Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim will retire in three years and the university’s athletic director has resigned, the school announced Wednesday following a scathing NCAA report that imposed sanctions for violations that lasted more than a decade.
Chancellor Kent Syverud said Wednesday 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 will also 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.
“Coach Jim Boeheim has been a mainstay at Syracuse University for more than one-third of our entire 144-year history,” Syverud said. “He enrolled as a student here in 1962 and has never left. He has been the embodiment of Orange pride.”
Syverud also 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.
“The decision to appeal is not taken lightly. We remain disturbed by the severity of certain penalties and the characterization by the NCAA of certain facts surrounding the case,” Syverud said.
Gross will serve as vice President and special assistant to the Chancellor and adjunct professor in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.
