For Denise Dillon, Coming Home to Villanova is a Dream Come True
by John Fanta
By John Fanta
Villanova Director of Athletics Mark Jackson had always heard the name
Denise Dillon. If it wasn’t for her playing days as one of the great Wildcats from 1993-96, it was for her rich coaching pedigree established at Drexel over the course of 17 years.
It was in 2018, though, that Jackson wasn’t just hearing the name. He started to say it himself.
“For our 50th anniversary of women’s athletics, we brought back influential leaders to our campus to speak to our student-athletes,” Jackson said. “We had Denise present and I came away with such a strong feeling about her leadership, philosophy, who she was as a woman and what Villanova meant to her. You could see the influence she had at the time on our student-athletes. That was really clear. And that generated the first thoughts.”
The thoughts Jackson had two years ago went on to provide him with the answer on many minds heading into this women’s basketball season: Who would replace Harry Perretta at Villanova?
“Replacing Harry (Perretta) is, in some ways, impossible,” said Jackson. “At every turn though, no matter who we talked to, everything kept coming back to Denise Dillon.”
Introduced on Friday afternoon, Dillon described it as “surreal” to be taking over for Perretta, who holds the Division I record for the longest tenure at one school, completing his 42
nd year in 2019-20.
“I’m at a loss for words,” said an emotional Dillon. “It’s hard to believe that I am in this position to be the successor who started this all for me. To come back (to Villanova), I must thank Harry for that.”
While she had Villanova ties, Dillon more than proved that she was a winner as the head coach of the Dragons for nearly two decades. The winningest head coach in program history, Dillon led Drexel to 329 victories, with a 96-25 record over the course of her final four campaigns. Now, she’ll get a chance to take what she’s done and apply it to a program that’s compiled eight straight seasons of 19 or more wins, one that was in the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament just two years ago.
How long has she had the dream of this moment?
“From the day I started coaching,” Dillon answered without hesitation.
After she graduated in May of 1996, Dillon came on as an assistant for Perretta. After four years, she felt it was time to find out just what she could do as a head coach so that she could know if the dream was actually possible to take over for Perretta.
As for what lies ahead for the program, Dillon laid out her goals.
“A 20-or-more win season, finishing in the top of the conference, compete for a conference championship and get into the Top 25, that’s where you want to go, and then sustain that consistency,” said Dillon. “That’s what you remind yourself of when you’re recruiting, every day at practice. That’s the goal you set with your team, and then letting your players know you’ll give every effort for that daily, and you expect the same.”
Dillon has something to build on, coming in the form of BIG EAST Freshman of the Year Madison Siegrist, who was second among all freshmen in women’s college basketball with 18.8 points per game this year.
“She’s going to have a lot on her shoulders,” said Dillon of the Wildcats’ rising star. “But she wants that, and she’s shown she’s capable of it.”
As Dillon takes over, she’ll look to add her dimension to the program, but it will come accompanied by the support of her coach in Perretta as well. In terms of the difference that she adds to the job, that answer came with some humor.
“All seriousness aside, my wardrobe will be a little better than Harry’s was on the sideline,” said Dillon. “But basketball-wise, I think the intensity on the defensive end, you’ll see a little change there. That said, you teach what you know and what you learn. There’s a lot of similarities on the offensive end (from Perretta’s system), but our girls will learn early and often the importance of turning it up a notch on the defensive end.”
As she goes from the CAA to the BIG EAST, Dillon said it’s great to enter a multi-bid conference, one that she said will be especially interesting with the return of powerhouse Connecticut next season.
“They have a target, and we’re all going after it,” Dillon said of the Huskies.
Her competitive nature showed already, one that Jackson said was a differentiator in the hiring process.
“She’s a fierce competitor with the right balance to serve our mission,” he added.
For Villanova, that balance of honoring the past, and moving forward into a new era, has been made possible through Dillon.