Teammates knew his fate all along
Amidst all the huddle breaking and trophy raising and parading, everyone knew it would end like this.
Even during the season, when Carmelo Anthony dropped those juicy hints — “This is my first Final Four. Hopefully, it won’t be my last.” — that made his Syracuse men’s basketball teammates’ eyes glisten for a moment, the Orangemen saw the big picture.
“I really thought he was only gonna stay one year,” said Billy Edelin, Anthony’s roommate.
The notion rang true yesterday, when Anthony declared at a press conference that he would enter the NBA Draft.
“All along,” guard Josh Pace said, “we kind of knew.”
In a way, that made Anthony’s one-year run all the more spectacular. In one season, he did what no Orangeman had in 102 previous years: lead SU to a national title. But his influence extended beyond elevating the Orangemen from bridesmaid to champion. He galvanized a community, laid a yellow-brick road for future recruiting and made the biggest curmudgeons shed a tear.
“The guy sitting here has done more for Syracuse basketball than anybody who’s ever played here,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said, his voice cracking as he nodded to Anthony.
“I brought the community back to where they wanted to be,” Anthony said. “I got them what they wanted.”
And he left the people in this city, so often overflowing with bitterness, priceless images by which to remember him.
See Anthony standing shirtless on the scorers’ table, waving his jersey as a mass of fans crowded at his feet after the Orangemen upset Pittsburgh, 67-65, on Feb. 1.
See him running across Albany’s Pepsi Arena floor to wave to his tearful mom, Mary, after the Orangemen clinched a spot in the Final Four on March 30.
See him laying beneath a pile of teammates — just his cornrowed head and still-snug orange headband protruding from the mass — after the Orangemen won the national championship 17 days ago.
“There should not be one person,” Boeheim said, “that has any regret that he would leave us after one year.”
Certainly not Boeheim, who traditionally shies from recruiting one-year players. In Anthony’s case, though, one season was enough to provide Boeheim a foundation on which to build a veritable recruiting castle for the next five or 10 years.
For all the poetic waxing and nostalgia it spawned, the one-year lease proved a win-win situation: Boeheim snagged his elusive title, and Anthony gained a year’s experience that’ll ease the agony of meaningless games next season with a team like the Denver Nuggets or Cleveland Cavaliers. But, along the way, it seems Anthony grew attached to SU. He became best friends with teammate Hakim Warrick and had his hair braided by walk-on Tyrone Albright’s wife, Keturah.
As Anthony gave to this place, it reciprocated. Tears moistened Anthony’s eyes yesterday as he choked up those memories.
“It’s a tough decision for me to make,” he said, his brown eyes welling. “My teammates brought me in for one year. We were really like a family out there.”
Fifteen minutes later, he ducked out of a door, strolled down a hallway and left Manley Field House. Gone, as they’d predicted, but carrying a legacy they’ll always remember.
Darryl Slater is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at dpslater@syr.edu.
