c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Dressed in a sharp black suit, Rob Hagan could pass for an assistant coach at Villanova University. He makes a fist for a made basket and turns away after a questionable foul call. Yet he remains calm amid the commotion from the rest of the bench.

The small white square on his collar, directly over his neck, offers the reason: He’s the Rev. Rob Hagan, team chaplain for the men’s basketball team _ an actual priest in the religion of college basketball.

Every year, thousands of fans and athletes revolve their lives around three weekends in March. But when the brackets are crumpled up and the season is over, players can be left with a range of emotions and anxieties.

Nobody is sure how many Division 1 teams have chaplains. Some schools you’d suspect would _ Oral Roberts, for example _ don’t. But for teams that do, the member of the clergy takes on a sometimes critical role, coaches said.

“We talk a lot about the kids and he’ll give me another insight as to where they are in their lives,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “I like to watch the eyes of the freshmen when (Hagan) speaks, because that’s when you can tell that they understand what this is all about.”

In training for the priesthood, seminarians aren’t prepared for the emotional swings of college athletics. Especially not for college basketball during March Madness. And especially not for what Hagan saw March 10, 2006.

During a scramble for a loose ball in the conference semifinals between Villanova’s Allan Ray and Pittsburgh’s Carl Krauser, Ray had his right eye inadvertently poked out.

Hagan was sitting right in front of the play.

“There was all this panic and commotion and no one really knew what exactly had happened,” said Hagan, who is also an associate athletic director at the Catholic school. “I froze for a second, because what can you do in that situation? For the first time as a priest I couldn’t think of what to do or say because it’s just something you don’t expect to happen.

“So I did the only thing I could think to do: Say the rosary.”

As team doctors attended to Ray, Hagan grabbed one of the senior’s hands and began to pray with him. He continued doing so as Ray was taken off the court, and in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

“I know Allan isn’t an overly religious guy,” the priest said, “but I just wanted him to know that someone was there with him to help ease his pain and fears.”

Doctors were able to repair Ray’s eye, and he played the next week in Villanova’s opening-round game of the NCAA Tournament.

“Allan came to me a few weeks after the season had ended and everything had died down to thank me for that night,” Hagan said. “He told me, `Wow, I guess the power of prayer is the real deal.’ To watch him understand that, that was pretty cool for me.”

When Rick Pitino came to the University of Kentucky in 1989, he brought a friend, the Rev. Ed Bradley, to a public university where there is no defined religion. They have since reunited _ across the state at the University of Louisville.

“This is a big part of my life,” Bradley said. “It’s important to be with these kids during every step, the high times and the low ones.”

Bradley, while not on the bench, sits right behind Pitino, always providing that calm voice that levels out all of the louder ones.

“I’m there for all of them, whether they’re religious or not,” Bradley said. “I’m someone that they can talk to who won’t judge them and will be open and honest with them.”

For 15 seasons, he has forged relationships that go beyond basketball. One of his favorites is current Detroit Pistons center Nazr Mohammed, who was a player while Bradley was still at Kentucky.

“Even though Nazr isn’t Catholic, he still asked me to perform his wedding,” Bradley said. “That really touched me because it showed that I meant that much to him to bypass religious barriers.”

Having been to four Final Fours and watched Kentucky win the national championship in 1996, Bradley knows what type of pressures are on players during this month.

“There’s always a nostalgia about this being the final games for the seniors,” he said. “A player once asked me if God was pulling for Marquette (a Jesuit university) to win. I just told him, `God doesn’t pick sides.”’

(Brendan Prunty writes for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

KRE/LF END PRUNTY

Editors: To obtain photos of a Notre Dame chaplain at a basketball game against Georgetown, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.