Former long-time Syracuse basketball head coach Jim Boeheim, the Hall of Famer, is dishing out kind words to John Wildhack, who announced on Wednesday that he would retire as SU's athletics director on July 1.
In an interview with Syracuse.com's Donna Ditota, Boeheim said of Wildhack, "John was great for me. He got me the stuff I needed and was very supportive all the time. And that’s what you need as a coach. We got all the things we needed to win."
Boeheim, who is second all-time in career victories by a men's basketball head coach at the Division I level, is currently a special assistant to the athletics director at SU. He's also a college basketball analyst for the ACC Network and ESPN.
He hung up his whistle on the Hill in early March of 2023, giving way to former associate head coach Adrian Autry, who has struggled in his three seasons leading the Orange program. In the past, Boeheim has urged patience regarding the team's woes under Autry.
Jim Boeheim has positive things to say about his former boss, John Wildhack.
Wildhack, a former long-time ESPN executive, is retiring on July 1. Syracuse University's chancellor, Kent Syverud, will be leaving SU by July 1 to become the next president at the University of Michigan. It's an interesting time for Syracuse Athletics, given that the current chancellor and athletics director hold lame-duck status, so to speak.
"We had the materials and things we needed in terms of budgets and stuff until NIL came," Boeheim said, regarding his tenure as Syracuse basketball's head coach while Wildhack was SU's athletics director.
Of course, these days, the college sports landscape is vastly different. Schools can pay their athletes directly, and there are also third-party name, image and likeness ("NIL") deals. Syracuse's third-party NIL strategy, beyond football, isn't clear, although Wildhack believes that the 'Cuse is competitive in revenue-sharing and NIL as it pertains to men's hoops within the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Last December, Boeheim told The Orange Zone podcast that he thinks Syracuse basketball needs an annual budget of roughly $10 million to be competitive in the ACC. That dollar amount could be a combination of rev-share and third-party NIL deals.