Jim Boeheim's Loyalty to Bernie Fine Has a Tint of Joe Paterno-Esque Ignorance

With Joe Paterno becoming the precedent for how not to handle a possible accusation of sexual abuse amongst a college sports team, Jim Boeheim is the perfect example of how not to handle these accusations with the media.

When the latest sexual abuse scandal rocked the University of Syracuse’s basketball program, head coach Boeheim came out immediately and talked about how Bernie Fine did nothing wrong.

Days later, Fine was fired, and Boeheim’s seat is as hot as you could ever imagine.

While a postgame press conference was used yesterday by Boeheim to address the issues and apologize for his rush to judgment, the damage is already done.

The Syracuse Orange need to fire their embattled head coach, no matter how hard life without him is to imagine.

In a world without much real loyalty left, Boeheim was standing up for his friend of 50 years, Bernie Fine. It was that same blind commitment that allowed Joe Paterno’s allegiances to cloud his judgment when it came to calling the police.

Not only did the Orange head basketball coach embarrass himself by coming out and denouncing the accusers, he made the whole university look foolish. With more evidence coming out now that Syracuse knew about the allegations in 2003 but couldn’t verify them, it puts Boeheim in a position of receiving allegations and essentially ignoring them.

Ignorance is not an excuse for anything in this world anymore, so using it to shield himself from possible termination should not be acceptable.

Syracuse has to think about itself moving forward. Just like Penn State, they need to clear house of the basketball coaching staff and start anew. While that’s a good start, if the AD and other members of the Orange power structure knew of the previous allegations before the most recent batch of accusers came forward, they need to be fired as well.

Just like Joe Paterno had his reign of excellence brought to an end by the University he helped build, Boeheim must face the same fate.

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