Huggins, like Rodriguez, torches WVU legacy
Rich Rodriguez was hired to coach West Virginia football in before the 2001 season and was hailed as some sort of a local hero coming back to take the Mountaineers into the future. Rodriguez is from Grant Town, W.Va., grew up a Mountaineers fan, played for the Mountaineers and at the time was one of the hottest coaching candidates on the market.
Then he became even more popular as he built the Mountaineers into a Big East power that was fueled by an exciting and entertaining offense that at times put up video game-like scoring totals. He seemed to be at the height of his popularity in 2007 when he took the program to within a heartbeat — or more accurately four points — of playing for the national championship.
Rodriguez probably could have run for governor of the state and won at that point — at least before he lost to Pitt, 13-9, with everything on the line. Rodriguez obviously took some criticism, but his popularity was still enormous and he was still a beloved home state hero.
That is until he left for the Michigan coaching job in a very contentious manner, tried to get out of paying his buyout and the whole divorce got messy. There were accusations and rebuttals and a lot of nasty words from both sides, to the point Rodriguez said his family was threatened.
It was clear that Rodriguez would have maintained some semblance of popularity had he not torched the bridges on his way out the door.
And so Rodriguez is not very popular at all in West Virginia and not very welcome in the state. He could have been a legend; instead, he is remembered most for “choking” against Pitt and leaving West Virginia in a hostile way.
Rodriguez was a great coach for West Virginia and should be a legend for the program he built. Instead, he is something of a pariah who will never be fully embraced again by Mountaineers fans and West Virginia residents.
Bob Huggins is very similar to Rodriguez in that his hiring as the basketball coach was hailed as a local son coming home. Huggins was born in Morgantown, played at West Virginia and was an assistant coach at West Virginia. He was always extremely popular because he was never shy to talk about how proud he was to be a Mountaineer.
Huggins took the Mountaineers to the Final Four and was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame last year. He, like Rodriguez, could have run for mayor at one point and no doubt was on his way to being a legend in West Virginia along the same lines of guys like Jerry West and Rod Thorn.
But it all came crashing down starting in May, when he made some idiotic and offensive slurs in reference to Xavier University. He was suspended and had his contract amended and basically put on what Dean Wormer from “Animal House” would refer to as “double-secret probation.” It was very clear he was on thin ice and he had to keep himself out of trouble and jump through a bunch of hoops to stay.
That lasted all of about a month, until he got a DUI while driving in Pittsburgh. Huggins was so incoherent he didn’t even know where he was; he had a BAC more than double the legal limit and was lucky he didn’t run someone over or cause a fatal crash.
Huggins then announced he had resigned and retired and apologized for letting the fans and the people around the university down.
At that point, he could have drifted off into the sunset and maintained his legend status. He is still very popular and many fans actually believed that the university should have let him go to alcohol rehab and then reinstated him. When he issued his statement complete with an apology, it was probably enough to preserve his legacy and he could have still be celebrated and beloved despite the way his career ended. All of that goes out the window now with these latest bizarre actions by Huggins, who has hired a lawyer and is threatening to sue West Virginia. He claims that he didn’t actually officially resign — even though he announced to the world he did — and that he needs to be reinstated because West Virginia violated the terms of his contract.
I suppose this could be a leverage attempt in order to get a better severance package or something, but even with that, this downright dumb.
For one thing, if there was any chance of him coming back after the season, that is gone now. And it is clear West Virginia is ready to dig in and fight back against Huggins in a very public way. There is no question they aren’t going to take this sitting down, and if Huggins decides to fire back publicly, it will be an awful look for him. He already reportedly interfered with the hiring process for his replacement, and that rubbed fans the wrong way. And now this lawsuit nonsense isn’t going to help him in the public relations department, either.
Huggins needs to let this one go, work to rebuild his image around the state and then ride off into the sunset with his legacy fully intact. This very public dispute, which is already getting nasty, will not help him rehabilitate his image or regain his standing as one of most popular people in the state.
Paul Zeise: pzeise@post-gazette.com or Twitter: @paulzeise