Illustration by Dale Stephanos

Dear Salty Cod: What are some acceptable things to yell at pro athletes?

Really? More yelling at people just trying to do their jobs? I suppose if it’s going to happen anywhere, a game makes sense. It’s live, unscripted, and emotional. You’re in a crowd of like-minded people, offering courage through anonymity. You also might have been drinking just a touch. The result? “It gives us license to do things we wouldn’t do,” says Michael Pratt, professor of management and organization at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

Oh, and we care way, way too much. While we hate the opposition, any muff by someone on our side feels like an act of betrayal. Of course, what that player might need most is encouragement, a little, “Keep your head up, kid.” But somehow, we believe the most useful and inspiring thing is, “Catch the ball, you moron.”

We can and should do better, Boston. We’re a funny people, and humor makes everything go down easier. And yet we don’t use it enough. There should be a lot more: I feel your focus is lacking…. You know these games count, right?… Somebody sure wants to go to Worcester…. I think you missed the meeting on doing your job…. I’ll just say this about your play: It’s not good. And our new chant? Un-der-whelm-ing.

If we combine that with our sports knowledge, of which we have a buttload, we’d be super special. Athletes like to say they don’t hear the comments, but they do. Jonathan Papelbon, closer for the 2007 World Series champion Boston Red Sox, loved the noise; it got him pumped up, he tells me. He especially loved it when fans’ heckling was actually informed. In St. Louis, he once got, Bring him in in the eighth, and then he’ll blow it in the ninth, and his reaction was, “Yeah, that might happen.”

With four major Boston pro teams, we can reach a higher level of creativity quick if we’re just willing to try. But what if we become true leaders in fandom smack talk and dig a little deeper, be a little braver, and express what we’re really feeling, something closer to: Don’t you know I’m living through you?… Your mistakes are better than any of my successes…. If only I could yell away the emptiness. How good would it feel to be so honest and free?

So good, so good.

Got a question for the Salty Cod? Send it to editor@bostonmagazine.com.

Previously: Why Don’t Many Apple Cider Doughnuts Taste Like Cider?

A version of this story appeared in the print edition of the November 2025 issue.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

This article is from the 2025 issue of Boston Weddings. 

August 16, 2024
Belle Mer (Longwood Venues & Destinations)
Newport, Rhode Island

When it comes to couples who fall in love with each other and Boston, there’s no better example than Elizabeth Pehota and Matthew Keemon. In fact, the city plays a major part in their story. After meeting at Boston College and bonding as stunt partners on the cheer team, the future bride and groom continued their partnership personally and professionally by cheering together for the Boston Celtics, running the Boston Marathon, and supporting and enjoying the city’s sports scene. It’s a journey they describe as defined by love, shared adventure, and teamwork.

After more than a decade of dating, the couple—Elizabeth, now a media personality/influencer, and Matt, working as a CTO—got engaged in an unusual yet apropos way under the guise of an awards ceremony that the groom’s company was holding in Florida. “His colleagues emailed me and asked if I would like to host the opening video,” Elizabeth says. “My parents have a house there, and we were visiting for a week in winter, so the timing was perfect.” It turns out the ruse paid off, and instead of the “planned” segment, Matt got down on one knee. “I was speechless when he was proposing because I was so impressed he caught me by total surprise, and I didn’t see it coming. My whole family was in on it.” Of course, everyone was also all in on the wedding, which was held at the Belle Mer in Newport, Rhode Island.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE VENUE

With Newport Bridge and the sunset over Narragansett Bay as the backdrop, Belle Mer served as a stylish and elegant destination to celebrate the couple’s union. One of the venue’s luxury event spaces is the Water Salon, which boasts sparkling crystal and soft whites as the design aesthetic and a wall of glass doors that open to a large lawn with picturesque views of the ocean.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE WEDDING DRESSES

“Good things come in threes” was the case for the bride’s wedding dresses. For the ceremony and early reception, she wore a custom Martina Liana strapless gown from VOWS Bridal in Watertown. Next came a glamorous glitter ball gown from Milan boutique Nadine Milano, which Elizabeth found on the couple’s last-minute excursion to see Taylor Swift amid the event-planning stress. When the wedding ended, Elizabeth changed into an elegant, limited-edition bridal mini dress by RosieEtienne.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE WEDDING STUNT

Because cheerleading has had such an impact on the couple, they often perform a stunt—where Matt lifts Elizabeth high in the air—at get-togethers and special occasions, so of course, their wedding had to include one, too, especially since it’s something family and friends love to see. “There was something so beautiful about doing this stunt at the biggest moment of our lives,” the bride says. “I think it symbolized that we plan to continue to live that metaphor—lifting each other up every day—even as we get older.”

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE SURPRISE GRANDPARENT DANCE

To honor her grandmother, Mimi, Elizabeth and her cousins shared a dance with her to Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” the favorite song of Elizabeth’s late grandfather, Pop, who recently passed away after a decades-long battle with Alzheimer’s. As the only living grandparent at the wedding, the bride thought it was the perfect way to celebrate Mimi. “We didn’t tell her we were doing it in advance. That was really special because she had no idea it was coming, and it was such a surprise,” Elizabeth says.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE DEDICATED TABLE

Since the couple wanted to honor several loved ones who had passed away, they decided to have a special table dedicated to them. “We basically created it as generations of love stories, so it was detailing the different generations of love that led us to one another,” Elizabeth explains.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

THE SAME-DAY WEDDING EDIT

Wedding videos are always a fun way to look back on your special occasion, and it’s rare that couples get to do so in real time. But with the help of Chris Walsh Productions, Elizabeth, Matt, and their guests were able to enjoy an expertly edited four-minute video during the reception. Final clips were shared that featured highlights of everything from morning preparations and the ceremony to the first dance and the bride’s late-night dress change.

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

Band Legends of Summer
Cake Cakes by Capo
Champagne Cart Chic Party Carts
First Dance Windrose Coaching
Flowers Flowerthyme
Groom’s Attire State & Liberty
Hair Rhode Island Wedding Hair
Makeup Beauty By Nelse
Photographer Ella Farrell Photography
Videographer Chris Walsh Productions
Wedding Bands and Jewelry Hannah Florman

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

Photo by Ella Farrell Photography

First published in the print issue of Boston Weddings 2025 with the headline, “Elizabeth Pehota & Matthew Keemon.”

Jack Connors. / Portraits by Ken Richardson

Updated July 23, 2024: Jack Connors, Jr. died this morning at the age of 82, in his Brookline home, reportedly from cancer. Revisit our December 2023 conversation with the legendarily generous power broker below.

To show his appreciation, Jack Connors, Jr. once took his former third-grade teacher to a Volvo dealership and bought her a car. But if you think that’s the most generous thing the man long described as Boston’s biggest power broker and “the ultimate insider” has ever done, you’d be wrong. Among the founders of advertising giant Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, he has spent the latter part of his career as one of the most impactful philanthropists in the city, most notably with the creation of Camp Harbor View—a summer camp on Boston Harbor’s Long Island that also provides at-home programs for inner-city youth and their families. After leaving the advertising business in 2006 and relinquishing his enviable aerie atop the John Hancock Tower in 2021, Connors moved his family office into a brownstone on Newbury Street—which is where we sat down with him to talk about his days driving a taxi as a BC student, the future of leadership in Boston, and his legacy.

Do you miss your legendary view from the 60th floor?
No. For 41-and-a-half years, I had the privilege of being in the Hancock Tower, on the 39th floor for 30 years, probably, and 11 or 12 years on the 60th. And I saw everything I could imagine, from Mount Monadnock to the Atlantic Ocean. Cargo ships at night. LNG tankers coming through. Airplanes landing. And I don’t need to see it anymore. So I came back down to where the people are. From the 60th floor, they were ants, not people, and I like this better. We’re one block from where, when I was 25 years old, on May 13, 1968, I became one of four cofounders of what was then the world’s smallest advertising agency: Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos. So this is kind of like coming home.

Previously: Is Jack Connors the Last King of Boston?

Three adjectives to describe an effective leader?

Bold. Respectful. Generous.

What are your thoughts on the Jack Welch, scorched-earth CEO style?

Jack was a friend of mine, and we thought about and fortunately rejected the idea of buying the Boston Globe for $500 million. He was known, I think, as Neutron Jack. He was cranky, but I loved him. He was effective, and he was certainly bold. I’m not sure how respectful he was, but he had a job to do, and he got it done.

How do you think we nurture more civic involvement among young people?

Unfortunately, we don’t. Today, there’s much less community participation. My dad was in the Knights of Columbus. My mother was in a local women’s Catholic group. I was in the CYO—the Catholic Youth Organization—and the basketball team at the church. Nobody joins those things anymore, or those things don’t exist. Everybody’s gone into silos. If you go into any apartment building in Boston, pick a door and knock on it, and ask whoever answers just two questions—“Have you met anybody else in this building, other than in the elevator by accident? Have you ever had a cup of coffee with them?”—the answer is generally no. Everyone’s now in a fight for survival or success, so how are we going to have time to nurture the next
generation?

Connors Jr. with his wife Eileen (left) and Senator Elizabeth Warren at Camp Harbor View Gala in 2016. / Photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

Is there any way to change that?

We change that by coming together and saying, “It’s your turn now.” That’s what Camp Harbor View is about. We had a thousand kids out there this summer. Half of them have probably never seen the Atlantic Ocean but live less than 5 miles away from it. They live in a six-block world. How can they be successful in this country, on this planet, if they only know six blocks? Especially where maybe the biggest, most important person on that block is the drug dealer?

How have you dealt with the demolition of the Long Island Bridge?

We use a ferry. It’s the old Provincetown II ferry, which should’ve been put out of service about 200 years ago, but to these kids, it looks like a cruise ship. And they see things maybe they haven’t seen before. A lobster boat. A sailboat. A freighter. A Coast Guard boat. A seal. If you’ve never seen them, you can’t dream about maybe someday working with them. And the experience on the island is similar.

What do you think the future of leadership looks like in Boston?

Well, it will look different. It won’t be Irish. It won’t be Italian. It won’t be as white. But the important thing is that different is fine. We need to embrace different. There was an article in the newspaper the other day about the professional women’s soccer league franchise we’re getting, and there are four people in the picture. All of them are women. That’s a big change for professional sports. And guess what? We’re all going to be fine.

Do you foresee a power vacuum in the short- or long-term?

No, because I’m an optimist. Now, allow me to give you the definition of an optimist. A guy is shown a barn literally filled, floor to ceiling, left to right, front to back, with manure. And the optimist says, “There’s gotta be a pony in there!”

Who is the person you admire most?

There are lots, but Father Bill Leahy, president of Boston College, Pope Francis, and David McCullough. Those are the Holy Trinity.

Do you have a personal motto?

One that’s clean?

No, it can be profane.

Not really, but I wrote something down recently, which I don’t usually do. It was, “I have nothing left to prove, but I have a lot more to give.” Let’s go with that.

Portrait by Ken Richardson

Who’s the most powerful person in Boston?

I don’t think there’s only one. Power has sort of dissipated. You know, there used to be what was known as the Vault, and the Vault made the decisions and dictated them to the State House. They told the governor and the mayor how things were gonna be. The Vault eventually evaporated, and now the power has been spread out. The quiet power is the guys in the hedge funds, and they have a say and they have a wallet. There’s still some political power, but not the way it used to be. And that’s okay. That’s healthy.

Most pressing inequity that Boston needs to address?

Education. Public school education. It’s embarrassing. To paraphrase Dickens, it’s the best of times; it’s the worst of times. Every top college in the Boston area has the largest endowment it’s ever had. When I went to Boston College, they had maybe half a million dollars. Today, it’s nearly $4 billion. The public schools in the same geographical area are sucking pond water. So the cream—the kids of wealthy men and women—go to BB&N, or Beaver, or Belmont Hill, which cost $50,000 or $60,000 a year. Then the next level goes to the charter schools because their parents care enough to figure out how to get their kids in there. Then there’s a sprinkling of parochial schools, maybe $10,000 a year. Everyone that’s left has two choices: no school or public school.

Did you love school?

I was in love with my third-grade teacher, Miss McCall. After I sold Hill Holliday, I asked if she’d have lunch with me. I was 56, so let’s say she was 76, long retired. I took her to lunch, and we drank a pint. Over lunch, I said, “Can I ask you a question? You knew I was in love with you, right?” She said, “I didn’t know if you were in love with me or my Buick.” So I said, “What kind of car are you driving?” She said, “I’ve got an Oldsmobile. It’s about seven years old.” I said, “Would you mind taking an extra hour? We’re going for a ride.” So I took her to a Volvo dealership and said, “Pick the one you want, on one condition: You’re never allowed to tell anyone about this gift.” She said, “Absolutely.” Before she died about three years ago, according to my record, she had told 32,000 people.

How would you grade the city overall?

I’d give it a B-plus.

What would bring it to an A?

If the rich people cared about the poor people.

Connors, in 2018, with former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican whose gubernatorial re-election campaign Connors, a Democrat, chaired. / Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

What is the best ad jingle or campaign ever, in your opinion?

Oh, you’re tapping into quite a well here. I can take it all the way back to “Use Ajax, bup-bup-bup-bup, the foaming cleanser, bup-bup-bup-bup. Wipes dirt and stains, right down the drain.” I am in love with the advertising business. One of my favorites was for Perdue: “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” Another one was for Sara Lee, which was grammatically incorrect: “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”

Any you thought were egregiously bad? What was the worst?

Too many to mention. Most of them are bad, especially now, because creative people have been devalued.

As a philanthropist in the city, do you think the government does enough to address the needs that charities address?

I think everybody’s doing the best they can. We just need more.

What’s your guiding principle when it comes to philanthropy?

Steve Bailey, the former Boston Globe business columnist, asked one of my sons: “Why does your father do what he does?” His answer was: “Because he knew it could have gone the other way.” So my guiding principle, I guess, starts with thoughtfulness. Nobody ever said, “That little fella over there in the third row is most likely to succeed.” Never happened.

Do you want your name on any buildings or bridges?

No. My mother’s name is on a building: The Mary Horrigan Connors Center at Brigham and Women’s. But mine? No. That’s not why I do this. I’m not in this for self-aggrandizement. I’m in it because I can and because I should be. It’s very simple.

Connors in his Hancock Tower office, where he more than 40 years working, before moving to Newbury Street in 2021. / Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

You’re often described as the ultimate insider. Name one thing that you knew before everybody else.

A lot of things. [Chuckles.]

Did you ever think about going into politics, and if so, what were you thinking?

Yes, but it was after I was drinking. [Laughs.]

Do you still have your hackney license from when you drove a cab?

I do. Want to see it? [Pulls a framed hackney license from a drawer.] I drove a taxi for two years when I was a junior and senior at Boston College. I wore a limo hat and everything.

How would you describe Boston in 2023?

Halfway there. A world center of intellectual capital. And although Jack Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” it’s not true. We need to lift all the boats.

Favorite secret spot in the city?

Sullivan’s is one. The Forest Hills Cemetery is another. The Arnold Arboretum. My backyard. I guess I have a few of them.

How do you most want to be remembered?

Forest Hills Cemetery is a Victorian cemetery. So many influential people are buried there. It’s beautiful. I walk there all the time. I love to walk, and I attribute my longevity to walking and trying to stay healthy, not to mention stopping drinking a bottle of John Dewar’s scotch every day, which I did 55 years ago. But when I walk through the cemetery, I look at these gravestones. There’s this one guy named Bumpus, and on his gravestone, it says, “He went about doing good.” I said to my wife, “That’s how I want to be remembered.”

Photo via Getty Images

By the Numbers

Pay It Forward

Money talks, especially when you’re one of the most generous people in Boston.

20,500

Number of kids who’ve been enrolled in Camp Harbor View’s year-round programming since it launched in 2007.

124,000

Approximate amount, in dollars, invested in the family of a child involved in Camp Harbor View from sixth grade through college graduation.

238

Percent increase in Camp Harbor View’s annual fundraising from its smallest year, 2014, to its largest year, 2023.

130 million

Amount, in dollars, raised so far for Connors’s Campaign for Catholic Schools, which focuses on strengthening Catholic education in Boston and other urban communities.

First published in the print edition of the December 2023/January 2024 issue with the headline, “Jack on Jack.”

Eagles on the warpath, ooh ahh. / Illustration by Benjamen Purvis / Photo by Wangkun Jia/Alamy Stock Photo

When Scott Mutryn and three of his buddies heard the news last summer that other colleges were trying to lure away their alma mater’s star wide receiver, Zay Flowers, they knew they had to do something. And fast. Mutryn and his friends didn’t work for BC Athletics—or for the college at all—so they couldn’t offer Flowers anything more than the free tuition he was already receiving from the school as a scholar-athlete. They weren’t Flowers’s classmates, much less his teammates, so they couldn’t exactly peer pressure him into staying, either. Instead, Mutryn, Joe Popolo, Samuel Raia, and Brian Tusa were merely Boston College alums who now work in finance or business and care deeply about their school’s sports teams. And in today’s world of college athletics, it turns out, they are precisely the kinds of guys who can help get a top player like Flowers to stay put.

That’s because these days, being a college athlete at a Division I school is nothing like it used to be. Not even close. Since the dawn of sporting time, college athletes have been forbidden from making money for playing for their team, be it from product endorsements or having their likeness appear in a video game. All of that changed in 2021 when, under intense pressure from players and in response to lawsuits lost and new laws passed in several states, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its age-old policy, allowing athletes to use their “name, image, or likeness,” known as NIL, for profit. And practically overnight, everything everywhere transformed all at once.

Knowing the new rules, Mutryn and his BC friends did what many others across the country have done and formed what is now known as an “NIL collective,” BC’s first. These entities—essentially newly legitimized booster clubs—can arrange sponsorship deals for players, set up autograph sessions at places like Chipotle or charity functions, and cut checks. Their objective is to use alumni donations and lucrative sponsorship deals to lure or to retain athletes at colleges that the collective supports but from which it remains independent. Today, by some estimates, there are nearly 200 collectives nationwide.

Former Boston College quarterback Scott Mutryn—pictured here in a November 1998 home game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish—started BC’s first NIL collective with three friends. / Photo by Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport via Getty Images

BC was relatively late to the party. “The college didn’t have one until us,” says Mutryn, a former BC quarterback who was signed by the Pats but didn’t make the cut on the 1999 squad. “What got us going was the talk of Zay Flowers transferring.” They formed the Friends of the Heights collective and quickly helped secure Flowers a tidy NIL portfolio of deals, including a brand-new BMW worth $90,000 and a Dunkin’ endorsement. This was small change compared to enticements offered by other NIL companies—as much as $600,000 if he transferred—but Flowers decided to stay at BC.

Beyond the Flowers case, all of this change over the past year has created a lot of buzz around town about what this new era in college sports could signify for our teams, particularly our big-time Division I program up on Chestnut Hill. Might it mean the BC football team could return to its glory days when Doug Flutie was a household name coast-to-coast? Does it mean the college has a shot once again of fielding a men’s basketball team that makes a championship run during March Madness? Could giving cold, hard cash to collegiate players ever make Boston not just a crazy-good sports town but a crazy-good college sports town, too?

The smart answer appears to be: Don’t place that bet. In fact, if trends continue to evolve toward greater rights and riches for university athletes, local college sports fans may find themselves even farther from that pipe dream than they are today.

Boston College’s Zay Flowers in March 03, 2023 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)

From its sweetly innocent inception in 1906, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association (precursor to the NCAA) preached the purity of the unpaid, letter-sweatered student-athlete—an all-American crewcut lad (no lassies under NCAA dominion until the early 1980s) with a book in one hand, a ball in the other, and clear eyes, a full heart, and a love for amateur competition. Soon, though, questions arose: Was the boy really going to class? Was he on the take? So-called booster clubs in support of the local college team gained deserved reputations as fat-cat-run alum organizations that beguiled hot-shot prospects with filthy lucre, no-show jobs, and even sex. In response to these and other worse scandals, such as gangster-goaded point-shaving, the NCAA issued a “Sanity Code”—real name!—in 1948. The association enforced its scholar-athlete rules with a vengeance.

Then came TV. In the 1950s, big-dollar TV contracts for the rights to air the games granted schools the ability to print money for themselves and their employees, which did not include the athletes. Enormous checks from media companies filled the coffers of the NCAA, the colleges, the leagues, athletic directors, and coaches. Look at where it’s gotten to: Rights for basketball’s March Madness is now worth more than a billion dollars a year. Big Ten football’s TV deal, beginning this fall, is also worth a billion bucks per season. BC wanted a piece of that action, so in 2003 it announced it was taking its profit-making men’s football team to the hyper-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), securing what has since grown into a $36 million slice of that league’s annual pie. All the while, as schools raked in more money, players were told they were still student-athletes. Their sole recompense was a full or partial tuition scholarship plus room and board.

Athletes were wising up and lawyering up before COVID hit, but what the NCAA allowed during the pandemic fully exposed the depth of its cynicism, hypocrisy, and greed. While student-students were instructed to continue classes remotely, even after the first wave of the pandemic passed, student-athletes—their school’s TV money at stake—were summoned back to neutron-bombed campuses to play games in “a bubble.” Fans in the stands were cardboard cutouts. Contests were canceled when illness swept through locker rooms. In 2020, BC’s football players opted to refuse an invitation to a postseason bowl game over COVID concerns. This wasn’t exactly the Boston Tea Party, but it was something new.

Also new and more consequential was California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, a state statute that went into effect in September 2021 forbidding the NCAA from punishing any student-athletes who traded on his or her name, image, or likeness. Suddenly, players could sign contracts with Nike or peddle merch with personal branding. Other state legislatures, fearing a gold-rush-like exodus of their college sports stars to the Golden State, followed California’s lead. And then, in a huge moment for college players all over the country, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the NCAA couldn’t stymie payments to athletes. “Nowhere else in America,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in his concurrence to a unanimous decision, “can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate…. The NCAA is not above the law.”

In no time, the NCAA raced to concoct NIL “guidance” that freed athletes to pursue their fortunes. It also gave license to ordinary citizens—fans—to come up with fresh ideas like NIL collectives to support their teams. These new ideas came, just like Division I defensive linemen, in as many different shapes, sizes, and ethical behaviors as you can imagine. “It’s the Wild West out there,” says Ivan Maisel of the sports media outlet On3, who has been writing about college football for 40 years and has never seen anything like this. “Coaches are pissed at one another for poaching. Recruits are asking, ‘What’re ya gonna pay me?’ Everyone’s wondering, ‘What’s next?’”

Around Boston, fans began wondering what might be next for the closest thing the city has to big-time men’s basketball, hockey, and football programs: BC.

Star BC lacrosse player Belle Smith has an estimated income of $18,400. / Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images

To understand why little will likely change at BC in this new era requires context. The most valuable male athlete, 18-year-old high school basketball player Bronny James, NBA superstar LeBron James’s son, now has deals with Nike and others and an estimated take in 2023 of $7.2 million. The most-valuable woman, ranked third overall in college sports, is LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne, at $3.4 million. A terrific athlete, she’s rich due to her social media celebrity—more than 360 million likes on TikTok—and has scored a contract with the clothing line Vuori. Meanwhile, a collective at the University of Tennessee, for instance, says it hopes to shell out some $25 million this year to retain or recruit players.

Compare that to BC, where the top-earning athlete is football defensive end Donovan Ezeiruaku at $618,000. Star BC lacrosse player Belle Smith, one of the best in the nation, has an estimated income of $18,400. Meanwhile, the Friends of the Heights collective has about $1 million in assets that it has raised from alumni donors. “We can’t compete on that level, and we’re not trying to,” says Mutryn of big-time football schools like Tennessee and Clemson. “We’re not into recruiting high school kids at all. We’re focused on helping to retain athletes who’ve already chosen BC. That’s what Zay Flowers was.”

Flowers’s circumstance says a lot about where this is all going. When he started hearing from collectives associated with other schools, he received offers for NIL deals as large as $600,000 if he transferred from BC. “For a kid like me from a household of 14 with one parent, that’s life-changing money,” Flowers told ESPN at the time. The deal he got at BC was nothing like that, yet he chose it for another reason. “The BC degree is a lot more valuable,” he has said. “I can make more than $600,000 with my degree and the alumni network down the road.” He doesn’t have to wait for “down the road,” because the NFL loved him plenty at last month’s draft, and he’s now all set to be a multimillionaire pro football player.

Zay Flowers and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, after the Baltimore Ravens selected the BC player 22nd overall during the 2023 NFL Draft’s first round. / Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images

Other Massachusetts college players are also getting theirs in the current free-for-all, and the Dodge City that is NIL certainly can be amusing. Case in point: Amherst College football player Jack Betts, a pass-catcher for a last-place NESCAC team who is known as the King of D-III NIL, has managed to persuade three dozen companies, including Omaha Steaks and a massage-gun maker, to pay him in product.

This may be only a brief moment in college sports history, but with the TikTok gymnast superstar and our own massage-gun hero, it’s a wacky one. And in the end, the notion of paying athletes may lead to precisely the opposite changes at BC than fans might be hoping for.

Akin to the sporting Yogism that it ain’t over till it’s over, the future is the NCAA’s worst nightmare: one in which colleges put their athletes on the school payroll. This could come sooner than later. In Johnson v. NCAA, before the U.S. Third Circuit Court in Philadelphia at presstime, former Villanova football player Trey Johnson, citing the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, claims Division I athletes should be paid by schools, which are clearly involved in a profit-making venture. The NCAA has failed to get the case dismissed so far. Justice Kavanaugh & Co. await in their Marble Palace.

Whatever happens, NILs are here for good. Collectives, though, might vanish as quickly as they were formed, because if schools have to pay their athletes Kavanaugh’s “fair market rate” in a hot market, what need is there for collectives to leave a tip? “Revenue sharing between schools and athletes is inevitable,” says Jay Paterno, who played at Penn State during the 1980s, coached at various schools for 22 years, and is now a trustee of his alma mater. He formed one of the nation’s first collectives but thinks it has a sell-by date. “Collectives could be history,” he has said. “Alumni could go back to contributing to the school library. That would not be a bad thing.” Courtney Altemus, a former Wall Street exec who founded TeamAltemus in 2017 to educate athletes and schools in financial literacy, agrees: “There’s no clear and fair end until [profit sharing] happens. Kavanaugh has made it abundantly clear…. The players are the labor. Even [new NCAA head Charlie Baker] will have trouble arguing against that.”

On March 1, Massachusetts’ former governor, Charlie Baker, sidled into his new gig as president of the NCAA. Tellingly, he is not stationed at the organization’s headquarters in Indianapolis but in Washington, DC, where he can lobby legislators who speak his political language. At the top of his agenda will be the matter of paying athletes—and no one is predicting he will have much success reversing the tide. After making the rounds with Congress and when the courts have had their final say, Baker will likely survey the wreckage and coax his organization to let go of the past and, it is hoped, forge a more sensible future. A first question of his constituents—the schools—should be: What do you truly want, and can you ever stop thinking about the money?

That is a question BC should be asking itself right now. For years, its athletes happily played against comparable schools, until it left for the TV money and ACC bullyboys like NC State and Clemson. It’s rarely been able to compete with the many teams it now plays against. But with so much money now incentivizing players, will BC’s trustees be willing to start paying millions to athletes instead of funding other things the school does so well, including academics? Or will it want to be more like Harvard, a Division I school that plays in a non-money-making conference yet strives as much as possible to preserve a vestigial scholar-athlete mold?

On3’s Maisel dreams of a tomorrow in which university overlords finally look at themselves in the mirror. “Sure, the biggest programs—Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Texas—will just pay big-time for the best athletes,” he says, “but what might be interesting is mid-level schools with a traditional college scholar-athlete ideal. BC’s one. Does BC want to be in a bidding war in the ACC against the nutcases at Clemson? Or do they maybe try to find some kind of Ivy League balance elsewhere? Maybe new leagues form. Maybe BC, Northwestern, Stanford, and Notre Dame play each other in a new league. Maybe they take a step back.”

Maybe.

First published in the print edition of the May 2023 issue.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – APRIL 16: An aerial view of Harvard Hall in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, MA on April 16, 2020. (Photo by Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Want your college experience to include license to shout from the Ivy draped rooftops We’re the best in the whole wide world! (or even We’re the second best?) Well, Boston is still the place to be.

At least, so says the U.S. News & World Report‘s 2022 Top Global Universities rankings, which once again put Harvard and MIT in the first and second-place slots, respectively.

This year’s list, which crunches the numbers on 1,750 colleges from across the globe, has results that don’t line up exactly with the publication’s ranking of American colleges, which it released earlier this fall. In that ranking, Harvard, MIT, and Columbia shared the second-place spot, behind Princeton.

The discrepancies between the two US news rankings are due to the fact that the global survey focuses “specifically on schools’ academic research and reputation overall and not on their separate undergraduate or graduate programs,” according to a press release explaining the global survey’s methodology.

Analyzing colleges in this way, and taking into account institutions around the world, means you have to read further down the list to find some of our prestigious local institutions. Boston University ranks 65th, down from 57th last year. UMass Amherst is slotted at 148th, Northeastern tied for 176th, Tufts earned 198th place, Brandeis is 320th, UMass Boston tied for 417th, and Boston College tied at 625th.

Williams College, which perennially tops the U.S. News list of American liberal arts colleges, didn’t make the cut at all. Nor did other local smaller schools like Amherst, Babson, Leslie, Simmons, Smith, Stonehill, and Suffolk.

Harvard and MIT also featured heavily in the U.S. News rankings that compared universities in specific subject areas. Harvard snagged the number one spot for clinical medicine; MIT ranked at the top of the list for physics; while UMass Amherst came in 5th for agricultural sciences.

After Harvard, the other Ivies placed high in the overall rankings as well: Columbia was 6th, Yale was 12th, Princeton was 16th, UPenn was 13th, Cornell was 22nd, Brown was 119th, and Dartmouth was 247th.

Of the 10 schools that placed highest in the rankings, just two were from outside the U.S—Oxford (5th) and Cambridge (8th)—and the U.S. had the largest share of top universities on the list, with 271. China, at 253, had the next most.

You can read the full results for yourself here.

Parents sit socially distanced during the Boston College 144th commencement exercises in Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Boston, MA on May 24, 2021. Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Colleges are not yet fully back to normal—the delta variant has made sure of that. But college students are indeed headed back to the classroom in person this year, albeit with varying vaccine, masking, and distancing policies. While we don’t know exactly what college will look like next year, we do know that the next crop of college freshman is already diving deep into the research to figure out where they want to go to school.

One thing we can reliably say about what’s to come is that, once again, U.S. News and World Report  has once again measured, sliced, diced, and, of course, ranked the nation’s universities. And local institutions have once again come out on top.

The organization on Monday released its 2022 Best Colleges rankings. Top marks in the National Universities category went to Princeton, which has claimed the top spot for 11 straight years.

Little old Harvard, always the bridesmaid and never the bride, is still ranked second. It shares the spot with Columbia and MIT, which actually saw a boost from the 2021 rankings, when it placed fourth. Good for MIT.

Elsewhere in the Commonwealth, Tufts tied for 28th (up a smidge from its 30th ranking last year), Boston College ranked 36th (about on par with last year, when it placed 35th); Boston University and Brandeis were not far behind, tying at 42nd; Northeastern placed 49th; and UMass Amherst was 68th.

Massachusetts also dominated in the Liberal Arts Colleges category. Williams College, ever the favorite in this report, placed first, followed by Amherst. Wellesley was 5th. Smith was 17th.

According to U.S. News‘ Best Value Schools ranking—which weighs academic quality against the average cost of attending after scholarships and other discounts—Yale claims the top spot, with MIT 2nd and Harvard 3rd.

Those interested can also peruse the results for several analyses, among them the top schools for computer science, business, and engineering programs, the best colleges for veterans, and the schools that are most ethnically diverse.

New this year is a ranking of the nation’s best nursing programs, which assessed programs based on reviews from deans and faculty of other nursing schools. The top local school in that category was Boston College, which tied for 19th. UMass Boston ranked 43rd, and the MGH Institute of Health Professions ranked 58th. The best program, according to the report, can be found at UPenn.

Williams College photo via Getty/ Barry Winiker | Bentley photo via Getty/DenisTangneyJr | UMass Amherst photo via Getty/Boston Globe

Picking a college is tough in a good year, when going off to college at the very least means fully enjoying the undergrad experience in all its non-socially-distanced glory. But it’s even tougher this year, as students head back to class at a scary and confusing time. So for any families weighing their options while checking coronavirus case counts in the home states of the schools of their dreams and praying we no longer have to deal with all of this lunacy come fall of 2021, U.S. News & World Report has released the latest edition of its Best Colleges rankings.

And once again, Massachusetts has landed a bevy of its colleges near the top of the class.

Harvard has yet again come in second place on the list of top national universities, placing just shy of Princeton, which claimed the top spot. MIT came in fourth, a slight downgrade after tying with Yale last year in third (Yale now has the sole claim to the number-three spot). Tufts came in 30th, sharing the honor with New York University, the University of California – Santa Barbara, and the University of Florida, Boston College placed 35th, and Boston University tied with Brandeis at 42nd. Northeastern endured a notable drop in the list, falling from 40th to 49th.

Williams College, meanwhile, has held its top ranking on the list of national liberal arts colleges, followed once again by Amherst College at second.

In rankings of regional colleges, Bentley is now tied for first with Providence College, a bump up from last year, when it placed second.

To reach these conclusions, U.S. News compiles data on 18,000 colleges and universities and crunches the numbers on 17 metrics, among them faculty-to-student ratios, graduation rates, and other figures. This year, it now weights “outcomes” for students—as in, what happens to students at the end of their college careers. And for the first time, 5 percent of a college’s ranking is based on “student indebtedness.”

The numbers for each school do not take into account the giant mess that the pandemic has wrought on colleges in 2020, so do with that information what you will.

“The pandemic has affected students across the country, canceling commencement ceremonies and switching classes from in person to remote,” Kim Castro, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News, says in a statement. “Whether students have slightly altered their college plans or changed them entirely, it remains our mission to continue providing students and their families with the tools they need to help find the right school for them.”

Also new this year were rankings of undergraduate computer science programs, a list U.S. News compiled by sending surveys to college deans and computer science professors, and asking them to rate programs at 481 other colleges on a five-point scale. Naturally MIT ranked first, with the list’s only perfect 5.0 rating. Harvard (4.3) came 13th, UMass Amherst (3.9) tied for 31st, and Northeastern (3.7) tied for 41st.

Portrait by Pat Piasecki

It’s Thursday night at the University of Massachusetts Club, and I’m drinking a glass of Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc by the elevator when I spot U.S. Representative Richard Neal and an aide heading toward a party for Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida, who serves on the Ways and Means Committee that Neal chairs. UMass President Marty Meehan is already working the room, chatting with Chet Atkins, former politician and fixer extraordinaire. Just down the hall, a company party has spilled out of the club’s second-largest event space, and next to that, a fundraiser for the Girl Scouts—complete with house-made, and surprisingly tasty, cookie-inspired cocktails—is still setting up. The main lounge area is rapidly filling with members who are eager to attend the meet-and-greet. Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, I’m told as I show myself around, has just slipped out.

Perched on the 32nd floor of One Beacon Street, the club hovers over the city. An elegant granite bar top is encircled by a lounge full of midcentury furniture and leather wingback chairs. To the left of the bar, there’s a dining room, small enough to feel collegial, yet still big enough that it’s hard to eavesdrop. Off the dining room, you’ll find event spaces, each with a panoramic view of the city. The clean-lined design is distinctly modern, with a neutral color scheme but enough creature comforts to feel warm and inviting.

Truth be told, the age-old elitism that goes hand in hand with private clubbiness isn’t exactly in vogue these days. The social and university clubs that once served as the epicenter of Boston society are still present, but the days of three-hour lunches over drinks and evenings spent smoking stogies by the fireplace are all but long gone. Even the Harvard Club of Boston—the gold standard for university clubs in this town—is being forced to adjust to changing times. Facing rising rents and declining traffic at its downtown location, it’s planning to move, quite possibly to a smaller space where members can more easily grab an informal lunch on the go.

And yet despite the odds, the UMass Club has risen from out of nowhere to create a new type of club—elite without elitism, a kind of top-of-the-line populist watering hole. It embraces the progressive values of New Boston, such as inclusivity; anyone can join, and it’s even relatively affordable, with an initiation fee that tops out at $600. It’s not particularly snobby or pretentious, yet is a place where the political elite feel right at home. In the past few years alone, it’s become a favorite lunch spot for Governor Charlie Baker and Polito. Joe Biden held a recent presidential fundraiser there. Several weeks before that, John Kerry made news at a book event at the club when he claimed President Trump was at the head of a “continuing conspiracy.”

“It is a very bipartisan place, to the extent that any place in Massachusetts is bipartisan,” says Atkins, a former congressman and onetime head of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. It’s also become a place favored by movers and shakers of all stripes: On a recent night, says Meehan (the first UMass president who actually attended the school as an undergrad), he was leaving an event at the club “and who did I bump into, but Bob Reynolds, CEO of Putnam, and co-owner of the Celtics Steve Pagliuca.”

In other words, as we enter a new decade, the UMass Club is winning one of the oldest games in town by creating something different—a comfortable so-called third place that’s welcoming to all. And in the process, it’s emerged as the hottest club in town. “You go to lunch at the Harvard Club, and they’re practically rolling out the oxygen tanks,” says PR maven Colette Phillips. “Now, everyone lunches at the UMass Club. It’s very New Boston.”

Presidential candidate Joe Biden at a fundraiser for his campaign, hosted at the club in November 2019. / Photo by Marc Bertrand

Tribalism runs deep in Boston. From the shabbiest dives of Allston to the toniest Back Bay parties, we’re a town of regulars. In turn, private social clubs have always been the ultimate expression of that reality, formed, as Nathan Shiverick wrote in Social History of the Greater Boston Clubs, as part of a “shrewd and successful rearguard action to substitute financial for [municipal] political power,” which the Irish were wresting away from the Brahmin elite. Once you graduated Harvard, you’d traditionally make your way to the Somerset Club (founded around 1826)—which was so uppish that one day when the place caught fire, members made the firemen use the servants’ entrance—or the more liberal Union Club (founded in 1863) or the artsier Tavern Club (founded in 1884) to find your place in the city. For men only, and quite formal, private clubs established the social pecking order. As noted in a 2000 Harvard Crimson article on the club scene, “‘At the Somerset,’ St. Botolph members have long chuckled, ‘they have the money; at the Union, they manage it; at the Algonquin, they’re trying to make it; and at the St. Botolph, they enjoy it.’”

University clubs arrived later. There was the College Club of Boston (1890), the first club for college-educated women in the country, and the University Club of Boston (1891), for anyone of good standing who had attended an Ivy League college and could score recommendations. The Harvard Club of Boston arrived in 1908. The mission of these establishments was similar to that of the social clubs: to cultivate a worthy social network. The difference, however, was that university clubs were less discerning—after all, the sorting had been done for them. Moreover, the university clubs often featured athletic facilities and were at the vanguard of Boston’s mighty squash scene. Together, the two types of institutions existed in lockstep and served as the infrastructure for elite social life in the city.

The first signs of a crack in the club structure appeared during the time between the two world wars, when clubs including the Somerset began to soften membership requirements in the face of mounting expenses. When, in the late 1980s, the clubs were forced to accept women or lose their liquor licenses, it proved a blessing, albeit an unwelcome one. “They were going into the dust,” says one member who asked not to be identified. “And women turned them around.”

Another seismic change in the old order happened in 1998, when the Boston College Club opened. Its founding was meant to signal BC’s ascendance from a lowly commuter college for Catholics to a pillar of power in the Hub. It was viewed as less stuffy than the Harvard Club, and emerged as a notable hot spot. The Boston Business Journal even commented on a Harvard Club member sneaking over to the BC Club for a meal—a sign, the reader was meant to assume, that BC might be standing toe to toe in other ways, too.

At the same time, as the 21st century began, social clubs were arguably losing their grip on power in the city. While they might once have determined a Harvard man’s fate, mused the same Harvard Crimson article, “one no longer need frolic through WASP theme parks to claw one’s way to the top. Other avenues to power and high society avail themselves.” This was the climate when UMass decided to open a university club. Like the BC Club before it, UMass wanted to show that it was a real player in the city and not merely a so-called safety school. “We really wanted to raise the brand identity,” says Jack Wilson, the former president of UMass. “I was a bit shocked when I came to Massachusetts and discovered that its reputation was much better outside the state than it was inside the state.” Powerful alums, namely GE’s Jack Welch, were also frustrated that there wasn’t a place for UMass grads to get together and network, says Emmet Hayes, a UMass alum and former state representative who is now on the board of the UMass Club. The decision to launch a club, Wilson says, “was part of that branding initiative to say, ‘Hey, we’re here. We matter. We’ve done a lot of great things that you’re not hearing enough about.’”

The idea to open the club coincided with an opportunity: The university was abandoning its president’s office at One Beacon Street for one at State Street’s former digs in the Financial District, which, it so happened, came with a defunct club that the landlords were willing to cut the school a deal on. So in 2005, the original UMass Club opened its doors in an 18,000-square-foot space at the top of 225 Franklin Street in Post Office Square. Run by the same company that managed the BC Club, it was the platonic image of a stuffy university club, an imitation relic: think wood-paneled rooms and walls covered with UMass memorabilia. Looking at it, you could almost smell the cigar smoke.

Still, there were distinctions that set the UMass Club apart, even at the start. First, it wasn’t just for UMass alums—because the idea was to boost the school’s cachet, its board decided anyone who wanted to hop on the UMass brand should be able to join. It was also designed to be affordable. After all, says Wilson, UMass is “a university for the people. That’s the brand.” Today, there’s a sliding scale that tops out at $120 a month for membership, plus the $600 maximum initiation fee, so you don’t have to have limitless money to burn in order to join. And unlike at other clubs, anyone can lay down a credit card and pick up (or split) the tab, so the club member doesn’t always get stuck with the bill.

It seemed like a smart business model. Then the worst happened: Not many people came. Even the people who were supposed to like it didn’t—one board member remembers a university official swearing that his dinner there was one of the worst meals he’d ever had. Membership numbers were underwhelming, rising to about 800 over the course of a decade, leading to questions of why a public university was burning money on a club that almost no one used at a time when it was raising tuitions. What was meant to be a crown jewel was rapidly shaping up to be a black eye.

Photo by Gensler

When Marty Meehan took office as president of UMass in July 2015, the club was a sinkhole for cash and a ripe target for critics of public spending. In the decade since it was founded at 225 Franklin Street, the club had sucked up more than $4 million in subsidies from the university. Critics cast it as a money-losing venture. Meehan didn’t think much of the place either. “If I had an important lunch,” he says, “I was not likely to go up to the dining room to have that lunch—there weren’t enough people there. It wasn’t a happening place.”

Meehan may not have liked the club, but he believed in its ability to promote the university and stoke fundraising. With the 10-year lease running out on the Franklin Street location, Meehan knew it was time to try something different. The UMass Club 2.0 didn’t just ditch its old space—it ditched its whole vibe. The wood paneling, the knockoff Harvard Club décor—all that jazz went out the window, replaced by an airy, modern space. It also ditched its management company, ClubCorp, and brought in UMass Dining, whose food at UMass Amherst had just been named among the best in the nation by the Princeton Review.

For his part, Meehan obsessed over the details. After talking with Legal Sea Foods owner Roger Berkowitz, he insisted that the club start serving Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc, which was Legal’s bestselling wine during the summer. (At first, Meehan says, employees thought it was just because he liked it.) When Meehan saw restaurant staffers hassling communications guru George Regan (who represents this magazine) for trying to order a cheeseburger off the bar menu while seated in the dining room, he struck down the arbitrary divide between the two menus. Most important, Meehan practically haunted the place—any lunch date or breakfast meeting he had, he had it at the club. “I think [the turnaround] happened fairly quickly—maybe in a year or two,” says Phil Johnston, a former chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. “From the day he became president, Marty made the club a priority.”

He wasn’t the only one. Then–state Senate President Stan Rosenberg, who had eaten at the club’s old location just a handful of times, was second only to Meehan in how often he was at the new place. “He came up here a lot,” Meehan says. “He brought other members up, and he had his fundraisers here.” By Rosenberg’s own accounting, he sometimes ate three meals a day at the club, with meetings there in between. After, Baker became a fixture, followed by House Speaker Robert DeLeo. “If the governor has a political meeting, he does it here,” says Meehan, “and nobody bothers him.” Baker usually sits at the table in the back left of the dining room, next to the windows, where he can scan the room.

Despite the revolving door of power players, the one thing Meehan didn’t change was the club’s inclusive policies, in part because they still represented the UMass ethos. “[The UMass Club is] something special, but it’s not arrogant,” says Dave Barbato, CEO of Talent Retriever, a recruiting firm. “Whenever I bring a client, they say, ‘I see why you want to be a member.’ It doesn’t have the big mahogany walls; it doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to join. It’s like UMass.”

In a town that’s full of history but breaking new ground every day, this sensibility has turned into a major advantage for the club. When, for instance, the Links, a prominent black women’s volunteer service organization that counts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley among its members, was looking for a location to host its elaborate Carnival-themed biannual fundraising party in 2017, it picked the UMass Club in part because it didn’t have a recent history of exclusion that would have made its members feel unwelcome. “For us, it provided a balance between something that felt really special, but also felt accessible,” says Stephanie Anderson Garrett, who, as the Boston group’s corresponding secretary, helped select the location. “We wanted to feel like our guests were being transported. But we’re also sensitive to some of this history, as black women in Boston, that some places have not been welcoming.” They chose it again in 2019, giving the UMass Club the distinct honor of being the only place the Links has ever thrown its parties twice.

Others are doing the same. Herby Duverné, who runs a small business, says he ditched the Algonquin for the UMass Club, passing on the Harvard Club in the process. “The people at the Algonquin Club were part of the old money, the old guard. Here you have up-and-coming people,” he says. “It’s what the New Boston represents. You find all different kinds of people, very diverse—a lot of people who were black business members like me.”

Another way UMass is forging a new path is with its embrace of doing business in a manner most social clubs have historically shunned. There’s no “no cell-phone” policy here because, heck, business is practically the point. “It’s the only place in town that I’m aware of today where you can see a whole lot of friends who are engaged in similar occupations—politics, business,” Johnston says. “Years ago, the Parker House served that purpose.” And this vibe, apparently, has helped the club more than double its membership over the past four years, to more than 1,700 today. It turns out, though, that they’re not the only ones reinventing themselves for a new generation.

The bar at the UMass Club offers weeknight specials aimed at luring younger members. / Photo by Gensler

In many ways, Meehan’s UMass Club was ahead of its time. Recent years have ushered in the rise of a new brand of club, one that focuses on networking and culture as much as on wealth and status. Take the Wing, the stylish women’s coworking space that opened in Boston, or the Quin, a rebrand of the Algonquin Club that developer/philanthropist Sandra Edgerley says will be a chic cultural hub when it ultimately opens. Culturally, spaces such as the hyper-luxe gym Equinox and the now-scandal-plagued coworking company WeWork function like clubs as well. “I think there’s been a bit of a renaissance in clubs,” says Karen Galvin, the chief marketing officer of the Harvard Club. “There’s a trend of younger people considering clubs in a way that they might not have done maybe 15 years ago.” It makes sense: In our social-media-saturated age, millennials are looking for places where they can meet other people in person—make real connections, find new friends—who aren’t in their immediate peer group.

All of that, of course, raises the question of how a storied place like the Harvard Club will bring this new generation into the fold. It’s practically synonymous with Old Boston and the early generation of clubs, where the buy-in is expensive and the atmosphere is formal.

When I visit the Harvard Club one afternoon to learn the answer, I’m immediately struck by the silver chandeliers and paintings of mallards, which make me feel as though I’ve stepped back in time. But then I meet Michael Gaines (Harvard MBA), Reverend Amy Norton (Harvard master of divinity), and Courtney Sharpe (Harvard master of urban planning). Gaines, for his part, hadn’t planned to join but was lured in when he struck up a conversation with an older man who happened to be an alum and who talked him into reconsidering. Norton and Sharpe were both looking for what urban planners call a third place—somewhere that’s neither home nor work—where they could spend time. All of them were delighted to find the club was aggressively looking for ways to be more welcoming and diverse.

It’s not just inclusiveness that will keep the Harvard Club relevant in the future; it’s also the club’s ability to make smart business decisions. The eventual shuttering of the Financial District’s Harvard Club at One Federal Street was prompted by a 105 percent hike in rent and the fact that it didn’t meet the needs of members anymore, says Steven Cummings, the GM of the Harvard Club. Only about a quarter of the 19,500-square-foot space—the main bar and dining areas—is in regular use, an internal study found, while conference rooms remain largely vacant. As a result, the club is on the hunt for a smaller space where members can grab lunch on the go.

Cummings, for his part, insists that the upcoming move isn’t a sign of trouble—it’s a sign that the Harvard Club is being responsive to members’ needs (other offerings include family movie nights and “clubs within a club” that connect members with like interests, such as skiing). If other clubs are struggling, he says, it’s because they’re no longer giving people what they really want.

This is a puzzle that in some ways the UMass Club has already solved by trying to be the best place in town to meet a client, grab lunch, and maybe enjoy a cocktail with a world-class view. Its premise (at least, its implied premise) is that it’s possible to build an elite club based on who opts in, not who’s kept out.

Sitting in the dining room on a Tuesday morning, at Charlie Baker’s regular table no less, Meehan looks down on the State House and reflects on why the club has been such a success. “Six months after getting here, it became clear that this had the potential to have real buzz,” he says. It wasn’t just that the politicos had started coming, either. It was the fact that, after selling this place to anyone who would listen—pitching it as a spot where everyone was welcome—the UMass Club suddenly took on a life of its own. “Now,” he says, shrugging his shoulders as if to acknowledge a combination of luck and great timing, “it sells itself.”

Harvard’s not as hard to get into as you think. / Photo by Tim Sackton/Creative Commons via Flickr

Extracurriculars for All

You don’t need a student ID to take advantage of these campus amenities.
By Angela Athena Mats

Planetarium
Framingham State University

On the third Friday of every month, you can trade Netflix for a different kind of star-studded show inside this 30-foot domed digital theater, part of the Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning. November’s movie delves into the spectacle of supernovas.

cm-center.org.

Ice Rink
Boston University

Practice your axels and lutzes at BU’s Walter Brown Arena, which invites non-students onto the ice multiple times a week. Need help keeping your balance? The school offers skating lessons for wannabe Olympians young and old.

bu.edu/fitrec.

Botanical Gardens
Wellesley College

You’ll pass winterberry and holly, pine-scented conifers, and the late American artist Nancy Holt’s Wild Spot sculpture on a crisp late-fall nature walk through the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens. Come back in springtime when the gardens are lush and butterflies abound for a completely different perspective.

wellesley.edu/wcbg.

Gym Membership
Regis College

Looking for a fully loaded fitness club without the accompanying price tag? For less than the monthly fee at most big-box gyms, you can get ripped at Regis College’s Athletic Facility, which boasts an NCAA-regulation gymnasium, competition-length swimming pool, eight-lane outdoor track, and new weight room.

goregispride.com.

Art Museum
Harvard University

Head to the Harvard Art Museums for Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art, an exhibition exploring migration through 40-plus works in various mediums, from sculpture to photography.

harvardartmuseums.org.

Historical Library
Boston Architectural College

Google can’t find everything. Niche interests are well served by the many school libraries open to the public: Boston Architectural College’s Memorial Library, for example, connects architecture and history geeks to 2,000 volumes—including sketchbooks and European publications—dating to 1883.

the-bac.edu.

Civil rights activist Tarana Burke visits Tufts this month. / Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images

Academic Calendar

Have a free period? Fill it with one of this semester’s buzzy school-sponsored events.
By Scott Kearnan

BIG-NAME SPEAKERS

Tarana Burke at Tufts University

Before she releases her new book, Where the Light Enters, the civil rights activist and #MeToo movement founder will educate—and inspire—guests as part of the ongoing Tisch College Distinguished Speaker Series. Next month: chef-philanthropist José Andrés.

November 7, tischcollege.tufts.edu.

Yalitza Aparicio at Wellesley College

She’s barely older than most undergrads, yet Aparicio—named to the Time 100 list of most influential people—has already been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in last year’s Roma, the first indigenous woman to receive the honor. Check out campus screenings on November 7 and 10, then return for a live interview with the notable actor.

November 12, wellesley.edu/events.

Joanne Chang at Northeastern University

How does she make those famous sticky buns? This month, Flour Bakery’s Joanne Chang stops by Northeastern University’s Xhibition Kitchen to sign copies of her cookbook Pastry Love—and show off her James Beard Award–winning baking skills.

November 13, nudining.com.

BIGTIME PRODUCTIONS

“Bright Lights” Film Series at Emerson College

No tickets are required for these free events, which offer weekly screenings of genre-spanning, cinephile-pleasing flicks. Coming soon: Time for Ilhan, a Boston Women’s Film Festival pick about the first Somali-American Muslim in Congress.

November 5, web.emerson.edu/brightlights.

Noises Off at Boston College

The Theater District isn’t the only place to see a show in Boston—the city’s next generation of thespians is ready to entertain you with on-campus productions at cut-rate prices. BC’s crowd-pleasing play-within-a-play Noises Off, for instance, follows the backstage antics of a performance where everything goes wrong.

November 21–24, bc.edu.

Musical Theater Orchestra at Berklee College of Music

Listen up! The alma mater of musicians such as Quincy Jones keeps a super-active calendar of concerts by visiting performers and prodigious students—including this 25-piece orchestra, which will soon cover Evita, Miss Saigon, and more as part of its “Golden Age of Broadway” showcase.

December 12, berklee.edu/bpc.

Open skate is in session at BU’s Walter Brown Arena. / Photo by Janice Checchio for Boston University Photography

Back to School

No late-night cramming, no grades—and subjects you’re actually interested in? These local adult-ed classes make learning fun again.
By Angela Athena Mats

SO YOU WANT TO…

Launch your startup

Held this year November 1 to 3, Endicott College’s annual SparkU startup bootcamp teaches Shark Tank fans about marketing strategies, revenue models, and more before letting them pitch their next big idea to a panel of entrepreneurs.

endicott.edu.

Get in touch with your inner artist

If you’re looking to spark some creativity before the winter doldrums set in, there’s no shortage of workshops at MassArt this month. At the school’s Copper Bowls course on November 2, for example, you’ll explore ancient metalworking techniques—and create a sleek statement piece guaranteed to stand out on your Thanksgiving table.

pce.massart.edu.

Make the most of retirement

Every college student knows that seniors have the most fun. Fifty or over? Join Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UMass Boston for access to international trips (Morocco awaits), Harborwalk tours, and courses in every subject from business to technology to the arts.

umb.edu.

Be everyone’s favorite party host

You’ve come a long way since the days of keggers and beer pong. Show it! Impress thirsty guests with a perfectly curated bar, not to mention a variety of well-mixed classic and frozen libations, after mastering the bartending course at Bunker Hill Community College.

bhcc.edu.

Begin the new year on a high note

Always wanted to start your own band? All it takes is one night a week to learn a new instrument. Register now for Tufts University’s winter community music classes, which give students the opportunity to learn the piano and the rhythms of West African drumming.

as.tufts.edu.

I Tried It

The 6-Pound “Challenge Burger” at Eagle’s Deli
By Scott Kearnan

Photo by Mona Miri

Back in my undergrad days at Boston College, a greasy cheeseburger was my go-to hangover cure. But I cannot imagine the bender that would’ve necessitated the infamous “Challenge Burger” at nearby Eagle’s Deli: a 6-pound tower of 12 patties with 22 slices each of bacon and cheese, accompanied by 6 pounds of French fries. Made famous by an appearance on the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, the gluttonous display has been conquered by only eight people—including Joey Chestnut, America’s top-ranked competitive eater. In the name of research, I returned to my old stomping grounds to see if I could become the ninth.

After signing a cautionary waiver, I began dissecting the meat mountain with fork and knife, periodically lubricating my gullet with fountain soda and ketchup. Alas, it was not to be: Two-plus pounds in, I waved the white flag. Perhaps I should have joined a beer-pong tournament the night before? Then I really would have been giving it the old college try.

Photo courtesy of the Suffolk County DA’s Office

A 21-year-old former Boston College student has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection to her boyfriend’s death by suicide.

On May 20 of this year, BC biology major Alexander Urtula jumped to his death from the roof of a Roxbury parking garage, just an hour and a half before he was to walk across the stage in the university’s graduation ceremony. The 22-year-old’s family had traveled from New Jersey to Boston to attend the festivities. Boston College notified students of Urtula’s death through a brief letter on graduation day.

In a press conference Monday, District Attorney Rachael Rollins revealed that a Suffolk County grand jury handed down the indictment on October 18. According to her, prosecutors and MBTA transit police detectives found that Urtula’s tragic death came after months of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse at the hands of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Inyoung You.

In a press conference Monday morning, Rollins shared that You terrorized Urtula over the course of their 18-month relationship, much of which was thoroughly documented in Urtula’s journal and in text messages between the couple. You, who was also a Boston College student, sent over 47,000 texts to Urtula in the two months leading up to his death, threatening self-harm to manipulate him, repeatedly instructing him to take his own life, and persisting with her abusive behavior despite clear knowledge of his spiraling depression and suicidal thoughts.

You also habitually tracked Urtula’s location via her phone. On the morning of graduation, she was present on the roof of the parking lot when Urtula jumped to his death.

The indictment accuses You of wanton and reckless behavior that overwhelmed Urtula’s will to live.

“She created life-threatening conditions for him that she had a legal duty to alleviate, which we allege she failed to do,” Rollins said.

More details on the case will become available after You is arraigned. You is currently in South Korea, where she is originally from, but the DA’s office is making an effort to see if she will voluntarily return to the U.S. for arraignment. If she does not, Rollins says the DA’s office will seek her extradition.

The case is reminiscent of that of Michelle Carter, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after coercing her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide in his truck. Carter is currently serving out a 15-month prison sentence after the Supreme Judicial Court upheld her conviction, and her case has been appealed to the US Supreme Court.