SEES AND DESIST: Just Say 'Yes' to Donato for Prez

So yesterday, it was announced Larry Summers is resigning from the presidency of our fair university at the end of June. Fruitful debate can be cultivated from the range of opinions regarding this move, but one thing remains certain: our school is embarrassed right now. It is the whipping boy of the national media, and a protracted presidential search is no kind of balm.

No, we need a new leader, and we need one now. Larry’s not coming back. So how about a local boy, a Boston product, a Harvard grad who recently returned home to the mothership?

What about Crimson hockey coach Ted Donato ’91?

Hear me out on this one—or, rather, hear his players out, since they know him best.

“Donato for prez?” one skater laughed on Monday night, when gossip of Larry’s impending resignation spread like wildfire. “Well, he’s socially networked, so that could definitely benefit the Harvard fund.

“Academically...” he trailed off, laughing. What’s more important is that Donato can “show kids a life outside of the classroom,” the player reasoned. “Stress levels go down, happiness up!”

No way, you say. Donato has no experience, no training for the job. Even he laughed at the idea, saying, “Obviously, I don’t feel qualified.” Ah, but he has that one little piece of paper that means everything in this world—a Harvard diploma—and he begins most sentences with some sort of fancy-sounding adverb.

Besides, when Donato was named to the helm of the men’s hockey program in July 2004, naysayers were quick to point out his lack of credentials. Not a second of coaching experience, they warned. Eight months later, Donato marched his team straight into the NCAA tournament—the same tournament that named him MVP when the Crimson won it all in 1989.

“He has something special that a lot of people don’t have,” Harvard hockey legend Bill Cleary ’56 told the Boston Globe when Donato was first hired. “He has a great way with people, and I think that’s one of the biggest assets you can have...It’s more important than X’s and O’s.”

And in light of recent events, doesn’t that seem like it’s worth a lot? If there’s one thing that did Summers in, it was his lack of “a great way with people.”

Take that pesky women-in-science issue.

“Coach would do better,” one of his players vowed. “He would definitely believe in women in the field of science, because most of the women here probably know more about science than he does. I’m going to have to say he’d let them stay.”

No way, you say. That’s not enough. So much of Harvard is about image, about the projection of academia—can a hockey coach who once showed up on ‘The Price Is Right’ in whitewashed jeans slip seamlessly into the stodgy ranks of Mass. Hall?

“Oh yeah,” said one player, noting that “half of Harvard’s presidents have been bald, so I think Coach fits in well.”

“I don’t know if Larry has a full head of hair,” another added, “but I think [the fact that Donato doesn’t] just gives Coach a more distinguished look.”

Much like Michael Jordan (athlete), one might say, or Vin Diesel (self-explanatory), or Jesse Ventura (athlete-turned-politician), or Dwight Eisenhower (president)? Donato’s only 36, after all—that’s 10 years younger than Summers when he was named president—and an unadorned pate “gives Coach a little extra age. That might bode well with the office he’d be sitting in. They’d see a nice bald guy—maybe get him some glasses?”

In fact, swore the skater, Donato would give Mass. Hall “a classy look. He’d have a nice office, maybe a mahogany desk, a leather executive chair, a plant, some shrubbery. I guess he’d probably have to put a computer in there for looks.”

No way, you say. A leather executive chair and shrubbery do not a Harvard president make. But why not Donato?

Why not a guy who tasted the big time, skated in the NHL, wore the Olympic sweater, and still returned to Harvard in the end? Why not a guy whose personality and enthusiasm have earned him a 36-20-5 record in just under two years—a guy who has lost only three games at home, here in Cambridge, where he belongs? Maybe he could even be a president-coach, sort of like the great player-coaches of yore.

“He could really fund the athletic program,” one player said, his eyes lighting up. “Maybe take some of the 25 billion out of research, where it’s not needed any longer.”

So as we prepare for the long and unavoidably political process of choosing Harvard’s 28th president, just remember to say ‘yes’ to Donato. If not him, who? If not now, when?

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.