Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Head Basketball Coaching Career Ends After 47 Years

There will be no familiar face, the one with the pained squint from behind wire-rimmed glasses, patrolling the sidelines of this month’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Syracuse, an almost automatic entrant each year when March Madness commences, and head coach Jim Boeheim, will be nowhere near the marquee Big Dance.

After the Orange lost to Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament last week, Syracuse finished the season 17-15, including five of six losses to close the 2022-23 campaign and no NCAA berth.

But that whimper of an end was the undercard to the news that followed.

Syracuse announced in a March 8 social media post that Boeheim’s 47-year head coaching reign was over, although there was no specific reason given that day.

“A legendary coaching tenure that turned this program into a perennial national power comes to a close after 47 years,” reads the March 8 tweet on the Syracuse men’s basketball account. Adrian Autry, a former player of Boeheim’s and a longtime Orange assistant coach, was announced as Boeheim’s successor.

At a subsequent news conference to make the coaching transition official, Boeheim said, “I’m thrilled to be retired,” which sealed the end of a storied — and at several junctures, controversial — coaching career.

Boeheim, 78, first arrived at Syracuse in 1962, as a student-athlete. He was later an assistant coach before he took the Orange head coaching reins in 1976, when Gerald Ford was in office, plaid blazers were all the rage and men’s college basketball was still dwarfed in popularity by baseball, the NFL and even professional hockey.

Syracuse was originally part of the Big East Conference, and although other Div.-I powerhouses like Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova — coached by legends John Thompson Jr., Lou Carnesecca and Rollie Massimino, respectively — dominated the headlines in the early 1980s, Boeheim and Syracuse made their mark by 1987.

That’s when the Orange met Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers in the NCAA title game in New Orleans.

Even with a roster that included future NBA players Derrick Coleman, Sherman Douglas and Rony Seikaly, however, Boeheim’s team lost, 74-73, on Keith Smart’s game-winning jumper with three seconds left.

“To be one of those iconic coaching figures – when that person steps away, it’s a tremendous void,” Smart, now a University of Arkansas assistant basketball coach, said in a phone interview, referring to the end of the Boeheim era in upstate New York. “The person following Hall of Fame legends, that’s always tough to duplicate what they’ve done.”

Smart, 58, said many years later after his famous shot, he had the chance to reconnect with Boeheim. The passage of time hadn’t exactly dulled the sting of defeat.

“When I was coaching at Sacramento (for the Kings), and we were getting ready for the (NBA) draft, we were doing some background on (Syracuse player) Dion Waiters,” said Smart. “Boeheim’s administrative assistant (answered), and I said, ‘Just tell him it’s Keith Smart on the phone.’ We connected and Boeheim just got real quiet. He said, ‘Keith Smart, Keith Smart, Keith Smart... I want to tell you, that it’s taken me a long time to get over that moment.’

“And I said, ‘Coach, believe it or not, I would not be calling you if you hadn’t won one (title).’”

Yes, by that time, Boeheim and Syracuse men’s hoops had finally reached the NCAA mountaintop, in 2003, when the Carmelo Anthony-led Orange toppled Kansas for the championship. Boeheim took the Orange to the NCAA Tournament 35 times, including five Final Four appearances, and during his head coaching career he amassed a 1,015-441 record (.697 winning %).

“Best 4 years of my life was spent with you at Syracuse University. (Orange) basketball is a way of life because of you coach enjoy,” Coleman tweeted.

“Legend. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and the game @therealboeheim #cusefamily,” Anthony tweeted.

But while Boeheim’s Syracuse tenure, which included coaching sons Jimmy and Buddy late in his career, ushered in a sustained period of growth for the program, not to mention hundreds of millions in revenue for the university, there was scandal and tragedy under Boeheim’s watch as well.

Two NCAA investigations of the Syracuse basketball program resulted in postseason bans and vacated wins.

In 2011, in the wake of the unfolding Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State, Boeheim’s longtime assistant Bernie Fine was leveled with abuse allegations by two former Syracuse ball boys. Fine ultimately didn’t face state nor federal criminal charges, but he was fired and the investigations and news coverage cast an ugly spotlight on the university.

In February 2019, Boeheim hit and killed a 51-year-old male pedestrian, Jorge Jimenez , on I-690 as he was driving home. Boeheim was not charged in the matter.

“I am heartbroken that a member of our community died as the result of last night’s accident,” Boeheim said in a statement at the time. “Juli (Boeheim’s wife) and I extend our deepest sympathies to the Jimenez family.”

With Boeheim’s retirement, it spells the end of not only an accomplished career, but perhaps may signal one of the last of a dying breed. A decade as head coach at one Div.-I men’s basketball program today is considered a lifetime. Boeheim was head coach for almost a half century.

Now, the Orange program moves on without one of the game’s most recognizable faces.

“When I was 17 years old, I came to Syracuse, right next door,” Boeheim said in his farewell press conference. “It was a dirt floor practice field for football. Syracuse had lost 29 straight games — in basketball not football. I never left this school. I’m now 78 years old. And I’m probably most happy that I will never leave here.

“I will never leave Syracuse.”