Shame on those bigwigs up at Manley Field House, thinking they could pull one over on Jim Boeheim.

You’d have thought they would’ve learned by now. In his 25-plus years coaching at Syracuse, there’s not a high screen nor a buzzer-beater nor a bad call that Boeheim hasn’t noticed.

So when the SU athletic department decided to hoodwink the coach this winter and slap his name on the Carrier Dome court, the secret didn’t last too long. Boeheim caught wind of the plans and, in quintessential Boeheim fashion, waved the ceremony off as a possible distraction for his Orangemen.

Eventually, after coaxing from his wife, Juli, among others, Boeheim relented. So on Sunday, before SU’s showdown with rival Georgetown, the Syracuse community will honor the man who, by nature, contributed so much while asking for little in return.

‘There isn’t a guy I can think of that is more deserving,’ said college basketball analyst Dick Vitale, a vocal proponent of the court naming. ‘He’s been an absolute treasure. He bleeds school colors.’

Though Boeheim becomes one of a handful of coaches immortalized with a court naming, he doesn’t command the recognition of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski or Arizona’s Lute Olsen (each has his name on his school’s hardwood).

Consider Boeheim’s career numbers:

620-215 career record

.743 winning percentage (fourth among active coaches)

21 NCAA Tournament appearances

24 20-win seasons and 12 seasons with 26-plus wins

Reached 350 and 400 wins faster than any coach

Still, it’s not much of a surprise when pundits — making their lists for the nation’s top coaches — often look past the SU Hill. Perhaps their eyes glaze over while glancing at that lineup of 20s in the win column, sans a national championship. Perhaps they’ve got the wrong idea about Boeheim. Let’s face it: the furrowed brow topped by thinning hair isn’t exactly the most TV-friendly look.

Forget the notion you’d get watching him pounce out of his chair, raise his eyebrows, put one hand on his hip, extend the other toward a disputed play and drop his jaw in disbelief. Make no mistake about it: Boeheim took the quiet road to greatness, laboring all his life in a region most folks associate with unrelenting coldness.

‘He doesn’t go in for fanfare and the other stuff,’ said Bernie Fine, who’s been with Boeheim longer than any other head coach-assistant duo. ‘He doesn’t get too emotional over too many things.’

Native son

Lyons, a blue-collar town of 5,000, fits Boeheim like one of his old plaid jackets. Boeheim grew up there learning ‘you don’t try to finesse people.’

Boeheim quickly took after his father, Jim Sr., who ran a funeral home in town. The elder Boeheim was an incredible competitor and his son learned to take on any competitor in any contest.

‘I wouldn’t call him the best athlete,’ said Tony Santelli, Boeheim’s closest childhood friend. ‘He was the best competitor.’

But Boeheim was a basketball star at Lyons Central High. In 1962, instead of attending a Division II or III school, he opted to walk on at Syracuse. Boeheim arrived the same year as Dave Bing, who would become a SU legend.

Boeheim bided his time, eventually earned a scholarship and was a co-captain his senior year. During his four-year playing career, he forged a friendship with Fine, who at the time was an equipment manager.

After graduating with a history degree in 1966, Boeheim tinkered with the idea of going pro — he played with the Eastern League’s Scranton Miners while serving as SU’s graduate assistant under Roy Danforth.

But by the time he was promoted to assistant coach in 1972, there really was no doubt: Boeheim was an Orangeman for life, part of a rare breed that actually relishes life in Syracuse.

‘It’s got everything you need,’ Boeheim said. ‘It has real people. You can go out and see the trees. You don’t need any walls. And I think the weather is great. Nine months a year it’s beautiful, and the other three months I’m inside and I’m busy anyway.’

The spotlight’s heat

When he was hired as head coach on April 3, 1976, Boeheim was 32 years old and a few phone calls away from transforming a solid program into a feared powerhouse.

Boeheim called Rick Pitino, interrupting Pitino’s honeymoon to offer him an assistant coaching job. He hired Fine as his other assistant. Immediately, Boeheim reeled in two prized recruits — Louis Orr and Roosevelt Bouie. The Louie and Bouie Show, as it came to be known, rocked Manley Field House (one of the nation’s most terrifying venues) for the next four years with a 100-18 record.

So it went for Boeheim: the wins piled up, his Orangemen dominated the Big East, he married his sweetheart, Elaine. Life was good.

And then came Keith Smart. Surely you remember Smart, the Indiana guard who ripped out Central New York’s heart with a buzzer-beater in the 1987 national championship game. A few-seconds-and-a-prayer shot from the corner — that’s as close as Boeheim would come to a national title.

‘They always say he doesn’t win the big one, but not everyone wins the big one,’ said Santelli, who moved from Lyons to Sarasota, Fla., last year. ‘His time may come, it may not. I don’t think it’s going to ruin his legacy down the line.’

Throughout the early 90s, the public spotlight continued to burn Boeheim. In 1990, a series of newspaper articles brought a Syracuse University probe. The investigation found various indiscretions by boosters and resulted in two years of probation and a one-year NCAA Tournament ban. In 1993, Boeheim’s marriage to Elaine buckled under the pressure and the couple divorced.

Somewhere, skeptics snickered at the misfortunes of the man they never really knew. Sure, Boeheim kept to himself.

‘It was business. Period,’ recalled Sonny Spera, who played for Boeheim in the early 80s. ‘He wasn’t telling you what he did on a weekend.’

But that was just Boeheim being Boeheim. And so were all the other parts of Boeheim’s persona that no one seemed to notice. He’s raised millions for various charities, including Coaches Vs. Cancer, a cause that struck a chord in him because his father died of cancer in 1986.

‘I think you feel a responsibility as a coach,’ Boeheim said. ‘You don’t do it to get recognized. You do it to see the smiles on the kids’ faces.’

Nothing to prove

Boeheim reached the national title game again in 1996 — with a rag-tag group that no one raised an eye to — but lost by nine to Pitino’s Kentucky Wildcats. That’s become Boeheim’s specialty: turning no-respect teams, like last year’s, into 20-game winners.

‘He’s mellowed a little,’ Fine said. ‘I don’t think he feels he has to go out and prove something day in and day out.’

In 1997, Boeheim gained some personal security when he married Juli Greene. The couple has three young children, including James III.

‘He really enjoys his family,’ Jake Crouthamel, the director of athletics, said. ‘And having that family has put things into perspective a lot more professionally.’

When Boeheim’s name is eternally stamped on the Dome court Sunday, he’ll be flanked by family, former players and at least 25,000 of the neighbors he’d never think of leaving. They’ll all offer thanks and applause. Even though they know he’d never ask.

Sports Editor Chris Snow contributed to this story.

Published on February 21, 2002 at 12:00 pm