The comfort of home
Returning to West Virginia as coach has brought Bob Huggins back to his roots.
By GREG AUMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published January 20, 2008
Charlie Huggins can make the drive from his Ohio home to Morgantown, Va., in two hours, 15 minutes, and there's no such thing as a bad game when he can look around the WVU Coliseum and see all seven of his children.
The easiest to spot is his oldest, Bob, who is back at West Virginia 30 years after he graduated and has never been more at home at courtside than this season, his first as head coach at his alma mater.
"He has six brothers and sisters who won't miss many games this year," said the elder Huggins, 74, himself a longtime high school coach. "It's very enjoyable to see him there. People have fallen in love with him pretty quickly, and a lot of it is his background."
You probably know Bob Huggins played at West Virginia, but his family ties to Morgantown go far deeper than his birth there. Both his parents grew up there, with his father attending WVU in the early 1950s; his grandfather Harry Huggins, a lifelong Morgantown resident, was once the city's water commissioner.
"It's great, because my family can go to every game," said Huggins, 54, who is 9-0 at home at West Virginia and off to a 13-4 start entering today's game against USF at the St. Pete Times Forum in downtown Tampa.
The chance to return to Morgantown made it an easy decision last spring when WVU athletic director Ed Pastilong called after Michigan took coach John Beilein.
"The whole thing took about a day," Huggins' father said. "Pastilong called Bob and asked him if he was ready to come home, and he said he was ready."
Former Saint Louis coach Charlie Spoonhour, an old friend of Huggins, said he was reminded of his love for West Virginia every year at the Final Four, where Huggins would spend much of the week with a cast of college buddies, still his best friends years after their days in Morgantown.
"It's always been the one place he feels is like his home," Spoonhour said. "A lot of his best friends and old teammates are still around with him."
In coming to West Virginia, Huggins has joined an amazing collection of coaches in the Big East, including friends and rivals from his Conference USA days, such as Louisville's Rick Pitino and Marquette's Tom Crean. Having picked up his 600th career win this season, Huggins' total ranks seventh among active coaches yet third in his conference, behind Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Connecticut's Jim Calhoun.
Huggins was to join that coaching fraternity two years ago, when Cincinnati joined the Big East, but he was forced to resign in August 2005 after 16 seasons with the Bearcats and 14 consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament.
He sat out a season, then returned to coaching at Kansas State, going 23-12 last year and making the NIT. He had a huge recruiting class but saw an opening at the one place that could make him leave.
"I went to Kansas State thinking I'd retire there," Huggins said.
There have been very few hiccups in the Mountaineers' transition this season, and his team is still being imprinted with his style while trying to keep some aspects of his predecessor.
The Mountaineers still lead the Big East with 8.4 3-pointers per game, but that's down from 10.3. West Virginia was last in the Big East in rebounds last year but is ninth under Huggins, grabbing six more per game. His players say they spend less time watching film, both of themselves and opponents, and focus more on their fundamentals.
"It's more about effort and playing defense and being real tough," said junior guard Alex Ruoff, a Brooksville Central grad who is WVU's leading scorer. "The best similarity between the coaches is their passion for the game. We see he really loves it here, that it means the world to him."
Winning at Cincinnati often simply meant dominating Conference USA, but now Huggins faces one of the deepest leagues in NCAA history, with a grueling 18-game schedule for its 16 teams. Today's challenge is holding off an old rival from his Cincinnati days.
"He gets good players and he gets them to play," Spoonhour said of Huggins, whom he talks with about once a week. "He enjoys the competition, and once he gets his team together there, he'll fare well."