Few people in higher education are as qualified to assess the cross-currents pulling college football into different ideological camps amid the COVID-19 pandemic as Harris Pastides.
Not only was Pastides the president of the Southeastern Conference while leading the University of South Carolina, he chaired the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors and sat on the Board of Governors, meaning he was heavily involved in just about every major college sports decision of the past half-decade.
Now, he’s a professor emeritus of epidemiology and biostatistics at South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, meaning his retirement last summer came shortly before his interest in college sports and his lifelong academic work would have converged.