To that point, yeah. The first paragraph is like a different language than 99% of the sportswriting we're forced to read. As a former editor, I love it. (Also as a former editor, I would have thrown something at whoever wrote that headline.)
As a writer and editor, I disagree slightly about the headline and teaser copy.
The headline “The Forever Coach” is fantastic.
The subhead (“Jim Boeheim's First Interview Since the Crash That Claimed a Man's Life) is, yes, a bit gratuitous and sensationalistic, but probably necessary because of the national news that story made across the sports world last winter. It’s one of the reasons Esquire was profiling him.
The dek—that’s the teaser line underneath the header in a magazine story—is excellent: “This fall, the longest tenured coach in college basketball history returns to the only job he's ever known. What else would he do?”