David Castelli's work with Coach Andy Talley

In order to ease the daily expenses of your typical college student, I was very eager to get an on-campus job. When I heard about the opening as a student manager for the Villanova football team, I immediately applied. Since I used to play football in high school and being a NFL fanatic, I thought this would be an interesting job; and interesting it has been. The job description for this position includes the following: attending all football practices (class-permitting) and attending Saturday games both home and away. Though this job may sound simple on the outside, it has been quite the opposite. There is a lot of work to be completed behind the scenes of daily practices and weekly games for this team.

This past football season, we had 12 people on staff. As student equipment managers, we were required to be at practice from 7:15 am to 11:15 am Tuesday through Thursday to setup the field with all of the specific equipment needs for each position. Thursday nights we would have “helmet night” for 2 hours, which was used to clean every player’s helmet and hand out their walk-through gear. This walk-through was a lighter practice every Friday from 2:00 pm - 4:30 pm, but we still needed to setup equipment on the field. After the practice, we would either begin to setup the locker room by distributing game-day uniforms and dressing player’s pads – or if the game was away, we would load the football truck with all of the equipment needed for the game. Saturdays were completely dedicated to Villanova football. Depending if the game was home or away would determine the amount of hours we needed to work. Home games were much easier; much of the equipment that we usually brought to games was stored in about 10 trunks, so we would simply push these trunks to the turf field and make sure the team had everything they needed. For away games, every manager traveled and once we arrived at the rival school, we would go straight to the locker room to set up equipment and player’s uniforms. Our role during the game was more of a relief; we would simply answer to coach and player needs. Still, the job had plenty of benefits that outweighed the stressful work weeks. These benefits included: free Villanova football gear (shirts, shorts, sweatshirts, etc.), paid hotel for away games, free snacks/meals for both home and away games, and the most invaluable benefit, working alongside the legend, Andy Talley. Even though as a first-year manager I didn't work extensively with “coach” we still exchanged meaningful conversations on the sideline throughout the season.

Outside of his outstanding coaching career with 258 career wins, 12 playoff appearances, 6 conference championships, 3 national semifinalist appearances, and 1 national championship, Andy Talley is a giving, driven, and influential leader who exemplifies everything that makes Villanova great. He has had a profound impact on countless young men and for me, being able to work for such a great organization under his motivational and strong authority, has been the greatest pleasure I have had at Nova. Thanks V.U. football for this opportunity and to Andy Talley for your endless inspirations.