Appreciating Jim Boeheim: Whiner's A Winner

[SUintheVille]

Title of newspaper article in this morning's Courier-Journal in sports section in Louisville. Surprised to see such a prominent display in the local paper here. Apparently reprinted from USA Today? Talks about his 903 victories.

Quotes: "if you stay around long enough, you can go from everybody's idea of a whiny grouch to someone roundly appreciated, someone right on the brink of cuddly."

From JB: "I'm not unhappy when we win, but I'm very unhappy when we lose."

Glad to see a nice story about JB down here in the Ville.

 

[pfister1]

Title of newspaper article in this morning's Courier-Journal in sports section in Louisville. Surprised to see such a prominent display in the local paper here. Apparently reprinted from USA Today? Talks about his 903 victories.

Quotes: "if you stay around long enough, you can go from everybody's idea of a whiny grouch to someone roundly appreciated, someone right on the brink of cuddly."

From JB: "I'm not unhappy when we win, but I'm very unhappy when we lose."

Glad to see a nice story about JB down here in the Ville.

Linky

 

[SUintheVille]

Linky

http://www.courier-journal.com/arti...racuse-basketball-coach-Jim-Boeheim-dwells-on

Not sure if you'll be able to access it online or not from CJ website. If not, text is below (not including nice photo of JB).

Sheesh, how best to portray the survivorhood of Jim Boeheim, beyond equipping all GPS devices with an image of his singular face over the Syracuse part?

Maybe we could go with the human side, with Boeheim’s 37-season reminder that if you stay around long enough, you can go from everybody’s idea of a whiny grouch to someone roundly appreciated, someone right on the brink of cuddly. When, at age 68, the Syracuse basketball coach earned his 903rd victory Wednesday night to slip past Bob Knight into second place behind Mike Krzyzewski, didn’t you sort of want to hug him?

Sort of?

Here was a man whose news conference before the 1987 national title game majored in dreariness without a minor in humor, but whose news conference before the 1996 title game crackled with levity. When a good reporter pointed out the contrast, Boeheim introspectively said: “That’s probably a fair observation. Yeah, I’ve always had a sense of humor; maybe I just didn’t show it.”

As for that whiny image, he said: “I don’t mean to be, but on the sidelines I look at tapes of myself, I realize I do look that way. But I don’t mean to do it.”

So across the rolling decades he went from a stone face you would see and resist to a stone face you see and appreciate for the quirks of its stoniness. Yes, Jim Boeheim informs us of our nature.

Or maybe we could go with the grand, gaping timeline of it, which we could convey this way: Boeheim made his first Final Four in his 11th season, his second Final Four in his 20th, his third Final Four and first national title in his 27th. Let’s just repeat that here: first national title in his 27th season.

If that won’t do it, try this: In Boeheim’s first NCAA Tournament as a head coach, Syracuse fell in the round of 16 to upstart North Carolina Charlotte and Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell — today a 57-year-old man who retired from the NBA 25 years ago.

And if that won’t do it, this: In 1987 in New Orleans, he lost the title on a last-second shot to Knight’s Indiana team, after which Knight shook Boeheim’s hand and told him he would win one someday. A whopping 16 years later in New Orleans, Boeheim won after a missed last shot, and he then shook Kansas coach Roy Williams’ hand and told him he would win one someday — which Williams did twice.

With those 903 victories have come 305 losses, which might explain the perpetually sour look.

“I only think about the losses,” Boeheim said in 1996. “People say I’m not happy, which is not exactly true, when we win. I’m not unhappy when we win, but I’m very unhappy when we lose.”