VILLANOVA, Pa. — When Villanova University’s president, the Rev. Peter Donohue, was nearing graduation as a theater student, a future pope wasn’t far away on campus, studying math two grades below him.

Thursday, church bells rang out for hours in celebration at the Augustinian school near Philadelphia after 1977 alumnus Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the first pope from the United States in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Rev. John Lydon spent 10 years living with the pope while on a mission in Peru. But in 1977, Lydon was the commencement speaker for their arts and sciences class at Villanova, too. He recalled trying to give an uplifting speech, focusing on overcoming indifference.

“I’m sure he doesn’t remember that speech, that’s so many years ago,” Lydon said with a laugh. “But, it just shows you how the grace of God works.”

The school on the suburban Main Line near Philadelphia had reached the pinnacle of men’s college basketball three times — winning championships in 1985, 2016 and 2018. But celebrating a pope in their ranks was literally unprecedented.

A billboard in Philadelphia showed the pope with a tagline: “From the Main Line to the Divine Line,” and the hashtag #WildcatToShepherd. Internet memes turned the pope’s Roman numeral V into Villanova’s logo and predictions piled up that the New York Knicks and its Villanova-laden lineup have a divine path to this year’s NBA title. Augustinian priests on campus are making rounds on the national TV circuit.

“We just all kind of lost it,” said Villanova senior Peggy Murray, who met the world leader now known as His Holiness Pope Leo XIV last year in Rome. “Just screaming and cheering and crying and having this knowledge that we met him. He was humble enough and cared enough about a group of gangly college students that he wanted to say Mass with us and now this is the person who’s our pope. I mean it means the world.”

Donohue and the pope were on campus in the mid-1970s at an unsettled time around the end of the Vietnam War while the Catholic Church had been in a state of change, as well, Donohue said. As the campus was gearing up for the 1977 spring graduation, thousands of balloons were released at an event aimed at addressing world hunger, featuring floats, a carnival and the marching band, according to The Villanovan archives. Ads for cassette tapes and a “college disco splash party” flanked stories in the college newspaper.

Prevost graduated from Villanova with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 1977 and received an honorary Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, from the university in 2014, Donohue said. Prevost also hosted Villanova officials in Rome that year. Donohue said the pope is a Villanova basketball fan. And Donohue has taken note that whenever he or the university send out messages, they can check who opens them, and the pope does every time.

“Somebody sent me a text, one of the presidents from another one of the schools, said, ‘Three basketball championships and a pope. Do you people have to keep winning?’ ” Donohue said with a laugh. “It’s just different. It certainly has given us a lot of publicity.”

The Rev. Rob Hagan, known for long serving as Villanova’s athletics department chaplain, spent his second year of a spiritual training boot camp of sorts 27 years ago to become an Augustinian. It was in Racine, Wisconsin, a place where through his regional leadership position Prevost would visit newbies like Hagan. He is now the Prior Provincial at The Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova.

“I saw him as kind of a mentor. You didn’t have to be in his presence very long before you understood how exceptionally bright he is,” Hagan said. “And yet, coupled with a real warmth and approachability.”

Lydon, who lived with the pope in Peru, said he is an excellent singer, likes to cook and adopted Alianza Lima as his soccer team. Even at Villanova, the pope was a “model of what one would want in a future priest,” said Lydon, who is now stationed in Chicago.

“He was always a very bright person, but a humble person, one that you could easily talk to about anything, a person very devoted to his faith,” Lydon said.