Bob Huggins never will be the good guy.
There is too much baggage in his past. Too many black marks. Too many stories saying he’s a renegade coach who runs a renegade program, and college basketball doesn’t need his kind.
Some of the accusations are true. Some aren’t.
Doesn’t matter.
Huggins has been branded.
“I understand what happens,” Huggins said. “I understand to make a good story, there’s got to be white hats and black hats, otherwise we never would have had a cowboy movie. That’s the way it is.”
There is one thing Huggins’ critics and supporters will agree on: The man is a survivor.
He recovered from the heart attack that nearly killed him in 2002.
He moved on after his DUI arrest in 2004.
And he’s gotten a second chance professionally – first at Kansas State, now at West Virginia – since being forced out as Cincinnati’s coach in 2005 because university president Nancy Zimpher felt Huggins’ program ran counter to her plans to upgrade the university’s academic standards.
A life with that many tremors would change most men. But not Huggins. He’s still swinging, still fighting, still saying what he feels and doing what he wants, no matter the consequences.
You’d think, for example, that after being shocked back to life three times following his heart attack, Huggins would have made changes in his lifestyle.
You’d be wrong.
“It’s the same thing you do New Year’s Eve,” Huggins said. “You say, ‘I’m going to do this,’ and about the third of January, you are back doing what you did before.
“I haven’t really changed all that much. I would like to sit here and tell you that I probably eat better, but look at me. That’s obviously not the case.”
Perhaps because of his experiences, Huggins, 54, has developed a fatalistic view of life – and death. His former Kansas State assistant, Frank Martin, endured an undisclosed, “very traumatic experience” a couple of years ago. Martin asked Huggins how to get through it.
“I said, ‘Frank, if you are going to die, you’re going to die. We don’t get to debate that,'” Huggins recalled. “He said, ‘You know, I’m really glad I called you.'”
Huggins has even made his heart attack part of his news conference comedy routine. He often tells the story that one of the paramedics in the ambulance was the cousin of Memphis coach John Calipari, and that he told Huggins, “Coach, we are not going to let you die until John beats you at least once.”
There’s no question Huggins fits comfortably into that black hat. He was tremendously successful at Cincinnati – compiling a 399-127 record with one Final Four berth and two Elite Eight appearances – but he also ran – let’s be honest here – an outlaw program.
Following his dismissal, the Cincinnati Enquirer listed 19 former players or recruits who had been charged with a crime. Five wound up serving jail time.
In addition, only 27 Bearcats players graduated in Huggins’ 16 years. Huggins has disputed those numbers, saying they didn’t take into account transfers or junior-college players.
Huggins is not a saint. Nor is he the devil. He is who he is.
And he’s not going to apologize for it.
