Pope Leo XIV has told the basketball teams from his alma mater, Villanova, and fellow Catholic university Notre Dame that in matters of sport, the pontiff is neutral VATICAN CITY -- VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday told the basketball teams from his alma mater Villanova and fellow Catholic university Notre Dame — in Rome for their season opener — that in matters of sport, the pontiff is neutral. Then the pope, who was born Robert Prevost, said his former self might disagree. The teams were in town for the U.S. college basketball season opener in Rome.
The Villanova and Notre Dame men’s and women’s teams will play a doubleheader on Sunday at the 11,000-seat Palazzo dello Sport, about a half-hour drive from the Vatican. The event has been dubbed the Eternal City Tip-Off and was created to honor the first American pope. Jay Wright, the former Villanova coach who led the men’s team to two NCAA championships and was inducted this month into the National Collegiate Hall of Fame, said “this pilgrimage to Rome and meeting the pope is bigger than the game.” The audience had been up in the air after the 71-year-old pope underwent lung cancer surgery on Oct. 13 and is still recovering.
But Leo kept the appointment ahead of Sunday’s opener. Leo graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Villanova, the Augustinian school near Philadelphia. He was born in Chicago — not all that far from Notre Dame, which is located in South Bend, Indiana.
Leo, an avid sports fan and tennis player, dribbled a golden basketball presented to him by the Villanova women’s team. And when the towering players from Notre Dame presented him with a jersey and another golden ball, Leo stepped up to the podium where his chair sits to try to gain a few inches (centimeters) on them. He gamely posed for a photo with the Fighting Irish, holding the banner they gave him “Pope Leo, Play like a champion today” — a riff on the famous Notre Dame sign at the university's football stadium.
But he gave Villanova equal time, making the "V'" gesture with his hand as chants of “Let’s Go 'Nova” erupted in the audience hall. He warned against letting sporting rivalries get out of hand and he said he hoped the fans in Rome this weekend would actually get to know one another as they cheer, “even passionately.” “In any competition, the members of two teams, even when they have a competitive rivalry, are certainly not enemies,” he said. Like popes before him, Leo has praised the value of sport for both physical and spiritual development, calling sport a “school of fraternity” that nurtures friendship, respect and teamwork.
But he also warned about how the win-at-all-cost mentality of sport has contributed to episodes of doping, match-fixing and other forms of corruption. Robert Dowd, president of Notre Dame, acknowledged Villanova had something of an edge in Sunday’s game, considering it counts the pope as an alumnus. But in an interview Saturday, he said, "The pope is a pope for all of us.
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