”

At the very least, this pope smells like a Villanova basketball fan. When Villanova would make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, Prevost, while in Peru, joined group chats with former classmates.

“There was no question that when we had that run in ’16 and ’18, when our paths would cross, he would ask about it, talk about how exciting it was, and what a great thing it was for Villanova and what an incredible team and togetherness that they displayed,” Hagan said. “That was real. He was aware. He was paying attention.”

Walking the same path

Prevost’s rise to the papacy has been a uniting occurrence. Old Villanova friends have reconnected over their shared amazement. Rogers has heard from people who aren’t even Villanovans, like La Salle assistant coach Joe Mihalich, who texted him the other day to see if he knew Prevost.

Rogers has heard from friends from middle school with the same question.

“It’s just unbelievable to think we may have eaten in the same dining hall for four years and I didn’t know him,” Rogers said. “To think that maybe we were in a couple of classes together. I could’ve been in a religion class with him and heard him speak many times.”

Current students on campus are enjoying the idea of sharing that same link.

“They’re walking on some of the paths that he walked on, studying in some of the same classrooms that he studied in, praying in some of the same chapels in the church that he did, eating in some of the same dining halls that he did,” Hagan said.

“There’s a certain connection and relatability to him that I think is really inviting to people, particularly as American Catholics. We all have a lot of friends who are kind of lapsed, maybe not as into religion and the church, and then you meet somebody like this who roots for the Wildcats, roots for the White Sox, loves deep dish Chicago-style pizza. It brings it down to a little bit more of a relatable, connecting yourself to the faith and the values that were cultivated right here in places that we go.”

Like basketball games.

There are no photos of Prevost at games, but there’s reason to believe he was there. Even if he wasn’t, Hagan pointed to the values that shaped Prevost as being the same values that are at the base of everything at Villanova, basketball included.

“At Villanova, we would expect that truth, unity, and love are going to permeate the business school and the history department,” Hagan said. “And in the case of athletics, I think Jay [Wright] would attest to this, those values are the values that permeated the team.

“It’s not just that we won, but how we played. We talk about things like we play for each other, or we play for those who came before us.”

For Jalen Brunson. For Randy Foye. For Rigsby and Rogers. For the new pope.

“That is just awesome,” Rogers said. “The pope is just held in such high esteem. You would never think that he went to your school, and maybe he was a fan who attended your games.”

Not just attended, maybe even prayed for, and probably cheered.

“I hope he cheered,” Rigsby said. “I hope he wasn’t [one of] the many people [who] booed me. Think about that. I’m a dopey kid who grew up in New York City, and the pope watched me play. How absurd is that?”