Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
There are few things in college basketball more obvious than the Syracuse Orange needing retiring Carmelo Anthony’s jersey. It will finally happen in February, but I’m shocked by the fact that it took ten years to do it. When it was apparent that Anthony was a star player at the pro level, shouldn’t the team have just retired the jersey then?
It almost seems like a slap in the face to Anthony personally that it took so long to make this happen. Anthony led the team to the only title that Jim Boeheim won in his 30+ years at Syracuse, and for the school to drag their feet in retiring Anthony’s number is just stupid. How many times have the Orange won since Anthony left? The answer would be zero. This should have been done at least four or five years ago, but with Anthony now with the New York Knicks, the time is right.
There is no perfect time to do something like this, but I just wish Anthony would have got the proper treatment and had his jersey retired a few years ago. Other schools should take a cue from this, and not wait so long to retire a player’s name if that player is a superstar at the pro level. Syracuse is a bit behind the times on this issue, and while many will disagree and say that schools should wait the ten years or even more, it is something that should be done as soon as possible if the player has done something great at the next level.
Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports or like his Facebook page.
