Huggins emerges from silence

In recent days, he has emerged from isolation after rehab that grew out of a pair of incidents, one where he uttered homophobic slurs on a radio show in Cincinnati, the other where he was arrested on a DUI charge that occurred... well, we’ll tune you into what he has to say about that later.

But he’s out of his self-imposed rehab stay — five months free of alcohol, he calculates. He’s shown his face at the exhibition game but opted not to attend the regular season opener, the night not being meant for him to upstage anyone, least of new coach Josh Eilert or the players ... few of whom are his former players.

He broke his silence on the Full Court Press podcast this week, and when I spoke with him about what life was now, he offered up a vision of himself that you too often forgot about whether he was snarling at officials on the sidelines, giving his players tough love or making headlines that no one would want.

See, he remembered being a child in Morgantown and his dad, who would go on to be, as a high school coach, what he would become as a college coach, a Hall of Famer, was introducing him to his first games.

“I love West Virginia,” he said, a phrase that would come up over and over, both on the podcasts and in conversation. “I was born here. I was born as close to being on campus as you can be. I grew up in Dug Hill. My first basketball game was at Spruce Street Methodist Church. My dad took me. I think he lied about my age. He took me from there to St. Francis High School and I played basketball there.”

That would be human enough if he hadn’t also recalled a bit of trivia from those two games he played.

“Jack Fleming refereed one of them and Mickey Furfari the other. I don’t think anyone else can say that about their first two organized games,” he said, Fleming being the longtime Voice of both WVU and Pittsburgh Steelers and Furfari being the esteemed scribe who chronicled the history of WVU sports in local papers.

You wonder, as you listen to Huggins on the podcast and when you talk to him, just how his legacy is going to play out. Certainly, his was a complex career both at Cincinnati and WVU, rife with controversy that had him building a camp of followers and a camp of detractors through the years.

As he spoke, much became evident.

First, he felt he wasn’t treated fairly.

Second, there are a number of items presented as facts that he denies, going so far as to call it “an outright lie” that he thought he was in Columbus, Ohio, when the Pittsburgh police approached his car, telling me he was trying to be light-hearted with the police officer who asked him if he knew where he was.

Third, he maintains he doesn’t remember ever resigning and the only paper signed was signed by his wife.

Fourth, he wants to continue coaching ... and his choice would be right here at WVU.

And, lastly, there are even those who would like to know if the Bob Huggins Fish Fry that benefits WVU Medicine’s Cancer Hospital and that is raising money in hopes of establishing a regional cancer center, will live on.

“I think so. I’m not sure yet, but I think so. Pretty sure,” he answered. “It’s been a great thing.”

So what happened? Huggins tried to explain. It started up at his brother’s basketball camp in Ohio. He spent time talking with the coaches up there, something Huggins has always done. He says his back, which has troubled him for years, was acting up badly.

He called his back doctor, he said, who told him to take the medicine he’s prescribed and it would help.

He left for home.

“I hadn’t eaten anything. I stopped to get a sandwich and a Coke,” he said on the podcast. “I’m thinking there was a guy who was responsible for a lot of the success I’ve had recruiting-wise in the Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania area. Everyone had gone in there to see him, was really nice to him until they didn’t get who they wanted and then they never spoke to him again.

“I’m thinking as I’m eating my sandwich, I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be one of those guys who comes in and takes and never gives, so I decided I’m going to go back and spend a little time. I went back with him and a couple of other guys who were friends of mine.

“I was still hungry, so I got a bacon, lettuce., tomato and cheese sandwich, some French fries and had a couple of drinks with those guys.”

Huggins said he was nearly out of gas, and they directed him to a gas station at the bottom of the hill they were on when he left for home.

“So, I had another drink, went down and got gas in the car. I don’t know Pittsburgh;, I don’t know the streets in Pittsburgh. I knew if I turned right, I would be going back up there and they were still there having a good time. I went left and that took me right into the middle of the Taylor Swift concert letting out.”

He told the podcast he thought he was fine to drive.

Did he ever think he was in Columbus? He was asked.

“That’s an out-and-out lie. I knew where I was. I knew I was in Pittsburgh. I didn’t know where in Pittsburgh.

I was trying to joke around with the guy a little bit. I know I’m not in Columbus Ohio,” Huggins maintained. “Now the people here at the university decide I didn’t know where I was and thought I was in Columbus, Ohio, which is an out and out lie.”

Huggins admits he regrets the entire episode.

“I felt terrible about it. I still feel terrible about it. I let down the players, the fans, the state of West Virginia. I fully recognize that and take responsibility for that,” he said.

He kept hearing from people that he should resign. That wasn’t on his mind.

“I said ‘I don’t want to resign. I want to stay here. I want to coach. I’ll do and take whatever it is they ask from me, but these guys are expecting me to be their coach,’ he said.

So how did it come out that he had resigned?

“To tell the honest truth the guy over in the athletic department pretty much convinced my wife we lose pretty much all of our benefits if I didn’t resign; which is not true. But he continued to tell my wife that ... she’s actually the one who signed the resignation because she was talked into that by someone in the athletic department.

“I don’t remember resigning. There were a lot of people trying to resign for me. I didn’t want to resign. I wanted to sit down and talk with the people above me and ask, ‘Is there a way to work this out?’ I made a mistake. But I’ve also done a lot of good ... a lot of good for the university, a lot of good in the state.

“I raised the money to build the practice facility. I raised the money to redo the Coliseum. I raised the money to put the club in the Coliseum. I just wanted the chance to sit down in front of somebody and talk to them. I never got that opportunity.

“I would think I have done enough that I deserved at least an opportunity to sit down and talk to them, which I didn’t have,’ he said.

And what would he have said if they had given him the opportunity?

“I’d of said pretty much what I’m saying now. I made a mistake. I made a terrible mistake. I own up to it. It’s a mistake that will never, ever happen again. I think 152 days to this point I’m living up to what I said I would do, but they never gave me the opportunity to talk to anybody in the athletic department.”

And now the university is starting over with its basketball program and Huggins is trying to figure out where he goes from here.

“I just want to coach. Everything started happening pretty fast. You got someone saying this, somebody saying that, somebody doing this, I got somebody in the athletic department calling my wife. My wife is on the verge of crying because she’s afraid we’re going to lose all of our benefits that I’ve spent all this time procuring,” he said.

“It’s easy for people to sit there say maybe you should have done this. Well, know what, maybe you should have been there in my shoes, then probably it wouldn’t have come to you so fast, either.”

As the avalanche came down on him as a result of what went on that night in Pittsburgh, things were spinning out of control maybe on both sides.

“There’s a lot of people in the university who have said it could have been handled better than it was. I was wrong. I’m not sitting here saying I was right and I deserve this or I deserve that, but it should have been handled a whole lot differently than it was handled,” Huggins said.

“It was handled with an absolute knee-jerk deal by some people downtown.”

Something, though, had to be done.

“I understand that. No one feels worse about it than I do. I made a terrible mistake. I did something certainly I regret, something that obviously will never happen again. But know what, a lot of people have made those mistakes. A lot of people who are tearing me apart have done worse things. We all make mistakes.”