“You literally have to put your life on hold,” he says.

From patrolman, he stepped up to sergeant; then, lieutenant; finally, captain. Now, Evans has reached the limit of the books, he says.

“Anything higher than that is like a political appointment.” And he misses the small tasks that he’s had to cut back on because of his high post.

Being the hero, Evans says, gives him “a rush.” So, sometimes, he just drives out to patrol.

LETTING GO OF THE TAILGATE

Back at District 14 headquarters on 301 Washington St., the door is wide open, letting in sunlight and street noise. An officer behind the front desk urges visitors to sit on a well-worn bench before turning back to her colleagues to discuss an upcoming Red Sox game and a possible trip to Six Flags.

In an office full of medals and marathon paraphernalia sits a small blond man with an angular face and ears that stick out. When he answers his desk phone, he says “Boston Police,” not “Captain Evans.”

While November seems long ago to most students, Evans is still fixated on the Harvard-Yale Tailgate, when Harvard came under his radar for one of the first times.

He had been dealing with students from other colleges for more than a decade, but the Game’s tailgate shocked him. Evans had thought 4,000 would attend; it turned out to be 10,000. He says he and his officers saw public urination, underage drinking, and drinking games, and he noticed that students passed by the free beer in favor of the hard liquor.

That day, BPD ejected 29 students for underage drinking, and, along with the Harvard University Police Department, it confiscated 97 IDs and performed two arrests.

“In the area of drinking, that was the worst we’d seen,” he says. “It was just students after students being taken in ambulances off the field.”

In addition, the students seemed to be provoking the town-gown conflict that he had been trying to avoid for nearly a decade in the residential areas near BU and BC.

“Whenever students move in, you see residents move out. That’s what I’m trying to stop,” he says.

WINNING BLAME

Every year, Evans goes to the freshman orientations at BU and BC, where he talks up the merits of partying legally—that is, sans underage drinking.