The Field Irish Pub & Eatery was packed with partyers Saturday night. The TVs at the bar were all showing the same basketball game: Kansas State vs. Iowa – or Iowa State vs. Kansas, I don’t remember exactly. All I know is that it was not Villanova vs. Seton Hall, who were playing at that moment in the Big East final.
Villanova, an Augustinian school, was founded outside Philadelphia to educate Irish immigrants who weren’t allowed into other colleges. It is one of the best known American universities in Ireland, thanks to great runners like Eamonn Coughlan who attended it. When I was an English major at Villanova, a popular course was Irish Literature, taught by a man, James Murphy, who later started a study abroad program in Galway. An Irish pub not showing a Villanova basketball game is like a Wisconsin bar not televising the Packers.
Oh, and Villanova won last year’s national championship.
Seton Hall, another Catholic school (a fair number of Irish are Catholic), is located in South Orange, N.J. My bet is that there were more people at The Field Saturday night who originally hailed from Pennsylvania and New Jersey than those who came from Iowa and Kansas. Yet, looking at the TVs, you would have thought it a hangout for people from the Heartland.
