It's Time For Philly Fans To Finally Decide If Villanova Is A Philly School Or Not
Steven Ryan. Getty Images.It's been one of the most controversial topics in Philly sports over the past decade. Nobody seems to be able to come up an agreement on whether or not Villanova is a Philly school. For anybody who is an alum at Temple, Saint Joe's, Penn, Drexel or LaSalle, the answer is a resounding no. They consider themselves to be the true Philly schools while Villanova might as well be in Ohio as it's damn near 20 miles west of Center City.
But for the rest of us who didn't go to any of those schools? Well it's nice to be able to count those 2 Villanova National Championships as another title for Title Town, USA. If you win a championship and you're within public transportation distance to Center City, I'd like to consider you a Philly team. I'm counting Villanova titles, I'm counting the Philadelphia Soul, I'm counting Neumann University for winning a DIII men's hockey national championship in 2009, I'm counting Cabrini College for winning a DIII men's lacrosse national championship in 2019.
However, we've come to a crossroads with Nova. Because at the moment, they are the enemy. You can't have 3 dudes from the same Villanova team playing for the Knicks and then not consider the Knicks to be a Nova team. And if Villanova is a Philly team, then by the transitive property of fandom that would make the Knicks a Philly team. Do you see the conundrum we've found ourselves in here as we prepare for the Sixers and Knicks to meet up in the first round of the NBA playoffs?
So now is the time to definitively decide if Villanova can be considered a Philly school or not. If we treat them as the enemy now, we have to treat them as the enemy forever. Do we strip the 2016 and 2018 national championships away from the Philly sports trophy case? Or do we ease up on our hatred and despisal of the Knicks ahead of this matchup? Seems like an easy answer but we need the entire city onboard and we need to stick to it. Because you can't just hate Villanova for this series. Hatred means something here. That shit has to be for life.