The experience aided him later on as a priest he said.
After the 2003-04 basketball season, the long-time Villanova basketball chaplain retired, and Coach Jay Wright invited Fr. Hagan to take his place. He's been the basketball chaplain for 12 years now.
Sports is "a wonderful metaphor for life," he explained. "When you're dealing with wins and losses and getting up when you're down, and the value of teamwork and doing things together, and overcoming mistakes and hardship – there's a lot of common ground between sport and spirituality."
And in his ministry, he "inevitably" ends up in deep conversations "about the value of having a relationship with God, and the wisdom that comes from that, and the strength that comes from that, and the grace that comes from that," he added.
However, he listens first before preaching. "As much as people like to think that I'm teaching and preaching to them, I'm doing more listening, and I listen to them," he said. "And I get a sense of maybe what's going on in their head and their heart."
The "core values" of Villanova University are truth, unity, and love, he said, and these "are going to penetrate everything we do."
These values surface in his daily ministry, when "you're constantly building relationships, you're constantly looking for ways to work together," he said. This champion basketball team was built on that foundation, he said, on brotherhood and humility.
For example, during the middle of the season one of the players found out that his godfather had just died. His teammates were brothers to him, Fr. Hagan said. "These big tough strong guys were shedding real tears together for their friend who lost a close family member," he said. "They were there for each other."
Along with brotherhood, humility was actually key to the team's championship run, Fr. Hagan explained. Every player was "willing to sacrifice a piece of themselves, whether it might be playing time, points, minutes, popularity, attention, adulation."
There's a saying that "it's amazing what can be accomplished when no one's concerned about who gets the credit," he noted. "And these young men really exemplified that."
The values don't automatically translate into championship trophies, but the team's focus is on something greater than awards, he said. "Whether we lose or we win, we don't want that alone to define us and who we are. But rather, how we cared and played for each other."
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Relationships being more important than trophies "is a counter-cultural message," he admitted. "TV highlights the one who makes the dunk, who scores all the points, and who signs the big contract," but "what lies beneath that are all the intangible things that often go unnoticed that are really what's most important."
Humility, brotherhood – it's an example for everyone. "What a great message for others, whether you're in a family, in a marriage, running a business, working in a school – these are universal values," he said.
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.