Athletics

Director of Athletics and Coach

When the late Charlie Law arrived at Suffolk in 1946, the University athletic history spanned five years with tennis, golf, basketball and baseball teams composed primarily of law students.  When he retired as director of athletics 32 years later, Law was credited
with building an undergraduate intercollegiate athletic program with consistently competitive and frequently victorious teams.

Born in Patrick, Scotland in 1913, Law grew up in Chelsea.  He graduated from Chelsea High School and played football, basketball and baseball.  He then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Springfield College, where despite his small stature, he lettered in football, and played on the basketball, lacrosse and track teams.

During Law’s early years at Suffolk, the athletic program was comprised of baseball and basketball, both of which he coached himself, soccer and ice hockey; golf, which he also coached, and tennis were added in 1948; and sailing in 1949.  Many of his athletes were World War II veterans, frequently older than Law himself.

Lack of facilities never discouraged Law.  He took his basketball nomads to the Charlestown YMCA, 1946-47, then to the West End House on Blossom Street, 1947-57, and finally to the Cambridge YMCA, which served as a home court for Suffolk basketball until the opening of the Regan Gymnasium in 1991.  Law’s baseball squads also had to travel from diamond to diamond throughout the Greater Boston area.

Nevertheless, Law’s basketball teams compiled an overall record of 295-258, and his last two squads qualified for the NCAA Division III Regional Tournament.  The 1974-75 team, 19-7, reached the regional finals, and the 1975-76 quintet, with a 19-6 record, was ranked fifteenth nationally in its division.

Law was elected president of the New England Basketball Coaches Association in 1972, and three years later, he received the Association’s highest award, the Doggie Julian Memorial Trophy, for his contributions to the sport.