While stopping short of calling for the firing or resignation of Syracuse head basketball coach Jim Boeheim — who earlier this month labelled accusers of alleged sex criminal / assistant coach Bernie Fine a bunch of opportunistic hustlers — the Syracuse Post-Standard’s Bud Polquin, pontificates, “so many folks, a fair amount of whom are employed by SU, may well be squirming on this bleak morning.” Chiefly amongst them, Boeheim, who at the time of Fine being implicated by ESPN, insisted, “I’ve known Bernie for 40-plus years, and I don’t believe in any way, shape or form he would ever even pat a kid on the shoulder. Is that clear enough?”
Was there some kind of cover-up in 2002 when Bobby Davis tried to tell his tale to various authorities? What did people in positions of power, particularly at SU, know and, if they did know something, when did they know it … and why did they apparently not act? Will others up there on the Syracuse campus follow the disgraced Fine out the door?
Already the main topic of discussion in this town, it was expanded on Sunday after that incriminating dialogue between Bobby Davis and Laurie Fine was followed by the swinging of Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s sword. And Boeheim, Bernie’s boss? On Sunday afternoon, he’d answered his telephone only to offer that he had nothing to say. By Sunday night, beyond the release of a statement attributed to him, he’d gone silent (for public consumption, anyway) altogether.
And yet, his earlier comments still wafted.
“We’re going to believe that Bernie will be completely — completely — exonerated in this,” Boeheim said. “The university and me and everybody else. If something happened, then we will deal with that.”
Something seems to have happened. Something fairly unspeakable.