Boeheim to retire in 3 years
Longtime Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim to step down; AD resigns in wake NCAA sanctions.
SYRACUSE basketball coach Jim Boeheim will retire in 3 years and the university's athletic director has resigned, the school announced yesterday following a scathing NCAA report that imposed sanctions for violations that lasted more than a decade.
Chancellor Kent Syverud said that Boeheim, a Hall of Famer and head coach for 39 years, decided to make the announcement to "bring certainty to the team and program in the coming years" and to allow for a smooth transition.
Athletic director Daryl Gross will take another marketing position with the school, while Pete Salas will serve as interim athletic director.
The violations involved academic misconduct, extra benefits and the university's drug-testing policy. Boeheim, 70, is already suspended for the first half of the next Atlantic Coast Conference season, a total of nine games. Syracuse also will have three scholarships taken away for four seasons and all wins vacated in which an ineligible player participated from 2004 through 2012.
The March 6 report by the NCAA Committee on Infractions found several violations, particularly with the men's basketball program.
Syverud reiterated that although the university accepts some of the penalties, it does not agree with all of the conclusions reached by the Committee on Infractions, as well as the penalties imposed, and intends to appeal the vacating of certain wins and the scholarship reduction in men's basketball.
Noteworthy
* Tom Pecora, under whom Fordham was 44-106 over five seasons, was fired.
Pecora went to Fordham after nine seasons at Hofstra, where he compiled a 155-126 record that included three NIT berths.
Fordham has had one winning season since 1991-92.
* The longtime men's basketball coach at St. John's University in Minnesota has decided to retire after 51 seasons.
The St. Cloud Times reported 80-year-old coach Jim Smith announced his retirement to St. John's players Tuesday afternoon. He finishes with the most wins of any college basketball coach in Minnesota with a record of 786-556.
Smith played at Marquette in the 1950s, and became the St. John's coach before the 1964-65 season.
* Former Princeton coach Bill Carmody will be named the coach at Holy Cross, ESPN reported, citing multiple sources.