The Italian Club has been active on Pitt’s campus for 106 years, but until the day Charlie Partridge walked Habakkuk Baldonado through the front door, it never was used as a recruiting tool for the football team. Partridge, Pitt’s defensive line coach and assistant head coach, said it’s an experience he never will forget.

Partridge was ushering Baldonado around campus, hoping to get the big defensive end, who was born and raised in Rome, to sign with Pitt. “We walked him into one of the buildings on campus, and the woman who runs the Italian Club (was there),” Partridge said. “She started to speak Italian to him.”