Poets would prefer this explanation: The grouchy son of a funeral home director makes his office across the street from a cemetery in the gloomiest city in America. How perfect.

But phony. That doesn’t say why Jim Boeheim has lasted 30 seasons in one of the largest cities in the country without a professional team yet an East Coast mentality that demands its university to win. This man should’ve been long gone as Syracuse’s basketball coach, whether on his own accord or not.

Considering Boeheim is only 60 years old, there’s a serious chance he’ll eventually coach longer in one place than anyone in major sports history save Connie Mack, who managed baseball’s Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years from 1901 to 1950. Since Boeheim is only three seasons removed from his only national championship and two seasons away from the arrival of arguably his best recruiting class, he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Sure, the Lyons native has always said there’s no place he’d rather live than Syracuse. His love for SU – his alma mater, the city and Central New York is undeniable. But that only goes so far. Any coach would love the opportunity to forever lead his hometown team. But few receive the chance, and most of those who do rarely endure as long as Jimmy B.

If there was one period when his run should have ended, it was in the middle of his career. But without reducing his nature as the ‘most competitive person on the planet,’ as his former player and longtime assistant Mike Hopkins calls him, Boeheim improbably softened his personality. That allowed him to last well beyond the rough patch and enjoy his greatest success.

The impetus for the new Jim is easy to pinpoint: Juli. His second wife, whom he met in 1994 and married in 1997, brought Jim Boeheim into the world that his closest friends never knew existed. Her inviting and cheerful personality was the polar opposite to his unappealing and surly one. Under her influence, he didn’t spend every second of the day worrying about basketball. With all that happened in the middle of his career, he may have cracked and skipped town.

‘Juli added something to Jim’s life that was missing after his first marriage,’ said Jake Crouthamel, Syracuse’s athletic director from 1978 to 2004. ‘It came at a time that was very important for Jim. I don’t think we realized how important it was.’

The timing was critical because the relationship between Boeheim and his beloved city soured in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On the court, some of his most talented teams lost long before they should have in several NCAA tournaments. Talk started that Boeheim couldn’t win when it mattered.

Also, the program went under NCAA investigation for recruiting violations in 1990. Players allegedly received cash from boosters – accusations that were denied – that placed Syracuse on two-year probation and banned the school from the NCAA Tournament for one year.

As all that was happening, Boeheim was experiencing difficulty with his first wife, Elaine, with whom he had his first child, Elizabeth, now a junior at Colby College in Maine. Jim and Elaine eventually divorced in 1993. Boeheim’s longtime best friend, Tony Santelli, said the general public knew Boeheim’s every move was especially hard for a reclusive man from a small town.

‘I think he struggled in the middle of his 30-year run with the notoriety,’ Santelli said. ‘There was a period of time where it was a love/hate relationship in Syracuse with Jim Boeheim. Even though he never wanted the limelight, it came with the job, and I think he grew into it. That softer side of him that came with Juli – I don’t think the city really embraced him until then.’

Everyone can see the signs of a relaxed atmosphere: His three young children with Juli – 7-year-old James Arthur III and 4-year-old twins Jack and Jamie – scrub the sweat off the court during games, work on their jumpers after preseason scrimmages and claim the first row of chairs for their father’s postgame press conferences. Along with Juli, his children keep him grounded. He’s never going to leave now that they are here.

While his relaxed demeanor carried to the court, his new coaching style was a consequence of his transformation, not a goal of it. But his relaxed on-court approach surely contributed to his increased success. His 1995 to 1996 team exceeded expectations, reaching the NCAA championship game. His 2002 to 2003 squad quieted the critics for good in taking home the hardware. His 1986 to 1987 team that lost in the final was his only other trip to the Final Four.

‘Everybody changes, everybody matures, people soften around the edges probably,’ Boeheim said. ‘You still get upset, but you learn to pick your spots. Experience is good factor for anybody in any business because you get better. I think I’m better with everybody, better as a coach, better with the press …’

Ah yes, the press. Boeheim’s nemesis. The reason for the dark cloud over the middle of his career. But in his new character, he learned to ignore more of what was written and what was shown. It can be difficult answering questions from people who know infinitely less about basketball, but operate as though they do. Worrying about the media was an extra burden for him that if not lifted, could have crushed him long ago.

Boeheim has long wondered whether the media would have deemed him a great coach a lot sooner if Indiana’s Keith Smart hadn’t hit that jumper to give the Hoosiers a win in the 1987 title game. Credit from the country actually flooded in when Syracuse went just as far in 1996 – losing in the final to Kentucky – because he made the sum so much greater than the parts. Still, he couldn’t win it all, and the media wouldn’t let him forget it.

It was also the press that made his divorce public and The Post-Standard that initiated the investigations that eventually resulted in the NCAA action.

Antagonism with the press was two-sided. Not only did Boeheim not trust reporters, reporters didn’t trust Boeheim. The media refused to believe this skinny man with a squeaky voice knew what he was talking about and Boeheim never minded lashing out at one hopeless soul.

The two grudgingly met halfway. Boeheim learned to disregard most of it. It wasn’t worth it, he decided.

‘Something will always upset you, but after a while, you just put it aside,’ Boeheim said. ‘It takes a long time maybe – if people write something bad about you, it’s not fun, you don’t like it, but after a while there’s a point where you move on and you don’t think about it as much. If somebody writes something bad this year, I won’t like it, but I probably won’t be that upset about it.’

While Boeheim dreams of the old days – one writer, no television cameras – he understands more media means his team is having more success meaning more people are watching Syracuse basketball. He insists he doesn’t mind doing what he estimates as 300 to 400 interviews a year, and he never disliked the media. He just hated the habit of playing the clip of a rare outburst again and again, making it appear as though he always erupts.

When it comes to one individual game, Boeheim tells his assistants there are 100 different ways to coach a team. He loathes second guessing from fans because it’s just that, second guessing. What’s done is done – it either worked or it didn’t, he says. But he knows any coach will always receive more criticism for bad decisions than praise for good ones.

‘In basketball, things happen so fast – there are so many things going on out there – that even somebody who’s fairly knowledgeable doesn’t really know what’s going on,’ Boeheim said. ‘I may be doing some things over there that nobody even sees. Did he do that? Did the players do that? Nobody really knows.’

A softer personality normally translates into diminished dedication. But that’s not the case with Boeheim, who retained the inner fire that’s burned his entire life. If his competitiveness diffused, he may have walked away before experiencing his greatest success.

Boeheim’s desire to win surfaced as a child in his favorite hobbies – hunting, golfing and fishing. He didn’t have to compete against anybody. During high school, he and Santelli would golf 36 holes and when night fell, Santelli would retire exhausted to his home. But Boeheim would then snuggle up next to the canal and fish by himself. When he did face somebody, he made sure he came out on top.

‘Even when we lost, he would figure out a way to say he won,’ Santelli said. ‘You might have had a tie, but he would say, ‘We won more holes on the front than you won on the back … so it really doesn’t matter … we won today.’ That’s just the way he is.’

When he and Hopkins golfed Oak Hill in Rochester two years ago in a fund-raiser, Hopkins couldn’t find his shot whatsoever. The possessive teacher that he is, Boeheim couldn’t help but offer his assistance at first – tweaking every last motion of Hopkins’ swing. But Boeheim became so frustrated with Hopkins’ lack of improvement, as did Hopkins himself, they quit after eight holes.

‘The one thing he does is he makes me nervous,’ Hopkins said. ‘He’ll have patience with me for a little bit – telling me keep it here, do this. But it wasn’t his competitiveness that day. It was more the ‘pick it up’ … ‘Pick it up’ … after three shots, ‘Pick it up.” A talented golfer, Boeheim had already finished the hole and was anxious to move on.

‘When you’re competitive, you’re competitive,’ Boeheim said. ‘It never leaves you. It just doesn’t turn on or turn off. You either are or you’re not.’

There’s no anecdote to show this spiritedness still exists at the same level on the court, but his drive for excellence, while still there, comes out differently than it used to. There are still those rare times he interrupts practice to curse out a player, but they are less frequent. The old way of insulting players is done. It has been said Boeheim’s aloof style rubbed a handful players, such as Rony Seikaly, the wrong way.

Leo Rautins, who played for Boeheim in the early 80s, recently watched one of the first practices his son Andy, a freshman guard at Syracuse, went through. The elder Rautins hardly recognized the drills. This in addition to noticing on television the coach acted differently during games in recent years.

‘I told Andy you have no idea the difference,’ Rautins said. ‘When I talked to Jim the other day, he said there was no sense in going all-out in a preseason practice. Back in my day, our legs were falling off. Even watching Jim on the sidelines – he’s much calmer, he picks his spots to be more aggressive rather than be that way on a consistent basis.’

Boeheim was stubborn when it came to change at the beginning of his tenure. That was never more evident in his reluctance to move to the Carrier Dome when it opened in 1980. But the move to a new venue served as his first lesson that a major change could actually be for the better. Evolving is, after all, what allowed him to remain at Syracuse this long.

While the switch blindsided him, Boeheim didn’t have a say in the matter. The Dome was originally intended only for football. Then, when it came time to lay down the subsurface – the material under the turf – the workers asked Crouthamel what he preferred. Right then, Crouthamel thought why not put a basketball court underneath.

Boeheim detested the idea. Manley Field House, though it sat only 9,500 people, was one of the loudest and most intimidating places to play in the country. Boeheim thought a generic bubble would lessen SU’s home-court advantage. But Crouthamel had already pitched the idea to his bosses at the university and the deal was done.

Even the athletic director had no idea how many people would show up. But the reaction was incredible. Thanks to the creation of the Big East a year before, crowds suddenly routinely topped 30,000. Syracuse led the NCAA in attendance for 11 consecutive seasons starting in 1985. This at a school with less than 11,000 undergraduates in a medium-sized city and no parking.

‘Nobody ever thought that would happen – no one, especially not me,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think that’s the most amazing thing in the history of college basketball. It’s really a tribute to the people of Syracuse and the area.’

By the time Boeheim was offered his most prominent job – Ohio State – in 1986, he knew the one change that would never occur was him leaving Syracuse, a city that originally overwhelmed the shy kid from a small town. He relishes in that he can drive to work, a golf course, a fishing spot or the airport in five minutes. He feels comfort in having loyal assistants Bernie Fine, with him for all 30 seasons, and Hopkins, at his side everyday. The support system he built was too strong to tear down and try to build elsewhere.

‘I think the remarkable thing about Jim is the fact he’s turned down so many opportunities,’ Crouthamel said. ‘He could have gotten, quote, ‘better’ jobs, and the fact that he has remained at Syracuse speaks to his loyalty to the university and the city.’

Not only was Boeheim cantankerous, but his quiet disposition didn’t help when the then 30-year-old applied for the job now his for 30 years. Adaptation was the key at the beginning, too.

When previous head coach Roy Danforth left Syracuse after the 1975 to 1976 season, one year removed from taking Syracuse to its first Final Four, and endorsed Boeheim, his assistant since 1969, Boeheim’s shyness was a drawback. Danforth said Boeheim’s social life consisted of basketball and television.

The four-man university search committee for a new coach didn’t know what contribution Boeheim had as an assistant. They barely knew him. David Bennett, still a history professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a member of the committee, said they turned to the players to find out what Boeheim was really like. The more they found out, the more it became clear they weren’t going to interview many candidates on their list.

‘Jim had kept a low profile,’ Bennett said. ‘But when players starting talking – like Bud Williams, the point guard, told me it was Jim who taught them the 2-3 (zone) – we started to learn more. We didn’t know all he was doing.’

Boeheim iced their decision when he stepped out of character and declared himself the best man for the job. So he always could be flexible. It just took a lot longer to become calmer than assertive, which are two separate cases. The rest is history for the committee’s choice of the 1966 Syracuse graduate, and Fine said he’s never been more comfortable, both on and off the court.

‘I don’t think at this point he feels he has anything left he has to prove to anybody,’ Fine said. ‘He wants to win every game because he’s extremely competitive, but he’s definitely mellowed.’

Now the symbol of the whole city, Boeheim is one of few coaches with a national championship and a plaque in the Basketball Hall of Fame. One day the length of his tenure will be legend. Plus, he was able to compile it for his alma mater in his native land of Central New York. And finally, the people all around the area embraced him.

‘The difference is now more people know who he is – he’s out in the public eye,’ Hopkins said. ‘I think before he wasn’t out there enough, maybe more introverted with the community. It was more of a business relationship, but it’s turned into a personal relationship.’

Boeheim is still at Syracuse – and not going anywhere with Donte Green, Antonio Jardine, Rick Jackson and Johnny Flynn arriving in two years – in large part because he found a softer persona inside of him without relinquishing his unrivaled competitiveness. There’s no way to know whether he would have been at Syracuse this long, and be as successful as he has, without meeting Juli, who brought about his transformation. But it couldn’t have worked out any better.

Poetry after all.

Published on November 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm