Hopkins called Boeheim early Saturday afternoon and asked if he could come over. Boeheim obliged, but Hopkins needed to be quick. Jamie Boeheim, a Jamesville-DeWitt (New York) High School junior, had a basketball game that night in Troy for the state playoffs and the Boeheims were leaving soon. The two families live in the same Fayetteville neighborhood, but the cold forced Hopkins to drive a few houses down.
Hopkins entered the house, turned left and joined the 72-year-old in a side room. Boeheim closed the doors, which surprised his wife, Juli. Sitting on a couch, Hopkins told his boss. The two grown men at the top of their profession were made vulnerable.
“You know I’m a big crier,” Hopkins said. “You know that.”
Two nights before, lying in bed with his wife, Tricia, Hopkins couldn’t fall asleep. Tricia pestered her husband about his back-and-forth with his soon-to-be new boss after the two spoke on the phone earlier Thursday. First-year UW Director of Athletics Jennifer Cohen had called Bret Just, Hopkins’ agent, notifying him of the Huskies’ interest in his client. When Just relayed the message to Hopkins, it piqued his interest more than any other inquiry had. His restlessness brought back memories of waking up at 2 a.m. as a California kid to write alternating scenes of a screenplay with his friend.
Hopkins’ name has been on the Huskies’ radar for “a long time,” Cohen told The Daily Orange. (UW fired Lorenzo Romar, its coach of 15 years, on March 15.) Still, the AD didn’t know if Hopkins would bite considering his pending takeover, and the mutual interest surprised her. Hopkins made his final decision after meeting with Cohen in Syracuse on Friday.
“He had started to allow himself to dream,” Cohen said, “about maybe something different than what he’s always known.”
On Wednesday, tucked away in a team room below court level in Alaska Airlines Arena, Hopkins recited an excerpt from his favorite book, “Change or Die,” by Alan Deutschman, like he owned the lead in a school play.
“Eighty-five percent of all inmates, five years after they get out, they’re incarcerated again,” Hopkins explained. “But there’s a place named Delancey Street in San Francisco where this woman has created this system. … It’s built on a philosophy of immigrant families where if you don’t know how to read, the oldest one teaches you how to read and there’s accountability and you start from the bottom and you work your way out. If you’re on drugs, there’s no medication, nothing, you’re cold turkey. They have an 85-percent success rate that they’re put back in the community and they’re doing it. And so, ‘Change or Die,’ I think when you stop growing, you can die.”
Though Hopkins always said he didn’t come to Syracuse to coach at Syracuse — he simply wanted to be the best coach on the planet — he still hoped that dream would work out at SU. He had earned his spurs in the Carmelo K. Anthony Center, developed into an elite recruiter, led daily practices and was seemingly groomed for the head job, whenever it may be. St. Bonaventure interviewed the rising star for its head coaching job in spring 2003 and the attention never stopped.
In the next decade, Hopkins was linked to a handful of jobs. He nearly left for the University of Southern California in 2013. Two or three times, he sought advice from Lazarus Sims, formerly a teammate and fellow SU assistant. Sims urged Hopkins to take the opportunities to gain experience as a head coach then return to SU at the right time. Hopkins still passed, Sims said, out of loyalty for the school, program and coach.
“A lot of the times when I was there,” said Michael Carter-Williams, a Hopkins recruit who started every game on SU’s 2013 Final Four team, “it seemed like Hop was the head coach. Not stepping on Boeheim’s toes, but Boeheim had faith in Hop.”
Hopkins wanted to be a head coach for real. He confided to one friend that he didn’t want to be like Bill Guthridge, a 30-year assistant at North Carolina under Dean Smith. Guthridge coached the Tar Heels for three seasons after Smith stepped down in 1997 and made two Final Fours before retiring himself.
“When the waters get rough, the sharks keep swimming,” said Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports who has worked with Hopkins for 12 years. “Mike is a fun guy, very likeable. But he’s also shark-like.”
On Saturday, the group of people Hopkins told stayed small to avoid a leak. It included Director of Athletics John Wildhack, Chancellor Kent Syverud (who never responded to Hopkins’ call), Tricia, the three Hopkins children and Hopkins’ parents, Griffin and Sue. But before any of them, Jim Boeheim.
Hopkins’ decision came the season after Boeheim had lost the most games in his career, to cap a four-year stretch in which Syracuse started 25-0 in 2013-14, self-imposed a postseason ban in 2015 and became the first-ever No. 10 seed to make the Final Four last year.
Hopkins walked out the Boeheim’s front door around 4:30 p.m. and back to his car. The reality set in: It was actually over. The seemingly unbreakable pair had broken because the student couldn’t turn down this offer to become the teacher.
The four Boeheims left shortly after Hopkins for Troy. Hopkins piloted his car toward home, which after so many years would only be home for a short while longer.
