Jim Boeheim Felt Compelled to Mention Carmelo Anthony's Freshman Grades at Syracuse

Jim Boeheim has a new autobiography out that chronicles 50 years of his life, many of which have been spent as the coach of the Syracuse Orangemen. Former SI writer Jack McCallum wrote penned the book with him.

Surely there’s plenty about arguably the greatest sports league of all time, bar none – the Big East in the 80s – and Boeheim’s many coaching failures and the USA Olympic team and obviously the year he won a National Championship, 2003.

Boeheim has coached at Syracuse since 1976, and in 38 years he has one title and four Final Four trips (1987, 1996, 2003 and 2013).

Carmelo Anthony led Boeheim to that 2003 National Championship victory, and obviously Boeheim is forever indebted to him.

So why would Boeheim feel compelled to put Anthony’s grades in that one year at Syracuse in his new book? According to a Wall Street Journal editor, this is in the book:

Carmelo Anthony got four Cs and a D in his first semester at Syracuse, according to Jim Boeheim in his new book "Bleeding Orange."
— Jim Chairusmi (@jimchair) October 9, 2014

It’s tough to quantify this without context – what were the classes? Why’d Boeheim bother mention Melo’s 1.8 GPA? Did he run it by Carmelo Anthony? Isn’t there some sort of rule that prohibits coaches from releasing student grades? – but it might be fun to hear Anthony’s response to this note. I Imagine Anthony will answer with this voice:

For the record, Boeheim has always pumped up Anthony in the press.