Upstate
Co 2020 Cali Winner, Rcd/Rcpts/TD Rcpts (5)/TFL
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- Aug 15, 2011
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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.
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.
