TWO DIFFERENT PATHS: Michigan coach Jim Beilein (above) said it meant the world to him that Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim (inset) would watch some of his games when he was a coach at Division II Le Moyne, Mike Vaccaro writes. Last night, Beilein’s Wolverines defeated Boeheim’s Orange, 61-56 to reach the national title game. (Getty Images (2))
ATLANTA — The drive would take, quite literally, 10 minutes — nine if you hit the lights right, if the traffic on Salt Springs Road wasn’t too bad, if the snow had been efficiently removed which, in Syracuse, rarely is a problem.
Jim Boeheim didn’t make that drive often. He and John Beilein weren’t friends, or branches of the same coaching tree. But Boeheim, always a gym rat, always appreciative of other talented men who shared his profession, occasionally would walk out of his office at Syracuse University, hop in his car, and 10 minutes later be sitting in the wooden stands at Le Moyne College.
That was Beilein’s office for nine years.
“He never called for a ticket, and it didn’t happen all the time, but we’d be playing someone like Philadelphia Textile or one of our other rivals at Le Moyne, and I’d look up in the stands, and he was there,” Beilein recalled earlier this week. “You have no idea how much that would mean to me.”
“I’ve always admired his coaching at every level, watching his teams play,” Boeheim told the Post-Standard of Syracuse this week. “We’ve never even gone out to dinner, but I just have tremendous respect and admiration for how he coaches.”
So maybe it was fate — or just a perfect collision of events — that brought the two of them together last night, in the NCAA Tournament’s second national semifinal. Certainly it was a marvelous combination of shooting and rebounding and defense that allowed Beilein’s Michigan Wolverines to clinch a spot in tomorrow night’s national championship game with a 61-56 win over Boeheim’s Orange.
There is a distinct connection that all coaches, share, to be sure, one that bonds them and binds them, stories of life on the road chasing players, chasing dreams, driving buses. Beilein has often told about driving through snowstorms on narrow upstate roads, delivering his team to Brockport or Union, delivering them home from Oswego and Hamilton, fine-tuning an old AM radio in a bus or minivan, eyes on the road, ears on a Syracuse-St. John’s game, or a Syracuse-Georgetown game.
In its own way, that was Beilein returning the favor, the equivalent of Boeheim’s occasional visits. Nine miles apart they worked for nine years, but the difference between Division I and Division II is a chasm that can be impossible to navigate. So it helped to have a friend make a call (even if, as we know, they aren’t really friends).
Canisius’ job opened in 1992. Beilein, a son of greater Buffalo, already had been turned down once for that gig. He hadn’t even gotten an interview when another nearby school, St. Bonaventure, was looking for a coach. There comes a time in every coach’s career when you wonder if maybe you’re where you’re going to be, if maybe one day they’re going to name the gym after you.
But Boeheim made a phone call, unsolicited. Did it get Beilein the job?
Put it this way: It didn’t hurt. He got the job. He turned Canisius around. He won an NCAA Tournament game as a 15 seed at Richmond. He came achingly close to making the Final Four at West Virginia, surrendering a 22-point lead to Louisville in 2005. And finally this year, this Michigan team that’s been as fun as any in the nation all year long, dragged Beilein to the pinnacle.
And whom should he meet there?
The same guy who used to share a city with him, who showed up for those lonely home games in those years when there was no guarantee John Beilein would ever get off Salt Springs Road.
By game’s end, both men bore the look of a couple of guys who had witnessed a train wreck, and in some ways both did: Michigan shot a comical 4-for-10 down the stretch, and Syracuse had one of the worst final possessions you’re ever going to see. They shook hands, and Boeheim wandered off to the first tee and Beilein to tomorrow night, finally getting a crack at the big trophy.
No word on if Boeheim will be in the stands or not for this one.