Syracuse Coach Fired Over Sex Accusations
Image by getty images
FIred From Orange: Longtime Syracuse University basketball assistant Bernie Fine was fired after a new tape surfaced that bolstered child molestation accusations. Image by getty images
Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine was fired Sunday as new details emerged about sex abuse allegations against the longtime assistant.
Fine, a senior assistant to head coach Jim Boeheim and founding member of the Jewish Coaches Association, was dumped after a tape surfaced in which Fine’s wife appeared to back up the claims by a former player that he was molested as a boy, ESPN and other outlets reported.
“Bernie has issues, maybe that he’s not aware of, but he has issues,” Laurie Fine told accuser Bobby Davis in a 2003 call. “And you trusted somebody you shouldn’t have trusted.”
Davis had gone to police about the accusations before but the statute of limitations had expired. Local newspapers got tips about the alleged abuse but were unable to confirm it.
The story heated up again when Davis reiterated the accusations in the wake of the Penn State child abuse scandal this fall.
Boeheim initially stood by Fine strongly, asserting that Davis concocted the accusations for financial gain and that he was “not Joe Paterno,” a reference to the Penn State football coach. He was forced to backtrack from those statements after Fine’s firing, saying that he “deeply regretted” them.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
