People close to Syracuse basketball have no trouble putting into words what Jim Boeheim means to the program.

In fact, there was one all-encompassing word that did the job. Scoop Jardine, Bernie Fine, Dave Bing, Roosevelt Bouie, Leo Rautins and more all picked that single word to sum up Boeheim’s place in Orange basketball lore.

When it comes to SU basketball, Boeheim is simply:

‘Everything,’ Rautins said. ‘A lot of people don’t realize that Jim Boeheim bleeds orange. This isn’t just a job, this is a passion. It’s a lifelong experience. There are very, very few coaches in the history of the game that have had the type of experience he’s had.’

Since the Orange’s legendary head coach came to Syracuse as a freshman walk-on to the basketball team in 1962, he has only been away from the program for three seasons.

After graduating, he played professionally for the Scranton Miners of the Eastern Professional Basketball League. Three years later, he came back to SU to coach while playing for the Miners on the weekends. Roy Danforth, the SU head coach from 1968 to 1976, appointed him a graduate assistant in 1969. And when Danforth left for Tulane seven years later, Boeheim took over the program.

Thirty-five years down the road, the coach ranks fifth all-time in Division-I history with 856 career wins. He also leads Big East coaches with 338 regular-season conference wins and has taken SU to three Final Fours, including 2003, when Syracuse won its lone national championship.

But questions now arise at the end of every season about how much longer Boeheim will coach. He turns 67 this month and has accumulated plenty of accolades throughout his career. Some speculate that his departure will come shortly after the Orange leaves the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Others believe that change could provide a new challenge that will ignite Boeheim’s competitive nature, and, ultimately, make him coach longer than he planned.

Those close to him feel it will take a loss of his competitive edge or his passion for the game to finally call it quits.

And as for the man who has been a part of Syracuse basketball for the last 50 years, that decision to come back has always been an easy one.

‘I’ve never really gotten to that point,’ Boeheim said. ‘I don’t know when that point will be. I’m pretty open-minded at the end of every year. I look at it and think what’s going on and think about what I want to do. It’s never been close. I’ve never come close to thinking I wouldn’t come back.’

The story begins

It’s possible 1962 is the most important year in the history of Syracuse basketball.

At that point, the Orangemen had one NCAA Tournament berth on their resume. They went a combined 6-41 the previous two seasons, resulting in Fred Lewis replacing Marc Guiley as head coach.

But in 1962, two of the most important people in SU basketball history joined the program. The first was Dave Bing, the Washington, D.C., native who would go on to have one of the most illustrious careers in Syracuse history.

The second was Boeheim, an unknown walk-on from just an hour’s drive away in Lyons, N.Y.

‘Syracuse was starting to rebuild,’ Boeheim said thinking back. ‘They had hired a new coach. They had not had much success in basketball and were rebuilding. I thought that Syracuse was going to be an up-and-coming program, and I wanted to be a part of it.’

And he did so, despite lacking the typical basketball player’s physique.

Bing’s first impression of Boeheim was that he was a gangly, 6-foot-4 guy with glasses who looked nothing like an athlete. But when the two played together on the freshman team, it became clear that not only could Boeheim shoot, but he also always found a way to get open. Bing learned quickly that when defenses collapsed on him, Boeheim would be waiting in the open area and could knock down the shot.

That formula on the court carried over for the next three years on the varsity team. And off the court, the two became close friends and roommates. Syracuse went 52-24 during its three years, and they led Syracuse to its second NCAA Tournament berth as seniors.

Bing scored 24.7 points per game through his three years, which remains the highest career average in Orange history. Boeheim’s scoring rose each of his three years on varsity, culminating in a senior season in which he averaged 14.6 points per game.

‘He was a very smart player, which really helped him,’ said SU assistant coach Bernie Fine, who was a student manager when Bing and Boeheim were sophomores. ‘He played with Dave Bing and utilized Dave’s strengths. He got open and just knew how to play.’

Many of Boeheim’s players believe it’s that knowledge of the game that separates him from other coaches. And although Boeheim said he would have liked to continue playing professionally, when that dream came to an end, he couldn’t let go of the game. He turned to coaching and returned to his alma mater.

But in Bing’s mind, Boeheim had been coaching years before he was ever hired at SU.

‘He thought he was a coach as a freshman or sophomore,’ Bing said. ‘Four years there, I think he felt he knew more than the coaches. It culminated into an unbelievable coaching career.’

Consistency

Roosevelt Bouie needed a father figure to be his college basketball coach. He had only been playing basketball for four years and knew he didn’t have a great understanding of the game. He knew he needed someone that could explain the game without screaming and yelling about every little mistake.

Enter Boeheim.

‘When I did something he wanted me to during the game,’ Bouie said, ‘he’d come right over to me and say, ‘OK, just like that. That’s the way I want you to do it.’ And that’s when it was still fresh in my mind, so I knew exactly what he wanted from me after that.’

Bouie was part of Boeheim’s first recruiting class at SU. The head coach didn’t have his Hall of Fame credentials back then, and Syracuse wasn’t a storied program in 1976.

But Boeheim didn’t need all that to draw in talent. His knowledge of the game and his confident demeanor attracted recruits. Bouie and Louis Orr came to SU in Boeheim’s first year and led the Orangemen to a 100-18 record in the head coach’s first four seasons at the helm.

That was just the beginning of arguably the most consistent coaching career in Division-I history. SU has won at least 20 games in 33 of Boeheim’s 35 years as head coach. He has led the Orange to 28 NCAA Tournament berths. He has never gone more than two seasons without taking a team to the Big Dance.

‘I think the biggest thing is his consistency,’ SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins said. ‘He’s the same guy when I came here in 1989. The consistency really builds consistency with your teams. They usually take on the attitude or the personality of the coach, and you see that year in and year out with this team.’

Although his older players said Boeheim is more laid-back now than the coach who once sprained his ankle jumping around to argue a goaltending call, they point out the same attitudes and coaching styles his current team talks about now.

Both his current and former players cite that brilliant basketball mind Boeheim showed as a freshman walk-on. They see him as a father figure now, just like Bouie did when the coach first started. And both groups spoke similarly about the way Boeheim develops his players.

From Bouie and Rautins to current Orange seniors Scoop Jardine and Kris Joseph, Boeheim has used the same approach. He tells his players at the end of the year what they need to do to get better. After that, it’s up to the player to make it happen.

‘He treats us like men,’ Joseph said. ‘He’s not going to babysit us. He’s not going to force us to do something. He’ll tell us, and it’s up to us to make the decision if we’re going to do it or not.’

And that strategy has paid off for many of Boeheim’s players.

In Joseph’s case, for example, Boeheim told the small forward after his freshman year that he needed to get in better shape and build some muscle. Joseph did that and went from averaging 3.4 points per game to earning the Big East Sixth Man of the Year award as a sophomore. After that, the coach told Joseph to work on his jump shot. Joseph did, and the forward’s scoring increased another four points per game last season.

‘Coach looks out for the best of every player,’ Joseph said. ‘He wants to get the best out of every player that he coaches from the walk-ons to the star guys on the team. He does the right thing. Anything he says goes.’

Nearing the end?

Boeheim started off the season at Syracuse’s annual media day with some of the sarcasm Syracuse fans have become so accustomed to from their head coach.

‘You never know when it’s going to be the last time, so I can’t tell you just how much I look forward to this,’ Boeheim said before pausing to prepare everyone for the sarcastic punch line. ‘If it’s the last time, I’d really be happy.’

Jardine thinks the last time will come in about five years. Bouie said he couldn’t fathom the idea of Boeheim and retirement in the same sentence.

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, who served as an assistant under Boeheim for two years, thinks it will come a couple of years after Syracuse joins the ACC. Hopkins, who Boeheim said is next in line once he does retire, thinks that switch will make Boeheim’s career last even longer because he’ll see it as a new challenge.

Boeheim himself said he doesn’t know when he will retire.

But Bing, who is still close with the Orange head coach, is surprised each year Boeheim comes back. Three years ago, Bing said Boeheim told him he had a transition plan in place. But there was no detail provided about how long that transition would take.

‘I don’t know how soon, but I think in the back of his mind, he’s got a time frame,’ Bing said. ‘I haven’t pressed that. As long as he’s enjoying what he’s doing and having the kind of success that he’s having, then I’m hopeful that he’ll keep doing what he’s doing because it’s great for the school.’

Boeheim said the transition plan was just a reference to Hopkins taking the reigns, not a specific timetable for his retirement. But whenever it does come, a strange new chapter of Orange basketball will begin — one that differs from the last half-century.

In that time, as a player, assistant coach and head coach, Boeheim has become Syracuse basketball.

And he still will be, for at least one more year.

‘He means everything to the basketball program,’ Bing said. ‘And then you expand that beyond basketball to the school and beyond that to Upstate New York and the Big East and the East Coast. I’m not sure there are any coaches that have more respect than him. When you put it all together, he’s had one hell of a career, and once again, it’s not over yet.’

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Published on November 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm