Boeheim's 800th Deserves a 'Wow'

In his 34 years as Syracuse's head coach -- even during the years when his face was one of those synonymous with Big East basketball, not even when he won a long-awaited national championship -- never was Jim Boeheim the type to dwell for long on his own accomplishments. On Monday night, when he earned his 800th career victory over Albany at the Carrier Dome, he was quoted in the Syracuse Post Standard this way: "I guess there's a 'wow' factor, winning 800. But then, it's not like playing golf with Tiger Woods. I mean, that's a real 'wow' factor.''

Boeheim playing down his feat was as expected as was his reference to his other favorite sport. But is it really possible to look at 800 victories, all at one school, with that school being his alma mater, and not greet it with at least a 'wow'?

If the fact that only seven other coaches with at least 10 years in Division I have done it doesn't elicit that reaction, then consider some of the legends who either have not gotten there yet, or never got there at all.

Take John Wooden, for example. He finished with 664 wins. He won 10 national championships and coached for 30 years. They weren't all at UCLA, and right now it's four fewer seasons than Boeheim, whose entire head coaching career has taken place since Wooden's retirement in 1975.

Or Lute Olson. When he finally moved awkwardly into retirement before last season at age 75, accompanied by health and personal issues, he had 780 wins, the bulk of them in his 25 years at Arizona. Boeheim turns 65 a week from Tuesday and has not even hinted at retirement, with the exception of having longtime assistant Mike Hopkins lined up for the last two seasons as his heir apparent at some undetermined time. Then again, Boeheim remains on Mike Krzyzewski's U.S. national team staff, so barring some massive upheaval in the next three years, he will be coaching at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Then there are the other recent members of the 800 club. Jim Calhoun, longtime friend and Big East rival at Connecticut, has battled health problems the last several seasons, including late last year as another wave of alleged recruiting violations bounced off him and the program. Calhoun, 2-1/2 years Boeheim's senior, won his 800th last season. Eddie Sutton's tenure at Oklahoma State, and seemingly his career, ended uncomfortably late in the 2005-06 season, two wins short of the milestone. His next job began just as uncomfortably, taking over in a controversial coaching change at San Francisco early in the 2007-08 season; he went 6-13, nabbed No. 800 and got out again.
Boeheim hitting the mark, though, was such a foregone conclusion, he entered this season mildly miffed that the win, and the surrounding attention, hadn't happened last season. Of course, that would have entailed either winning the Big East tournament (never mind that it was a miracle the Orange had reached the final, after the six-overtime classic over Connecticut and the overtime stunner over West Virginia in the previous rounds) or reaching the NCAA Elite Eight after all the Big East drama.

Speaking of the Big East and the coaches who became instantly identified with it as it rose to prominence in the 1980s ... Boeheim was in a group with Lou Carnesecca, John Thompson and Rollie Massimino in the conference's golden days. Thompson retired at 596 wins, Carnesecca at 526, and Massimino won 515 in 30 years in the NCAA before joining the start-up program at Northwood in Florida.

Back then, Boeheim was the one who could never get his perpetually-loaded team over the hump, the one that couldn't get to the Final Four the way the others did, the one whose team was the first to lose to a 15-seed in the expanded NCAA Tournament (1991, to Richmond in College Park, Md.), the one who looked more agitated at each call, each frustrating loss, each aggravating postgame question than all the other coaches combined.

Now Boeheim has a national championship, led by Carmelo Anthony in 2003, and two other title game appearances (very quietly, one in each of the last three decades), a won-loss record that puts him in the very elite of the sport's history, a career that seems to have no end, and no one closing in that much on his victory total.

Not Roy Williams, with one more national championship; North Carolina's opening-game win over Florida International Monday put him within five -- of 600. A trio of lifers in Bob Huggins, Tom Penders and Gary Williams are several seasons away from 700.

Rick Pitino is two seasons away from 800 -- total games coached, that is (he goes into the season at Louisville with 552 wins). John Calipari, now at Kentucky, has 445 career wins. Both had stints in the NBA to break their totals up. Both have worked at other schools besides their current one. Only two Division I coaches have won more at one college (Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp) and only two have coached more games at one college (Jim Phelan and Smith).

That's the neighborhood Boeheim is in now. Even Tiger Woods would probably say "wow'' to all of that.