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Jim Boeheim, Syracuse head coach, released his autobiography with Jack McCallum Tuesday. Boeheim on release day had his first book signing at [words] in Maplewood, NJ, after having interviews with CBS and Sports Illustrated, among others. The "candid" autobiography discusses his life, the heydays of the Big East and more. Here are some quotes from Boeheim’s speech to the attendees of the event prior to the signing:
On his new autobiography, "Bleeding Orange": "This book i'm very pleased with. I waited until Jack McCallum could write the book with me. He’s a thirty year senior writer for Sports Illustrated, and a very good friend of mine. And he really is, I think one of the great writers that we have in the sports profession. It was a year and a half of working on this book, and it really started out with the history and anecdotes of our players over the whole period of my career. And as the season evolved, we included last year in it because of the way the season got going. We didn't think it would be more than 10% of the book, but it is probably 25, or 30 or 40% of the book. So it is interesting, it’s the best I can do, it's the only book I will ever write."
On Syracuse’s exhibition game against Carleton: "We played our first game Sunday and I developed an acute case of laryngitis. It’s probably from watching my team play very poorly for a long time. But the good news is we played the same team last year and we had to go to overtime to beat them. This year we beat them without going to overtime. I’m not sure what that really means...Hopefully that will be good news."
On the state of Syracuse basketball: "We lost our three best players again this year, we lost our three best players last year going into this year. Last year we had a freshman point guard, this year we still got a freshman point guard...We have a freshman forward (Chris McCullough) starting at forward, who is very good, and we got a senior center, who I think will come into his own this year, Rakeem Christmas. And he’s going to be tremendous player and I think he is going to be very good. And our two guards, our junior guards, who are in their fourth year, Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije are very, very good players. So thats the good news."
On the key to the season: "We got three or four sophomores that we can’t quite figure out yet, but we are trying hard, but we haven’t quite got them figured out yet...If we have a really good year, it will be because of those guys. I think our freshman will play alright, I think our upperclass guys will play alright, but we need those sophomores to step it up."
On recruiting: "We should have a great recruiting year this year, and recruit four guys or five in the top thirty of forty in the country."
On when he will retire: "We are definitely near the end. When the end is I don’t know. I hope some day I will wake up and think it's time! I have not yet had that morning, but I have woken up when some days I start thinking about it and i’m home for two days, and I have two twins who are 14, and a 16 year old, and I don’t think it's time. Even if I might want it to be time, it’s not time yet.