Director Hardee is the director of Nickel Academy. Although he isn’t involved in the institution’s day-to-day operations, he oversees things like the annual boxing championship, gathering board members and influential people from the town of Eleanor and getting them to bet on the outcome of the fights. When he hears that a team of government inspectors is coming to survey the school, he cancels all classes and forces the students to clean and repair the grounds, wanting everything to look good during the inspection.