Former D.O. beat writers recount covering Gerry McNamara’s senior season
Former Daily Orange beat writers Zach Berman and Ethan Ramsey recall their favorite memories covering Gerry McNamara. Daily Orange Archive Photo
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Gerry McNamara’s last game as a player for Syracuse came on March 16, 2006, when the Orange fell to Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament First Round. Just over 20 years later, SU named McNamara its next head coach.
McNamara played the most minutes (4,799) of any player in Syracuse history while recording 400 total 3-pointers, 91 more than the next closest. As a freshman in 2003, McNamara helped the Orange to their only national title. In his junior and senior campaigns, SU won the Big East Tournament as McNamara made the All-Big East Tournament First Team both times.
In McNamara’s senior year, the 2005-06 season, a debate arose over whether the guard was overrated or not. The Daily Orange ran dueling columns to debate the issue, which, alongside an anonymous poll from Big East assistant coaches in The Post-Standard, caused an uproar from Jim Boeheim.
Sophomores at the time, beat writer Ethan Ramsey argued that McNamara is overrated, while fellow beat writer Zach Berman defended McNamara. McNamara went on to make multiple game-winning shots in the Big East Tournament to will No. 9 seed Syracuse to the NCAA Tournament.
Here’s what the two former D.O. beat writers had to say about covering McNamara’s senior season two decades later:
I remember being in the locker room against UConn, and Gerry wasn't happy about that column.Zach Berman, former Daily Orange beat writer
On why they decided to write the dueling columns:
Ramsey: There was a game in Pittsburgh I covered. They lost, (and) I had the idea of writing the column after that game. Someone said, let’s wait on that, and let’s make it more of a two-column piece to provide both arguments.
Berman: It was a Monday night game against Pitt, and it was in late January, and Gerry did not play well in that game. I don’t want to say I had a totally different view, but (there were) some things that we might have disagreed with there. So that was kind of the thought behind it.
On the initial reaction to the columns:
Ramsey: It’s not like we were experts. It’s not like we were covering the Big East as a whole. There’s probably more context in college now, maybe we would try to compare those other claims to more overall. It’s definitely provocative, and I think that’s what I was going for at the end of the day. I think it was a worthy opinion. And when they go on this run, that’s also a great story.
Berman: I remember being in the locker room against UConn, and Gerry wasn’t happy about that column. He kind of asked about it. I do recall that UConn game in Hartford. I remember because he was sitting down, he would meet with the media by his locker, and he made a comment afterwards about the student media, or something like that.
On Jim Boeheim’s rant after Syracuse’s Big East Tournament win over Cincinnati:
Ramsey: I remember wondering whether many people even knew what he was referring to.
Berman: It wasn’t a huge firestorm at the time, and it didn’t become one until the Big East Tournament, when they went on that run, Gerry had the game winners. That’s when Jim Boeheim’s overrated thing came up. Jim conflated the overrated and not overrated columns that we had with The Post-Standard’s poll of Big East coaches. He was very media savvy, and he knew the audience that he had at the Big East Tournament. That’s not a press conference after a Syracuse-Cincinnati game at the Carrier Dome. At the time, the Big East Tournament was a huge deal.
On how McNamara’s 2006 Big East Tournament run furthered his legacy:
Ramsey: He doesn’t make that shot, and they lose. I wonder whether any of (the overrated attention) happens. UConn wins and Syracuse goes home. I was directly across from that shot, and I said, OK, they’re gonna lose.
Berman: They needed that run, because they were struggling that year. They weren’t going to make the (NCAA) Tournament. Gerry caught fire, and that was part of the mystique about him.
On McNamara taking over as head coach:
Ramsey: Is this whole episode in nature part of the storyline there? Even take the student population. They were born around this time, many of them are not from upstate New York. Do they even have any connection to this? So, the most immediate group, the students, do they really know much about the history of the player?
Berman: If you told me 20 years later that Gerry McNamara would be the Syracuse head coach, I’m like, yeah, that kind of adds up.
