MAYBE it’s because I read all those Chip Hilton books when I was a kid. Hank Rockwell, Chip’s coach at State, always knew the right thing to do and say.
And all those image ads we’ve seen through the years – the ones claiming that NCAA programs build character in young men – they couldn’t have helped, either.
And maybe it’s my fault for being so impressionable and even wishful, but I still kinda hope for a lot more and a lot better from college coaches, more than what Jim Boeheim this week provided.
As the best-compensated and most well-known representative of Syracuse University, Boeheim could have won the day, come off as a champ, shown us all the way.
Invited on WFAN Monday to discuss Syracuse’s exclusion from the NCAA Tournament, he might’ve, on behalf of his school, his players and himself, chosen to travel the high road, even if just to remind us that such a path remains an option. He might’ve said something like:
“Sure, we’re terribly disappointed, but life isn’t always fair. And, unless there’s evidence that the selection committee acted maliciously, I understand. It isn’t easy for those guys, either.
“I guess we needed just one more win. We had our chances. There was that loss at home to Wichita State, a team that went 8-10 in the Missouri Valley Conference. And that home loss to Drexel. And that loss to St. John’s in the Garden hurt, too.
“But, hey, their kids were great against us. And we’ve made it in the past to the exclusion of teams that might’ve been more deserving. In 1999, we had fewer wins, more losses and were just 10-8 in the Big East. Yet, we were selected, so these things have a way of going both ways.
“That’s life. Sometimes you get the breaks you may not deserve; sometimes you’re the victim of someone else’s good fortune. It’s not as if the Big East was ignored; six of our teams are in.
“My job now is trying to get our kids to understand that it’s not a perfect process, every year schools will be similarly excluded. This time, we were one of them. Life is loaded with disappointments. It’s a good lesson for them to learn and to grow from.”
Heck, Boeheim didn’t even have to bring up the fact that his 1992-93 team was banned from the NCAA Tournament because of hanky-panky with a booster.
Instead, Monday, even with a night to sleep on it, Boeheim took the “We Wuz Robbed” route, speaking at length with Mike Francesa and Chris Russo – they called him, “Jimmy” – who were eager to tell him that his outrage is justified. Yeah, Jimmy, you wuz robbed!
“I’m more shocked than I’ve ever been in my life,” Boeheim began.
Funny, while the media are a more traditional and frequent target of Boeheim’s – he doesn’t suffer criticism as easily as he distributes it – this latest affront to Boeheim was the exclusive work of college sports folks; the selection committeemen are his frat brothers.
But Boeheim is given to singing someone done him wrong songs, even if his bosses/enablers at Syracuse long ago ceased to expect him to recruit players who, beyond playing nationally televised basketball, had much interest in attending any college.
Boeheim, Monday on FAN, said he’s still looking for a good explanation as to why his 22-10 team was rejected. He unilaterally listed schools that got at-large bids that didn’t have SU’s strength-of-schedule – Old Dominion, Butler, Nevada, Indiana, BYU, Xavier.
(As if the coaches of Butler, at 27-6, Nevada, 28-4 and 25-8 BYU wouldn’t have felt as betrayed as Boeheim.)
And then, when asked to name schools that, compared with Syracuse, didn’t deserve a bid, Boeheim said that it would be ungracious of him to name names. Yeah, he’s too high-road for that. Besides, he already had.
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Give Russo and Francesa credit for nerve. A couple of years ago, when they hosted a Sunday night NCAA Tournament post-selection show, they praised the selection committee for a job well done. The next day, after reading the papers to find them loaded with strong scolds of the committee’s work, they tore into it for having done a rotten job.
This past Sunday, they didn’t have a post-selection show. But starting Monday, they screamed and carried on about the committee’s bad work. Given that they’d already proven that, left on their own, they don’t know what they’re talking about, you’ve got to admire them for having more nerve than a bum tooth.
