Sometimes, when Doug Marrone is alone and the burden of resurrection isn’t clouding his brain, the memories rush back.

He’ll be walking out of his Manley Field House office toward practice when the feeling washes over him, he says, the sensory collision of his past as a Syracuse football player and his present as the team’s new head coach. He will stop and close his eyes. Sights, sounds and scenes will flash before him.

‘It’s almost dej vu,’ Marrone said. ‘You know what I’m saying? ‘Whoa, wait a minute.’ But it’s not dej vu. Because I have been here before.’

He joins an athletic department filled with others who have also been here before. Marrone’s hiring last December means six Syracuse head coaches are also alumni, more than any other school in the Big East. Gary Gait returned to coach the women’s lacrosse team before last year. The other four alumni head coaches form the backbone of the athletic department, a group immersed in the school’s traditions. Together, they combine for 94 years of head coaching experience:

Jim Boeheim (class of 1966), men’s basketball: 33 years.

Lou Walker (class of 1975), men’s and women’s swimming and diving: 33 years.

Dean Foti (class of 1983), men’s soccer: 18 years.

John Desko (class of 1979), men’s lacrosse: 10 years (and 19 as an assistant).

There is no established reason why these men have stayed or why the newer coaches joined the department. Interviews with coaches, Syracuse officials and others close to the athletic department create a mosaic of answers: Marrone returned to repay his debt. A fresh challenge excited Gait. Some returned because of convenient timing. Some stayed because of loyalty. Some stayed because of success. They stayed because of comfort. Their institutional memory fortifies their coaching. It invigorates their daily tasks and provides a deeper understanding of the school and its history.

‘You can draw on what it was like when you were an athlete here,’ Gait said. ‘As a student and an athlete, you can draw on those experiences. And that definitely makes a difference coaching here than at any other school.’

Inspired by their elders, they became coaches. They now look to uphold the legacy of men like Dick MacPherson and Roy Simmons Jr., the head coaches who shaped them.

‘We all played for coaches who coached here and had success,’ Foti said. ‘And as a result, you’re sort of asked to stay on and try to continue that tradition.’

Foti started on the Syracuse men’s soccer team from 1979-82. He was a two-year captain. He spent a year as a graduate assistant. When the Syracuse job opened before the 1991 season, he was coaching at Maryland. Foti drafted a cover letter and mailed his application. He’s been home ever since.

Like most longstanding coaches, Foti understands the school’s terrain. He remembers certain professors. A player might complain to him about a class like Biology 121. Foti will offer little sympathy. Oh, you have Marvin Druger? he will ask. I took that class. I got a B. So quit whining.

‘You can imagine how those connections build,’ Foti said. ‘Not just here at the university, but in the town itself, in the neighboring businesses. I mean, it’s just a whole community. It’s just a familiar spot and a familiar place for you.’

Foti has lost more than he has won. Still, he stays, even after the 2004 arrival of Daryl Gross as athletic director. In five years, Gross has hired 10 new coaches. Two of those are alumni: Gait and Marrone.

Gait electrified Carrier Dome crowds when he played here. Marrone preached Syracuse-inspired sermons when he applied to replace Greg Robinson. Those qualities enhanced their profiles: Gait, a winner of seven consecutive national titles as an assistant at Maryland, Marrone a successful NFL offensive coordinator.

‘It added to the picture,’ said Gross, a UC-Davis alumnus. ‘It wasn’t a requirement. But it was an advantage at the end of the day. Because they know the plan.’

The plan calls for on-field success, something two alumni head coaches have enjoyed for decades. Jim Boeheim and John Desko, Gross said, ‘you put those two in their own category.’

Like Foti, both grew up in Central New York. Boeheim went to Lyons Central High. Desko went to West Genesee. Both bided their time in the coaching shadows, learning the ropes and preparing to lead.

Desko toiled as Roy Simmons Jr.’s assistant for 19 years. He worked for little pay. He ran summer lacrosse camps to scrape up some extra cash. Schools reached out to him, asked him to leave, maybe for some place where the sun shined before April. No chance.

‘I liked it here,’ Desko said. ‘I’m from this area. I’m very familiar with the university.’

He added, ‘And some of the opportunities, I’m not quite sure that it would have been the best situation for me.’

So he waited. His salary rose, Desko said, so it was comparable to some head coaching jobs. When Simmons stepped down in 1998, he hand-picked Desko to succeed him.

‘He’s been loyal,’ Simmons said. ‘He’s faithful and good at what he does. He’s family. He’s from here. He’s raised a family here. He has no reason to leave.’

Desko now holds four national titles of his own, in addition to the six from his days as an assistant. The trophy wing inside Manley Field House continues to expand. He stashes runner-up trophies in his office. His assistants, meanwhile, form an Orange cocoon: All three graduated from Syracuse. One is Simmons’ son, Roy III. Desko coaches his own son, Tim. He coaches sons of his former teammates and sons of his former players.

One day last month, Desko sat in his office and talked about his life as an Orangeman. Game film rolled on a flat-screen television in front of him. He tilted back in his office chair, with trophies scattered around him. ‘You know,’ he said at one point, ‘I’m really spoiled.’ He coaches a sport beloved by Central New Yorkers. Kids around here dream about playing for him. He knows the town: He went to high school with Mayor Matt Driscoll.

‘There’s a certain amount of pride,’ Desko said, ‘being so involved in the community and with the university of the town that you’re from.’

During the week, Desko sometimes chats with Boeheim. They share office space on the second floor at Manley. Boeheim attends most home lacrosse games. He sits in a private box, sips soda and watches Desko work.

Boeheim could have left, too. He had offers. Ohio State whispered in his ear in 1986. Other opportunities came and went. Boeheim dismissed them. (Through his secretary, he declined to comment for this story).

At one point, former director of athletics Jake Crouthamel heard ‘through the grapevine’ that Boeheim turned down a professional head coaching job. ‘That’s when I knew he was staying,’ said Crouthamel, a Dartmouth graduate. He said he never talked to Boeheim about it. Never thanked him for staying. Why bother?

‘He didn’t need me to say that,’ Crouthamel said. ‘I don’t think he wanted me to say that. It’s his alma mater. He’s making the calls. Professionally and in basketball.’

Yes, Boeheim endures. The university changes, and he stays the same. He’s still at Syracuse, despite his initial reticence to leave the hotbox of Manley Field House for the cavernous Carrier Dome in 1980. Despite the heartbreaking championship game loss in 1987. Despite the embarrassment of the NCAA investigation in the early 1990s.

Since then, he’s won a national title, battled cancer, coached at the Olympics. And he comes back every year to stalk the sidelines and win games. On opening night next year, Boeheim will almost certainly win No. 800. The Carrier Dome will be packed to the rafters, all to salute the undertaker’s son who arrived in Syracuse as an undergraduate in 1962. Save for a stint in the American Basketball League, he never left.

‘He’s a Syracuse loyalist,’ said David Bennett, a Syracuse alum and professor here since 1961. Bennett was a member of the four-person search committee created in 1976 to find then-coach Roy Danforth’s replacement. After they chose Boeheim, Bennett drove him to meet then-chancellor Melvin Eggers. ‘One of the things I admire about Jim is that he has deep institutional memory and institutional loyalty,’ he said. ‘It’s a very rare thing now in higher education. It’s a rare thing in America, in a world society where people are highly mobile.’

Like Desko, Boeheim has surrounded himself with Syracuse people. In 1976, he hired Bernie Fine, a former student manager, to be an assistant. Fine still serves at Boeheim’s side. Their former shooting guard, Mike Hopkins, also works as his assistant. Like Desko once did, Hopkins waits in the wings. He’s coached at SU for 14 years. He can look to Boeheim for guidance.

‘He cares a great deal about this institution,’ Bennett said about Boeheim. ‘And I think probably about the community, too. You can see that. And it shows. He’s a quintessential Syracusan.’

Newcomers like Gait and Marrone now search for that same excellence. They have the benefit of experience, from the strategic to the mundane. They understand how to recruit for this area, how to catch a bus to Skytop, how to brave feet of lake-effect snow.

And there’s an added bonus. Moments like this:

One day this year, Marrone walked into Varsity Pizza near Marshall Street. He placed his order and sat down. He had a break from the stress of rebuilding Syracuse football. A chance to visit his old turf.

‘Doug, your wings are ready!’ the man behind the counter called out. Marrone thought he looked familiar. Looked like the man who served him back in the ’80s. He went up and introduced himself: He was right, the man was the same. Marrone picked up his plate and walked back to his table.

‘It’s those things,’ Marrone said, ‘that are special.’

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Published on May 1, 2009 at 12:00 pm