Yesterday, Harvard University announced it had found a replacement for its vacant presidential post: Brown football Head Coach Phil Estes. Estes led the Bears to their first ever outright Ivy League football Championship this fall and is the only man to capture two Ivy crowns at Brown, his first coming in 1999.
Though his background has been limited to football, Harvard was impressed with his success in recent years. Known for his innovative approach to offense and the staunch loyalty and respect he earns from his players, Estes proved to be the Crimson's top choice for his excellence in a variety of areas, specifically his abilities to gameplan and to extract the best from his squads.
"Coach Estes helped me become the player and man I am today," said star running back Nick Hartigan '06. "He may be an unorthodox choice, but you don't need a Rhodes Scholarship to be the president of Harvard - you just have to be effective."
The most important quality Estes will bring to his new post will be his strength in dealing with the personalities that populate Harvard. His first and most important task will be to fix the sullied relationship between the administration and the faculty, which Summers had destroyed with his bashing of the intellectual capabilities of women and children. Summers questioned whether women were capable of competing with males in math and science while he was reported to have questioned whether many young children "could even read."
"He was the only candidate who we felt possessed the requisite combination of skills that a president of Harvard needs," said Harvard spokesman Mike Jones. "Coach Estes has overseen the rise of Brown football to a level that we at Harvard, frankly, could never have predicted. For the previous 100 years, Brown football was a punchline, now it is one the best programs in the league."
While Estes only emerged as the frontrunner in the past few days, originally it was another Brunonian who was said to be the Crimson's top choice. President Ruth Simmons was widely speculated to be high on Harvard's wish list last month. However, rumors have been circulating that she used her underground channels of former Soviet spies to pimp Estes' candidacy instead.
Simmons was unavailable to immediately comment on the loss of Estes because she was tirelessly raising money for the Boldly Brown campaign in the nation's heartland. Stuck in the wasteland of western Nebraska and slightly frustrated with the stinginess of the only two Brown alums who happen to live there, Simmons was able to find the time to release a short statement praising Estes' commitment to Brown athletics and wishing him well in the future.
"Good luck, Coach Estes," Simmons wrote. "Have fun at Harvard, and be sure to get me Tommy Lee Jones' autograph. Although he is no Dustin Hoffman (P'07), I simply loved him in 'Volcano.' "
At yesterday's introductory press conference, a beaming Estes spoke excitedly about the future of Harvard and his goals for the university.
"We are going to take it one day at a time," he said. "But I would like to diversify the uses of our personnel. At Brown, occasionally I would go five-wide (receivers) and send Nick Hartigan on a post - just because I could. Harvard attracts some of the brightest minds in the universe, sort of like Brown. We need a fresh influx of innovative ideas here in Cambridge."
