BOSTON – Not every Harvard basketball player can become an NBA phenom like Jeremy Lin.
Some of them have to settle for other careers, such as governor of Massachusetts — or president of the NCAA.
Charlie Baker, the next head of the largest collegiate athletic association in the country, stepping into a hornet’s nest of a job that will likely tap into every political skill in his pocket.
Glad he collected a lot.
Baker has proven to be one of the most popular governors in the country, winning Massachusetts’ top spot for the first time in 2014 and easily winning re-election in 2018. He probably would have been a favorite this year if he had opted for a third term.
Instead, he takes over the NCAA in March.
Insanity.
“I will say in no uncertain terms that that was not what I had in mind when I made the decision a year ago not to seek re-election,” Baker, 66, said Thursday.
During his eight-year tenure, Baker has assumed the role of problem solver. He is part of a long tradition of socially moderate, fiscally conservative Republicans in New England.
Baker’s crisis management skills were tested just weeks after he was sworn in by a series of violent snowstorms that buried parts of the state under several feet of snow and shut down parts of the Boston Metro public transit system.
He responded in part by pushing for the creation of a new Financial Control Committee to help stabilize the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which oversees the transit system and has suffered from decades of neglect.
The board was mostly considered a success.
Other, tougher challenges would follow.
These included the state’s opioid overdose crisis, which has caused thousands of deaths each year and cost Massachusetts billions of dollars in lost productivity. baker signed two major opioid laws in his first term alone.
Under Baker, billions were pumped into the chronically ailing transportation agency, which continued to struggle with fatal accidents Subway cars emit smoke and rush hour trains that operate on weekends.
During his second term, Baker would again face a major public health emergency.
The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced Baker to take a number of dramatic steps closure of non-essential businesses to close schools etc Mask requirement in public. While some fretted, polls showed Baker’s response generally received high marks.
Despite efforts, the state was home to one of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks at a U.S. nursing facility at a veterans’ home, where dozens succumbed to the disease.
Over the years, Baker has distanced himself from the loudest voices in his party. Most notably, he refused to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. The attitude drew Trump’s ire but boosted Baker’s popularity in Massachusetts, where voters twice rejected Trump by double-digit margins.
As governor, Baker also supported a handful of sports-related policies.
Baker signed earlier this year a bill to legalize sports betting in his condition. The law included a college sports compromise that allows residents to bet on Massachusetts teams if they are participating in a national tournament or competition, but otherwise prohibits such betting.
In 2016, Baker signed a bill guarantee transgender people can use toilets and changing rooms that match their gender identity.
Baker got an early taste of state politics by serving in the administrations of Republican governors. William Weld and Paul Cellucci in the 1990s.
He helped develop the financing plan for Big Dig – a multi-billion dollar transportation and freeway project that transformed downtown Boston. He also ran Harvard Pilgrim Health Care for a time, leading a financial turnaround for one of the state’s largest insurers.
Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who will be sworn in as a prosecutor next month first woman and first LGBTQ candidate elected to serve as Massachusetts governor is among those congratulating Baker on his new role.
Coincidentally, Healey also played basketball at Harvard.
“I know he understands the important role that athletics can play and I look forward to the future of college sports and student athletes under his leadership,” Healey said.
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