It is 2025: 3 years since I have been away from Bard College (NY), after teaching there for 13 years, and 27 years since I graduated from Paulsboro High School (NJ). These two places could not be more different, but both are led by incredibly HUGE personalities. Two educators that run their institutions, and their surrounding communities, through a mix of success and strong personalities. Both are educators, but don’t really teach in a conventional way. Yes, they teach gym and first-year seminar—I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which—but, they are much more youth leaders than pedagogues.
At Bard, Leon has ruled the roost since 1975 with a commitment to the arts and humanities—leaning into the institution’s history of accepting and educating refugees and other outsiders. Leon has been a college president his entire life and then a conductor. At Paulsboro, Paul has ruled the roost with a commitment to wrestling, and well, more wrestling, for forty years—leaning into the blue collar neighborhood and keeping the youth on the right track. Paul is the winningest wrestling coach in NJ state history. Both have likely had students sleep on their couches.
Paul is deeply entwined with the town of Paulsboro, his brother is the sheriff in Gloucester County, NJ. Leon is hardly entwined with the town of Red Hook, and his brother is a famous biologist in Princeton, NJ. Leon likely speaks four languages, Paul speaks the language of single-legs, spladles and Petersons. They are clearly not the same kind of dude. Yet, both realize the strength of their fiefdoms comes from their NICHE, their unique ability to lead it, and lean into it unabashedly. Both have entirely too much power, and yet both have entirely excelled. Both have had their scandals [1] [2].
I didn’t wrestle for Paul (but my brother did), and I didn’t wrestle for Leon (but I kinda did). I don’t like life-long autocrats, but in these cases, I can appreciate both of their deep commitments to the communities they lead.
Now I just need to get them both on a podcast or something.