Then comes the final team meal—a steak dinner, Riegel says—and a chance for each senior to address the team at large. The dinner is scheduled to last two hours, but Riegel says it often runs long. The seniors have a lot to say.

Holuba said it took him his full four years to understand the complete value of Murphy’s system.

“Looking back at the role model he is and what he actually brings out of you when you leave Harvard football and come into the workforce, you don’t have the same kind of people around you who expect so much out of you,” he said.

Now working in New York, Holuba said he still shows up to meetings 10 minutes early—on “Murphy Time.”

“Hell, I still wake up scared thinking I was late for a Harvard football practice,” he added.

“I don’t know if I would be bold enough to say I fully understand Coach Murphy,” Riegel said.Judging the success of Murphy’s school in character education is difficult, Scalise admits.

“In a sense, we only know if we’ve done a good job 15 to 25 years from now, and we have anecdotal evidence that we’ve served a lot of people very well,” he said.

Holuba said he does not need to wait to judge Murphy’s tenure.

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com.