Monday, November 28, 2011

Jim Boeheim's Arrogance May Be His Undoing

Syracuse's Jim Boeheim may be the secondary legendary coach in a month to lose his job over a sex scandal involving a trusted assistant.
The Bernie Fine mess has gotten more serious, and more weird, in the past 24 hours.
ESPN has released more information from Fine's accuser, Bobby Davis. This includes an audio tape of a conversation Davis had with Bernie Fine's wife, Laurie in October 2002. During the phone call, Laurie Fine seems to acknowledge her husband's molestation of Davis.
"I know everything that went on. I know everything that went on with him. Bernie has issues, maybe that he's not aware of, but he has issues," she says.
But that's not it. The latest twist in the story is that Davis claims he fucked Laurie Fine when he was 18, and even told Bernie about it.
Also, there is a new accuser, Zach Tomaselli, who says he was molested by Fine in a hotel room in Pittsburgh in 2002.
Tomaselli faces his own charge for alleged sexual assault against a young boy, and Tomaselli's own father says he is lying about Fine.
But that didn't stop the University from firing Bernie Fine.
In light of new evidence, the taped phone call is most damning, the school was right to get rid of Fine.
And Boeheim could be next. His aggressive comments about Davis -- he called him a liar and an extortionist -- are a real embarrassment now that it looks more likely he was defending a child molester.
A chastened Boeheim released a much more conciliatory statement saying "I deeply regret any statements I made that might have inhibited that from occurring or been insensitive to victims of abuse."

At this point I'm pretty sure Fine was molesting boys. And there's also a very good chance Boeheim knew about it, and his aggressive reaction was designed to discourage future complaints, and to make his denial seem more believable. This is absolutely terrible. If there is any shred of evidence to show Boeheim was a Paterno-esque enabler of a molester he should be fired immediately even if it torpedoes a very promising season.
And no student or alumnus should shed a tear, speak a word, stand on a lawn or tip a news truck in defense of him.
If this is true, Fine and Boeheim have sullied our University's reputation for years to come, and they should be the only targets of our anger.

Thankfully, it appears the University as a broader entity is doing -- and has done -- the right thing here. If that 2005 investigation was legitimate (Davis never handed over the tape of his call with Laurie Fine to the school), then this alleged problem may not turn out to be the kind of cancer that ate away at Penn State.

1 comment:

Damino said...

Great post. I think the university is handling this very well, and from what we know so far, it doesn't seem like Boeheim was involved in any kind of cover up that would merit his firing.