Boeheim and Wife Lead Crusade Against Cancer

Jim Boeheim spun slowly in his office chair and reached for the phone as a heavy, wet snow blanketed the ground on a blustery mid-April morning.

A decision by the N.C.A.A. tournament selection committee to omit Syracuse from March madness still gnawed at Boeheim’s psyche. But there was something much more important on his mind this day, as is often the case when he is not coaching basketball.
“He called last night, somebody with prostate cancer, and I have to call him back,” Boeheim said.

The callers are searching for some sign of reassurance from Boeheim, wondering about the disease and if they might beat it, as he did nearly six years ago.

“I don’t think anybody realizes how many phone calls he gets from people who have just been diagnosed,” said Jim Satalin, national program director for Coaches vs. Cancer. “He talks to people from all over, people he doesn’t even know. He gives his time, any time you ask him. He might have to move it, but he always does it.”

For Boeheim, 62, the fight against cancer is practically a grudge match. His mother died of leukemia at age 56 and his father, a ferocious competitor who hated to lose and passed that quality on to his son, died of prostate cancer nearly two decades ago.

Boeheim’s closest friend, Bill Rapp Jr., died two years ago of esophageal cancer at age 65, and Boeheim still cannot mention his name without tears welling. Jack Bruen, who coached at nearby Colgate University, died in 1997 at age 48, two months after his pancreatic cancer was diagnosed; and the former North Carolina State coach Jimmy Valvano, a close friend, died of cancer in 1993.

So it is no wonder that since he decided more than a decade ago to support Coaches vs. Cancer, Boeheim and his wife, Juli, have become fund-raising trailblazers, raising nearly $4 million for the nationwide collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

“It was just something he decided he wanted to do,” Satalin said. “It’s not like he doesn’t do anything for any other charities. This just kind of hit home with him. They don’t even call it the Coaches vs. Cancer program. They call it Boeheim’s program. He’s always got ideas.”

One of those ideas is regularly arranging for cancer-stricken kids to watch Syracuse practices and attend games in the Carrier Dome.

“That means a lot because we have an effect on those kids,” Boeheim said. “It’s not just about raising money. Anybody can raise money. It’s touching people that come to you and say: ‘We’re glad you’re working. This is something that affects our family.’ ”

“When you see kids come in, they’re just happy they can come to a game,” said Boeheim, who has three young children and an older daughter from his first marriage. “That’s a huge thing to me. That’s really more important than the money.”

Gayle Froio can identify with that sentiment. Her 6-year-old daughter, Shannon, met Boeheim and the team at a luncheon benefit in October for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Shannon, whose lymphoblastic leukemia was diagnosed when she was 2, was in remission after a second bone-marrow transplant and beaming.

“That day we spent with the Orange was one of the highlights of her life,” Froio said. “They just made a huge impact on her.”

The family received tickets to two games, including the one against Georgetown in the final home game of the season, but Shannon relapsed and died two weeks before the game. A flower arrangement from the team was sent to her wake.

“It was as tall as me, three feet wide and all red roses,” Froio said. “Whoever sent it must have known red was Shannon’s favorite color. That helped me get through that weekend.”

The Boeheims’ signature fund-raising event is the Basket Ball, an annual black-tie affair that began in 2000 and has grown each year. This year’s gala, which featured the Grammy Award-winning recording artist Roberta Flack, was last Saturday and netted around $465,000.

“It’s catching on,” said Juli Boeheim, who was in seventh grade when her mother survived breast cancer. “I feel like people are going to start avoiding me because it’s such a big part of my life now.”

The Boeheims’ remarkable success has prompted them to reach out to other coaches to offer guidance. Among those who now host galas are Mike and Tish Brey at Notre Dame, Geno and Kathy Auriemma at Connecticut, Mark and Marci Few at Gonzaga, Fran and Ree Dunphy at Temple, and Phil and Judy Martelli at St. Joseph’s.

An inaugural gala involving Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa and Drake was scheduled for yesterday, with Boeheim as keynote speaker.

Maryland Coach Gary Williams, whose mother died of cancer, and North Carolina’s Roy Williams, whose parents also fought the disease (his mother died of cardiac arrest while undergoing chemotherapy, and his father died of cancer and emphysema), are host to a tip-off breakfast at their respective universities each fall to raise money.

“We’re trying to get people to realize that you don’t have to do a gala,” Tish Brey said. “There are dozens of ways to raise money. I think everybody could be doing it. I’m not saying everybody could be raising massive amounts of money. But this is a disease that covers the United States, so why can’t you cover the United States with fund-raising? There’s basketball everywhere.”

More than 500 college coaches from the N.C.A.A.’s three divisions and more than 100 high school coaches participate in Coaches vs. Cancer, which evolved from a concept championed by the former Missouri coach Norm Stewart after he was found to have colon cancer in 1989. Since its inception in 1993, Coaches vs. Cancer has raised more than $30 million.

“We’d like to see every program do something,” Juli Boeheim said. “We would like nothing better than to see it spread across the country and to the N.B.A. They could really do great things. We’ve got big dreams, big goals.”

Tish Brey may have struck the mother lode at the Final Four. She organized a breakfast for wives and was stunned at the response, drawing nearly 150 women, nearly twice what she expected.

“When you look at it, the wives are the ones who have to get on board,” Tish Brey said. “They’re in the community, using their husbands’ name to get things done. You need to be talking to the wives.”

Boeheim has just begun his one-year term as president of the coaches’ association board and hopes to use that position to further the fight.

“I think the momentum is coming with more and more coaches, and I think Jim Boeheim is the beacon,” Phil Martelli said. “If we all got involved the way he and Juli have, the awareness and funds and a cure would be a lot closer.”