Submitted photo
The 2024 Bob Huggins Fish Fry saw nearly $700,000 raised to support cancer care in the Vandalia Health System. Pictured at the event are Huggins and Meg Bulger.
MORGANTOWN — In the basketball mania that is gripping the area like the cold that lays over us now, despite the Tuesday night disappointment the West Virginia men’s basketball team provided in a lackluster performance in a loss to Arizona State, an interesting news item sneaked by us all last week.
Over the past couple of years, of course, we have polarized over the departure of Bob Huggins as coach, an argument that seems to have simmered out with the success Darian DeVries has had in his first season as Huggins’ replacement, but there are others who still cling to the basketball legacy that Huggins left behind as a College Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.
And last week the South Florida Basketball Association surprised him with its Lenny Wilkins Lifetime Achievement Award at luncheon that also presented longtime basketball announcer Marv Albert with an honor and handed Derrick Coleman, the one-time Syracuse great who became the No. 1 pick in the 1990 NBA draft of the New Jersey Nets and who became a great in that league it’s Willis Reed Courage Award.
We mention all this not to reinvigorate the discussion of Huggins’ exit but instead to catch up with the coach who gave WVU it’s last trip to the Final Four in 2010 and to express the truth that what’s past is past and that it is time to move forward, as Huggins is trying to do.
Huggins may no longer be in the employment of West Virginia University, but he hasn’t erased it or Morgantown from his resume.
“I was born here, I went to school here and this means a lot to me,” he said.
A couple of days earlier he had been invited to attend the honoring of the late Jerry West at the Coliseum, attending pregame festivities with Jonnie West and his wife, the professional golfer Michelle Wie, and their two children, along with West’s wife, Karen.
At game time he was center court watching the upset of Iowa State with former Governor and Senator Joe Manchin, a longtime friend and supporter.
“I didn’t know I was getting an award,” Huggins said when asked about the day that had honored him last week in Boca Raton, Florida. “When they started going through it and reading about what it was, it was pretty good. It makes you feel good, like you did the right thing.”
Transferring to retirement is never an easy adjustment for anyone, least of all Huggins, who lived the basketball life and who wound up doing a couple of months of rehabilitation in the wake of the events that led to his dismissal.
His, though, is not a life of leisure.
He has had a number of speaking engagements, is about to hold his annual Fish Fry benefitting the Norma Mae Huggins Cancer Treatment Endowment, along with Vandalia Health Cancer Care and the RTM Scholars Program.
This year’s feature guest for the Feb. 1 event is professional golfer John Daly.
So, Huggins is remaining active and raising funds, as he did as WVU’s basketball coach, actively being the driving force behind the Basketball Practice Facility that ranks among the nation’s best.
He admits a part of him would like to get back into the coaching business, but not to take a job just to take a job.
“I do still want to coach but this whole thing now is such a mess that I don’t know,” he said, referring to the way the game has changed from his greatest years to now national conferences and revenue sharing and a professional approach where the balance sheet at each school matters as much as the standings and where players shuffle back and forth among teams with little regard for loyalty.
“It’s difficult with everything I’ve done,” Huggins said.
When asked if the sport is moving in the right direction, he said “I don’t think so. To me now it’s just a money grab.”
That, of course, helped Villanova’s Jay Wright, Virginia’s Tony Bennett, Miami’s Jim Larranaga decide to leave coaching even though they could have stayed with the game.
The money aspect has changed it all and created a different relationship between player and coach.
“That’s not what it’s for,” Huggins stressed. “I had several opportunities to coach in the pros. I turned them down. I enjoy being around young people and watching them grow and get better. It was enjoyable to see where they go. Look around and see where my guys are. Be it at Walsh College, at Akron, at Cincinnati or here.
“I just had four guys who played for me at Cincinnati here for me today and a couple of guys who played for me here were here today, too. My door is always open,” he said.
If he never adds to his 935 career wins, he’s satisfied but he knows the ending wasn’t what he had wanted it to be.
Interestingly, the key speaker at the luncheon at which Huggins was honored was NIL expert Darren Heitner and his topic was “Is NIL and Transfer Portal Ruining the College Game?”
You just can’t get away from it.