Jim Boeheim's 47 Season Syracuse Coaching Career Ends Unceremoniously

Jim Boeheim's Syracuse coaching career is over. The circumstances surrounding his departure are bizarre and murky, but it is clear that he will not be returning because the university issued a statement noting that Associate Head Coach Adrian Autry will be Syracuse's coach next season without indicating if Boeheim retired, if the parties mutually decided that Boeheim would not return, or if Syracuse fired Boeheim without wanting to say so explicitly (it is also not clear why the statement capitalized "Associate Head Coach" but did not capitalize coach).

At a press conference after Wake Forest beat Syracuse 77-74 in the ACC Tournament, Boeheim stubbornly refused to answer a simple question: Is he retiring or not? Boeheim said that whether or not he retires "is up to the university." That is not how retirement works; that is how firing works: the employee decides whether or not to retire, while the employer decides whether or not to fire the employee. Boeheim also said, "I gave my retirement speech last week and nobody picked up on it." 

One gets the impression that Boeheim did not want to leave and Syracuse did not want to admit to firing him, so the parties are just acknowledging the breakup without applying a label to it. I cannot recall another coach of Boeheim's prominence whose coaching career ended in such a disjointed fashion; there have been successful coaches who received a farewell tour and there have been successful coaches who were fired after sticking around too long, but it is unusual for a successful coach to just abruptly disappear while hinting that he is not ready to go.

Before Boeheim became a coach, he played for Syracuse alongside future Hall of Famer Dave Bing, who told me, "Jimmy was one of those players who was just totally underrated. He came to Syracuse as a non-scholarship player and he did not get a scholarship until his sophomore year. We roomed together as sophomores and juniors and became very good friends and talked basketball quite a bit. It was evident to me way back then that Jimmy would become a good coach. He was a steady player. He was smart in that he knew how to get open and he was a good shooter. Whenever I drove to the basket he was smart enough to get to the open spot and he could put it down. He had a very good senior year."

Boeheim was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2005, two years after he won his first and only national championship with a squad headlined by Carmelo Anthony. Boeheim led Syracuse to the Final Four five times in four different decades (1987, 1996, 2003, 2013, 2016). He posted a 1015-441 record, ranking second all-time on the Division I wins list behind Mike Krzyzewski. Boeheim played a significant role in the Big East's emergence as a dominant college basketball conference in the 1980s, and he later served as an assistant coach for Team USA's Olympic gold medal winning teams in 2008, 2012, and 2016. 

However, there is a less glamorous side to sustained high level success in college sports. Danny Tarkanian, an attorney and the son of Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian, insists that it is not possible to have great success at the top level of college basketball while running a clean program, as I discussed in my review of his book Rebel With a Cause: The True Story of Jerry Tarkanian:

He asserts that no current big-time collegiate sports program can survive without violating the NCAA's rules, quoting former American University Coach Ed Tapscott (p. 112): "The crime in the NCAA is not in breaking the rules. It's in getting caught. We have our own MAD--Mutually Assured Destruction. There's a threshold of dirty linen we can all build up, and know that all of us agree tacitly not to disclose it. Because none of us could succeed without breaking the rules."

Sam Gilbert, a so-called "booster," provided a host of improper/illegal benefits to UCLA's basketball players from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, during which time Coach John Wooden led UCLA to an unprecedented run of 10 championships in a 12 year span, including seven in a row (1967-73). The NCAA did not take any action against UCLA during Wooden's run of championships, but in 1981--long after Wooden had retired, and after the Los Angeles Times conducted an in depth investigation--the NCAA determined that UCLA had committed over a decade's worth of violations. The NCAA did not vacate any of Wooden's championships, but only vacated UCLA's 1980 Final Four run, while also placing the basketball team on probation for two years. Coach Wooden denied having knowledge of Gilbert's activities, and it was never proven that Coach Wooden knew, but Coach Wooden also admitted that during that time he had "tunnel vision" and "trusted too much."

In 2015, Boeheim joined the long list of coaches punished by the NCAA for violating NCCA rules. The NCAA suspended Boeheim for nine games, and vacated 101 of his wins from 2004-2012. That is the third most wins ever vacated for a single school.

An even more disturbing scandal involving the Syracuse basketball program became public knowledge in 2011. Bernie Fine, Boeheim's right hand man for 36 years, was not criminally charged, but credible allegations of child abuse cost him his job at Syracuse. In a recorded conversation with former Syracuse ball boy (and Bernie Fine accuser) Bobby Davis, Fine's wife Laurie indicated that she knew that her husband's behavior with minors had been inappropriate. Boeheim publicly defended and excused Fine well past the point that it was acceptable or reasonable to do so, to the extent that two of Fine's accusers sued Boeheim and Syracuse for slander. Before the case proceeded to trial, Boeheim and Syracuse paid an undisclosed settlement to resolve the matter, with the university issuing this statement: "Coach Boeheim regrets that he made those statements and that he questioned the integrity of Bobby Davis and Michael Lang. Since then, he has publicly committed to focus his charitable efforts on providing assistance to victims of sexual abuse, which he continues to do. We are glad to announce that we have resolved the defamation case that Mr. Davis and Mr. Lang brought, and look forward to putting this behind us."

On February 20, 2019, Boeheim drove a car that struck and killed Jorge Jimenez, who had been standing at the side of the road next to a disabled car. Boeheim had been speeding on an icy road prior to the fatal accident, but after a police investigation the authorities declined to press charges against Boeheim. In 2020, the Jimenez estate filed a civil suit against Boeheim and Syracuse, alleging that Boeheim's negligent driving caused Jimenez' death. I found no public record of that case being resolved yet.

Boeheim's fans will understandably focus on Syracuse's 2003 NCAA title and nearly five decades of sustained on court success, but there are other aspects of Boeheim's career and life story that do not get nearly as much attention as the shortcomings exhibited by other similarly prominent figures who are regularly excoriated by media members who specialize in practicing selective outrage.

Bernie Fine Case Reveals Double Standards

As soon as the grand jury released its report about alleged pedophile Jerry Sandusky, ESPN and other media outlets essentially formed a lynch mob demanding Joe Paterno's head, a demand that the Penn State Board of Trustees eagerly met; while the media applauded the Board of Trustees' action, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office was less than impressed: spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said, "We have a cooperating witness [Paterno], an individual who testified, provided truthful testimony but two others who were found by a grand jury to commit perjury whose legal expenses are being paid for university. One is on administrative leave. Very interesting development. It's certainly curious and [has] not been explained yet. Speaking as a prosecuting agency, we have a cooperating witness who has not been charged, while two individuals accused of committing crimes continue to be affiliated."

Sandusky had not been on Coach Paterno's staff for more than a decade by the time the grand jury report came out--but Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine was literally Jim Boeheim's right hand man for the past 36 years, during which time Fine allegedly abused at least three children, including two Syracuse ball boys. While Paterno expressed sympathy for Sandusky's alleged victims and remorse that he had not been able to do more--even though the grand jury found that Paterno had not committed any wrongdoing--Boeheim called Fine's accusers money-hungry liars while sanctimoniously declaring, "I'm not Joe Paterno. Somebody didn't come and tell me Bernie Fine did something and I'm hiding it. I know nothing. If I saw some reason not to support Bernie, I would not support him. If somebody showed me a reason, proved that reason, I would not support him. But until then, I'll support him until the day I die." Boeheim certainly is "not Joe Paterno"--Paterno has a much better resume as an educator, philanthropist and coach than Boeheim does. There is also no indication that Paterno had direct knowledge of Sandusky's conduct, while at least one of Fine's accusers states that Boeheim saw him staying in Fine's hotel room on the road (it is unusual for ball boys to travel with a team, let alone stay in the same hotel room with an assistant coach).

After the evidence against Fine piled up--including a tape of Fine's wife admitting that she knew about Fine's conduct--Syracuse fired Fine on Sunday and Boeheim went into a full backpedal, apologizing for attacking the integrity of Fine's accusers and stating that victims of abuse should not hesitate to come forward. It is not yet clear exactly what Boeheim knew about Fine's alleged misconduct but Boeheim certainly was in a greater position to know about what Fine was doing--and had a greater responsibility to keep tabs on his right hand man--than Paterno was in position to know about the actions of someone who had not been on his staff for more than 10 years. I am not saying that Boeheim should be fired but at the very least he should be formally reprimanded for the irresponsible comments he made right after the Fine investigation became publicized; obviously, if any evidence comes to light that Boeheim in any way covered up for Fine then Boeheim should be fired (I have the same opinion about Paterno--the reason I object to his firing is that Paterno was fired without any evidence that he did anything wrong).

Meanwhile, the same ESPN that littered the airwaves with high-minded commentary about Paterno's supposed moral failings suppressed for nearly a decade the tape that Fine accuser Bobby Davis made of Fine's wife admitting knowledge of Fine's homosexual/pedophilic proclivities and activities. Why didn't ESPN turn that tape over to the authorities? How many children did Fine abuse after ESPN had reason to believe that he is a sexual predator? ESPN and other media outlets insisted that Paterno deserved to be immediately fired even though a grand jury found that he committed no wrongdoing and had no knowledge of Sandusky's conduct; applying that reasoning, how many ESPN executives and reporters should be immediately fired for not alerting the police about the Davis tape?

Ernie Davis' Triumph Over Racism Needs No Embellishment

Ernie Davis' death from cancer at the age of 23 is first and foremost a human tragedy; looking beyond the loss that his family and friends suffered, NFL fans will always wonder what he might have accomplished had he lived long enough to play for the Cleveland Browns. Davis led Syracuse to a national championship in 1959 and two years later he became the first black athlete to win the Heisman Trophy, a remarkable cultural shift just five years after his Syracuse predecessor--Jim Brown--was snubbed for that honor due to the color of his skin; in protest of that travesty, Dick Schaap resigned as a Heisman Trophy voter.

"The Express"--which opened in theaters today--tells Davis' life story. We all know that any Hollywood movie that is not expressly labeled as a documentary--and even some movies that are called documentaries--will take some poetic/dramatic license, because real life is just deemed to be too boring. Jeff Merron, who writes for Page 2 at ESPN.com, compared Davis' real life to the "reel life" that is depicted in "The Express." In general, "The Express" is an accurate portrayal of Davis' life and times but the movie's depiction of when Davis' Syracuse team played West Virginia appears to be distorted in several ways. "Express" forcefully contends that the referees and the hostile crowd would not tolerate Davis scoring a touchdown but, as Merron notes, the reality is that the only time Davis faced West Virginia--in 1960--he gained 125 yards on 14 carries and scored two touchdowns. "The Express" portrays the West Virginia fans as boisterously hostile and racist but there is no evidence that the foul behavior depicted in the movie actually happened during that game. In fact, Dick Easterly--Syracuse's quarterback at that time--recently refuted the movie's account of those events: "I apologize to the people of West Virginia because that did not happen. The scene is completely fictitious."

This kind of historical revisionism is a lot different than making some minor alterations to a script to heighten drama. Davis and other black athletes in that era faced plenty of real life racism, so it is doubly wrong to smear the reputations of people who did not mistreat him: such a lie not only harms innocent people but it lets the real racists off scot-free. There is no need to make up hateful things that did not happen and it would be infinitely better to forcefully portray the people who really were racists--and call them (and/or their schools) out by name. "Express" did exactly that in its accurate account of the despicable treatment that Davis received in the 1960 Cotton Bowl and in several other games--but adding something to the mix that did not happen weakens the film instead of strengthening it.