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Message: [QUOTE="Townie72, post: 3299248, member: 780"] Zelda, I admire your passion and effort on this. It’s a hell of an attempt to define the nature of fandom across multiple sports. And I’ll agree that players, opponents and even coaches come and go. I was a huge Celtics fan for decades because of Auerbach and Russell, the Jones boys, Havlicek, Howell, Sanders, Cowan’s, Jo Jo White, Byrd, etc, etc.. But I don’t care about them now or the NBA in general. I get it. But the relationship between Boeheim and SU basketball is different qualitatively and quantitatively than that between Yaz and the Sawks. JB is more intertwined with the program. The degree to which his fingerprints have been on every decision and action over a 44 year period is almost unprecedented in sports, pro or college. The relationship between an alum and the school’s teams is also different because it’s tied up with the entire experience of attending the school. For us, SU sports are are part and parcel of the classes, the profs, the friends, the parties and all that. For us, SU just isn’t the local substitute for a pro franchise the area doesn’t have and which helps the locals deal with cabin fever in an inhospitable climate. Most of the criticism of JB on here occurs after a loss. It seems to me to be an unattractive combination of frustration and entitlement coupled with an “I can say anything I want because I’m a fan” attitude. My guess is that those that think it’s Boeheim that has been holding the program back from the greatness to which the fan base is entitled or accustomed to are going to be unpleasantly surprised at the length and depth of the transition. Hiring new coaches is a crap shoot at best. While SU was integral to the Big East, it’s a geographic and cultural outlier in the ACC. The big home crowds could easily shrink significantly if the apparently very high expectations of the fans aren’t met in even the short term. We’ll see what happens. [/QUOTE]

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