Regulation size autographed Wilson Basketball signed by current Syracuse Men's Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim

James Arthur "Jim" Boeheim is the men's basketball head coach for Syracuse University.^[1][2][3] Boeheim was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in September 2005. Boeheim has guided the Syracuse Orangemen (known as the Orange since 2004) to three NCAA championship game appearances. The Orange defeated Kansas in 2003 for the national title after losing to Indiana in 1987 and Kentucky in 1996.

Boeheim was born in Lyons, New York. He graduated from Lyons Central High School. Boeheim enrolled in Syracuse University as a student in 1963 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social science in 1969 (SU Athletics). During his freshman year, Boeheim was a walk-on with the men’s basketball team. By his senior year he was the team captain and a teammate of All-American Dave Bing. The pair led the Orange to a 22-6 overall win-loss record that earned the team’s second-ever NCAA tournament berth. After graduating from Syracuse, Boeheim played professional basketball with Scranton of the Eastern League during which he won two championships and was a second-team all-star (SU Athletics). While at Syracuse University he joined The Delta Upsilon Fraternity.

In 1969, Boeheim decided to coach basketball and was hired as a graduate assistant at Syracuse. Soon thereafter he was promoted to a full-time assistant coach and was a member of the coaching staff that helped guide the Orange to its first Final Four appearance in 1975. Coach Roy Danforth, the head coach at the time, was hired away from Syracuse University. A coaching search then led to naught, and, in 1976, Boeheim was promoted to be the head coach of his alma mater, and to this day, Boeheim is one of the rare individuals to spend his entire college basketball career (player, assistant coach, and head coach) at only one school. In his thirty-one years as head coach at Syracuse, Boeheim has guided the Orange to postseason berths, either in the NCAA or NIT tournaments, in all but one of his seasons (1993, when NCAA sanctions barred them from postseason play despite a 20-9 record). During his tenure, the Orange have never had a losing season, appeared in three NCAA national championship games (1987, 1996, and 2003) and won the national title in 2003.

He was an assistant coach under Mike Krzyzewski for the US national team in the 1990 FIBA World Championship and 2006 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal both times.^[4][5]

Boeheim has also been named three-time Big East coach of the year, and has been awarded ten times as District II Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. In 2004, Boeheim received two additional awards. The first was during the spring when he was awarded the Claire Bee Award in recognition of his contributions to the sport of basketball. During the fall of the same year Boeheim was presented with Syracuse University’s Arents Award, the University’s highest alumni honor.

In 2001, during his seventh year as a USA basketball coach, Boeheim helped lead the USA Basketball Young Men’s Team to a gold medal at the World Championship in Japan. During the fall of that year he was named USA Basketball 2001 National Coach of the Year.

In an exhibition game on November 7, 2005 against Division II school Saint Rose from Albany, New York, Boeheim was ejected for the first time in his career after arguing a call late in the first half in the Orange's 86-73 victory.

Boeheim's coaching style is unusual in that, whereas many of the more successful coaches prefer the man-to-man defense, he demonstrates an overwhelming preference for the 2-3 zone defense.^[6]