Bill Orange
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For so long now, Jim Boeheim has been a fella who’d rather chew bolts than mince words, but because he’s been a basketball coach since the Ford Administration, his subjects over the many years have been fairly benign.
The merits of the Carrier Dome ... Gerry McNamara’s on-court worthiness ... Big East Conference expansion ... stuff like that.
But then came this week’s ugly allegations made by Bobby Davis and seconded by Mike Lang, two guys with awful stories to tell, and suddenly Boeheim was speaking on a matter with the weight of an anvil.
Bernie Fine, his pal of nearly a half-century and his assistant for 35-plus seasons on the Syracuse University bench, had been accused by Davis and Lang of having sexually abused them as far back as the late 1970s when they were just kids ... and Boeheim had responded by referencing lies and potential money grabs.
That was on Thursday night, shortly after the troubling charges had come to light. And on Friday morning Boeheim, who does not often visit the temple of regret, was not at all sorry for the position he’d assumed.
“What?” he asked. “I can’t support a friend of 50 years? I hope that’s not the case. Some people have said that if these allegations are true, I should be fired. Why? Because Bernie Fine is my friend and I support him? I don’t have any reason not to.
“I’m not Joe Paterno. Somebody didn’t come and tell me Bernie Fine did something and I’m hiding it. I know nothing. If I saw some reason not to support Bernie, I would not support him. If somebody showed me a reason, proved that reason, I would not support him. But until then, I’ll support him until the day I die.”
Certainly, there was no shortage of boldness in all of that talk. And it was matched by the kind of loyalty for which Boeheim has been forever known. But there are those who’d suggest that there was no shortage of risk in that defense, too. No dice, though. Boeheim, who’s coached the Orange since 1976 with the trusty Fine by his side, would not budge.
“People will say, ‘Those words might come back to haunt you,’” Boeheim admitted. “But I have no reason not to believe that Bernie Fine is anything other than a good person who’s done nothing but help others. If somebody can show me that’s not true, I’ll take it under advisement.”
It has, certainly, gotten uncomfortable around here. Until Thursday’s declarations by Davis (a former SU ball boy, now 39) and Lang (Davis’ 45-year-old stepbrother), the only thoughts our citizens gave to Boeheim and Fine were how they were going to manage all of the remarkable talent on their fifth-ranked Orange team.
But now Fine has been suspended by the university he loves, and the Syracuse Police Department has launched an investigation and SU chancellor Nancy Cantor has submitted a statement filled with a vow of transparency ... and suddenly there is a whiff of Penn State in our town’s air. Happy Valley’s sordid scandal was once its own. Now — right or wrong, fair or not, whether this is an attempt for closure by a couple of victims seeking an end to their pain or a ruse by a pair of con men in search of a windfall — we’ve got a slice of one ourselves.
And only the coldest among us have merely nodded. Indeed, this is an emotional time for Central New York and if not all folks have chosen sides, almost nobody has been left without a forbidding feeling. Penn State does waft, you know. Thus, the discomfort.
This is, after all, Bernie Fine, who just last month was inducted into the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame. This is the man, 66 on Christmas Weekend, who’s been Boeheim’s buddy for nearly a half-century and his basketball confidant for 3½ decades. This is a long-perceived pillar of our community.
And just like that, he’s been made to disappear by his employer and reduced to proclaiming his innocence of overwhelming creepiness (and worse) through the funnel of his lawyer.
Not good. Not good at all.
“The shame is that when Bernie gets cleared, as he’s been cleared before, he becomes untouchable,” said Danny Schayes, the Jamesville-DeWitt Red Ram/turned Orangeman/turned NBA survivor who called out of the blue from his Arizona home on Friday with a good 20 minutes of unsolicited testimony. “All those years of goodwill? They’re going to be gone.
“You ruin a guy who’s done nothing in my experience — not my opinion, but my experience — but stand for helping people to excel in life. He’s become damaged goods overnight because of some unsubstantiated accusation. That’s the tragedy here. And it is a tragedy.”
Boeheim surely agrees. And while he does so unwaveringly, it is with equal touches of allegiance and defiance ... and sorrow.
“If you can get in trouble for supporting a friend you’ve known for almost 50 years, I don’t want to live in that country,” Boeheim offered. “Is that clear? And yet people are saying stuff like that. That’s sad. That’s a sad world. When you can’t be loyal to your friends, I don’t like that world.”
Oh, yeah. The Colgate Raiders, in their usual collective role of lamb on plate, are due in the Dome this afternoon to take on the unbeaten Orange beginning at 4. Step right up.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index....im.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
The merits of the Carrier Dome ... Gerry McNamara’s on-court worthiness ... Big East Conference expansion ... stuff like that.
But then came this week’s ugly allegations made by Bobby Davis and seconded by Mike Lang, two guys with awful stories to tell, and suddenly Boeheim was speaking on a matter with the weight of an anvil.
Bernie Fine, his pal of nearly a half-century and his assistant for 35-plus seasons on the Syracuse University bench, had been accused by Davis and Lang of having sexually abused them as far back as the late 1970s when they were just kids ... and Boeheim had responded by referencing lies and potential money grabs.
That was on Thursday night, shortly after the troubling charges had come to light. And on Friday morning Boeheim, who does not often visit the temple of regret, was not at all sorry for the position he’d assumed.
“What?” he asked. “I can’t support a friend of 50 years? I hope that’s not the case. Some people have said that if these allegations are true, I should be fired. Why? Because Bernie Fine is my friend and I support him? I don’t have any reason not to.
“I’m not Joe Paterno. Somebody didn’t come and tell me Bernie Fine did something and I’m hiding it. I know nothing. If I saw some reason not to support Bernie, I would not support him. If somebody showed me a reason, proved that reason, I would not support him. But until then, I’ll support him until the day I die.”
Certainly, there was no shortage of boldness in all of that talk. And it was matched by the kind of loyalty for which Boeheim has been forever known. But there are those who’d suggest that there was no shortage of risk in that defense, too. No dice, though. Boeheim, who’s coached the Orange since 1976 with the trusty Fine by his side, would not budge.
“People will say, ‘Those words might come back to haunt you,’” Boeheim admitted. “But I have no reason not to believe that Bernie Fine is anything other than a good person who’s done nothing but help others. If somebody can show me that’s not true, I’ll take it under advisement.”
It has, certainly, gotten uncomfortable around here. Until Thursday’s declarations by Davis (a former SU ball boy, now 39) and Lang (Davis’ 45-year-old stepbrother), the only thoughts our citizens gave to Boeheim and Fine were how they were going to manage all of the remarkable talent on their fifth-ranked Orange team.
But now Fine has been suspended by the university he loves, and the Syracuse Police Department has launched an investigation and SU chancellor Nancy Cantor has submitted a statement filled with a vow of transparency ... and suddenly there is a whiff of Penn State in our town’s air. Happy Valley’s sordid scandal was once its own. Now — right or wrong, fair or not, whether this is an attempt for closure by a couple of victims seeking an end to their pain or a ruse by a pair of con men in search of a windfall — we’ve got a slice of one ourselves.
And only the coldest among us have merely nodded. Indeed, this is an emotional time for Central New York and if not all folks have chosen sides, almost nobody has been left without a forbidding feeling. Penn State does waft, you know. Thus, the discomfort.
This is, after all, Bernie Fine, who just last month was inducted into the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame. This is the man, 66 on Christmas Weekend, who’s been Boeheim’s buddy for nearly a half-century and his basketball confidant for 3½ decades. This is a long-perceived pillar of our community.
And just like that, he’s been made to disappear by his employer and reduced to proclaiming his innocence of overwhelming creepiness (and worse) through the funnel of his lawyer.
Not good. Not good at all.
“The shame is that when Bernie gets cleared, as he’s been cleared before, he becomes untouchable,” said Danny Schayes, the Jamesville-DeWitt Red Ram/turned Orangeman/turned NBA survivor who called out of the blue from his Arizona home on Friday with a good 20 minutes of unsolicited testimony. “All those years of goodwill? They’re going to be gone.
“You ruin a guy who’s done nothing in my experience — not my opinion, but my experience — but stand for helping people to excel in life. He’s become damaged goods overnight because of some unsubstantiated accusation. That’s the tragedy here. And it is a tragedy.”
Boeheim surely agrees. And while he does so unwaveringly, it is with equal touches of allegiance and defiance ... and sorrow.
“If you can get in trouble for supporting a friend you’ve known for almost 50 years, I don’t want to live in that country,” Boeheim offered. “Is that clear? And yet people are saying stuff like that. That’s sad. That’s a sad world. When you can’t be loyal to your friends, I don’t like that world.”
Oh, yeah. The Colgate Raiders, in their usual collective role of lamb on plate, are due in the Dome this afternoon to take on the unbeaten Orange beginning at 4. Step right up.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index....im.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
