HOUSTON–Syracuse Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim should be enjoying the moment. He should be taking a victory lap for coaching his 10th-seeded Orange to the NCAA Final Four.
Instead, he still is nursing the scars after being suspended for nine games this season, having 106 wins wiped off his resume when ineligible players played the losing eight scholarships over four for a list of infractions over a 10-year period that caused the university to self-impose a postseason ban last year and the NCAA to put the program on five years probation. For the record, Syracuse’s violations included Boeheim failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff, impermissible benefits for two players and failure to follow it’s own drug testing policy.
The 71-year old Boeheim has publicly argued the unfairness of the sanctions for months.
He took the stand again here this week prior to his team’s national semifinal game against Atlantic Coast Conference rival North Carolina here Saturday at NRG Stadium to testify in his own defense, railing against a punishment he can no longer fight.
“I thought the words of one of the ex-members of the committee on infractions the other day were good,” he said. “I thought they’re not trying to punish, cripple you, they’re giving you a punishment. If it hurts you, it hurts you. That’s life. I was surprised to read this. They’re not trying to intentionally do that I’m not sure that’s true, but that’s what he said..
“I think the punishments are real. Losing scholarships is never a good thing. You need guys. We may only play eight or nine guys, but we usually have 12 or 13 and try to figure out who. It’s a guessing game in recruiting.
“I think being out nine games is a severe punishment for a coach. If you don’t think that you just don’t know it, you haven;t been through it. “Losing the games is the most irritating thing for me because there’s many situations and past cases where similar things, exact same things happen, and game were not taken away. We presented all that stuff. But you know nobody listened. But that was the thing that bothered me the most.”’
It couldn’t have been worse. Syracuse was able to negotiate with the NCAA to keep its 2003 national championship banner and its 2013 Final Four appearance. NCAA president Mark Emmert said the current players deserved to be here after self imposing a post season ban last season.
But that is a small consolation.
“Things can happen in your program,” Boeheim claimed. “You have to take responsibility for them. You have to go on.
“I’ve coached for 40 years. Yeah, you know, that’s something I regret. I’m not happy about. I don’t think we gained any competitive advantage at any time in this whole case that we’ve been through for 10 years. I think it’s weighed on us for 10 years and affected recruiting for 10 years. That’s part of the punishment.
“I think if something happens that you’re not aware of, it doesn’t really affect the recruit. I don’t look at it the same way. It’s a violation. I think when rules are violated, there should be a punishment. You can always disagree with how an interpretation is made by a committee that’s different from this case over, there. That’s one of the problems. It’s an imperfect system.”
Boeheim is the constant protagonist. In his mind, even if rules were broken, no cheating occurred.
Facts paint a different story. This program has been was surrounded by a cloud. Two former athletic employee helping a a men’s basketball player prepare a paper to submit in a course he already passed in an effort to improve his grade and restore his eligibility. A part-time YMCA employee who qualified as a booster handed out $8,335 to five former basketball and football players for helping out in the guy. The university admitted its own drug testing program was not followed with respect to student-athletes who tested positive for use of marijuana.
It is hard to say whether Boeheim or his assistants were knowingly complicit in any of these activities. But the buck has to stop somewhere.
“Coaches need to be responsible for what goes on in their program,” Emmert said. “Whether they have knowledge or hot they need to have accountabioity. The best penalty is to remove them from the games.”
Boeheim’s definition of cheating does not square with that of Emmert, who fell back on the Committee of Infractions decision, disputing the coach’s contentions, “When those folks looked at the facts, they reached the conclusion that, indeed violations of our rules and bylaws had occurred and imposed sanctions that were consistent with their view and that behavior,” Emmert said. “I’ll let coach Boeheim define that how he wants to. But the committee determined these are clear violations of the rules and that, therefore, it warranted some pretty significant sanctions and they were imposed. It’s the closest thing you’re going to see to a jury or your peers. model for as broad an association as this one that included a wide collection of institutions and members. I have complete confidence what that body did in this case.”
Boeheim has two more years left before he must walk away, according to a university mandate in this case. But he will continue to do it his way, much like Sinatra. It doesn’t brother him if he doesn’t get he most likes on Facebook, like many coaches. He is a generational coach who has taken Syracuse to five Final Fours in different decades. At this point, he doesn’t need approval of anyone including Emmert and relishes in the idea of being contrary.
Related Topics
Dick Weiss is a sportswriter and columnist who has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Daily News. He has received the Curt Gowdy Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and is a member of the national Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He has also co-written several books with Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Dick Vitale and authored a tribute book on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
