Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991 TAG: 9103150093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: COLLEGE PARK, MD. LENGTH: Medium
And there, splashed all over the cover of The National, over the heading "John Feinstein rates the coaches," was his picture.
"Jim Boeheim, Syracuse, the worst bench coach [in the NCAA Tournament]."
Without rancor, Boeheim had said to Feinstein the day before after being told the article was coming, "I'm just disappointed. I thought you knew more hoops than that."
Poor Boeheim. He has won 370 games and lost just 113 in 15 years with the Orange, which is almost 25 victories per year, and he gets no respect.
Every year the Orange is rated highly, but it has won the Big East Conference Tournament only once, and in its lone Final Four appearance, it lost the title to Indiana when Derrick Coleman missed a free throw and Keith Smart didn't miss a jumper.
But Syracuse - not Georgetown - is the Big East's flagship program, and there is trouble brewing in basketball heaven.
His record notwithstanding, Boeheim is no cinch to be around in the future. There have been ugly reports, and although he denies most of the accusations, he candidly confesses rules have been broken.
"They brought in five lawyers and spent $800,000 on the investigation and they're going to find some things," said Boeheim, who insists most of what appeared in a Syracuse newspaper series was false. "About 20 percent of it was right."
Wilfred Kirkaldy, a recruit then playing for Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, has been charged with sexual assault. Boeheim, who says Kirkaldy is a good kid, insists, "If he wasn't a basketball player, this would never go to court. But they're afraid to drop the charges because of the newspaper."
The team's second-best player, David Johnson, is alleged to have had sex with a 14-year-old while living off-campus, free of charge, with a booster.
Boeheim dismisses the most serious charge, that a grade was changed for Rodney Walker, who later transferred to Maryland and rarely played.
"Yes, a grade was changed," he said. "The teacher did it because some work was made up. They [the newspaper] could have found that out with one phone call."
Another former Syracuse player, Tony Scott, transferred to Texas A&M in a move that is going to cost Aggies coach Kermit Davis his job.
"They [NCAA] talked to Scott for six hours and they got nothing [on Syracuse], and then they talked to him for 30 minutes about Texas A&M and got 10 major violations."
Boeheim said he talked to Matt Roe, who left Syracuse to play his senior year for Maryland, and "he told them there weren't any problems."
Boeheim said the Syracuse writers talked with five malcontents who had left the program.
"A guy wrote that I didn't care, that I didn't know how the players were doing academically. He never called me. I know every class the players take, every grade they make," he said.
Boeheim said it bothered him that the boosters have taken a big hit. The school has disassociated itself from the president, who was the person who provided Johnson with illegal lodging.
"Almost all of our boosters are guys who make less than $30,000. They love Syracuse basketball. If they've done anything wrong, it was just little things, like a free meal or a summer job. There were no handouts," the coach said.
Stop me if you've heard this before, but Boeheim insists, "Go into any program in the country, any of them, and let them be investigated the way we were, and they'll find something."
But it wasn't just any program under scrutiny. It was Syracuse, where they average 30,000 fans in the Carrier Dome and there is no other show in town.
Syracuse is as big as it gets, and if Boeheim doesn't get any respect because he whines and he squints over his glasses and he's lost some big games, he is, by his own assessment, "One of the better coaches."
And, for now, one of the more troubled. This may be another big game Jim Boeheim loses.
by CNB