Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim waited until he was before a national audience to go off on an expletive-ridden rant combating claims in various newspapers and magazines that his four-year golden boy, Gerry McNamara, isn’t as talented as some say.

The latest charge came from assistant coaches in the Big East, who anonymously participated in a widespread poll in Tuesday’s edition of The Post-Standard. On the question of the conference’s most overrated player, McNamara was the choice.

That came about a week after McNamara’s peers in the conference agreed with the assistant coaches in Sports Illustrated poll and about a month after point-counterpoint columns addressed the issue in The Daily Orange.

Within hours, Boeheim’s tirade was played on national television and various radio stations throughout the nation.

‘I have to laugh a little bit when our own paper is calling him and our own student newspaper is called him ‘overrated,’ and they actually listened to a couple of assistant coaches who I guarantee you will never be head coaches if they think Gerry McNamara is overrated,’ Boeheim started. ‘Of course our paper won’t print that anyway because somebody said it.

‘Without Gerry McNamara, we wouldn’t have won 10 fucking games this year. OK? Not 10. These other guys just aren’t ready. They needed him. Without him there, not 10. We wouldn’t be here to even have a chance to play this game. And everybody’s talking to me and writing to me about Gerry McNamara being overrated? That’s the most bullshit thing I’ve seen in 30 years, and especially because it comes from our people, in our papers.

‘But they quote it from somebody else – an anonymous assistant coach. Let the assistant coach come up to me and say, ‘Gerry McNamara is overrated.’ I’d like to see one of those guys come up to me and say that. He’s been double-teamed in every game this year, and the coaches voted him first-team all-conference. The head coaches, they don’t know shit I guess.’

Published on March 11, 2006 at 12:00 pm