By Kyle Soppe
Jim Boeheim’s comments surrounding his now ex-assistant coach of 36 years Bernie Fine have been scrutinized and for great reason. The face of Syracuse basketball came across as a selfish bully who wanted his word to be assumed as fact, just because he said it. In the middle of the JoePa scandal at Penn State University, critics are telling anybody who will listen that the 34 year Head Coach should be ousted from his position immediately. While I believe the university will make a strong statement and suspend its legendary leader, they will not fire Boeheim.
“It is a bunch of a thousand lies that he has told. What are people looking for here? I believe they are looking for money. I believe they saw what happened at Penn State and they are using ESPN to get money. That is what I believe. You want to put that on the air? Put that on the air.”
Boeheim allowed for no misconception when he was approached about the molestation allegation directed at longtime assistant coach and friend Bernie Fine. An outburst like this isn’t typically a good move in the interest of job security, but I encourage you take a step back after the “did he really just say that” factor has worn off.
For the last handful of weeks, we have viewed the Sandusky trial as the second coming of Watergate; where the cover-up draws as much, if not more, attention than the actual crime. When the PSU news first broke, did anybody jump to Sandusky’s side to defend him? No. And that is because everyone was truly aware of what happened; they were just hoping it would be swept under the rug before it blew up into what Sports Illustrated labeled “the most explosive scandal in the history of college sports”. Had they known, the Nittany Lion brass would have reacted like any other human being when one’s inner circle is being threatened, they would have lashed back.
Boeheim’s loyalty to Fine was evident when he came to his defense before there was any concrete evidence. His strong words were politically incorrect, but it was human nature for him to defend a lifelong companion whom he perceived as innocent. The fact that he made those comments saved his job, as it seems evident that he had no prior knowledge of the alleged offenses.
In today’s world of lying and deception, it is entirely possible that Boeheim could be viewed as an evil genius just trying to save face. Some might liken him to Rafael Palmeiro, as someone who will swear innocence until proven absolutely guilty. But while Palmeiro’s finger pointing at Congress was a calculated action, Boeheim’s quote came from raw emotion.
Boeheim should be suspended, as his position of power and influence suggests he shouldn’t make such a controversial statement: but his job is safe … for now.
I couldn’t agree more. He wasn’t covering anything up — on the contrary, he was well aware of the fact that SU conducted an investigation into the matter in 2005 and couldn’t find any corroboration of the allegations. I’m guessing that he believed Bernie Fine 100%. But why wasn’t the tape provided to the authorities then?
Because that would make things to easy. haha. Some times it seems as if these major programs have one objective … to make things as complex as possible. The tape should have been reveled earlier, but for reasons unknown, they waited. It feels like we are missing a lot of details, and hopefully they come out sooner rather than later
But this SU team is legit, and I would hate to see this derail their season. Only time will tell, but I think Boeheim is safe
I haven’t been able to dig into the details, but I was hearing some criticism of ESPN for not turning over the tapes sooner. Of course, some of this was from Penn State loyalists who were comparing ESPN’s knowledge of the situation at Syracuse to Paterno’s knowledge of the PSU situation. It’s an interesting turn of events.