However, Hehir, a former Harvard varsity football player, has worked at Merrill Lynch for more than 20 years and has no experience in intercollegiate athletics at any administrative level.
In 1999, he was appointed vice chair of investment banking. Prior to that, Hehir had been co-head of Equity Capital Markets.
Hehir did not return phone calls this week.
For his part, Bates said he was attracted to Harvard because it offers “the opportunity to excel at the highest level athletically and intellectually.”
“Philosophically, Harvard is trying to achieve the purest idea of intercollegiate athletics,” he said.
In the past year, Bates has also been a candidate for the top athletic job at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley, universities that he said share Harvard’s philosophy.
Murphy has not returned telephone calls from The Crimson over the past two weeks.
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