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Charlie Titus has been known to joke that “I came with the bricks” – a lighthearted way of noting that he arrived at �����о��� Boston in 1974, just as UMB was leaving its temporary home in Park Square and moving into the red-brick buildings of the Columbia Point campus.

Though Charlie’s wry metaphor is a good one, I believe it may be even more apt to think of the pioneering athletics leader as the mortar that helped to bind a new campus together – and bound �����о��� Boston to its neighbors in Dorchester, Roxbury, South Boston and beyond.

A native of the Columbia Point (now Harbor Point) housing complex and a basketball star at Boston Technical High School and in college, Coach Titus (later to become Vice Chancellor Titus) instinctively understood that �����о��� Boston needed to have its welcome mat prominently displayed for all members of the local community – particularly kids. He recognized that sports could be the vehicle for forging lasting connections. Many future �����о��� Boston students first came to campus as participants in a camp or youth sports program.

At the end of the month, this legendary figure in the history of �����о��� Boston – and the �����о��� system – will retire, leaving behind a legacy that includes six NCAA Division III Track and Field National Championships, having more than 150 student-athletes earn All-America honors in 12 sports, serving as UMB’s first director of athletics and playing a key role in establishing the Sport Leadership and Administration program and securing a $5 million gift from New Balance to support an endowed chair for the program.

For more than four decades, Charlie Titus has served as a leader, a mentor … and an inspiration.

Charlie will be remembered as a builder – of bridges and bonds. In other words, as a bricks and mortar guy. Thank you, Coach, for standing tall for �����о��� Boston.

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