Color Him Orange: The Jim Boeheim Story

By Scott Pitoniak

In Color Him Orange: The Jim Boeheim Story, award-winning sports columnist and best-selling author Scott Pitoniak identifies the sources of Basketball Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim's fierce competitive drive and loyalty to Syracuse. The book also examines the people who shaped Boeheim as a person and a coach, the great players he has coached, and his incredible devotion to raising money in hopes of eradicating cancerwhich claimed both of his parents' lives, and has also victimized Boeheim himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triumph Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781617495830

Book preview

—

To Ed Shaw, my college roommate and dear friend. The Syracuse Orange has never had a truer fan.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Putting Down Roots in Upstate New York

2. Like Father, Like Son

3. The Making of a High School Hoops Hero

4. Becoming an Orange Man

5. Landing His Dream Job

6. The Louie & Bouie Show

7. Discovering a Gem in Pearl

8. A Dagger in the Heart

9. From Peaks to Valleys

10. A Major Change in Perception

11. Finding True Love

12. Winning the Big One

13. A Call from the Hall

14. Adding to His Legacy

Appendix. Miscellany from Jim Boeheim’s Career

About the Author

Published Works of Scott Pitoniak

Index

Photo Gallery

Acknowledgments

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my research for this book actually began back in the winter of 1965–66 when I started following Syracuse University basketball as a 10-year-old in Rome, New York, about a 45-minute drive east of Manley Field House. Dave Bing was my favorite Orange hoopster in those days. And if you had ever seen him play, you’d understand why. Bing was a graceful athlete who had an uncanny ability not only to rise above the rest but to remain airborne longer than everyone else. He would go on to become a consensus All-American, a seven-time NBA All-Star, and a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. His backcourt mate back then was Jim Boeheim—a skinny, bespectacled guy with a funny-looking jump shot who was smart enough to realize that if he hung around Bing, good things would happen.

When I arrived on the Syracuse campus as a student eight years later, Bing was long gone, but Boeheim was still there. He remained skinny and bespectacled, but he had traded his player’s garb for some god-awful plaid sport coats while working as an anonymous assistant to coach Roy Danforth. It wasn’t until my senior year, 1976–77, that I and my fellow crazies who sat in the student section known as the Zoo became more familiar with Boeheim. He had replaced the personable and loquacious Danforth as head coach, and none of us knew what to expect.

The Boeheim Era tipped off auspiciously as two precocious freshmen, Roosevelt Bouie and Louis Orr, helped the Orangemen go 26–4. It was during that season that I interviewed the coach for the first time for my hometown newspaper. During the next three and a half decades, I would interview him scores of times and, like most reporters who covered the team, I occasionally would incur his wrath. There were instances when a story or a column struck a nerve and Boeheim would call my sports editor to complain, a practice he employed with other writers, as well.

Over time, our relationship improved as each of us became more understanding of this often awkward dance between coach and reporter. My questions began eliciting insight rather than sarcasm, and Jim went out of his way to provide me with background information for stories and columns I was researching. There were times when he was funny in a self-deprecating way, almost charming.

There’s no doubt that his second wife, Juli, and the presence of his three young kids helped soften him. But I also believe that the national championship, the Hall of Fame induction, and the appreciation shown by the fans, the school administration, and even we ink-stained wretches also played roles in his transformation. (That’s not, though, to say he mellowed completely—his tongue-lashing of local reporters following a victory at the Carrier Dome midway through the 2010–11 season conjured memories of the not-always–good old days when he and his media detractors were occasionally at odds.)

I had been attempting to convince Jim to collaborate on an autobiography for several years, but he wouldn’t budge. He said he had no interest in writing a book—at least not while he was still coaching. Finally, Tom Bast at Triumph Books asked me if I would be interested in writing an unauthorized biography of Boeheim, and I said, Yes.

Though Jim was a little miffed when I told him we were going ahead with the project, he wound up being cooperative, filling in blanks and expounding on things when necessary. For that I am grateful. And everyone associated with the program and whom I contacted from his past—including his younger sister, Barbara Boeheim, and many of his lifelong friends from his hometown of Lyons, New York—were extremely helpful in providing insights into what makes Jim tick.

I discovered that Jim, like most of us, is a complex individual with many sides—some good, some not so good. His Hall of Fame career was largely shaped by an ultracompetitive father, a nurturing but also competitive mother, his small-town roots, and his lifelong friends, especially Bing. My journey through his years uncovered a man who is extremely intelligent and opinionated, but also, at times, thin-skinned, whiny, and sarcastic. I learned just how deep his loyalty and devotion to his program and his college alma mater runs. And I also discovered a kindhearted side to the person who is as driven to raise funds for Coaches vs. Cancer as he is to accumulate victories on the court.

A biography should explain how and why a person became who he or she is. It is my hope that whether you like or dislike this incredibly accomplished basketball coach and philanthropist, you’ll come away with a better understanding of him.

A book is always a team effort, and I had some great teammates assisting me with this project. This is my third book published by Triumph, and each experience has been a good one. Thanks to the aforementioned Tom Bast for believing in this subject and to developmental editor Noah Amstadter for seeing it to fruition.

The following, in alphabetical order, are many of the people whom I’ve either interviewed about Jim and Syracuse basketball through the years or whose work provided reference and perspective (I apologize in advance for any folks I may have omitted): Rafael Addison, Patricia Alena, Wendell Alexis, Lew Andreas, Carmelo Anthony, Carol Bailey, Tom Batzold, Kim Baxter, Jay Bilas, Frank Bilovsky, Dave Bing, Dick Blackwell, Ryan Blackwell, Jim Blandino, Mark Blaudschun, Greg Boeck, Barbara Boeheim, Jim Boeheim, Juli Boeheim, Lee Boice, Rick Bonnell, Roosevelt Bouie, Rick Bozich, Steve Bradley, Erik Brady, Tony Bruin, Earl Buchanan, Barry Buchsbaum, Arnie Burdick, Marty Byrnes, Jim Calhoun, Jack Carey, Hal Cohen, Derrick Coleman, Larry Costello, Jay Cox, Jake Crouthamel, Roy Danforth, Ken Davis, Dorothy DeBout, Mike DeCola, Eric Devendorf, Donna Ditota, Sherman Douglas, Kueth Duany, Gene Duffey, Sue Edson, Dave Elfin, Donn Esmonde, Andrea Evangelist, Gary Fallesen, John Feinstein, Bernie Fine, Jonny Flynn, Craig Forth, Tom Foster, Dave Gavitt, Rev. Paul Gongloff, Tom Gould, Allen Griffin, Rudy Hackett, Vaughn Harper, Jason Hart, Isabelle Hartman, Marty Headd, Mark Heisler, George Hicker, Otis Hill, Geoff Hobson, Louise Hoffman, Mike Hopkins, Rick Jackson, Jennifer Jacobs, Marius Janulis, William Kates, Andy Katz, John Kekis, Sean Kerins, Armen Keteyian, Larry Kimball, Sean Kirst, Manny Klutchkowski, Bob Knight, Bill Koenig, Tony Kornheiser, Bob Krengel, Mike Krzyzewski, Dave and Leona Lauster, Tim Layden, Jimmy Lee, Fred Lewis, Todd Lighty, Brendan Malone, Jim Mandelaro, Brian Martin, Mike McAlary, Jack McCallum, Brian McLane, Pat McMullen, Donovan McNabb, Gerry McNamara, Jeremy McNeil, Ron Mergenthaler, Chuck Miller, Len and Edna Minnich, Greg Monroe, Pete Moore, Malcolm Moran, John Moriello, Lawrence Moten, Demetris Nichols, Ed Nicklas, Arinze Onuaku, Jill Ouikahilo, Billy Owens, Josh Pace, Arthur Pachter, Bob Parker, Joan Pecorello, Sam Penceal, Digger Phelps, Val Pinchbeck, Joel Pinckney, Leo Pinckney, Preston Pisellini, John Pitarresi, Rick Pitino, Bud Poliquin, Louie Orr, David Ramsey, Ethan Ramsey, Andy Rautins, Leo Rautins, Bill Reddy, Matt Reynolds, Chuck Richards, Lenn Robbins, Charley Ross, Bob Ryan, Jonathan D. Salant, Robert Sanzone, Tony Santelli, Jim Satalin, Danny Schayes, Dolph Schayes, Phil Schoff, Chris Sciria, Tony Scott, Rony Seikaly, Jack Seitzinger, Steve Serby, Dale Shackleford, Ed Shaw, Preston Shumpert, Lazarus Sims, Joey Sindelar, Keith Smart, Dean Smith, Bob Snyder, Buzz Stoetzel, Theresa Streb, Bill Strickland, Kim Sholly, Pete Thamel, Etan Thomas, John Thompson, Stevie Thompson, Howard Triche, Rex Trobridge, Mike Vaccaro, Bill Vanderschmidt, Bud VanderVeer, Valerie Vecchio, Dick Vitale, Gene Waldron, John Wallace, Hakim Warrick, Dwayne Pearl Washington, Mike Waters, Dick Weiss, Tim Welsh, Adrian Wojnarowski, Alexander Wolff, John Wooden, and Jay Wright.

Periodicals that provided great background included: The Basketball Times, Bergen County Record, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Daily Orange, The Detroit News, Eastern Basketball, ESPN The Magazine, Finger Lakes Times, Hartford Courant, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal, Lyons Republic, The Lyons Tale high school yearbooks, The National, New York Daily News, New York Post, The New York Times, Newsday, The Onondagan, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester Times-Union, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Syracuse Herald-Journal, Syracuse Post-Standard, Syracuse University Magazine, Syracuse University basketball media guides (1962-present), USA TODAY, Wayne County Star, and The Washington Post.

I also relied on nine books as sources, including Playing Write Field: Selected Works by Scott Pitoniak, which I wrote in 1997, and Slices of Orange: Great Games and Performers in Syracuse University Sports History, which I cowrote with former newspaper colleague Sal Maiorana in 2005. The other books that were extremely helpful were: Legends of Syracuse Basketball by Mike Waters; Tales from the Syracuse Hardwood by Bud Poliquin; Syracuse Basketball: A Century of Memories edited by Bob Snyder; Syracuse Basketball: 1900–1975 by Rod Macdonald; Raw Recruits by Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian; "Grip’s" Historical Souvenir of Lyons, N.Y. by Edgar Luderne Welsh; and A Look at Lyons: History and Images of Lyons, New York by Andrea Evangelist.

Lastly, a doff of the cap to my wife, Beth; my children, Amy and Christopher; and our cat, Sassy, for their understanding. I couldn’t have done this without their love and support.

Cheers,

Scott Pitoniak

April 1, 2011

Introduction

The witnesses insist they haven’t embellished the tale in order to make it even taller. They swear on a stack of Bibles the story is true.

The anecdote goes like this:

Jim Boeheim, Rick Pitino, and their wives are lying on a beach in Hawaii many years ago when the conversation turns to where they would live if they could choose any place on the planet.

Park Avenue, New York City, says Pitino’s wife, Joanne.

Paris, France, replies Boeheim’s first wife, Elaine.

Honolulu, Hawaii, chimes in Pitino.

Syracuse, New York, says Boeheim.

The Pitinos and Elaine do double takes when they hear the Syracuse University basketball coach’s response. Syracuse, New York? A place with less sun than Seattle and more snow than Buffalo? They wonder if Boeheim has imbibed too many mai tais beneath the blistering Pacific sun.

Syracuse is like Hawaii for eight months of the year, he explains to the incredulous trio. The other four months, I don’t care about the weather because we’re playing basketball.

After Boeheim finishes his Chamber of Commerce pitch for his unusual concept of paradise, the Pitinos and Elaine gather up their towels and move several feet away. They joke to Jim that they don’t want to keep the company of a man who’s clearly delirious.

Jim is what I call a nester, Pitino explains many years later. He’s the kind of guy who will find a good restaurant and be content to go there 100 straight times before checking out another restaurant. It’s a good thing [his current wife] Juli came along, or Jim would still be eating at Denny’s five days a week.

Boeheim was mocked royally by the national media when the story first came to light. And it still elicits roaring laughs whenever Pitino and his former boss are on the banquet circuit.

Still, there’s something admirable about Boeheim’s perception of paradise and sense of loyalty. Particularly in an era when no one seems to stay put anymore.

Given his enormous success as a basketball coach, Boeheim easily could have pulled up roots several times by now in search of greener (as in the color of money) pastures that other schools and the NBA offered. But the guy who grew up in Lyons, a tiny canal town 45 minutes east of Syracuse, never was drawn to the big-city lights. The mortician’s son essentially arrived on the SU campus as a gangly, bespectacled walk-on basketball player in the summer of 1962 and was quite content to never leave.

I guess I’ve always viewed things a little differently than most people, he said. Most people believe the grass is greener on the other side. But I guess I was fortunate enough early on to appreciate the greenness of the grass on my side of the fence.

And by deciding to be a nester rather than a nomad for nearly half a century and stringing together more 20-victory seasons than any coach in college basketball history, Boeheim has become to Syracuse what John Wooden was to UCLA, Adolph Rupp was to Kentucky, Mike Krzyzewski is to Duke, and Joe Paterno is to Penn State—a legend in his adopted hometown, the face of a university. And it could be argued that Boeheim’s ties to his school run even deeper than the aforementioned because he played there, too. Which means he’s been a part of the Syracuse basketball program for 49 of its 112 years—a span of almost 1,600 games.

It hasn’t always been a smooth ride, but what long journey ever is? At times, Boeheim has been his own worst enemy. His whiny demeanor led to an occasionally tempestuous relationship with the media, referees, and some of his players. His close relationship with a program booster and his contacts with a basketball street agent resulted in sanctions against the SU program in the early 1990s that briefly put his job in jeopardy. The albatross of not being able to win the big one burdened him until his Carmelo Anthony–led squad cut down the nets in New Orleans in 2003 on the very same Superdome court where Indiana’s Keith Smart had broken his heart 16 years earlier. And he had to endure a bout with prostate cancer, bringing back painful memories of the disease that claimed his parents and a number of close friends, including former North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano.

But through it all, Boeheim’s loyalty to his school never wavered. And as he grew older, he grew happier. In his mid-fifties, he met Juli Greene. She not only captured his heart but softened his soul, bringing out the kinder, gentler side of his personality. At Juli’s urging, he has thrown himself full bore into philanthropic causes. And, now, his greatest legacy may not wind up being his plaque in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, but rather the nearly $10 million he has raised in his work for Coaches vs. Cancer.

The where-you-want-to-live-if-you-could-live-anywhere anecdote about Boeheim still evokes looks of incredulity and roars of laughter all these years later. Syracuse, New York? Paradise? Yeah, right.

But as Jim Boeheim discovered long ago, paradise, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes you find it by staying put.

1. Putting Down Roots in Upstate New York

It doesn’t matter from which direction you journey. North or south through the rolling cornfields and apple orchards on Route 14, or east or west on Route 31, which runs parallel to the historic Erie Canal. The eye-grabbing orange signs are there to welcome you to Lyons, New York, and inform you immediately and proudly that this Wayne County town of roughly 6,000 inhabitants, equidistant from Syracuse and Rochester, is where it all began for its most famous son, Jim Boeheim, coach of Syracuse University’s 2003 national championship basketball team.

When he finally won it all after those painful close calls, nobody felt better for Jimmy than the people here, said Mike DeCola, a high school basketball and Little League baseball teammate of Boeheim’s, who’s been friends with the Hall of Fame coach since they were about six years old. The town had a big celebration for Jimmy that summer. We had him and his family ride to the ceremonies on a fire truck and gave him one of the signs that we were going to put up. And he told us that that recognition from his hometown meant more to him than the visit to the White House to meet the President of the United States. And we believed him because no matter how much success Jimmy’s had, he’s never forgotten his roots. Lyons will always be a big part of who Jimmy Boeheim is, and he’ll always be a big part of Lyons.

Actually, the Boeheim name became synonymous with this town south of Lake Ontario long before the legendary basketball coach was born. Jim’s great-great-grandfather, Friedrich W. Boeheim, and his wife, Phillipina, arrived in this upstate New York settlement on a canal boat in 1853. A native of Wuettenberg, Germany, Boeheim, like many immigrants, had boarded the mule-towed vessel and headed west on the 363-mile long canal that connected the Hudson River with Lake Erie. He likely had been told that boom towns and villages had sprouted along the famous man-made waterway and that there were opportunities to make money and own land. It’s not known how far west Friedrich and his wife had intended to travel. All we know is that a help wanted sign convinced them to get off the boat in Lyons. The sign had been held aloft by Hiram Hotchkiss, an enterprising entrepreneur who was on the verge of establishing himself as the peppermint king of the world. Hotchkiss was looking to hire a cook, and although Boeheim possessed carpentry rather than culinary skills, he apparently was willing to give it a shot in hopes that he would be able to establish a cabinet-making business on the side. Plus, of all the places he had seen along the canal, this was the area that probably appealed most to him. The town seemed bustling and vibrant, the land fertile and scenic, and there were a number of German immigrants to make him and his young bride feel at home in a new land.

Boeheim would come to learn that the settlement originally had been known as the forks because, in the southern part of town, Ganargua Creek, or Mud Creek as it was called, and the Canandaigua Outlet joined to form the Clyde River. But it was renamed Lyons by early settler and land agent Charles Williamson, because the junction reminded him of the bucolic town of Lyon, France, where the Rhone and Saone rivers meet.

It’s not clear how successful a cook Boeheim became, but the job Hotchkiss offered must have tided him over long enough for him to get his furniture business up and running roughly a year later. In 1854, the German-born carpenter opened a small cabinet shop on Jackson Street where he also made caskets. From today’s perspective, this might seem a strange, almost humorous business combination, but it was quite common in the mid-nineteenth century for furniture makers to also construct caskets and even perform burials. Word of the high quality of Boeheim’s cabinets, tables, chairs, dressers, and caskets spread quickly throughout the town, and it wasn’t long before Friedrich moved into a building on Canal Street that was three times larger and where he began grooming his 14-year-old son, Frederick B., to follow in his footsteps. By 1880, the younger Boeheim had joined the firm, and several years later the business was moved again to more spacious surroundings, this time to a three-story brick building on Water Street. Because it bordered the canal path and featured a freight elevator, the location was better suited to gather supplies and ship products to other canal towns in either direction.

Two signs adorned the new building, which occupied nearly an entire block. The one painted above the second floor read: F.W. BOEHEIM & SONS, while a larger sign, above the first floor, read: FURNITURE AND UNDERTAKING. Following his father’s death in 1905 at age 80, Frederick took over the business and expanded sales even further by doing more newspaper advertising. An ad in the October 10, 1906, edition of the Wayne Democratic Press urged readers to go to Frederick Boeheim’s for furniture, undertaking, and picture frames. Talk about life-and-death, one-stop shopping.

Like his father before him, Frederick groomed his son to take over the business, and that occurred in 1926 when a third Frederick Boeheim—the coach’s grandfather—became the new head of the firm. He had married Lettie Armeda Taylor in 1911, and they had five children. Their second child—the coach’s father, James Arthur Boeheim—was born in 1917 in Lyons. He began working for his father when he was 12, helping pick up chairs and loading furniture into the delivery trucks. He attended Syracuse University before transferring to the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, where he received a degree in 1939. Upon graduating, he joined the family business full time, and following their father’s death in 1951, he and his older brother, Frederick T., took over the firm—making them the fourth generation in a family that Lyons’ residents fondly referred to as the Burying Boeheims. But the brothers’ partnership would last only three years. When Frederick left to become a traveling salesman for an embalming supply company in Westport, Connecticut, James Boeheim, known to everyone in town as Jim, became the sole owner and operator.

The first Jim Boeheim was a driven man in every endeavor he pursued, and some surmise that his fierce determination and competitiveness was not only inherited but also shaped by a life-changing event when he was a young boy. The story goes that he and one of his brothers discovered their father’s revolver one day and began fooling around with it. The gun accidentally went off and a .22-caliber slug sliced through Jim Sr.’s lower back and came to rest near his spine. Though they knew there probably would be complications, doctors determined that the location of the bullet made it too risky to remove, so they decided to leave it be. As a result of the wound, one of Jim’s legs wound up being two inches shorter than the other, and he spent the rest of his life walking with a limp and started using a cane in his early forties. It could have been worse, Boeheim said years later. I could be bones and dust over in a field in Africa or someplace like Guadalacanal. Maybe I was lucky. Lucky because his injury prevented him from being drafted into the service during World War II.

Despite the handicap, he still managed to play baseball and basketball with friends, but he mainly sated his competitive appetite with games that did not require running and jumping, such as golf, ping-pong, pool, and bridge. Those who knew him say he was a poor loser and told stories of him arguing and stomping away after defeats, no matter how insignificant the contest.

Boeheim viewed business as a competition, too, so it wasn’t surprising that he became regarded as a demanding boss, who, like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, expected perfection in the furniture he sold. The result was a line of high-quality chairs, tables, and cabinets that earned the family business the respect of their customers. You walk around our house and you’ll see a Boeheim table here and a Boeheim hutch there, says Lee Boice, a retired history/physical-education teacher and golf coach at Lyons High School. And you’ll probably see furniture that was purchased from Boeheim’s that was made 60, 70, 80 years ago in a lot of homes in the area. The craftsmanship was very good. The stuff was made to last.

The high quality of the furniture wasn’t the only thing that earned the Boeheims respect, according to Boice. Lyons, like most communities in America in the 1930s and ’40s, was still kind of a prejudicial town, where people on the south side of the bridge—primarily the Italians—were looked down upon by the German- and Dutch-Americans, who lived on the north side and were considered the high society members of the community, Boice said. To his credit, Jim Sr., never looked down on the Italians. He treated them as equals, sold them furniture, gave them jobs, and let them slide on their payments when they were experiencing tough times. It was, of course, the right thing to do, but I can tell you that not everyone was doing the right thing back then. There was definitely an ethnic bias, and it took a while for the melting pot to catch up to a lot of places, including Lyons.

Although he was involved in two of Lyons’ most visible businesses—the furniture store and funeral home—and was active in a number of service organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce and local service lodge, Boeheim did not care one iota for the limelight. He was what I would describe as austere, said Boice, who occasionally had Boeheim and his wife, Janet, over for dinner. "He was

Reviews for Color Him Orange

[vgaharris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I live in Boeheim's hometown so I may be a little biased, but I still think it's a good read.