Jim Boeheim Must Stay and Rebuild After Violations Tarnish Legacy at Syracuse

The NCAA didn't strip Syracuse's Jim Boeheim of his only NCAA championship. However, it did cast a considerable pall on much of his legacy in a 94-page release Friday that will punish the longtime coach with missed games, scholarship reductions and a stream of hefty misconduct charges.

The lengthy report details a slew of Syracuse violations and shortcomings over a 10-year period that puts the short-term future of the Orange basketball program in peril. Boeheim is being suspended for nine ACC games next year, and don’t forget about the vacated wins, as the often mysterious hand of the NCAA took Syracuse by the collar and grounded it.

The real torture of Friday's lengthy manuscript for Boeheim, and his legion of fans, starts on Page 3 about halfway down.

“The head men’s basketball coach began his tenure at the institution in 1962, when he walked on to the basketball team.” That’s how the “Syracuse University Public Infractions Decision” starts two long biographic paragraphs of his beginnings in a relatively isolated burg in upstate New York, which over almost 40 years he transformed into a college basketball superpower.

This is an often prickly man, but also a highly respected and loyal one. This is not a man who can be found to be regularly holding his school hostage with contract demands and flirtations from other programs. He is an advocate for children, their welfare and a cancer survivor himself.

Boeheim has never given any inclination he wanted to leave, and that’s saying something because Syracuse is perched halfway between Buffalo and Albany—neither a wintertime haven nor a basketball hotbed.

Of all people, in all places. With the lengthy list of improprieties—from extra benefits, academic issues, problems with boosters and also a blind eye turned to drug testing—Boeheim seemingly lit fire to his own house that he built with his own hands.

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

This is not to say Boeheim is alone with big issues.

The health and welfare of college basketball extends way beyond a nationwide epidemic of lousy offense. More sinister problems are at play, and the fact is we’re seeing it with the best of the ACC right now—Syracuse is joined by Duke's Rasheed Sulaimon, who was dismissed from the team last month amid current sexual assault allegations, and academic dishonesty at North Carolina. Another top program, Kansas, has freshman Cliff Alexander sitting out because of an NCAA investigation.

Boeheim released a statement Friday evening in which he placed a lot of the blame on an old employee.

But unlike his famous zone defense, isn't he going to have to man-up and own this one beyond this blame-dodging statement?

He’s going to have to do a more honorable job than the school did when it proclaimed its own punishment to be skipping a postseason bid—when it was unlikely to even make the NCAA tournament.

Syracuse tried dusting off the concerns quickly, and now the NCAA has swatted that attempt like Hakim Warrick did to Kansas’ Michael Lee in the crowning-jewel moment of Boeheim’s career 12 years ago, his 2003 national championship.

Chancellor Kent Syverud stated Friday upon the NCAA’s decision that Syracuse is “considering whether it will appeal certain portions of the decision” and that it would support its head coach since 1976 in fighting “portions that impact him personally.”

That comes down to the vacated wins, of course. Right now the verdict is for Boeheim to lose 108 of them. That would immediately drop him from second to sixth on the all-time wins list and push him back to 142 away from joining Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski at the 1,000 mark.

Mike Krzyzewski, Duke	1,010
Bob Knight, Indiana/Texas Tech	902
Dean Smith, North Carolina	879
Adolph Rupp, Kentucky	876
Jim Calhoun, UConn/Northeastern	873
Jim Boeheim, Syracuse	858

Boeheim needs to give every effort to that chase, but not necessarily to reverse a ruling for the sake of a somewhat inane number (would we really think any less of his stellar career if he finished with say, 994?).

Fight the good fight. Not because the win total means so much, but the longevity would give him a chance to right where he has wronged and fix a messy situation at a place you know he loves.

Rebuild his house.

The truth is, skepticism has always abounded about Syracuse to a degree. Not because of Boeheim’s talents, but simply because it’s amazing that it’s on the map of the college basketball landscape in the first place.

It is a gorgeous campus with plenty of fine merits and the massive Carrier Dome tucked in the middle. But that’s a football-first venue which, for basketball games, often makes it a better experience by sitting further away from the action. It’s not exactly Allen Fieldhouse or Cameron Indoor Stadium.

How isolated is Syracuse?

If you’re signed up to Groupon in the region, there are deals for discounted NCAA tournament tickets when the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds visit in late March.

Boeheim has built an incredible winner in a challenging area. He is a master—that zone defense tells it all. No one else in the country dares to emulate him.

He is also flawed. This is the second time the NCAA has called him out, and this just-released verdict has been in the works a while. There will be harsh critics in Boeheim's favor, and the often clumsy NCAA deserves every one of them. But there are issues at Syracuse, too, and Boeheim at worst being complicit in those issues, and at best being ignorant to them, isn't a clean enough answer. 

This strikes of what we’ve seen countless times in recent years: success and power, minimal checks and balances. It stinks of just trying to win, or perhaps more succinctly—trying to maintain.

At Syracuse, that’s tougher than a lot of places to do. Now, even more so.

His task has become heftier and more critical than a grand farewell, getting back to the postseason or reaching 1,000 wins. The upcoming challenge is bigger than building on his old, impressive numbers.

Boeheim can’t just leave his home. He is 70 years old and to a large extent he’s going to have to start over in the rubble.