[A trip to Michigan during Villecco’s freshman year]
When we showed up at Michigan, the team was overweight and tired. So Michigan let us work out and us gave a one-pound allowance. They put us in the women’s locker room to change after our workout. As I was showering, two different women came in—to strike up a conversation. Oh well, I did ask them to come to the match when they left. I guess that’s why so many women were cheering for me (ha, ha ). Anyway, the match started. We were tired from lack of sleep and weight loss. The match did not go our way. We were all doing okay until the middle of the second period. Good news for me, but not for the team, I was the first person to win that night. When I came off the mat, I thought I had done something great! (Again, remember, I was a freshman.) I was exhausted, so I went to go lie down behind the bench on the floor. Good old Coach Koll came over to me and reamed me up and down. I was shocked! I won, why was he yelling? As I matured at Penn State, I grew to understand that he was trying to teach me about pride, honor, and being a man. Coach Koll and I did not always see eye-to-eye, but he always had my respect, and I see him today as a great man.
[Another trip to Michigan]
It was my junior year, 1974–75. We were driving out to wrestle Michigan State and Michigan. On the drive out, we ran into a major snow storm, and Ohio closed the turnpike, I-80. Coach Koll pulled off in Toledo to a Ramada Inn, but the Inn was full, no rooms. They let us sleep on the floor in a large auditorium with about 1,000 other people. There was no way we could drive anywhere else—people were being rescued with snowmobiles. The auditorium proved to be too much, so a teammate and I went up to the fifth floor where we lay down in the hallway and tried to sleep. [Although Penn State lost both matches that weekend, Villecco won twice, once with a fall.]
