They also invited these staff members to personally interview the final candidates for the position and provide feedback to the search committee.

Reardon said that Scalise was hesitant to consider leaving his position at HBS, and thus was not an active candidate under consideration for most of the search, even though Reardon said that from the beginning he felt Scalise would be a very good candidate. Reardon said he had known Scalise since interviewing him in 1974 for the lacrosse coaching position.

However, Reardon said that he was able to convince Scalise to reconsider this decision during the final weeks of the search.

He said that the committee quickly shifted its attention to Scalise after Mark Murphy, the current athletics director at Colgate University, withdrew his name from consideration in the final stages of the search process.

At Monday’s announcement ceremony, Summers praised Scalise’s efforts to begin the women’s soccer programs and said that it showed his commitment to broadening the range of students who participate in the College’s athletic program—a commitment that Summers said he was looking for in a new athletic director.

Summers said that he also had sought an athletic director who would be a skilled manager of the department—a quality that Scalise had demonstrated as a dean at HBS.

“I’m thrilled that Bob Scalise agreed to assume the leadership of Harvard’s athletic program,” Summers said.