You can use inflammatory language like "apologist point of view" and "intellectually honest" if you want, it doesn't mean anything. I would also say that Jim Boeheim deserves more respect than calling him an old man and saying he ran the program into the ground. I've always believed that he earned the right to go out on his own terms and have input into who took over the program. Instead, the university treated him poorly and so did many fans.
He does deserve respect. His first 38 years were amazing. His last 8 were a significant decline. That can't be debated with
ANY intellectual honesty. Like other icons, he hung on too long as the program crumbled around him, to the detriment of said program.
Both of those things can be true, simultaneously. And, the decline was real. No amount of starry-eyed pretending whitewashes that.
And I categorically reject the "earned his right to go out on his own terms" point of view. He is the only D1 head coach to land his team on probations, twice. He rejected the HCIW arrangement that was in place. He got to coach his two sons. THAT was his reward -- not an unlimited blank check to continue driving the program into the ground.
If he'd been winning at a reasonable clip, he would have been justified to stay. Since his winning percentage declined from ~74% his first 38 years to ~54% his final eight, the University couldn't afford to let him stay and continue to drag the program under. It's a performance based profession, and his performance had cratered.
This line of yours:
I've always believed that he earned the right to go out on his own terms and have input into who took over the program. Instead, the university treated him poorly and so did many fans.
...is exactly why the program is in the place it is. Revisionist history.
I'm still greatly appreciative of all of the joy he brought me as a fan, over the decades I cheered for his team. But I can acknowledge that the wheels had begun to come off toward the end. Recognizing that isn't a "betrayal" of being a fan of Syracuse University basketball. Maybe if Boeheim hadn't been so billigerent and problematic at the end, the athletic department would have conducted a legitimate search for the next head coach, instead of attempting to mollify the temper-tantrum of the outbound coach by hiring an unqualified internal candidate. And we wouldn't be in this embarrassing position.
