SYRACUSE, N.Y. — On Valentine’s Day, Juli Boeheim hopes Jim takes her out to dinner. There won’t be a bottle of wine — Jim doesn’t drink alcohol — or a box of chocolates. Chores around the house? Fat chance. Jim never takes out the trash. He doesn’t even know which day is trash pickup.

No house chores, even on Valentine’s Day?

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“None, really,” Juli says. “I’d have to really stretch the truth here to come up with something. He has started making a sandwich. He’s more capable of things like that. He brags about that, then we all laugh and snicker. Jimmy said to me, ‘He makes it sound like he cooks all day when all he does is make a sandwich once a week.’”

Kentucky coach John Calipari doesn’t help out around the house either. Same with Gonzaga’s Mark Few, whose wife, Marcy, told Juli years ago that Mark also doesn’t know what day trash pickup comes. “It made me feel better,” Juli says with a laugh. “This thing takes these guys away completely. Even in the offseason, they’re so dialed into their teams, recruiting, travel.”

A few weeks ago, I asked Juli if she’d be interested in talking about her marriage with Jim ahead of Valentine’s Day. Specifically, her thoughts about loving a man who can come across as whiny, grouchy and just plain unpleasant. Juli is younger and much more gregarious. Plus, they’ve spent plenty of extra time together over the last 11 months, more extended time together than ever before. She agreed to talk, but she did a double take upon the request.

“In my head, I’m like what Valentine’s Day?” Juli says. “There’s acknowledgement of it. I don’t see many of these coaches being very romantic in the thick of the season. Jim is no different. He’s not romantic. He’s a simple guy.”

Our conversation led us to misconceptions about Jim, a 76-year-old Hall of Fame coach in his 45th season at Syracuse. The Boeheim on the sideline is a different man from the Boeheim at home. One can be snippy in press conferences and eager to argue every block-charge call. He speaks truths about his players, himself, the game and society, and he does not think too much about the ensuing response. The other Boeheim comes home to a quiet Fayetteville home, speaks softly, greets Juli, calmly makes himself an omelette and watches TV. “It’s all the public knows,” Juli says of the jacket-tossing coach. “But I don’t know that guy.”

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Juli knows the man who plays board games with his kids, loves to hand out candy on Halloween (“Big bars only!”), cuddles the family’s new rescue dog, Bean (named after the late Kobe Bean Bryant), cracks sarcastic jokes and brags about his cooking success when all he did was throw cold cuts on two slices of toasted bread. She knows the man who won’t surprise Juli with a big Valentine’s Day or birthday gift but rather write heartfelt cards for his wife and children. The cards, in particular, mean a great deal to Juli, who has saved all of them over the years. “He writes something meaningful every time, which means much more than some piece of jewelry,” she says.

Though wealthy couples are perceived to enjoy luxury trips and shopping excursions, the Boeheims aren’t about that. They’d rather hang out at home with their kids or friends or go out to dinner. Their favorites for date night are Saint Urban, Krebs (Skaneateles), Santangelo’s, Pastabilities, Francesca’s and Brewster Inn, where they dined after their wedding in October 1997 before honeymooning in Bermuda. Jim loves dining out with Juli more than anything else — along with winning.

Sometimes, when Jim and Juli reflect on a former player who turned into an NBA star, Juli will say to him, “He hasn’t changed a bit,” since earning millions of dollars and reaping the benefits of playing in the NBA. “The good ones never do,” Jim likes to say, a trait Juli believes manifests in Jim, her best friend. She says he has never changed, not after the national title in 2003, the Final Fours, the Hall of Fame induction or the big wins.

He’s not interested in driving a fancy car. Sometimes, he’ll pick up fast food for lunch on Erie Boulevard. They enjoy living below their means, quietly. He’s so cavalier, so indifferent about things that she sometimes feels a need to enliven him. “Every now and then, I’m like, ‘Come on honey, pump up the jam!’ That’s what I used to say,” Juli says. “But I wouldn’t know who he was if the money or fame changed him from the humble, smart, charming guy I’ve always known and loved.”

The Boeheims met 27 years ago this spring. On May 7, 1994, Juli was with family in Louisville on the day of the Kentucky Derby. After dinner, her sister asked if she wanted to stop by a friend’s house for a small gathering. Juli had just ended a relationship, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. “Oh, come on, guys, I’m really not up for that,” Juli recalled saying. “We’ll go real quick,” her sister said, adding: “Jim Boeheim’s even going to be there.”

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“Who’s that?”

But the two clicked, and she found him to be interesting, engaging, funny and endearing. “It was never a love factor like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have a crush on this guy,’” Juli says. “It was just all fun and humor and we just hit it off. No heavy romance. When I met Jim I thought he was just a great guy. There’s just something different about him.”

They began a long-distance relationship that lasted a year. Some days they spoke on the phone for three or four hours. When they met, he was 49. She was 27. He got a sense that maybe he could make this work. Then he asked her to move to Syracuse, experience a central New York winter and see what he does as a basketball coach. “Jim was all-in way before me,” Juli says. They committed to each other and grew stronger. Jim proposed in the laundry room of his old condo by putting her ring in a bag of his dirty clothes. When Juli grabbed the laundry, the ring box fell onto the floor. Jim got down on one knee and looked her in the eye: “Will you marry this old guy?”

They’ve since raised three children, started a foundation and traveled for Team USA trips. In 2001, four years into their marriage, Jim was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and Juli urged him to undergo surgery immediately to remove the prostate. She doesn’t want to take any chances, especially when it comes to his health.

These days, when the Syracuse schedule comes out, Juli looks to see if a game falls on Valentine’s Day. This year the holiday falls on Sunday. Juli hopes they’ll go out to dinner once Jim returns from practice. She’ll make his favorite dessert, a rich, flourless chocolate cake. She’s expecting to receive a card and flowers, although she’s not sure if the latter is entirely Jim’s own doing. “I’m like, ‘Does the office send those? Is it on automatic order every February?’” she says with a laugh.

But deep down, she knows in her heart their love and care for each other knows no bounds. They celebrate their differences, as well as the things they share.

“Anything he does do means a whole lot to me,” Juli says. “It’s usually very simple. If he grabs my hand, it’s like a 12-year-old bashful kid holding my hand for the comfort of holding it. It’s cute. The way he is, I wouldn’t change him for anything. I wouldn’t give him a big ego. I wouldn’t make him flashy. He’s simple, true, and that’s who he is all the way through the core.”

(Photos courtesy of Julie Boeheim)