Jim Boeheim Press Conference: Bernie Fine Apology Should Be Enough to Retain Job

Admitting that you may have been wrong by apologizing is the first step in attempting to clean up any sort of wrongdoing. You see it in marriages and with athletes who made mistakes and in everyday life. However, child molestation is something completely different.

But, for Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, his apology about the Bernie Fine allegations should be enough to keep his job.

Boeheim wasn’t the one who touched innocent children inappropriately. And we don’t have full proof that he saw the ball boy inside of Fine’s hotel room.

Did Boeheim act the way he should have when this incident was surfaced?

Absolutely not.

It was atrocious to listen to him pawn those possible victims as something they weren’t.

However, as of now, aside from his words not sounding sincere, Boeheim hasn’t done anything wrong—YET. We still don’t know the full story, but as of now, he is clean.

I’m not condoning what Boeheim did or didn’t do, because I feel that he had to know something was going down “under his watch” at his university. But, we don’t know exactly what he saw, if anything.

Legally he is clean, but morally not so much. This is completely different than Penn State, where it seemed like there were several people that didn’t report an act that was seen on campus. Boeheim never saw this take place. However, there will still be people who say he should have acted differently. 

I’ll say this: If you are into body language and the way people react then you would think that Boeheim is telling the truth.

He acted on feelings when the story broke and defended his longtime friend. He probably wouldn’t have defended him if he didn’t believe he was innocent. I think that’s a fair assumption.

But then again, we have seen programs go to heavy extremes to defend their “family” this year. As a person that is truly sickened by this situation, I hope that Boeheim knew nothing.

As for now, a poor choice of wordage shouldn’t be equaled to a pink slip. He hasn’t done enough to get fired.

Apologizing is the first step. Let’s see how he follows it up.