Sports

Crusty Boeheim still going strong on Syracuse sideline

WASHINGTON — Jim Boeheim was a big-time basketball star at Lyons High (N.Y.) — the biggest of fish in a small-town pond. After a 30-point performance as a sophomore, Boeheim found himself waiting to get a soda and snack at a local convenience store.

He waited and waited and waited.

“The guy there was a crusty old guy and he served everybody in the place,’’ Boeheim told The Post in a hallway in the Verizon Center. “And then he said, ‘What the hell do you want?’ Meaning, you’re nothing special.’’

Boeheim has gone on to a rather special career — 918 wins, the Hall of Fame, trophy wife. Yet at times he has been unable to shake his own crusty persona, the one that makes it seem as if his underwear is too tight.

“We were playing in a golf tournament at the Hall of Fame a few years ago and we didn’t have clubs and shoes,’’ Boeheim’s longtime friend and CBS/Turner college basketball announcer Bill Raftery said.

“They got us clubs, but I didn’t have shoes. So Jimmy asks me what size I wear. I tell him 11-and-a-half. He loans me a pair of shoes. And every time I line up a putt I say, ‘Jimmy, your shoes are whining.’ Then I put my arms at my sides with the palms up like he always does when he’s complaining about a call.’’

James Arthur Boeheim isn’t doing much complaining these days. His fourth-seeded Orange (28-9) have advanced to their 17th Sweet 16 appearance in his 36 seasons.

They face No.1 seed Indiana (29-6) tonight in the East Region semifinals with more speculation than ever that a loss might be the last of his astonishing 36-year head coaching career.

“I’m coachin’ next year, I kid around a little bit and everybody gets crazy when I do, so I’m not going to kid around about it anymore. I’m coaching next year, thrilled, got a great challenge, looking forward to it,’’ he said.

Door closed.

“About September, if I don’t want to coach, I won’t coach,’’ he added.

Door opened.

There are strong sentiments for Boeheim to walk through either door.

He is the Lyon in winter, a 68-year-old father of four who has survived prostate cancer, bristled at critics of his 2-3 zone, loathes Syracuse’s move to the ACC and is livid about an ongoing NCAA investigation.

He certainly isn’t acting like a soon-to-be retiree. He’s taken up texting his wife, Juli, their three children, Jimmy, 14, and 12-year-old twins, Jack and Jamie, and his oldest daughter, Elizabeth, a teacher at Montana, whom he had with his first wife.

And he’s taken up pilates. An instructor comes to his house twice a week for an hour.

“You work on core stuff,’’ he said. “They say it adds 30 yards to your [golf] swing, but I haven’t seen that yet.’’

His golf game is suffering because he has small meniscus tears in both knees. And despite the smartphone, he still keeps in the breast pocket of his sport coat an orange day-planner you can get at any Staples, in which he keeps his schedule.

Tonight Boeheim will stand in front of the Syracuse bench for the 1,231st time (his 78th NCAA Tournament game) with the same crusty demeanor.

“My friends and family, the people that know me, know what I’m like, they like me,’’ said Boeheim. “If you think Clint Eastwood is shooting people then you don’t understand that it’s just a movie. When I’m yelling and screaming at my players and referees, that’s not me, that’s just what I do.’’

What Boeheim does is coach. He was never more candid about his career than he was yesterday, saying that the last-second loss to Indiana in the 1987 national championship game haunted him for nearly three decades, until he won his title in 2003.

“I probably thought about it for those 26 years most of the time,’’ said Boeheim. “I never think about it anymore.’’

Now he doesn’t want a season to end because it means a family trip to Disney, where he would be surrounded by thousands of anti-Boeheims — non-crusty tourists wearing mouse hats and smiling.

“There is nothing worse than doing that!’’ he said.

Sure there is. It’s called being nothing special.

lenn.robbins@nypost.com