Jim Boeheim Is The Greatest Coach Who Never Fit The Part

[Jeremy L.]

Jim Boeheim Is the Greatest Coach Who Never Fit the Part

Lengthy read here from The Ringer.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[Frozen]

It's basically just an updated version of this piece from 1996:

IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW SYRACUSE COACH JIM BOEHEIM... ...GUESS AGAIN!

 

[Alsacs]

Titus likes Jim Boeheim.
Titus’s Top 12 NCAA Power Rankings

5. Syracuse
As a guy who made a name for himself by being a college basketball walk-on, I feel obligated to help anyone who might want to follow in my footsteps. With that in mind, as I watched Syracuse’s two blowout wins last week, I realized that the Orange are the best team in the country to join as a walk-on. The reasoning is simple. First of all, should you choose to walk on at Syracuse, you’ll be guaranteed to play for a good team because the Orange are a national title contender almost every year. This means you’ll never be asked to contribute meaningful minutes, but even more importantly you’ll have a good chance of making the Final Four, which you can put on your résumé for the rest of your life. And believe me, even if you never set foot on the court during your career, when you graduate you will claim every team accomplishment as your own.

What separates Syracuse from other perennial title contenders is Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 zone. Any former walk-on at any school can explain that his role is to essentially be a human punching bag. So if you walk on for a team that plays a lot of man-to-man defense, you’ll get stuck guarding the best player several times throughout your career. From experience, I can tell you that doing so ranks somewhere between “throwing a worse first pitch than Baba Booey” and “having a paternity dispute settled on Maury” on the list of humiliating experiences. With a 2-3 zone, though, you’re far less likely to be embarrassed because it’s much easier to pass blame on to your teammates, which is really what being a walk-on is all about.

But the most important reason why Syracuse would be best for walk-ons is that, from what I can tell, Jim Boeheim is way past caring what his players do. This is anecdotal evidence, but when I was at Ohio State, we played Syracuse in Madison Square Garden in the preseason NIT one year. Both teams stayed at the same hotel in Times Square. After getting done with film around 10 p.m. the night before the game, Coach Matta said he wanted us all to go straight up to bed. My walk-on roommate and I laughed at this suggestion and instead left to explore the city since we didn’t need to get rest just to sit on the bench the next day. Anyway, as the clock neared midnight and we walked back to the hotel, we spotted a group of Syracuse players (some of whom were starters) out on the town. What they were up to I don’t know, but I do know that there are very few college basketball coaches who would be cool with their starters walking around Times Square at midnight the night before a game. If Boeheim lets this slide with his scholarship players, you can only assume how little he cares what his walk-ons do. Translation: road trips = vacations.7

So yeah. If you’re a skilled high school basketball player who is short and unathletic, you should start figuring out whose asses you need to kiss to get a walk-on spot at Syracuse. It might be the best gig in college basketball.

 

[sutomcat]

It's basically just an updated version of this piece from 1996:

IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW SYRACUSE COACH JIM BOEHEIM... ...GUESS AGAIN!

It really does read like it was written in a time vacuum. Most discovered JB is an interesting, engaging and thoughtful person a couple of decades ago.

He is one of the most respected voices on college basketball in the country and appears on talk shows all the time, often talking about a lot more than the Syracuse program.

His attempt to understand people who live in CNY was a major failure. He probably should have picked up a phone or gotten on a plane and talked to someone before trying to write an article.

 

[Frozen]

His attempt to understand people who live in CNY was a major failure. He probably should have picked up a phone or gotten on a plane and talked to someone before trying to write an article.

On Facebook, B. Boeheim seems to not appreciate Titus writing:

" It’s not like he should get a free pass to do whatever he wants just because his dad was an a$$hole."

 

[Townie72]

It's essentially an article about nothing. It's pointless.

It reminds me of a book report written by someone who read the book jacket and skimmed the Cliff notes. And then Googled "Things people have said about JB> It's a compendium of every complaint ever made about JB by anybody.

So-called Journalism by the pound.

I'll stick with Mike K's comments from last year about JB.

 

[OttoMets]

Then write your own article, Mike.

(Way to [deliberately] miss the point, too - the author's forming his own conclusions based on Boeheim's own words, not on the reheated opinions of some beat writer.)

I thought that was a good piece. I don't agree with every characterization and find some of the writing over the top, but it rings true to me. And it's clear that Titus likes his subject. Can't imagine why Syracuse fans who actually read the article could be up in arms about it. It was uncritical and fairly perceptive.

More perceptive, I think, than a lot of local fans. We've heard half a decade of "CNYers love Scott Shafer because he's one of us" because he constantly told you so, but I've never before heard that said about Boeheim, despite 50 years of a lifestyle that cements that fact.

 

[HOFCeluck]

I feel like it's a rehash of stuff said about JB over the last twenty years with prettier writing. So I guess I ...agree...with Townie.

 

[Oráiste]

Even more than asking Mike, he could have queried some of Boeheim's peers. Associates like Pitino, friends like Krzyzewski, rivals like Calhoun will all tell you that, if anything, Boeheim is underrated.

And I, too, have read numerous books about my hometown, and this characterization of them is just untrue:

Two things stood out from my reading. First, people with ties to Syracuse can’t resist making fun of the city of Syracuse. This theme popped up in everything that I read. Syracuse is a with nothing to do and where it snows for 300 days a year, and I will never forgive my ancestors for settling in this godforsaken part of the world. The important catch here, though, is that the authors of these books always insulted their city in an endearing way, where the subtext “… but it’s my home and that’s reason enough to love it” shined through in every complaint. It also was obvious that these complaints were NOT invitations for outsiders to join them in tearing down Syracuse, which is critically important to note.​

Everything that I've read about the weather in the Snow Belt and the economic conditions in the Rust Belt are much heavier on pride than on self-deprecation. They are things that make us hardy, and they are always mentioned along with reverence for the unmistakable beauty of CNY. It doesn't surprise me t all, then, that he does not bother to reference by title any of these books and that his "quotes" from them are made up.

JB is a complicate man and his legacy is also complicated and open to debate, but the impression I get after having read the article is that the author began with his conclusion already determined and then sought out only those things that would help to confirm it. It often seems that approach is Journalism 101 these days.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Even more than asking Mike, he could have queried some of Boeheim's peers. Associates like Pitino, friends like Krzyzewski, rivals like Calhoun will all tell you that, if anything, Boeheim is underrated.

And I, too, have read numerous books about my hometown, and this characterization of them is just untrue:

Two things stood out from my reading. First, people with ties to Syracuse can’t resist making fun of the city of Syracuse. This theme popped up in everything that I read. Syracuse is a with nothing to do and where it snows for 300 days a year, and I will never forgive my ancestors for settling in this godforsaken part of the world. The important catch here, though, is that the authors of these books always insulted their city in an endearing way, where the subtext “… but it’s my home and that’s reason enough to love it” shined through in every complaint. It also was obvious that these complaints were NOT invitations for outsiders to join them in tearing down Syracuse, which is critically important to note.​

Everything that I've read about the weather in the Snow Belt and the economic conditions in the Rust Belt are much heavier on pride than on self-deprecation. They are things that make us hardy, and they are always mentioned along with reverence for the unmistakable beauty of CNY. It doesn't surprise me t all, then, that he does not bother to reference by title any of these books and that his "quotes" from them are made up.

JB is a complicate man and his legacy is also complicated and open to debate, but the impression I get after having read the article is that the author began with his conclusion already determined and then sought out only those things that would help to confirm it. It often seems that approach is Journalism 101 these days.

Right. "It's in the middle of nowhere." "It snows a lot." Those are tired retreads that people say who ARENT from here. As someone who voluntarily moved back to CNY it really can be a beautiful place (especially this time of year) I like experiencing four seasons, and I seldom if ever insult it TBH.

It's just a rehash of old clichés with better writing.

 

[MikeSU02]

This thread basically proves the author's point. As someone who grew up in upstate, attended Syracuse and now lives in NYC, I really don't know how you can argue with what he wrote in the way he framed it.

Also, Mike Waters' tweet is exactly the kind of comment that misses the point of the story and reinforces exactly what he wrote.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I hate when people want to say something but don't have the stones to do it and say "some people might say". It's such crap. I find it funny he goes from Boeheim got all of his wins against the crap teams and only won a single title to comparing him to Wooden, K, Phog Allen and Rupp. That is quite a leap.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I don't disagree with the idea that JAB didn't learn from anyone great and had to learn everything on his own.

 

[Oráiste]

This thread basically proves the author's point. As someone who grew up in upstate, attended Syracuse and now lives in NYC, I really don't know how you can argue with what he wrote in the way he framed it.

Also, Mike Waters' tweet is exactly the kind of comment that misses the point of the story and reinforces exactly what he wrote.

I don't agree. A foundation of his argument is that people from Syracuse think their city is a craphole; nobody in this thread is saying that

 

[cuseinseattle]

The other thing this article points out is the whole players being out after dark thing which has always kind of annoyed me. Maybe I'm off base but when I was in college I went to bed at 1am-2am every night and so did every friend I had. Also unless the game was at 9am in the morning the next day who cares about kids being out at midnight in the lobby of a hotel. I have always found the curfew and bed check thing really strange. When I was in college all of my teachers and my coaches (D3 so different) talked about treating you like an adult and after this you are going to enter the real world.

 

[jgeorge322]

I thought the article was funny. Made me laugh

 

[NKR1978]

Then write your own article, Mike.

(Way to [deliberately] miss the point, too - the author's forming his own conclusions based on Boeheim's own words, not on the reheated opinions of some beat writer.)

I thought that was a good piece. I don't agree with every characterization and find some of the writing over the top, but it rings true to me. And it's clear that Titus likes his subject. Can't imagine why Syracuse fans who actually read the article could be up in arms about it. It was uncritical and fairly perceptive.

More perceptive, I think, than a lot of local fans. We've heard half a decade of "CNYers love Scott Shafer because he's one of us" because he constantly told you so, but I've never before heard that said about Boeheim, despite 50 years of a lifestyle that cements that fact.

I find it funny that a guy calls out how easily offended Syracuse fans are...and Syracuse fans are offended by his commentary. He also said that he's someone who made a point to learn about Syracuse because we're fortunate to have a very big and important program that he didn't know about. People are saying he should have known this stuff about JB because it's been out there forever, but he literally said he didn't really know anything about Syracuse before he become somewhat obsessed with JB.

 

[sutomcat]

I don't agree. A foundation of his argument is that people from Syracuse think their city is a craphole; nobody in this thread is saying that

Yes. My biggest problems with the piece are his conclusions everyone here thinks Syracuse is an awful place and the reason he is so loved here is because he is 'one of us'.

The reason JB is loved here is because he wins and has won consistently for a very, very, very long time. Period.

People from CNY love winners. We are just like any other region in the country. The author clearly didn't spend any real time here, doesn't know what he was talking about and that is my problem with his piece.

 

[OttoMets]

I hate when people want to say something but don't have the stones to do it and say "some people might say". It's such crap. I find it funny he goes from Boeheim got all of his wins against the crap teams and only won a single title to comparing him to Wooden, K, Phog Allen and Rupp. That is quite a leap.

But the author doesn't do that - he's explicitly just presenting two admittedly extreme points.

We think he's in that upper-echelon of historic coaches.

Other sports observers out there (and we've all heard them) make BS claims like Boeheim's inferior because he racks up wins against cupcakes.

The author's just laying out perception of the guy from both ends of the spectrum.

I don't disagree with the idea that JAB didn't learn from anyone great and had to learn everything on his own.

One thing I didn't like was the throwaway line about Dick Blackwell, kind of walking back the "no influences" conclusion. The whole thing that you note is an interesting hypothesis, but he wrapped it up in a kind of rushed way and seemed a little dismissive of the high school coach (who, along with Lewis, if I remember Boeheim's book accurately, was a big influence despite the fact that his name isn't Naismith).

 

[OttoMets]

I find it funny that a guy calls out how easily offended Syracuse fans are...and Syracuse fans are offended by his commentary. He also said that he's someone who made a point to learn about Syracuse because we're fortunate to have a very big and important program that he didn't know about. People are saying he should have known this stuff about JB because it's been out there forever, but he literally said he didn't really know anything about Syracuse before he become somewhat obsessed with JB.

It's very funny in the "I feel like smacking my head against the wall" sense of funny. Maybe Titus's writing style is a little too flip for some people? (I didn't love it.) But the idea that Boeheim's thin (though we can concede it's less thin than it used to be?) skin and self-deprecating humor is intrinsic to the Central New York condition makes sense. And I don't get the sense Titus meant this to be negative or insulting.

But as someone who's spent a lot of my life in Central New York, I'd have my head in the sand if I didn't notice that there's a lot of negativity and Syracuse-bashing among the locals, especially long-time locals. Apparently that doesn't extend to the civic boosters in this thread.

 

[elimunelson]

It was a good article written for the masses. To nitpick it is foolish IMO. Titus hit on the general themes of Boeheim. He is an oddball among the basketball greats. It's the theme throughout.

 

[CaptainJ]

Thanks for that. It may be my goal to be the greatest poster who never fit the part.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I think the whole he beats bad teams and never plays anyone thing is what annoys me most because everyone does it. We play Kansas this year and Duke plays Michigan State and then Duke plays St. Francis, Elon, Southern, Furman and Utah Valley. Literally every program schedules this way unless they play in a league where they dominate like Zaga. It's so annoying to me when people say this.

 

[OttoMets]

I think the whole he beats bad teams and never plays anyone thing is what annoys me most because everyone does it. We play Kansas this year and Duke plays Michigan State and then Duke plays St. Francis, Elon, Southern, Furman and Utah Valley. Literally every program schedules this way unless they play in a league where they dominate like Zaga. It's so annoying to me when people say this.

Agree, that claim is only made by people inventing reasons to justify their dislike for the guy, it's goofy.