[NU Sports] Syracuse Hoops--Bernie Fine

[neonrye at aol.com]

Twenty-four hours ago, as my Jets lay prostraate in Denver, being slain by the big, bad Tebow, I channel-surfed to ESPN and watched the Bernie Fine story break--in total shock and disbelief.  For, my friends, I know Bernie Fine--not well, but well enough.  He is the cousin of my closest friend, whom I met our first day on the job as young prosecutors in the Brooklyn DA's Office and with whom I used to share an apartment in Brooklyn back in the late '70's and early '80's--before we each got married.  I have been seated across the table from Bernie at  Passover Seders and  met him at other family events of my friend, and he even got us tickets years back to see St. Johns-Syracuse (at Alumni Hall on the St. John's campus, where we actually met Roosevelt Bowie, the 'Cuse star, after the game).  My impressions and recollections of Bernie, which were always favorable, are somewhat faded over the years, but are completely inconsistent with the heinous accusations being made against him.  I dearly want to believe that, as Jim Boeheim, who is standing foursquare behind Bernie, says, the alleged victims are lying, and that when their allegations were investigated some years back, all of the people they claimed would corroborate their stories did not do so in any respect.

This situation has really hit home and is weighing on me.  I have not yet spoken to my friend, although we have texted, and he knows I am supporting him and his family.  It is so surreal compared to the Sandusky miasma, as here it is not abstract and far away in a place formerly called "Happy Valley".  It is immediate, very immediate--at the University my daughter graduated from and involving not a name or some Coach I used to see roaming the sidelines on television, but a man I have prayed with, broken bread with, laughed with, and, if memory also serves, cried with, when my friend eulogized his father (Bernie's Uncle).

I am sure I will have more to say as the matter unfolds.

Paul Levinson