Hidden in the 11th paragraph of Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud’s campus-wide email was the answer to one of the most pressing questions surrounding Syracuse Athletics over the last two weeks.

Jim Boeheim plans to retire in three years — 814 words into the email and 39 years after a 31-year-old Boeheim first took the job.

“His goal in making this decision and announcement now is to bring certainty to the team and program in the coming years, and enable and plan for a successful, longer-term transition in coaching leadership,” Syverud wrote in the email, which was sent to the SU community Wednesday morning.

“Coach Boeheim’s commitment to ensuring that the men’s basketball program remains strong even after his tenure is just one more example of his deep loyalty to our University.”

At 10 a.m. on Thursday, Boeheim will talk to the media for the first time since the NCAA released its 94-page report on the SU Athletics program 13 days ago. The report detailed more than a decade of NCAA violations committed by the SU basketball and football programs, and included “(Boeheim’s) failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff” as a part of the athletic program’s wide-ranging infractions.

In an audio clip posted by Syracuse.com at SU’s end-of-the-year banquet on March 8, Boeheim said “I’m not going anywhere” to around 700 fans. In his email, Syverud noted that Boeheim has been at the university for more than one-third of the university’s 144-year history. He started as a student in 1962 and hasn’t left since.

But now there’s a ticking clock on his coaching career. Boeheim will be 73 if he and the university stick to the plan of him retiring after the 2017–18 season.

“Among the many roles he has held at Syracuse are student-athlete, graduate assistant, teacher, assistant coach, head coach, community stalwart, philanthropist, U.S. Olympian coach and Hall of Fame member. In these roles, he has been the embodiment of Orange Pride,” Syverud said in the email.

And now he’ll take the next three years to set the program up for the future.

It has long been thought that SU assistant coach and former guard Mike Hopkins would replace Boeheim upon retirement. There has been no confirmation if that is the case, but Hopkins has been endorsed by former players, ESPN analysts and outgoing Director of Athletics Daryl Gross since the announcement of Boeheim’s planned retirement.

Syverud said in the email that Gross is stepping down as director of athletics — and is being replaced by Carrier Dome Managing Director Pete Sala in the interim — but will stay with the university as vice president, special assistant to the chancellor and an adjunct professor in the David B. Falk School of Sport and Human Dynamics.

“I think with Mike Hopkins, and if Mike transitions the way I hope he does as the coach-in-waiting, the program will be in great shape,” Gross said in an interview with ESPN Radio Syracuse on Wednesday. “I think that it’s going to be in outstanding shape.”

Boeheim’s replacement will not be selected by Gross, and a search committee for the university’s next director of athletics has already been convened by the university. Whoever replaces Boeheim will be the eighth coach in program history, dating back to 1903.

“Giving it a definite date is certainly a reasonable judgment on (Boeheim’s) part,” Jay Bilas, an ESPN college basketball analyst, said to The Daily Orange on Wednesday. “That way he can at least try and give things continuity between him and Mike Hopkins, and Mike knows what the timeline is.”

News Editor Brett Samuels, blsamuel@syr.edu, contributed reporting to this article.

Published on March 18, 2015 at 10:54 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse