Bob Scalise leaves with tenure full of accomplishment, change
Bob Scalise reckoned that he’d be Harvard’s athletics director for eight to 10 years. It’s now been about 19, and he’s still at his desk overlooking the stadium. “It became a different job all the time,” he said. “It never seemed like: ‘Here we go again. Let’s dust off the September to-do list.’ That’s not how I looked at it. Each year it was something different and exciting.” This one was undeniably different. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the closure of campus, migration of classes online, and a halt to intercollegiate sports for the remainder of the semester. And the end of this academic year will mark the retirement of the 69-year-old Scalise, capping a tenure full of accomplishment and change — and the longest since that of the first, Bill Bingham, who served from 1925 until 1951. “It is through Bob that I have come to understand and appreciate the mission of...