Once again, Syracuse men’s head basketball coach Jim Boeheim made the
most of any Syracuse University employee in 2011, with $1,143,801 in base salary
and more than $1.8 million in total compensation.

The salaries and compensation of SU’s top-paid employees can be found in its Internal Revenue Service Form 990. Nonprofit organizations file the form with the IRS each year. The 2011 fiscal year ran from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

Like in 2010, SU didn’t pay for Boeheim’s entire salary.

Out of the $1,143,801 in base compensation, the university only paid $296,259. IMG Worldwide Inc., a global sports, fashion and media business, paid $600,000 and he earned $247,542 from holding the Big Orange Basketball Camp.

IMG Worldwide Inc. partnered with SU to help provide financial support for the athletic department outside of the university, said SU’s Chief Financial Officer Lou Marcoccia. Part of the agreement was that the media company would be responsible for determining and paying for a certain portion of the coaches’ salaries.

Kevin Quinn, senior vice president of public affairs, added that this was a common practice among Division I sports teams.

With $60,000 in bonuses and incentives; $490,905 in other reportable compensation; $106,485 in retirement and deferred compensation; and $17,470 in nontaxable benefits, Boeheim’s total compensation adds up to $1,818,661.

These bonuses are usually determined by the coach’s contracts, Marcoccia said.

“The success of their team is an important component,” he said. “Often times the success of the team’s graduation rates is in there too.”

In some coaches’ contracts, more graduating athletes could lead to an increase in bonuses, Marcoccia said

Though Boeheim’s total compensation in 2011 was about 4.6 percent less than 2010, he still earned about $800,000 more in total compensation than SU’s second highest-paid employee, former head football coach Doug Marrone.

Marrone had a total compensation of $1,031,653 — about 18.1 percent less than 2010 — with a base salary of $917,272.

SU paid $298,332 of Marrone’s base salary, and IMG Worldwide Inc. paid $618,940. He lost $92 for holding a summer football camp, according to the form, but that wasn’t included in this salary estimate.

He also received $50,000 in bonus and incentives; $15,913 in other reportable compensation; $24,500 in retirement and other deferred compensation; and $23,968 in nontaxable benefits.

After Marrone, Chancellor Nancy Cantor was paid $648,146 in base salary — about 5 percent more than the $615,327 she was paid in 2010.

Cantor’s salary saw an increase after her voluntary pay cut expired, Quinn said. The chancellor took the pay cut when the recession hit, but her pay is now at its original level, he added.

Besides compensation, the form also shows the university’s endowment increased by about 3 percent. It went from $890,579,165 in 2010 to $916,521,664 in 2011, according to the form.

Marcoccia, SU’s CFO, credited the endowment’s increase to the global market’s success during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. He predicts another endowment increase during the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

—Asst. News Editor Alfred Ng contributed reporting to this story.

Waiters received 21 first-team votes from the league’s 30 head coaches and eight second-team votes for a total of 50 voting points. He averaged 14.7 points, 2.4 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.0 steal per game while playing 28.8 minutes per game.

Last season, his sophomore year with the Orange, Waiters averaged 12.6 points, 2.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.8 steals per game while playing 24.1 minutes per game.

He is joined on the All-Rookie first team by Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, Washington Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal, New Orleans Hornets big man Anthony Davis and Golden State Warriors forward Harrison Barnes.

Waiters is the first former Syracuse player to make the All-Rookie first team since Carmelo Anthony did so in 2004. He is the sixth former SU player to receive the honor, joining Anthony, Billy Owens (1992), Derrick Coleman (1991), Sherman Douglas (1990) and Dave Bing (1967).

The tournament was formatted in a bracket, and fan voting determined the winner. Fair’s slam against Georgetown in the Big East tournament semifinals garnered 55 percent of the vote and beat out Eastern Kentucky’s Marcus Lewis. Fair’s slam also knocked off dunks by Louisville’s Chane Behanan, Virginia Intermont’s Anthony Goode and Mercyhurst’s Jonathon Ouegnin.

In the emphatic overtime dunk, Fair took an inbounds pass from guard Brandon Triche at the right post. Fair took one dribble to his dominant left side, then planted and threw down a slam over Hoyas forward Otto Porter, the Big East player of the year.

In that game, the Orange went on to top Georgetown, 58-55. SU advanced to the Big East tournament championship match against Louisville, which would beat the Orange by 17 and eventually win the NCAA Tournament, too.

The Orange will host the Wildcats on Dec. 28 in the Carrier Dome, and visit Villanova in the Wells Fargo Center in the 2014-15 season. The meetings will continue a rivalry that was a staple of the Big East. Syracuse will officially join the Atlantic Coast Conference next season, casting doubt on many of its storied rivalries.

The Orange and the Wildcats first played each other on Jan. 26, 1946. VU joined the Big East in its second season, in 1980. Syracuse holds a 38-32 record in the all-time series against its ninth-most common opponent.

SU and Villanova split this year’s series, with each team winning at home on Jan. 12 and Jan. 26 respectively.

“The series with Villanova has been one of our most competitive, year in and year out,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said in the release. “It really took off when Coach (Rollie) Massimino was in charge and has certainly continued with Coach (Jay) Wright at Villanova.”

The game will add to a nonconference schedule that already includes Indiana, St. John’s and the Maui Invitational.

Inside the Hall has learned that Indiana will play at Syracuse in this year’s Big Ten-ACC Challenge. #iubb

— Alex Bozich (@insidethehall) May 8, 2013

The games for the nonconference series, slated for Dec. 3 and 4, will be announced today at 2 p.m., according to an ESPN release.

The Orange is 4-1 all-time against the Hoosiers, most recently beating them 61-50 in the NCAA Tournament East region semifinals on March 28 in Washington.

Indiana has never played SU in the Carrier Dome and its only win against SU came in the 1987 national championship game.

Sykes will play with USA Basketball for the second summer in a row. She’ll compete with 33 other players for 12 roster spots. The tryout is from May 16-19 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Sykes, ESPNU’s No. 30 prospect in the Class of 2012, flourished in her freshman year at Syracuse. The 5-foot-9 Newark, N.J., native averaged 8.9 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, fueling the Orange to a 24-8 record and its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2008.

She scored 20 points and snagged 10 rebounds in a win over Boise State and helped Syracuse knock off eventual national title runner-up Louisville by scoring 16 points and blocking two shots.

Her most impressive performance, though — one that earned her the top spot on SportsCenter’s Top 10 — came against St. John’s on Jan. 23. Sykes stole the ball from her former high school teammate Nadirah McKenith and banked in a desperation shot from beyond halfcourt as time expired, giving the Orange a stunning 60-57 win.

Sykes was named to the Big East All-Freshman team and was one of three freshmen to start the majority of Syracuse’s games, along with Brianna Butler and Cornelia Fondren.

Syracuse and Villanova are discussing continuing its basketball rivalry as the Orange moves to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The two schools are in talks for the series to continue, said Pete Moore, team spokesman. He could not confirm dates or locations.

On Monday, The Juice reported that Syracuse will continue to play Villanova each of the next three seasons despite SU’s exit from the Big East to the ACC in July. The Orange and Wildcats have agreed to a home, away and neutral format with the third game being played at Madison Square Garden in the 2015-16 season, according to the post.

An upcoming meeting with Villanova in 2013-14 would add to a Syracuse nonconference slate that already includes former Big East opponent St. John’s at MSG, a home game against Indiana and the Maui Invitational.

Last season, Syracuse defeated the Wildcats 72-61 in the Carrier Dome on Jan. 12 before losing the overtime rematch 75-71 two weeks later at Villanova.

—Asst. Sports Editor Jacob Klinger contributed reporting to this article.

That was when Mike Hart and Leo Papile, his two coaches at the time, saw his transformation from a skinny kid from Hamilton, Mass., to a fierce competitor whose sheepishness vanished when he stepped onto the court.

“He was shy, but you could tell that he was going to hit a growth spurt and break out,” Hart said. “It was a matter of refining his skills and using his length and, once he started to, a very good basketball player was born.”

They instantly knew that Carter-Williams could play not just at the collegiate level, but also beyond.

Carter-Williams is foregoing his final two years of college eligibility and entering June’s NBA Draft. After leading SU to the Final Four at the end of his sophomore season, he will use his recent success to achieve his lifelong dream of playing professional basketball. But some see him as incomplete. Still, his former coaches have seen him face scrutiny before and grow stronger as a result. To them, his ascension to an NBA prospect couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Michael just loves basketball,” Papile said. “I think if his career would have ended at Syracuse he would have been fine with that, but thankfully that’s not the case. The kid is going to do whatever he needs to do to get better.”

At times, growth has been a daunting task for Carter-Williams. Now, as he nears a milestone that will validate a lifetime of work, growth defines him as a basketball player.

When Carter-Williams moved from Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in Hamilton, Mass., to St. Andrew’s in Rhode Island before his sophomore year, he stood 5 feet 9 inches tall.

He was far from his eventual size, and his guard skills were undeveloped, but right away Carter-Williams reminded Hart of a player he had coached at Adidas’ ABCD Camp.

“First thing I thought was Shaun Livingston,” Hart said referring to the veteran NBA guard currently playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers. “Right when we started working Michael out he played like him and he looked like him, and when I saw the comparisons I knew we had something special on our hands.”

Hart, Carter-Williams’ high school coach at St. Andrew’s School in Barrington, R.I., has worked with NBA players LeBron James and Dwight Howard, among others, through his affiliation with Adidas.

Papile, the head coach and founder of Carter-Williams’ former AAU organization the Boston Amateur Basketball Club, has evaluated talent at all levels. Most notably, he served as the Boston Celtics’ senior director of basketball operations for 14 years.

St. Andrew’s struggled in Carter-Williams’ sophomore season, but that didn’t stop him from growing in size, talent and mind. After hitting his growth spurt he not only made high school and AAU basketball his playground, but also a place to improve.

He started to dominate in the pick-and-roll offense, understand team defense, develop a mental toughness beyond his years and use his newly acquired size to set himself apart.

“Michael always had length, but once he hit his growth spurt his physical package made him unique,” Papile said. “A 6-6 point guard is like having a 6-8 quarterback in football. Guys like that don’t come around too often.”

As Carter-Williams neared the end of high school, many were still skeptical of his ability to compete at the next level. In Carter-Williams’ senior season, St. Andrew’s played DeMatha Catholic (Md.), at the Cancer Research Classic in Wheeling, W.V.

DeMatha’s starting lineup consisted of current Georgetown forward Mikael Hopkins, Pittsburgh point guard James Robinson and Syracuse forward Jerami Grant.

Despite the Stags’ abundance of talent, St. Andrew’s had a leader in Carter-Williams that couldn’t be contained. After missing a dunk early in the game it seemed that Carter-Williams was shrinking in the spotlight. He then led St. Andrew’s to a 22-point fourth quarter and a 49-46 upset win.

Carter-Williams finished the game with 26 of his team’s 49 points and posted six rebounds, six steals and three assists. He won the tournament’s MVP award over Hopkins, Robinson, Grant and Northland High School’s Trey Burke.

“It was his senior season and people were really doubting Mike,” Hart said. “But that DeMatha game turned all the heads that weren’t turned yet. That was the kind of game where I just let him loose and watched in awe.”

It has been two years and four months since Carter-Williams almost single-handedly took down DeMatha, and the doubting still persists. Even after leading Syracuse to the Big East championship game and the Final Four, there are glaring holes in his game that will affect his draft stock.

Carter-Williams finished tied for third in the nation and first in the Big East with 7.3 assists per game last season, while averaging a respectable 11.9 points. But he also averaged close to 3.5 turnovers and shot 39.3 percent from the field, 29.2 percent from 3 and 69.4 percent from the line. Additionally, he has played in Jim Boeheim’s zone defense, but has not shown the ability to defend man-to-man.

Jonathan Givony of Draftexpress.com is especially hesitant to call Carter-Williams “NBA ready.” Givony recognizes Carter-Williams’ point guard skills and rare size, but doesn’t see what he will bring to an NBA franchise in the near future.

“He’s not a consistent shooter at all — that is his main limitation,” Givony said. “He also can make bad decisions and is turnover prone, and will need to work on that.

“A team can’t expect him to be a prolific scorer or do too much without the help of others, and that will make a lot of franchises consider passing up on him.”

Draftexpress.com currently has Carter-Williams being selected at the back end of the 14-team lottery. Since the draft order will not be set until the conclusion of the NBA season, he is currently ranked based on talent alone.

Carter-Williams is no stranger to being told he is behind, and Papile is confident that he’ll use these obstructions as fuel to keep moving forward.

“He has to start knocking down 1,000 jump shots a day and knowing him very well, that is something he will do,” Papile said. “He has to live and die by getting better each and every day from here on out.”

As the draft nears, teams are aware of Carter-Williams’ flaws, but his work ethic and competitive edge wowed scouts. He has impressed with his maturity, and also his ability to improve and adapt.

“At Syracuse he played in so many big games and so many big moments,” Givony said. “That kind of exposure will help any prospect, showing that they can be part of a winning situation. His experience so far is invaluable.”

Once, Carter-Williams was too small to be a Division-I basketball player; then he grew. When his guard skills were put into question, he studied the game, worked on his fundamentals and grew.

When it was said that he couldn’t be the leader of an elite college basketball team, he grew with each pass and each game-clinching bucket, lifting Syracuse to its best finish since winning the National Championship in 2003.

And when commissioner David Stern calls his name at the NBA Draft in June, Carter-Williams will silence all of those who said he couldn’t, and grow once again.

“I have never known Michael to be content with his play,” Hart said. “The kid is special, he comes from a special family and will do special things. With his work ethic, the sky is the limit.”

Slim averaged 12.2 and 5.8 in the U18 World Championships that year, helping the Dutch to a fourth place finish. Slim is the second Dutch player Hillsman has recruited in recent years. Forward Karen van den Nieuwendijk came to SU in 2011, but never played a game for the Orange.

She averaged 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game playing for the U17 team in the World Championships that same year, leading the Netherlands to an eighth place finish.

“Isabella has international experience playing at a high level against talented players,” Hillsman said in an SU Athletics release. “I believe she will make an immediate impact for our team as a versatile perimeter player as we enter the ACC.”

Slim has played for the club team CTO Amsterdam since 2010. She led the team with 12.7 points per game in 2012-13, while averaging 5.7 rebounds and shooting 46.3 percent from the field. She is currently a member of the Dutch U18 and U19 teams. She played with the U17 team in 2012.

She joins guards Tasia Butler and Alexis Peterson and twins Bria and Briana Day to make up a Syracuse recruiting class that ranks No. 10 in the nation according to Collegiate Girls Basketball Report and No. 12 by Blue Star Basketball Report. The Orange boasted the nation’s No. 6 recruiting class, according to ESPN HoopGurlz, last season.

“Isabella is a tremendous shooter that can play three positions for us,” Hillsman said. “She will give us the ability to stretch opponents’ defenses, to run and make 3-pointers in transition, and she can guard up the floor.”

Beyond the arrangement of glass-cased trophies and Syracuse lore are non-descript, blue double doors. Across the threshold and fixed to the wall of the Stevenson Education Center is a list of the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll behind framed glass. The names and photos brightly indicate the student-athletes who graced above a 3.0 GPA.

Adjacent to the computer labs are the offices of two academic coordinators for the Syracuse football team. Both have a hand in the education of every football player who crosses into their offices.

“They give you literally everything you need to succeed in whatever classes that you’re taking,” said Andrew Lewis, a defensive lineman for Syracuse from 2006-10, of academic coordinators.

Lewis graduated with a degree in child and family studies, a major he said he was assigned as a freshman. He wanted to study in the School of Information Studies, but said he got “behind the eight ball” his sophomore year and that the requirements to complete an inter-collegiate transfer were too difficult.

The major Lewis remained in, CFS, is one of the two most popular majors for Syracuse football players, according to data compiled by The Daily Orange using player biographies on SU Athletics’ website. The data shows that communication and rhetorical studies is the most popular major for football players for each year dating back to 2007.

From 2009-12, 20.6 percent of upperclassmen on the football team majored in communication and rhetorical studies, while 11.7 percent majored in child and family studies. On the 2012-13 men’s basketball roster, three of nine upperclassmen majored in child and family studies. The most popular majors in the university as a whole are psychology, information management and technology and architecture, according to Maurice Harris, dean of undergraduate admissions.

Finding a fit
In some instances, CRS acts as an alternate area of study for someone who was unable to get into the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. CFS aligns well with the coaching minor offered at SU, and many student-athletes want to help people after college, officials have said. Sociology, another popular major among student-athletes, is the closest thing SU has to criminal justice.

Student-athletes interested in enrolling in more competitive colleges and programs, such as the Newhouse or the sport management major in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, might not have the GPA required to enroll in the school, and instead enroll in their second-choice option, said Kevin Wall, director of student-athlete support services.

Wall said department officials would never tell a student-athlete what to major in. They merely guide them toward something of interest to that particular person.

Athletes placed into CRS or CFS out of high school sometimes have trouble meeting the requirements to transfer into an area of study more applicable to their interests, placing them, as Lewis said, “behind the eight ball.”

“Some of what students are able to do are limited based on how well they start off here at Syracuse,” Wall said, “which is why we really try to stress that first-year experience.”

Members of the University Senate Committee on Athletic Policy have a noticed a high enrollment of student-athletes in CRS and CFS, though the committee is unsure of what that means, said temporary committee co-chair Martha Hanson.

“We were starting to wonder, are athletes being guided into these in order for them to succeed,” Hanson said, adding that tight travel and practice schedules, coupled with the pressure to perform well academically can weigh on student-athletes.

Hanson said the committee is waiting on a list naming the majors of student-athletes from Jamie Mullin, the associate director of athletics for administration who serves as a liaison to the committee. Syracuse spokeswoman Sue Edson, who spoke on behalf of Mullin, said she is unsure of what list to which Hanson referred.
The faculty oversight committee on athletics conducts independent studies to gauge things like major clustering and whether student-athletes receive favorable grades in classes compared to other students, said Michael Wasylenko, a professor of economics and chair of the faculty oversight committee. The committee reports directly to Chancellor Nancy Cantor.

Wasylenko, who is also SU’s faculty adviser to the NCAA, said six or seven others help him on the committee, which conducts reviews of football and basketball student-athletes once a semester. The other sports are reviewed on a rotational basis, he said.

While the data trends toward CRS and CFS as the most popular majors for student-athletes, Wasylenko contends it is not clustering because there is no “steering” involved.

“I don’t think of this as particularly problematic,” he said. “Where it would be problematic — and it isn’t — and this has happened at other places, is the athletics department is saying, ‘You’re a student-athlete. For the convenience of the program, you should major in tiddlywinks.’

“That’s a problem. That’s steering. What we have — we don’t think — is steering these kids.”

In conjunction with academic advisers in the student-athletes’ home colleges, coordinators in the athletic program provide guidance and offer realistic thoughts on whether a student will fare successfully in a major, said Joe Fields, the men’s basketball academic coordinator.

Fields said he tries to instill the importance of education in the athletes he works with. Part of this involves the realization that a successful athletic career might only last a decade.

But some student-athletes do lose sight of that.

“Working at a university like Syracuse, there’s definitely an expectation on winning championships, winning games, competing at a high level,” he said. “Sometimes, the student-athlete you identify to come help you do so isn’t always the student-athlete that education is most important.”
Athletes that aren’t purely driven by academics, however, are often motivated to stay academically eligible to compete under NCAA guidelines, said Fields, who played four seasons as a Syracuse quarterback and had a stint with the Carolina Panthers before returning to the university as a graduate student.

The CRS major likely appeals to student-athletes — as it is to non-athletes — for its flexibility in career paths, said Kendall Phillips, an associate dean in the department. In total, about 500 students are enrolled in the CRS major, Phillips said.

Save for student-athletes’ differences in height, Phillips said they are not unlike other students. Just as some students might have time constraints with internships or part-time jobs, student-athletes commit their time to sports.

“My experience is that student-athletes are very much like every other group of students,” he said. “There are really strong students, there are those who struggle.”

Through their eyes

For student-athletes, the direction of their educations at SU depends on what they put into it.

Lewis, the former defensive lineman, said it took him too long to realize all of the resources at his disposal. If he could do it over, he would have studied something related to computers.

Lewis bought his first computer when he was 10 years old and always had that interest. He never really cared for child and family studies.

“It honestly wasn’t anything I wanted to do at the time, but I really wasn’t focused on my education and I kind of fell behind,” Lewis said.

Lewis does not know how he initially started as a CFS major. He said he believes it was based on GPA and that he was given a major he could thrive in. He did not raise his GPA high enough to transfer out of his major and into something that interested him more, though.

Across the university, inter-collegiate transfer requirements have been rising. Every school except Falk requires at least a 3.0 GPA to transfer from another college, said Renie Kehres, the assistant dean of student services in Falk and academic adviser to many athletes, including Trevor Cooney and Prince-Tyson Gulley. Kehres said Falk requires a 2.5 GPA to transfer in, though the requirements for specific majors are higher.

The NCAA’s 40-60-80 rule requires that student-athletes complete 40 percent of their degree in four semesters, 60 percent in six and 80 percent in eight. Lewis said the benchmarks for completing a major make it more difficult for student-athletes to change majors beyond the early part of college.

Kevyn Scott, a cornerback for Syracuse from 2007-11, was also a CFS major in his first semester of college, though he does not remember how he became a CFS major and said it happened by default. Scott wanted to study information management and technology, though, discovering his passion by researching majors his first semester.

“You’re, by default, placed in certain majors, and if you want to switch out, you can,” he said. “But I found that information out on my own.”

Scott said the academic support services within the athletic department were extremely helpful when he told them he wanted to move from CFS to the iSchool.

“The academic support side of things is superb,” he said.

Academic coordinators let Derrell Smith pursue his first interest: engineering.

Smith, a linebacker for Syracuse from 2006-09, graduated from a vocational technical high school in Delaware, where his concentration was engineering. While he was warned before coming to Syracuse about how hard it would be to balance football and such a difficult area of study, he was put in touch with a couple of members of the football team who were majoring in engineering.

Even so, he learned the hard way and struggled his first semester. After one semester, he transferred and became a dual major in information technology and marketing.

Smith said he was never told not to pursue engineering.

“I think it’s kind of like — imagine you being a child and you touch a stove,” Smith said. “Your parents tell you it’s hot but you’ve just got to see for yourself.”

Fields, the academic coordinator, said student-athletes are never steered toward or away from a major.

“We would never discourage them, but you probably know it’s not going to happen,” Fields said. “But you give them every avenue, every resource to explore those opportunities.”

 A growing trend
Major clustering has led to a number of issues and large stories across the nation recently.

At North Carolina, an investigation showed that student-athletes were given academic benefits in the school’s African and Afro-American Studies Department.

At Georgia Tech, 82 percent of the juniors and seniors on the football team, 83 percent on the baseball team and 63 percent on the men’s basketball team majored in management in 2007-08, USA Today reported in 2008.

Those are just the headline-catchers. But B. David Ridpath, president-elect of The Drake Group, a group of college faculty, authors and activists whose mission is to protect and monitor academic integrity in college sports, said major clustering likely extends further.

“A lot of it, some of the data is unclear, but I think certainly the data that exists on this out there shows that there is a prevalence in major clustering in athletics,” said Ridpath, who is also a professor of sports administration at Ohio University.

One of the main reasons major clustering is prevalent is the battle for student-athletes to remain academically eligible and on course to graduate.

Since graduating, Lewis has started his own business with former SU football player Averin Collier. He said he has not really put his CFS degree to use specifically.

Lewis said he understands how it looks — “it looks terrible” — to have so many football players majoring in CRS and CFS. But the alternative could be more issues with academic eligibility.

“What would their GPA be in those schools, those classes?” Lewis said. “If some of these kids are barely surviving CRS and CFS classes, then we’re really going to be academically ineligible with the harder schools and the harder majors.”

But Fields, the academic coordinator for men’s basketball, said he tries to instill something far more meaningful than eligibility in the players he mentors.

“There’s still a lot of life to live. There’s still a lot of things to be accomplish. You don’t want to be judged and your character determined by what type of athlete you are,” he said. “You want it to be determined by the things you do outside the field. You have more value other than your athletic prowess.”