Jim Boeheim has never forgotten his roots. He has been part of the Syracuse basketball scene for more than 40 years, long enough to become accustomed to that avalanche of snow that buries that upstate New York city every winter.

It might not be Park Ave., but the 60-year old Boeheim has transformed Syracuse into a posh address in the Big East. Boeheim has a 703-241 record in 29 years at his only college coaching job, including a victory over Kansas in the 2003 national championship game. The Orange have won eight Big East titles, four Big East Tournaments, been to 24 NCAA Tournaments and three Final Fours. Boeheim has his name on the court at the Carrier Dome.

That impressive résumé was enough to earn Boeheim a spot in this year's group of inductees at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Boeheim has made Syracuse basketball a must see event in any kind of weather. Outside, the wind chill might be minus 65 the way it was that Sunday afternoon in January, 1982 when Syracuse played Georgetown during the Patrick Ewing era. Inside the Dome, there were more than 30,000 rabid fans rooting for their beloved Orange in what was described as the social event of the season.

Boeheim has enough job security to enjoy the moment. He has what amounts to a lifetime contract after receiving a four-year extension to his current contract that will take him to age 66, then retirement, if he wants, on his own terms.

There was a flirtation with Ohio State in 1986, but Boeheim knew after speaking with the Buckeyes' Rick Bay for 10 minutes he wasn't going anywhere. Boeheim also thought briefly about the NBA, but he realizes that ship has passed. "I'm one of those guys who always thought the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence," he admitted.

Boeheim has taken the Orange to the pinnacle, winning the national championship in 2003.

He never felt he needed to win it all to validate himself as a coach.

"I'm still the same coach I always was," he said. "I haven't changed."

What's changed is the feeling of fans outside Syracuse toward Boeheim, who had stereotyped him in his younger days as this scowling, whining personality who was combative with the media. "I had such a bad image," he admitted. "None of it was intentional. I saw people write that I was a terrible person."

Boeheim has become much warmer and cuddly these days since he married wife Juli in 1997 and the birth of their three children - 7-year old James Arthur Boeheim III and five- year old twins Jack and Jamie. He also has a teenage daughter Elizabeth from a first marriage, who attends Colby College. They were all there to watch Jim cut down the nets in New Orleans.

The media was also there to record the Kodak moment, painting Boeheim - who was constantly fielding calls on his cell phone from former players - in a far more sympathetic light, as an older coach who stayed the course. "I've always been a happy guy," Boeheim said to the media last year. "I've become a better coach since you think I'm a happy guy."

Boeheim can afford to smile.

But this fairy tale almost never took place.

Boeheim actually put a deposit in at Colgate in 1962 when Fred Lewis, a hot shot coach who had been hired to rejuvenate a stagnant program, made a phone call that changed Boeheim's life. Lewis had signed six players - including Washington, D.C. hot shot Dave Bing - and offered Boeheim a chance to become an invited walk on, with a chance to earn a full scholarship if he produced. "I later found out he made the same offer to two other guys," he recalled.

Boeheim showed up at the Hill as a skinny bi-spectacled walk-on guard from Lyons, N.Y., just 40 miles west of campus on the New York Thruway.

Four years later, he had his full scholarship, was elected co-captain of the team and combined with Bing in the starting backcourt for a 22-6 team that advanced all the way to the 1966 NCAA Eastern Regionals before losing to Duke. "I kinda feel like we got it started," he said.

Boeheim graduated with a degree in history, but never wandered too far away from his adopted home. He attended graduate school for two years while playing weekends with the Scranton Miners in the old Eastern League. He began coaching the freshman basketball team and golf team and soon became an assistant to Roy Danforth, Lewis' successor.

The Orange went to their first Final Four in 1975. Danforth stayed one more season before moving to Tulane, his alma mater.

When the job opened, the search committee discussed Tom Young of Rutgers and Michigan assistant Bill Freider. Boeheim interviewed for the job and called the committee's bluff. He told them he needed to know quickly because he had an offer from the University of Rochester, a Division III school; and a 7-foot center from Kendall, N.Y. Roosevelt Bouie was getting ready to make a decision between Syracuse and St. Bonaventure's.

The committee opted to gamble on Boeheim and a few days later, Bouie committed. Bouie and slender 6-8 Louie Orr - the Louie and Bouie Show - led the Orange to 100 wins and four straight NCAA appearances over the next four years.

The Orange program took off from there, flourishing once they entered the Big East in 1978 and moved from ancient Manley Field House to the Carrier Dome.

Boeheim, as much as anyone, benefited from his association with the new league. He is one of four Big East coaches along with John Thompson of Georgetown, Lou Carnesecca of St. John's and Jim Calhoun of Connecticut--to be elected to the Hall.

"If it wasn't for Dave Gavitt none of us would be in the Hall of Fame," Boeheim said. "He founded the conference. It was his vision to put this thing together. We had been nice little regional programs and we went to the national scene in one year.

"Five years before the Big East was formed, we went to California and the kids would ask, `Where's Syracuse?' When Pearl Washington came in as a freshman the ESPN thing hit. I went to LAX the next summer and was waiting for my bags and four people there must have said, `Hey there's Pearl's coach.' It was like a lady, a baggage guy and a couple of other people. They knew about Syracuse and within one year we wound up with five kids on our roster from California."

It wasn't always easy. Boeheim went through a period where he caught more than his share of flak from the fans for supposedly underachieving in March.

That all changed in 1987 when one of Boeheim's teams finally advanced to the Final Four. "When you're a young coach, `' he said, "you're thinking a little bit more about yourself, probably. It's probably not the right thing to say, but it's the truth. In the beginning, the first time we got there, I felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. I had been coaching 10 years and couldn't get to the Final Four, and that's all I heard."

The Orange were right there in the final against Indiana, clinging to a one point lead in the final seconds before Keith Smart ruined that dream with a baseline jumper to give the Hoosiers a 74-73 victory.

Boeheim has been amazingly resilient.

He may be the most underappreciated coach of his generation. Boeheim has made Syracuse basketball a model of consistency, coaching the Orange to 27 20-win seasons and never having a losing one. He has a winning percentage of .745. "I always felt the most important thing was to be consistent and to always have a shot to win the Big East. If you're good enough to have a shot in the Big East, you're good enough to have a shot at the Final Four."

Syracuse arguably had the most talented team in the country in 1987 - with Coleman, center Rony Seikaly and guard Sherman Douglass - the first time the Orange reached the NCAA championship game.

But Boeheim has also won big with marginally talented teams by Big East standards, reaching the 1996 national championship game again with a starting lineup that included just one pro, John Wallace, and four role players.

Along the way, Boeheim built a reputation for developing talent, putting his teams in the best position to win and milking the most out of his efficient 2-3 matchup zone.

He even gained some perspective. "It took me a while to figure it out," Boeheim said. "But I figured out that this isn't life and death. It's a game. I compete just as hard now as I did when I was younger," he said. "The only thing I realize is it is not the end of the world if you don't win."

The one opponent Boeheim is fighting hardest to defeat these days is cancer. He lost both parents to cancer and is a survivor of prostate cancer, which was detected during an exam in 2001; and has been extremely active with "Coaches vs. Cancer," a national fundraising organization, run by good friend Jim Satalin.

It's just another reason why Syracuse loves Jim Boeheim these days.

Dick Weiss is a sportswriter for the New York Daily News and previously worked for 19 years at the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and current president of the College Football Writers of America and received the Basketball Hall of Fame's Curt Gowdy Media Award in 1998.