What happens when Jim Boeheim's time at Syracuse ends?
The Hall of Fame coach has been the face of Syracuse basketball for almost half a century. Transitioning to a new coach might not be so easy.
Myron Medcalf
ESPN Staff Writer
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- When Jim Boeheim gets hungry after home games, he picks up the phone and calls his favorite restaurant, Saint Urban, which always agrees to stay open late until he arrives.
If the Syracuse Orange are on a hot streak, Boeheim will delay his arrival, to enjoy the festive moment and mingle with fans who still treat the veteran coach with five Final Four appearances and 10 Big East titles like he's a king in this city of approximately 142,000 people. But last season, there were a number of more subdued and stoic late nights, as the program wrestled through the first losing record of Boeheim's 46-year tenure.
"If they win, it's a great dinner," Adam Weitsman, Boeheim's best friend and a program booster who often tags along, said. "If it's a loss, it's the worst dinner ever because we just sit there, quiet. He doesn't say a thing, you know?"
While the rumblings of the 77-year-old Syracuse men's basketball coach's retirement have lingered for years, they have never seemed stronger than now, as the 2022-23 season -- the 20th anniversary of Boeheim's 2003 national championship run with Carmelo Anthony & Co. -- approaches. However, the more pressing question for a program that has been led by the Hall of Fame coach since 1976 is this: How will Syracuse move forward in a new chapter for men's college basketball without Boeheim?
It begins with Boeheim, who will have to convince recruits that Syracuse basketball will maintain the fervor of a fan base that has consistently filled all 35,000-plus seats at the JMA Wireless Dome (formerly the Carrier Dome), the largest on-campus basketball arena in the country.
"Before he moves on, he's going to make sure Syracuse is in a good place, where it can continue to have success," said Eric Devendorf, a standout guard under Boeheim from 2005 to '09 and former assistant. "Is it going to be the same? No. My man's been doing it for 45 years. So it's going to be a little bit different."
Boeheim has promised to retire in the past -- see: 2015, when he announced his decision to retire by March 2018, later changing his mind. Just last year, he told Forbes he would coach until he turned 80. You never know with Boeheim.
Sitting in his office in July, Boeheim says he's approaching the day he leaves, but will only make the move when he's confident Syracuse can handle the change -- which he has already conveyed to those close to him.
"I think he almost loves it now more than ever," Jimmy Boeheim, one of his sons and a starter on last season's squad, said. "I know he won't coach a day longer than he doesn't feel that. He wouldn't shortchange his players or his fans."
But the retirements of Jay Wright (Villanova), Mike Krzyzewski (Duke) and Roy Williams (North Carolina) in the past two years have left Boeheim without many peers in college basketball. All three coaches suggested they had limited interest in adapting to a new era of college sports, which now includes NIL and the transfer portal.
Boeheim has said he won't let any changes force him to retire. But he also admits he won't try to attract elite transfers with major NIL deals.
He does not talk like someone who intends to stick around too long to watch as this new climate evolves.
"People have been asking me that for 15 years," he said. "Well, 15 years ago, if I'd said it'd be pretty soon, I would have been a liar. I think, realistically, I'm pretty close. But I would never quit because of this or that."
Don't be fooled by North Carolina's success in Hubert Davis' first season at the helm after Williams' retirement, when he led the team to the 2022 national title game.
Schools often struggle in the years that follow the replacement of a longtime coach. When Guy Lewis retired in 1986 after 30 years at Houston, the Cougars earned just one conference championship until 2019. Arkansas fired Nolan Richardson, who led the team to the 1994 national title, in 2002 -- and failed to reach the second weekend of the NCAA tournament for nearly 20 years. Mike Woodson is the fifth head coach Indiana has hired since firing Bob Knight in 2000. Some would argue UCLA is still searching for the right successor to John Wooden, who won 10 national titles in 12 seasons: The Bruins produced just two Final Four appearances in the two decades following his retirement in 1975.
For Syracuse, the impact of the high-profile program -- and the weight of a job held by Boeheim since 1976 -- extends far beyond the campus.
At The Basketball Tournament regional hosted at SRC Arena in Syracuse in July, the parking lots and the stands were flooded with orange-and-white-clad Syracuse fans. When Boeheim entered the building to watch the aptly named Boeheim's Army, a team anchored by former Syracuse players, the arena roared with applause and cheers.
Game nights at Syracuse make you feel like you've stumbled into college basketball's largest family reunion. Former players often return to the city to live near campus and support their school.
Boeheim has built this community. He also hasn't left the area. Arriving from a high school just over 50 miles away, he joined the basketball team as a walk-on in 1962 and eventually became team captain. Even after graduation, when he played semi-pro basketball from 1966 to 1969, he lived in town and helped former head coaches Fred Lewis and Roy Danforth as a grad assistant.
"I've never left," Boeheim said. "I'm the only coach that's ever done that. People come back. But this is my 60th year."
