Bernie Fine Fired: Will Jim Boeheim's Legacy Be Affected by Sex Scandal?

After another accuser has gone to the police, former assistant basketball coach at Syracuse, Bernie Fine, has been fired by the university. That being said, the focus will shift slightly to Boeheim at this point after he strongly defended his now former assistant coach amid the allegations of sexual abuse becoming public knowledge.

It begs the question: Will this hurt Boeheim's legacy?

Let's look at this objectively. At this moment, we have no knowledge that Boeheim knows anymore than what we all did before another accuser came to light. His defense of Fine comes from the fact that investigations were done looking into these allegations years back and nothing was ever found.

So Boeheim wasn't necessarily wrong to defend his coach, he just could have done it a better way.

He did call Fine's accusers liars and did so harshly in my opinion. Boeheim would've been better off sticking to what he knew and what he knew was that those previous investigations had fallen flat.

He should've stuck to that, saying all I know are that previous allegations that were investigated didn't come up with any facts proving otherwise, so I support my assistant coach.

That's it, that simple.

Instead, he used the word "liar" when describing Fine's accusers which was much too strong at the time.

Despite all that, unless it can be proved that Boeheim had some knowledge of what was going on with his assistant, much like Joe Paterno at Penn State, this should not harm his legacy. The only information was that of the investigations that found no wrongdoing.

There is no evidence of any kind of a cover up in this case, at least none that connects Boeheim to one.

Boeheim has already come out and apologized for his harsh criticisms of the accusers, making right the wrongs of his strong language when he defended Fine.

The long-time Syracuse basketball head coach is one of the truly good guys in the game and has done a lot for the program. Unless other news comes to light about him, Boeheim should not go the way of Joe Paterno after the Penn State Scandal broke.

There is a long way to go and a lot of information still left to uncover, but as for now, Boeheim and his legacy are safe.

@michaelmoraitis