Of all the many accomplishments in Dave Bing's life so far, surviving two years as Jim Boeheim's roommate has to rank near the top of the list.
"As a roommate, he was tough," said Bing on a Zoom interview Thursday. "He didn't believe in being neat and clean. Wherever he sat down, wherever he dropped his things, that's where they stayed."
In what he calls his "first and last" book, Attacking the Rim (now available on Amazon), Bing devotes an entire chapter to "The Syracuse Years". He shares several observations of Boeheim, calling him "obviously not a gifted athlete", saying the small-town boy made up for it with hard work, smarts, and a little moxie. In our conversation Thursday, Bing recalled seeing clear signs of Boeheim's future profession during timeouts, inside the Syracuse huddle.
"Whenever [Coach Fred Lewis] designed plays for us, and Jim would not be the recipient of the ball, Jim would have something to say about it," Bing chuckled. "He would let the coach know that, 'this is not a good option, you ought to look at that option'. And, usually, that option was back to him."
The man who would later send young prodigy Derrick Coleman to Syracuse almost didn't come north himself. Bing was a high school All-American from Washington, D.C. who had scholarship offers "all over the place", but decided to make a visit anyway to lowly Syracuse, which had lost its last 27 consecutive games. His hosts that weekend were none other than SU football legends Ernie Davis and John Mackey, which was just part of a brilliant recruiting strategy.
"Fred Lewis was very smart, he didn't bring me up to Syracuse until it was mid-to-late May, and the weather had changed," remembered Bing. "The two guys that recruited me (Davis and Mackey), not only were they great football players, but they were great people, and everybody respected and loved these two guys. And they said to me, 'This will be a great place for you to come, because you've got nowhere to go but up'."
Bing, of course, went onto become one of the greatest players in Syracuse basketball history, a consensus All-American who's still one of the program's Top 10 all-time leading scorers despite playing just three varsity seasons. He also became a 7-time NBA All-Star, winning the Rookie of the Year Award in 1967, and the NBA scoring title the year after.
In the book, Bing shares several stories about his 10-year professional career, which began in his adopted hometown of Detroit, and includes impressive credentials like an election to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990, and a spot on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list in 1996.
What makes all of this even more remarkable is perhaps the biggest revelation in his book---that Bing has been legally blind in his left eye since a childhood accident when he was 5 years old. That forced him to give up his first love of baseball, and move on to basketball when he was 12 years old.
"Basketball took over my life, and I just learned to play using my good eye," Bing said. "It never phased me that I wasn't going to be successful."
And that positive attitude helped Bing succeed in other areas of his life, from building a business from scratch into a $700 million dollars-a-year enterprise, to becoming the mayor of Detroit. Nowadays, he's helping underprivileged youths complete their high school and even college educations.
Along the way, the basketball legend has befriended the likes of Marvin Gaye and Muhammad Ali, meeting the latter when he was a student at Syracuse University. All in all, it's been a pretty wonderful life, says Bing, adding it could've been even better.
"I don't think I'd change anything, except maybe timing of coming into the NBA," said Bing, whose first contract was worth $15,000 as the second overall pick of the Draft. "If I could fast forward to today, I'd probably never have to work another day in my life."