Malcolm "Jim" Fellman, of Smithtown, died May 23 following complications from COVID-19, his family said. The longtime Hofstra University administrator was 87. Credit: Fellman family
Generations of students knew him as the big man on campus: the guy who brought the Jets to Hofstra University, got artificial turf installed at the football stadium, and who retired as university vice president of operations.
Dignified and professional, he was seldom seen without some sort of Marine Corps adornment — a jacket, a shirt, a cap.
But Malcolm "Jim" Fellman wasn’t your stereotypical stuffed-shirt administrator. To friends and family, he was the incorrigible jokester, troublemaker and merryman who couldn’t help himself from wanting to make people laugh.